Fantasies: The safest sex, part three

Novel or "forbidden" imagery. This includes unconventional settings, questionable partners like strangers or relatives, and ligament-straining positions worthy of the Kama Sutra. Or as Dr. Seuss once asked (albeit in a somewhat different context): "Would you, could you, in a boat? Could you, would you, with a goat?"

Scenes of sexual irresistibility. Here the emphasis is on seductive power: overcoming the reluctance of an initially indifferent man or woman through sheer animal magnetism. Or the irresistibility may take numerical form in fantasies involving multiple partners.

Dominance and submission fantasies. In these, sexual power is expressed either ritualistically--in sadomasochistic activities--or through physical force, as in rape fantasies. Such fantasies are surprisingly common. Person reports that 44 percent of men have had fantasies of dominating a partner. Other studies found that 51 percent of women fantasized about being forced to have sex, while a third imagined: "I'm a slave who must obey a man's every wish."

None of this means, of course, that real-world rape victims "really want it." "Women who find submission fantasies sexually arousing are very clear that they have no wish to be raped in reality," say Leitenberg and Henning. In their fantasies, women control every aspect of what occurs. And their scenarios are far less brutal than real-life attacks. Typically the fantasy involves an attractive man whose restraint is simply overwhelmed by the woman's attractiveness. These fantasies serve the same psychological purpose as scenes of irresistibility. "It's different means to the same end" says Leitenberg. "We want to be desired."

Incidentally, researchers find little difference in the fantasies of hetero- and homosexuals--except in the gender of participants.

Harlequin and Hefner
It doesn't take a PhD to figure out that the fantasies of men and women differ. Just look at the fantasy scenarios that publishers push.

Men have Playboy: big-busted women exposing their attributes, in almost clinical detail, from a variety of angles and positions. For women, on the other hand, there are tales like The Bridges of Madison County and cookie-cutter Harlequin romances. The covers may depict heaving bosoms and Fabio's muscular physique, but the sex always comes packaged within an emotional, passionate romance.

While all this may change as sexual roles and cultural attitudes change, fantasies still fall along those gender lines. When male and female college students were asked to write out in detail three fantasies they had, women were more likely to describe romance and commitment while men mentioned a greater number of sexual acts.

In another study of 300 college students, 41 percent of the women but only 16 percent of the men--said that while fantasizing they focused on the "personal or emotional characteristics of the partner." Men, however, were four times as likely to focus on their fantasy partner's physical characteristics. Sociobiologists argue that these discrepancies represent evolved behavioral differences between men and women. But even if that's true, Leitenberg observes, there are certainly cultural pressures for women not to think about sex outside of a committed relationship, lest they be labeled a "slut."

The romance/genitalia dichotomy isn't the only major differences in male and female fantasies, report Leitenberg and Henning. Here are some others:

1) Men are more likely to imagine themselves doing something to a woman, and their fantasies focus on her body. Women, on the other hand, tend to envision something being done to them and to concentrate more on their partner's interest in her.