What Your Sex Fantasies Mean

Nearly all of us have a fantasy world, a sort of middle kingdom of experience that lurks somewhere between our real waking-working hours and the surreal moments of our nighttime dreams. It's a place each of us goes, alone usually, sometimes to escape, sometimes to play out relationships that are beyond or behind us in real life, sometimes to practice roles for which we're ambitious, sometimes to entertain ourselves past boredom, and sometimes even to frighten ourselves.

There was a time when fantasy was thought of as an almost totally negative thing. Silly stereotypes (Walter Mitty, the absent-minded professor) and bizarre, frightening ones (the mad scientist) served to keep serious attention away from the study of fantasy. Freud examined nighttime dreams as a trail to the unconscious, but only recently have thoughtful researchers begun to give real attention to our daydreams as path to the same hidden places in man.

There are all kinds of fantasies, of course, but it is on our sexual visions that behavioral scientists are beginning to focus. The study you find here was designed by the Legal & Behavioral Institute of Beverly Hills, whose psychologists asked a random sampling of Playboy subscribers to answer a slightly longer version of the same questionnaire you can now fill out. The results of the survey were then put together with the latest available data from other sources and analyzed into patterns--so that after you have answered the questions as honestly as your privacy permits, you can compare your own sex-fantasy life with that previously reported by others.

While you are checking off your answers, remember that no one but you need see the results. Although some of the questions may seem offbeat, they were designed to chart the fantasy life of basically healthy people. No answer will be interpreted as sick or abnormal.

Women as well as men may take the test; the interpretation, however, is based on the predominantly male sample for which the test was designed.

The analysis of your responses to this quiz is divided into four parts, which determine (1) the intensity and variety of your fantasies; (2) the people involved; (3) the active or passive nature of your fantasies; and (4) an indication of their conventional or exotic nature.

Each answer is numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. Whichever answer you have picked is your score for that question. For example, if you answer question 1 with 2, "occasionally," your score on that question is two points. You will be asked to total your scores on specified key series of questions in order to place yourself on the general scale. (There is no need to total your answers to the entire series of questions.)

Part one: Intensity and variety of your sex fantasies. Your score here will be the sum of your responses to questions 1, 3A, 5A, 6A, 8A, 9A, 11A, 12A, 13A, 15C and 20A.

A score of 30 or less indicates your sex fantasies occur more frequently and in greater variety than the average and a score below 15 indicates that your fantasy scripts are highly embellished and pursue pretty much all known possibilities. Forcing your partner to engage in sexual acts, being forced yourself, watching someone and being watched, wearing costumes and using sex to gain power over others are all a part of your fantasy-scapes. You fantasize nearly every day as a source of self-stimulation, and often to augment the pleasure of real sexual acts with others. You like your fantasies on a large scale (often including more than one partner, as in an orgy) and you show little fear in pursuing them wherever they might go.

Scores between 31 and 39 show you to be a moderate fantasizer. Your fantasies, which tend to repeat themselves, feature conventional modes of sexual intercourse, with some oral-genital activity and strong visions of being admired by the opposite sex. You probably find yourself having a sexual daydream no more often than every few days and perhaps as seldom as once a week.

A score above 39 indicates that you rarely indulge in sex fantasies--and when you do, they fall within a narrow range. Daydreaming is not generally a source of pleasure for you, nor do you use it to stimulate yourself to sexual activity. As one respondent put it, "Fantasies somehow are not nearly as good as the real thing, so sexual daydreams don't enter into my daily living very often. When they do, I find them pleasant and entertaining while they last. Since my life and my sex life are both fulfilling, I daydream less and less as I grow older."

Your age, as the comment above suggests, is related to how much and about what you fantasize. Males from the ages of 35 to 50 show a sharp decline in the frequency and variety of sex fantasies. But surprisingly, the fewest scores in the 39-plus range are found in males under 25 and in males 50 and older. The high scores of the younger men may perhaps be explained by lack of actual sexual experience and/or an abundance of free time in which to daydream. Younger men also have a more diffuse concept of their own appeal to women. They tend to fantasize that they possess some general aura of sensuality, whereas older men often daydream in terms of specific physical traits that they have found to be attractive to women.

