FOREWORD (8 page)

One of the reasons we could not trust our parents is that they kept their sexuality secret, giving us no clear model to follow that would let us feel both sexual and safe. It is not surprising, therefore, that most people keep to well-blazed trails: the missionary position, orthodox heterosexuality.

But the sexual force is not interested in safety. Freud called the first stage of life “polymorphous perverse.” At birth infants are so undifferentiated that they have the capacity to receive erotic stimulation at every aperture of the body and any area of skin: from either or both sexes; from animals, food, objects, colors, currents of air, gradations of temperature. As we grow older, become socialized, and develop identity, the satisfactions we pursue become more specific.

And yet we live in a world under constant erotic barrage.

How can we not find all sorts of notions floating through our minds? Encounters in everyday life, the engines of com-merce, the seductions of the movies and TV – all work day and night to seed our minds with startling sexual images. The fact that a man writes solely about one kind of fantasy does not mean he has no others. He may want to reinforce his sexual image of himself by telling me a daydream about the seduction of the Queen of England – and choose not to mention that he also toys with notions of seducing Philip. Some fantasies are suppressed because they do not conform to public ideas of good and bad. Others are repressed – totally forgotten – because they threaten to arouse old oedipal fears. Even in psychoanalysis, where fantasies are one of the prime roads to therapy, patients may keep their most meaningful fantasies (sexual or not) hidden from their doctor for years. How can we be frank with others when we have trouble being frank with ourselves? Deep within this hidden, fermenting jungle, the polymorphous perverse lives on, giving energy, glamour, and that rush of secret, thrilling guilt to our fantasies.

Men In Love

59

Popular wisdom says nothing should be kept hidden between lovers. “Let it all hang out.” Something more primitive

– to my mind, something of the ancient wisdom of the race –

tells most of us to remain discreet. There is a big difference between contributing sexual thoughts to be published anonymously and sharing them with a lover. Like the straying husband “confessing” to his wife about his latest affair, or one of those “brutally frank” talks in which you inform someone of faults no one else has mentioned, what purports to be honesty may be in the service of making you feel better, not the other person.

Fantasies express the forbidden, and so are exciting. They are taboo, and so are also anxiety laden. Telling them to someone promises to “double the kick but divide the guilt,” as I’ve heard it put. My own feeling is that this is more a clever verbal formula than a description of reality.

Nevertheless, it is a seductive idea to a lot of men. It isn’t women’s tight togetherness the husband wants; he wants her love, yes – but he wants some freedom, too. While sex makes him feel closer to her, it also gives him a shot of adrenaline.

After a wonderful morning of lovemaking, he bounds out of bed, revitalized, and goes off for a Sunday golf foursome with the boys. When the honeymoon is over, she sees his resumption of any relationships that exclude her as betrayal.

Little wonder that in a favorite male fantasy, the heroine is not the woman who clings desperately, but one who displays a taste for adventure or freedom, a sexual willingness so insatiable she will masturbate, take a dog to bed, or seduce a stranger on the street “If you love me,” the man says, “we’ll answer that ad in the swingers’ newspaper for a nice quiet little four-way orgy.” It is not that he loves her less; but if she will help him put a little more space and air into the marriage, he will love her more.

To the woman, it’s crazy to think she would be showing her love by accompanying him to an orgy. Anything that threatens to divide her from him, that weakens the bonds between them, is frightening. She has been trained in symbio-Nancy Friday

60

sis, to see her love expressed not by taking an independent road, but by being a faithful partner.

Even his fantasies about imaginary women – she knows what he’s really thinking about Charlie’s Angels – hurt her feelings. “I suppose you’d really like to have sex with one of them, not me!” she cries, knowing it sounds silly, but unable to contain the fear that any attraction on his part to another woman inevitably means he will desert her.

Oh, she has her own stray and randy thoughts, all right.

But the only way she could go to an orgy with him would be if she didn’t love him at all.

Ironically, this feminine training that says love is best demonstrated by being tied to the man as tightly as possible can lead women to want to share
their
fantasies with him.

