Understanding Male and Female Sexual Fantasies

- A transcript from The Hour of Judgment radio series -

Guests:

• Patricia Peterson - member of staff at the Department of Philosophy at University of Queensland, and expert on sexual fantasy.
• Gil Burgh - member of staff at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Queensland, and President of the Queensland Philosophy for Children Association.
• Suzanne Hindmarsh - Female thinker.
• Host: Kevin Solway

Kevin: Hello, I'm Kevin Solway, and welcome once again to The Hour of Judgment - probably the only radio program in the world for thinking people. David Quinn is taking a back-seat this evening after having selflessly given up his chair in the studio to make room for our, not two, but three guests tonight. I'm here rather than David because I've particularly devoted my life to educating people about the vast differences between men and women, and about the superiority of men - or I should say the superiority of masculine psychology. And tonight we'll be talking specifically about the psychological differences between men and women, and what those differences mean in terms of the relative value of each sex.

Now the only way to understand a person's psychology is to understand what they value, and I've discovered that a most fruitful way of discovering what a person values is to look at the nature of their fantasies, and especially their sexual fantasies. Certainly, our sexual fantasies, since they pertain to mating and reproduction, are deeply programmed into us.

Alongside me this evening is Suzanne Hindmarsh, who has been a guest on this program once before. Our regular listeners would remember that Sue describes herself as the world's only female feminist. She believes there are a number of male feminists, like David and myself, but she's the only female feminist that she knows of. Also in the studio tonight we have Patricia Peterson. She's from the philosophy department at the University of Queensland and is an expert in sexual fantasy. Opposite her, we have Gil Burgh who is a tutor at the philosophy department and is the President of the Queensland Philosophy for Children Association, and who also takes an interest in sexual fantasies. Perhaps I could begin with you, Patricia. Could you tell us exactly what is your interest in sexual fantasy, and why are you interested in this area?

Patricia: Well, I guess I'm interested in three things, really. I'm interested in sexual fantasies generally; I'm interested in masturbation; and I'm also interested in the role of the clitoris. So I guess if I can talk about my interest in sexual fantasies first: I guess I agree with you, that if we have a look at the types of fantasies that women engage in - women in particular - we can see, or at least have displayed to us, or we can somehow be exposed to, what's really going on in women's minds.

Kevin: Right, and can you tell us a bit of what is going on in women's minds?

Patricia: Well, there are a few things. In your introductory statement, you said something about reproduction. I think somewhere in the program we'll deal with that issue a bit later on. I tend to think that there isn't so much difference between men and women. Or it appears to me as though there's not as much difference between men and women as I think you believe there is.

Kevin: Well, perhaps we should talk about rape fantasies.

Patricia: Okay. Great.

Kevin: Surely, there are differences between men and women regarding rape fantasies, and the ideas that go on during these fantasies?

Patricia: In terms of rape fantasies, it's interesting that in the seventies women were reporting that they were engaging in rape fantasies, but what those fantasies tended to involve was a woman perhaps fantasizing about a faceless figure entering the woman's home, overpowering her either in a physical and/or mental sense, and her being submissive, passive, waiting to be penetrated, being penetrated, and then her more or less saying, or at least experiencing the idea or the concept, that, "Okay, I'm still a nice girl. I've been overpowered. I'm a bad girl deep down. But hey, hang on, I couldn't do anything to resist this." Whereas nowadays I think women are certainly still engaging in rape fantasies, but what they'll be more inclined to do is turn that type of scenario into a situation where the woman overpowers the man. Sure, she's just about to be penetrated, but then maybe the guy is thrown on a bed, tied up, handcuffed, whatever, and she jumps on top of him, and she doesn't position herself in a submissive or subservient role.

Kevin: Has there been very much research done on this to show that perhaps women are becoming a bit more dominant in their ideas and in their fantasies?

Patricia: Well, actually, Nancy Friday is an interesting woman. She has written two books: one earlier book called My Secret Garden lists the fantasies of women fairly much from the seventies, who engaged in sexual fantasies, particularly rape fantasies and the like, or at least fantasies that involved submission, humiliation and so on. But she wrote a more recent book, which came out in about 1994, called Women on Top, and in this book we can see that the fantasies have certainly changed. Now I remember reading in the introduction of her book that she went to Yale University and all over the place to try to read about male and female sexual fantasies, but really there was nothing in the literature.

Kevin: Yes.

Patricia: So it's very difficult to find stuff.

Kevin: Yes, it's difficult to speak about rape fantasies because there's not enough data. I think that's fair to say. So let's move on to what we do know a bit more about, and that's women's infatuation with romance. From my reading, a lot of women's sexual fantasies are about romance - not necessarily the physical act of sex, but everything that precedes it and everything that is around it. Have you taken much interest in this area as well?

Patricia: Actually, I have. I don't think it's the case that women aren't fantasizing about romantic scenarios. I think women are still doing this. But I think women feel as though they have more choice now.

Last updated: 8/05

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