Interest in realizing one's sex fantasies is also related to age. It appears that the older a man is, the more likely he is to want his sex fantasies to come true. And while younger men, particularly those under 25, more consistently have a broad range of sex fantasies, they are less likely to want all of them to come true. Since older men are generally more sexually experienced, they may be less likely to fear further sexual exploration than younger, less experienced males. This is partially confirmed by answers to question 21A, which asks whether or not sex fantasies are based on actual experience. Older men frequently replied yes, adding that they would like to repeat the experience; younger men said their fantasies were based on things not yet experienced--and they were not sure they wanted them all to come true.

Answers to some individual questions are also important in your analysis of part one.

For instance, not everyone with a score of 30 or below is comfortable with his broad and intense sex-fantasy life. If your total score in part one is below 31 and you answered 21C with number 3 (they're upsetting), then your sex fantasies are probably unwanted--sometimes frightening--intrusions into your consciousness. You are not likely to try to carry them into actual sexual activity; if you have done so, you have probably experienced considerable remorse afterward.

If you scored under 30 and chose number 2 in answer to question 21C, your wide-ranging sex fantasies are generally gratifying, although at times you may find your daydreams drifting into sexual activities that surprise you.

Answers to 21B are also important modifiers of your score here. If you chose number 1 or 2, your sex fantasies are most often preparatory to real action. You are the author of a movie that you really want to see made, with you as director, star and audience. If, however, you checked number 3, you draw a marked line between fantasy and reality. Your sex daydreams, whether broad or narrow in scope, may be stimulants to increased arousal but are not a determinant of your real sex life. In practice, you probably enjoy a relatively restricted range of sexual activities, but you often take pleasure in fantasizing other, quite different modes of behavior.

If your score on part one is below 30 (and particularly if it is below 21), number 3 in answer to question 21B indicates that your sex fantasies provide a way in which you are attempting to resolve inner conflicts. By fantasizing all sorts of sexual acts but actually participating in only a small percentage of them you have the best of what you see as incompatible sexual worlds.

If your score in part one is 39 or greater and you answered question 21B with number 3, you are more consistent with yourself. Fantasy is not your preferred turn-on, and you have little interest in expanding your sexual horizons by translating daydreams into reality. As one respondent to our questionnaire put it, "Have you guys taken this quiz? You would have to be the most perverted son of a bitch in the world to dream all this stuff!"

Part two: People involved in your fantasies. Your score here is the sum of your answers to questions 3C, 4C, 5C, 6C, 8B, 9B, 10E and 14B.

The middle range for this part is 21 to 25. Scores in this range indicate that the characters in your sex fantasies are people you know and desire but with whom you have not been sexually involved. In general, it is the partner or partners just out of reach who tantalize you; once a woman has become an actual sex partner, she is no longer a typical subject for your daydreams. The pursuit of new partners is an important theme in your sex-fantasy life.

If your score in part two is below 21--particularly if it is below 15--your sex fantasies focus primarily on past or present sex partners. Perhaps they have been particularly gratifying to you and you find mental replays of previous sexual activities stimulating; or you may fear that fantasies "away from home" are just as unfaithful to your regular partner as actual sexual activities would be. For you, the memory of a previously satisfying encounter with your regular partner is the easiest way to become aroused again.

If your score in part two is above 26, and particularly if it is near 32, your sex daydreams are filled almost entirely with unknown or imaginary partners. If you are young, lack of real sexual experience may dictate the need for imagined partners. If, however, you are experienced and still prefer to create your own objects of fantasy, other factors are involved. Some of the possibilities: You are a perfectionist and none of the real women you know fits your high criteria of eroticism; you feel that your sexual desires are too far out or dirty to be connected with the real women you know, so you invent fictional women to appreciate them: or during adolescence, real sexual relationships did not come readily to you, so you spent your time fantasizing about movie stars or women of your own creation. If these fantasies were pleasant and they became habitual, they're hard to give up now.

Part three: Active-passive role. This score is a little more difficult to compute, as it involves comparing two sets of scores. Set A is the sum of your answers to questions 5A, 8A, 12A and 20A. Set B is the sum of your answers to questions 6A, 9A, 11A and 13A. Add up each of these two sets of scores and find the difference between them.

