The preliminary results of the pilot clinical interviews and the pilot computer survey of the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project helped me to appreciate a number of key findings:

-The vast majority of British adults do fantasise, indeed, quite frequently.

- Paradoxically, however, most adults never share their fantasies with anyone else, in part because of the great shame involved, as well as the great guilt involved, since most fantasies revolve around someone other than one’s current long-term partner.

-Many fantasies contain strong imagery of sadism, masochism and other forms of harm. If any of us could manage to put many of our more aggressive fantasies into practice, we would end up in prison.

- Contrary to expectations, a surprisingly small percentage of our fantasies concern so called celebrities (entertainers, sports personalities and politicians). Most of us will fantasise about people whom we know, or in many instances about people whom we “create” in our mind, especially so that we may coopt them to participate in our often subversive, sadistic or masochistic internal dramas.

- In spite of the widespread fears of relating one’s sexual fantasies to one’s regular partner, the preliminary survey revealed that a great many people expressed a keen interest to discuss their sexual fantasies with a qualified mental health professional, thus suggesting a certain amount of curiosity or, perhaps, concern about the content of their sexual fantasies.

What is a sexual fantasy?

Sexual fantasy may be defined as an image, a thought or a fully elaborated drama which passes through our mind principally during sexual activity, either coital or masturba-tory, often resulting in orgasm. Sexual fantasies must be distinguished from sexual daydreams or fleeting sexual thoughts. Sexual fantasies may be very simple or highly complex, may be tender or sadistic and may cause us psychological pleasure or psychological pain. In general, we keep our sexual fantasies hidden from our partners, and even from our psychotherapists or other confidants.

What constitutes a “normal” sexual fantasy?

Having now studied more than 19,000 British sexual fantasies, I cannot identify a so-called “normal” fantasy. It would be far too facile to describe as normal only those fantasies involving loving, genital intercourse with one’s long-term partner or spouse. I interviewed many happily married people who harboured very aggressive fantasies — often about their beloved spouses, in fact. On the basis of the data, I must conclude that the British mind contains much diversity and complexity and, therefore, speaking about a “normal” fantasy may well be meaningless.

Why do we have sexual fantasies?

We don’t know how and why sexual fantasies developed. Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that sexual fantasies contribute to the facilitation of sexual arousal, which, in turn, facilitates procreation. Thus sexual fantasies may play an important, previously unrecognised, role in the continued propagation of the human species. Freudian psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, by contrast, have speculated that our fantasies may have developed as a means both of gratifying wishes and of conquering intrusive memories of early traumatic experiences.

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