She doesn’t want to hear his about the blonde next door, because that separates him from her; but to keep something from him as intimate as her erotic reveries – to have any part of her not totally permeated by him – is too lonely. Mrs. Leon (below) feels safe enough with her own fantasies; after all, they are not about leaving Mr. Leon. And even if they were, she knows it is only a passing whimsy and not what she wants in real life. She tells them to him. Leon tells us he was so excited by this evidence that she had a sexual life of her own that he “came as soon as she touched me.” One would think this would be all the encouragement Leon would need to reveal
his
fantasies, but he holds back.

Nobody knows Mrs. Leon better than he does, and while something in her felt it would be okay to tell him, some thing in him senses turn-about might not be a good idea. Sexual fantasies release powerful, unpredictable energies. Once the imp is let out of the bottle, once fantasies are told to someone else, they pass out of your control. The ideas may never be forgiven or forgotten. Leon isn’t sure his wife could handle these ideas he has about peeing on her, and about homosexual intercourse. So far he hasn’t “had the guts to tell her.” I wouldn’t call it “guts” – I’d say it is probably wisdom.

Men In Love

61

LEON

Up until now I worried that I was becoming perverted. I have been married for seventeen years and have enjoyed a satisfactory sex life.

However, last week during a lovemaking session, my wife confided in me about some of her fantasies. At first I thought that it was a joke, but it really turned me on. She admitted that although she was not queer, she often thought of sixty-nine with another woman. While I was at work, she often thought of having her pussy licked by a huge dog. Although she has enjoyed oral sex with me for a number of years, she admitted that she often thought of strangers as she masturbated in the afternoon. She got me so hot, telling me the things that she wanted done to her and the things that she wanted to do to me and the things she wanted to see me do, that I came as soon as she touched me.

Later, she lay in my arms, too tired to do anything but talk.

She said that your books made her realize that she was not alone in her erotic thoughts. When she asked me how I felt about it, I was reluctant to tell her some of my fantasies. At her prodding I swallowed my pride and told her what excited me, but had not had the nerve to tell her or anyone. I thought that it was okay for her to suck pussy, because I enjoyed it myself, but sometimes I fantasized that I wanted to suck a cock. I was embarrassed to tell her this, because I was afraid that she would think that I was a homo. She said that she also fantasized that, but was afraid to tell me. I told her that when I wasn’t so hot, I rejected the idea. She couldn’t see why.

Why should I want her to do it, if I thought it was so terrible?

This brought up other thoughts in my mind. Many things I haven’t had the guts to tell her. While masturbating, I often think about a cock up my asshole. Although I have done this to her, how would she take the idea? Would she lick my asshole? Let me piss on her and drink it? Take on a couple of my friends while I watched? How would she feel about sharing another girl with me? Maybe in time, I’ll be able to conNancy Friday

62

fide in her. Until then, these will have to remain my fantasies alone.

What I don’t really understand is why do I get these feelings about her, when I can honestly say that I love her more than anything else in the world? She has always been a wonderful wife and mother. When we married, she was a virgin and during our courtship we did little more than pet.

Through the years she has become more attractive to me and my love for her has grown even stronger.

I guess true love is waking up in the morning after a torrid session, and saying, “This is the woman whom I adore, and the mother of my children.”

BRYCE’S GIRL, HELEN

Bryce and I are very “outdoor” people. We love parks, camping, nature, and animals. We have a mutual fantasy that was originally Bryce’s, and we always end up fucking ourselves silly just by talking about it. He asked me to write it down for you because he is not very good at putting things into words.

We are in a very beautiful mossy, pine-scented woods where there is peace and beauty, untouched by litter or anything at all unnatural. The sun is shining through the pine trees, there is a beautiful clear stream nearby, and we are carrying our clothes because it seems so right to be naked in these surroundings. There are signs of our favorite things all around us. Squirrels, birds, and especially complete privacy.