If your two sets of scores are within four points of each other, you and your partner trade active and passive roles. Sometimes, in your fantasies, you are the aggressor. Other times you enjoy being made love to by your partner. This alternating of roles in your fantasies shows that you are sensitive to your partner's sexual needs and that, in turn, you demand sensitivity to your own satisfaction. You are probably disappointed if this is not part of your regular sexual relations.

If set A is more than four points higher than set B, you show a distinct preference for the active rather than the passive role. In your fantasies, you are the seeker of sexual relations with your partner or partners and you are less interested in receiving stimulation. The thrill in your daydreams comes from turning the other on; sex for you is a matter of striking the right keys for your partner.

If, on the other hand, set B runs four or more points higher than set A, you define sex in your fantasies as a passive-receptive act, in which you are nurtured by adoring females. Some version of the harem fantasy probably occurs to you quite often. On a fantasy level, you enjoy the idea of receiving from women, being the exclusive focus of their attention. One respondent suggested two fantasies that exemplify this passive orientation: "I daydream about a harem with 3000 women who exist only to satisfy me and I have recurring daydreams in which I merely glance at a strange woman and she immediately wants to make love to me."

Interestingly enough, the passive or active nature of our fantasies seems to relate to financial success, age and marital status. Although the man-on-top position is generally most favored in fantasies of sexual intercourse, males with lower incomes often visualize the female on top. All forms of oral sex rank high in popularity of fantasy behavior, but younger men tend to fantasize the active role (performing oral sex on the partner), while those over 25 are more apt to fantasize the passive role (partner performing oral sex on the fantasizer). Married men show a tendency to prefer fellatio as the first act. preliminary to intercourse in the sexual fantasy, with Jewish men showing a pronounced tendency in this direction; the young Catholic males surveyed preferred oral sex ending in orgasm. Younger men also have fantasies of undressing their new partners, while older men like to dream about watching a partner as she undresses herself.

Part four: Conventional-exotic nature of your fantasies. Your score in part four is the sum of your answers to questions 9A, 10A, 11A, 11B, 12E, 13A and 19A. If you score between 24 and 28 on this scale, your sex fantasies center on relatively conventional sexual activities, as our culture defines them. This would include heterosexual intercourse and oral sex. If your score is between 20 and 23, you will, on rare occasions, find your sex daydreams drifting to forms of sexuality that are more unusual by our cultural standards; exhibitionism, voyeurism and group-sex fantasies. At times, these modes of sexual activity may intrigue you on a fantasy level, but you don't permit your thoughts to linger on them for too long.

Scores from 7 to 19 indicate that you often find your thoughts drifting to rather uncommon sexual acts, such as dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex. You find the bizarre in sexuality attractive, as did one respondent, who wrote: "I have fantasies in which women have three breasts, I have a 28-inch penis and science-fiction creatures are involved in complex and novel sexual activities with me."

Once again, this scale is best understood in terms of answers to questions 21A, B and C. If you have indicated that your sex fantasies contain many exotic forms of sexual activity and you answer 21A with number I (indicating that the fantasies are based upon actual experience), you actually have a highly experimental sexuality, which you like to replay in your daydreams.

If you picked number 2 in 21A (not experienced), then you are fascinated with the exotic in human sexuality but may not be ready to engage in such relationships. Your answer to question 21B, which measures your desire to see your sex fantasies become reality, will clarify your feelings. Question 21C will further indicate whether these far-out fantasies are pleasing or disturbing to you. If you chose 21C, number 3, and have a score between 7 and 19 in part four, you are probably quite upset over what you see as a morbid preoccupation with bizarre sexuality. If, on the other hand, you answered 1 or 2 to question 21C, these exotic fantasies are a source of pleasure to you. One respondent put this exotic preference rather simply: "I dig impossible sexual feats!" Another was more specific: "I am a 6'5" male," he reported, "and have two fantasies that include two activities at the same time. They are: 1. I would like a female sex partner with whom I could engage in sexual intercourse simultaneously with some one else while I engage in oral foreplay with her (she would have to be tall!); and, 2. I fantasize engaging in oral sex and intercourse simultaneously with the same partner."

