Is it worth sharing them with your partner?

Actress Gillian Anderson has just released a book about sexual fantasies. Entitled Want, it catalogs a variety of fantasies reported anonymously by women from around the world.

This is not the first case. In 1973, American author Nancy Friday published My Secret Garden, a volume that sparked fierce debate at the time and is now considered an important milestone in the sex-positive movement. Each book gives a fascinating picture of women’s relationship with their sexuality at a different point in history.

While the attitudes, vocabulary, and specific content of fantasy have undoubtedly changed over the past half-century, there are striking similarities between the books. This applies not only to the topic – work romances and group sex apparently have a timeless appeal – but also to what people think about their fantasies. Shame in particular continues to dominate many women’s feelings about their own erotic ideas.

Previous research indicates that most adults (of all genders) experience sexual fantasies, which suggests that many of us have struggled with the question of whether to tell our partners about our fantasies. For the past four years, we’ve been conducting research that explores this question: How do people decide to reveal their sexual fantasies, and what happens when they do?

An act of closeness

The women in My Secret Garden and Want vary greatly in the degree to which they choose to share their fantasies with a partner. Some describe passionate relationships enhanced by the disclosure and fulfillment of erotic fantasies, while others intend to take their favorite fantasy to the grave.

We were interested in understanding the psychology of such radically different approaches. In a study published earlier this year in Journal of Sex Researchwe asked 287 people to think about a recent or significant sexual fantasy. We found that over 69% of participants had previously revealed their fantasies to a partner. Of these, over 80% found it a positive experience.

Not surprisingly, participants often cited sexual desire as the main reason for opening up. For example, many people said they shared their fantasy with their partner in the hope that they could fulfill it together. Others said that talking about sexual fantasies turned them on or that discussing secret desires allowed them to learn more about their partner.

Several participants explained that they valued honesty and openness and that the level of trust and commitment in their relationship made them feel safe to share their fantasies with their partner.

However, not all reasons for disclosing fantasies were positive. Some said they revealed their fantasies in a last-ditch attempt to spice up an unsatisfactory sex life.

The power of shame

Among the group that chose not to share their fantasies, many cited the content of their fantasies as the main reason. According to accounts on My Secret Garden and Want, several of our participants felt ashamed of their fantasies or felt they were too extreme or taboo to share with their partner.

Some people—particularly those whose partners had not responded well to similar conversations in the past—feared that they would receive a negative response that could cause problems in their relationship. We also heard from several people who explained that, simply put, their fantasies are private joys that they have no desire or intention to talk about with anyone.

In a series of follow-up studies that have not yet been published, we explored some of these ideas in more detail. An important finding is that relationship characteristics are a key predictor of whether a person will disclose their fantasies. For example, disclosure was more likely to occur in relationships that already involved a lot of sexual novelty and exploration.

We also confirmed that the content of a fantasy is central to a person’s decision about whether to share it. Anything that may be considered unacceptable by your partner or that is otherwise potentially threatening to the relationship (e.g., moving away from monogamy) will likely not be disclosed. Indeed, even among participants who had previously shared fantasies, we found that more than half had at least one other fantasy they did not want to reveal.

While our findings suggest that people who decide to tell their partner about their erotic dreams tend to get a good response, we also found that the process of making this decision can be complicated. Some people have very good reasons for keeping their fantasies to themselves.

We hope that Want will help alleviate some of the shame associated with the very common experience of fantasizing about sex. However, the similarity to a book published 50 years earlier suggests that we still have a long way to go.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.