Everything is so perfect that the ground seems to pull us downward. We make a “pad” to lie on with our clothes, and Bryce starts to suck me until my clit is bulging. Very gently at first, because after all, what’s the hurry? I roll to my side so we can sixty-nine each other and give each other the same pleasure that the surroundings are giving us. He can always make me come very quickly this way, and after I do come, he asks me to stand up. I stand up and he guides me to a smooth-Men In Love

63

barked tree. At the tree he leans me against it and it feels so cool and sensual on my back. He begins to part my legs and lick up my juices that are still flowing from my first climax.

After a few minutes his gentle fingers find their way inside my creamy cunt and asshole, doing their job, until I come and come again, my cunt convulsing against his fingers. Next he tells me to put my hands on his shoulders and when I do he raises me against the tree until I’m at the perfect level to be entered. As he enters, I wrap my legs around him and he starts to walk toward the nearby stream. He walks right into the beautiful clear blue water with me nearly out of my mind wanting him to explode inside me. In the water about waist-deep, he begins to “dance” as his own climax comes to him and at the same time I have a very satisfying one of my own.

We fall apart in the water and end our dream fantasy with a long lazy swim.

VANCE’S WIFE

I’m writing to tell you about my husband’s favorite fantasy. I didn’t know he had this fantasy until it happened. He knows I am writing and doesn’t object.

Several days ago, I was reading your book and one of the letters excited me. The writer spoke about “whacking off her cunt” which referred of course to playing with her pussy. I had never heard that expression and I thought I’d like to read about her whacking off her cunt, while I whacked off my cunt. My husband wasn’t due home for two or three hours.

So I gave no thought of being discovered, my only thoughts were of rubbing my clit and coming.

I keep my pussy shaved because I find I reach orgasm much more easily and my clit is free to be stimulated this way. It also keeps my husband more excited. I sat on the sofa with my legs wide apart. I had a vibrator and my electric toothbrush beside me, also an ice cube which I rub my clit with sometimes and in front of me I had a large mirror. I was Nancy Friday

64

jerking off and watching in the mirror, while my pussy was pouring out juices and bouncing around like Jell-O. I was engrossed totally with how much I was enjoying myself.

Suddenly, without warning, the door flew open and there stood my husband. We were both surprised, especially him, because we’d never discussed people playing with themselves and he had no idea that I did. I couldn’t stop, but I soon saw that he wouldn’t want me to. I never saw a dick get hard so fast. We still hadn’t said a word, and I was still playing with my pussy. He started taking off his clothes, and he was rubbing his dick while he moved my mirror and stood in front of me. By this time, he was jerking and squeezing his dick and although he rarely ever said a word in bed, he started saying things like, “Fuck that cunt,” “Play with that juicy pussy,” “I’m beating my peter.” I never saw him so excited, his dick was red, his face was red, he was nearly out of breath, his eyes were fixed on my pussy and my hand that was playing with it, and he was jerking his dick off faster and faster until I made it and then his sperm shot out onto my clit.

With one hand still on his dick, he kneeled in front of me and rubbed the hot liquid that had just come out of him into my pussy in the same ways that I had been playing with it while he was watching me. I came again and the look on his face was sheer joy.

Later we discussed the episode. He confided that he had often wondered if women really did play with their pussies, and he spent a lot of his time imagining scenes in which he caught a woman beating off. This was usually what he was thinking about when we were in bed. He said he had seen this in stag films and X-rated movies, but it did nothing to confirm in his mind that women really rub their clits. Then when he discovered me, he knew at last. He also said he was thinking of going to a prostitute and paying her to jerk off and let him watch, because then he could tell if she was really enjoying it or not.

Although I’d always thought being caught would be terrible, I’m really glad it happened. We are much more open Men In Love

65

about our fantasies, and try to act them out now, because neither of us wants the other to look for other partners. His favorite fantasy is still the same, but now instead of becoming obsessed with it, he can enjoy it because we play with ourselves together regularly now. I never imagined I could be so free and my husband says he’s now the happiest man in the world and completely fulfilled.