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.

Kevin: Well, women are certainly doing it judging by the sales of Mills and Boon books, and all of the women's magazines, and so on.

Patricia: Sure, even though that is the case . . . as I say, I don't think women aren't engaging in romantic fantasies, or getting a lot of sexual excitement, or getting a lot of sexual desire that involves these romantic situations . . . but I think what they're doing is they're recognizing that there are more options available to them. They're not only engaging in romantic scenarios, or romantic fantasies that involve these types of scenarios, but they're fantasizing about finding some man, taking off his shirt, his pants, slipping their fingers, perhaps, into his jocks and seducing him. I mean, they're having a lot of control. They're being active rather than merely passive.

Kevin: Have you noticed this yourself, Gil? Not only in your personal life, but do you see in the literature that women are becoming more active and taking control?

Gil: I think it depends on how we start defining "active", "passive", "in control", "overpowering". I have problems using these dichotomies. As I think Pat was saying, I think if you read a lot of Mills and Boon novels, and these days Mills and Boon is slightly changed, with the X-rated stuff - the more highly explicit Mills and Boon stuff, anyway - it doesn't mean I read it, but I've read a lot about it - but in those scenarios you have there, we tend to call them romance, but if you look at Mills and Boon in terms of female pornography and then look at male pornography--

Kevin: Well, I actually call "romance" female pornography. It is actually sex. It's about the excitement that arises between the sexes, therefore it's part of sex.

Gil: Well, if you look at it in that way I'd still want to argue that what we tend to call romance . . . you can still look at it Pat's way and say that they're still fantasizing about some things, and it usually is with Mills and Boon that the man overpowers the woman - that's usually what happens in the end . . . The only difference is that the woman in this sense sees herself as the object of male desire, whereas if you look at male pornography it's the male who uses the woman as the object of his desire.

Kevin: Well, surely, this is a generalization - a true generalization. We can say there's a major difference between the sexes. Women tend to view themselves as the object of desire - the goal is to get married, whereas male sexual fantasies don't involve weddings - they involve control and involve numbers of women. Female fantasies involve just several people whom they're well acquainted with, whom they're good friends with, and whom they love. So these are big differences between men and women - if they are true. What do you think about this, Patricia?

Patricia: Well, even though I think women may indeed fantasize about their wedding day and being seduced, perhaps, in white gowns, by their husband to be, or whatever, I don't think that's as common nowadays - from looking at Nancy Friday's stuff, in particular. I mean, what women tend to fantasize about are scenarios which just aren't romantic in tone. The bulk of their fantasies involve them often being quite powerful - I mean, perhaps, having lesbian relationships, even having sex with dogs, cats - all sorts of things. What I mean is that they're moving away from the bridal gown and the white picket fence, I feel.

Kevin: Yes, but I think that, if we can go by the sort of literature women read, and what's in women's magazines, romance definitely plays a very large part in the female psyche. So I would include these romantic ideas and thoughts under the category of sexual fantasy. I'm not thinking purely about physical sex here. So if we include all of those romantic ideas as sexual fantasies then we can start to draw very large distinctions, because men don't have many of these romantic fantasies - not to the same degree.