Few people express themselves so colorfully, either on paper or in the less circumscribed arena of their daydreams. Nearly everybody, however, does engage in some sort of fantasizing--and for many, this overlay of erotic embroidery serves as agreeable ornamentation to the fabric of day-to-day sexual experience.

Fleshing Out The Sex-Fantasy Quiz

The first two fantasies below are among hundreds that will appear in a book called "My Secret Garden," by Nancy Friday, which Trident Press will publish in June. Miss Friday collected her fantasies--all of them from females--through advertisements and personal interviews in the United Kingdom and this country. The two male fantasies that follow were collected by Playboy editors.

"... We're at this Baltimore Colts--Minnesota Vikings football game, and it's very cold. Four or five of us are huddled under a big glen-plaid blanket. Suddenly we jump up to watch Johnny Unitas running toward the goal. As he races down the field, we all turn as a body, wrapped in our blanket, screaming with excitement. Somehow one of the men--I don't know who, and in my excitement I can't look--has gotten himself more closely behind me. I can feel his erection through his pants as he signals me with a touch to turn my hips more directly toward him. Unitas is blocked, but all action, thank God, is still going toward the goal and all of us keep turned to watch. Everyone is going mad. He's got his cock out now and somehow it's between my legs; he's torn a hole in my tights under my short skirt and I yell louder as the touchdown gets nearer. We are all jumping up and down and I have to lift my leg higher, to the next step on the bleachers, to steady myself; now the man behind me can slip it in more easily. He's inside me now, shot straight up through me like a ramrod; my God, it's like he's in my throat! 'All the way, Johnny! Go, go, run, run!' we scream together, louder than anyone, the two of us leading the excitement like cheerleaders, while inside me I can feel whoever he is growing harder and harder, pushing deeper and higher into me with each jump until the cheering for Unitas becomes the rhythm of our fucking and all around us everyone is on our side, cheering us and the touchdown ... it's hard to separate the two now. It's Unitas' last down, everything depends on him; we're racing madly almost at our own touchdown. My excitement gets wilder, almost out of control, as I scream for Unitas to make it just as we do; and as the man behind me roars, clutching me in a spasm of pleasure, Unitas goes over and I...."

•••

"... I imagine myself at some incredibly proper place, some very elegant restaurant, for instance. The men are in dinner jackets, the women divinely coifed, the headwaiter aching with savoir-faire. We are all sitting around this table covered by a heavy linen tablecloth. (The tablecloth is important, because it hides the man underneath--who is between my legs.) I chat away amiably with the people on either side. How has this man gotten under the table? Interesting you should ask--because in my fantasy, I've taken care of that detail. Either he has quietly slipped under the table on the pretext of picking up a dropped napkin or he's excused himself--supposedly gone to the men's room--but, in fact, he has raced to the cellar below, only to emerge through a trap door at my feet, there gently to part my willing legs. (It's funny how little time, during a fantasy, it takes to sort out the mechanical details ... but fantasy time is not like normal time.)

"There is always the most amazing amount of detail in the fantasy at this point: me, casually arranging the tablecloth over my lap so that no one can see he has raised my skirt, or see his head tight up against me, or his tongue ... yes, there is a lot of the lips, actually seeing them, and the tongue. Or there is the intricate arranging of feet, like a ballet, under the table, with my praying that no one will bump into him with his feet! The funny thing is, all this detail makes it even more exciting. But mostly there is the fear--sweet agony--that someone may ask me to dance! Or, worst of all, that the man under the table will stop ... that someone will call for the bill and say, 'OK, everybody up, let's go.'

"I put one hand on his head--don't stop!--and with the other hand, I accept a cigarette or toy with my salad, always this perfectly sociable smile on my face, but always the clutch: What am I going to do when I come? (I'm pretty noisy.) Until, thank God, there is a sudden power failure in the restaurant. The lights go out and pow! In the darkness of the fantasy restaurant, I have my very real, very loud orgasm."

•••

"... What I do is think of myself in the aisle seat of a plane, relaxing after the dinner tray's been taken away. I've noticed one particular stewardess ever since take-off, a girl with an open face and enormous eyes. She's been walking up and down the aisle a lot and gives me her Pollyanna smile every time she passes by. I don't know yet whether I'm being singled out, but what does get to me is the contrast between her freckled, innocent face and a body that's--well, she's wearing one of those plain white blouses that are just transparent enough for you to make out the lace on her bra, and her breasts are--not perky or jiggly, but round, like little bar bells. She's also wearing one of those incredibly tight blue skirts--the stewardae don't wear them anymore, I know, but I remember how they were--and old-fashioned high heels.

"Anyway, at one point, she stops and asks an old lady across the aisle from me if she'd like a pillow. Then she steps quickly onto the armrest to reach the rack above, and she's such a small girl that she has to strain to get the pillow. In this position I have a clear view right up her skirt to where it gets dark. And then, just before she steps off the armrest, while her legs are slightly spread, she looks down at me and--smiles!

"She's off, she hands the pillow to the old lady and turns toward me. I motion with my finger for her to bend down, and I whisper in her ear, 'Let's go back there.'

"I half expect this girl next door to slap my head off my shoulders, but she nods. I float down the aisle behind her and we reach the lavatories, one on each side of the plane. One of them is vacant and she looks around quickly and motions me in. I leave the door ajar and wait a couple of moments and she slips in beside me and throws the little latch. It's incredibly cramped in there, barely enough room for us to stand side by side. She turns around, the same smile, puts her arms around my neck, and in another couple of seconds she's practically swallowing my tongue. Still kissing, I maneuver her around and push her down gently so she's sitting on the toilet seat and I'm bent over with my butt against the door. She wriggles out of her blouse and then pops the hooks of her bra. She lifts her hips and I tug off her skirt and bikini panties and I practically rip my own pants to get at least one leg free.

"She's sitting down there on the seat, naked, and I have to figure fast. My body would have to bend backward to manage it, so I pull her thighs and she helps me so she's sitting on the very edge of the seat.

"I've only been in and out a couple of times, totally out of my mind, hoping it'll last, my little stewardess off the seat and suspended on my cock, going up and down, when I hear a Ding! and in the mirror I see the reflection of a lighted sign saying, Return to your seat.

"I hesitate, but she grabs me tighter, still rising and falling, and the bell keeps going Ding! every couple of seconds, but I'm getting the rhythm back and feeling that I can't hold it much longer and then a sound at the door, a knocking, a knocking and a voice saying. 'Laura, are you all right?'--one of her goddamn stewardess friends--but we can't stop now, we keep going and going and going and Blowie! together, and we crumple and the bell is Dinging and the knocking keeps up and then my goddamn foot hits the Flush button and the swirling water starts and I'm going crazy and I look down at her and she's just smiling."

•••

"... I'm naked and being held prisoner in a room, tied to a post like someone about to be burned at the stake. I'm weak and have fits of semiconsciousness, but when I can get hold of my senses, I realize that my captors are a collection of very beautiful women who have somehow captured me, stripped me and tied me to this post. They are milling around me, laughing and touching me and, although I pretend to be drowsy and uncomfortable, I'm really loving the whole situation.

"After a while, I cease pretending that I'm groggy and, seeing this, they all begin to remove their clothes in a slow, rhythmic ritual, encircling me as I lean against the ropes that bind me to the post, moving toward me and touching and kissing my cock. I begin to come and have many quick, successive orgasms. First a tall blonde girl moves toward me, smiling and giggling and teasing me. She takes my cock as I smile and strain against my bindings and with just a few quick strokes she makes me spurt. I'm able to come every time I'm aroused and with no effort at all. All the girls continue smiling and giggling.

"After many hours of this, the women decide to untie me but to keep me on a chain. From that time on, I'm like a pet, still naked, lying around on the attic floor, except when one of the women decides she wants to be fucked.

"Then, quickly and without explanation, they decide to leave their attic hideaway. They dress and while they prepare to go, one of the girls again ties me to the post. A few minutes later, they all leave and I'm there, alone, to be found by a group of neighbors. I'm horribly embarrassed to be found, naked, my hands tied so that I am unable even to cover myself."