What do women fantasise about?

Gillian Anderson’s hotly anticipated new book “Want” is a collection of 174 sexual fantasies of women from around the world. Published in September 2024, the book began as the project “Dear Gillian” which received over 1,800 anonymous submissions from women about their deepest fantasies. In her introduction, Anderson says she hopes this book will start a new conversation about sexual power. I finished the book earlier this week and can’t get some fantasies out of my head. Despite having written about sex for over a decade, I found this candid collection taught me a thing to two about women’s desires.

The fantasies within these pages explore themes such as new erotic sensations; voyeurism; rough sex; kink; fetishes; power and submission; the desire to be worshipped; to be captured; sex with strangers; with forbidden lovers; with multiple, simultaneous partners; and yearning for a soft, loving touch. They’re incredibly raw – after all, this is a book made up of anonymous, intimate fantasies – and sometimes surprising: “I often imagine a kind of penile tentacle… penetrating me.”

While reading Want, I found myself wondering if women’s desires are reflected in the porn they watch.

Each year, Pornhub’s data analysts delve into its internet traffic to discover what adults have been seeking to get them off. They gather insights into the searching habits of Pornhub’s audience – including subdividing the data into the preferences of men and women. What are women masturbating to on porn sites? Are there any similarities to the fantasies we create in our heads?

The obvious caveats here apply: Pornhub’s users have access to the internet while not all women do and Pornhub is only one of many porn sites. A fantasy can be rich in detail, however, a porn search reduces the fantasy to a handful of keywords. Having erotic sex with your female therapist who you’ve spent months sharing your most intimate desires and vulnerabilities might be distilled to “lesbian therapist” in a porn search bar.

What porn do women watch?

In 2023, women accounted for 36% of Pornhub’s visitors worldwide, an increase of 1% from 2022. While some search terms and categories were favoured more by one gender than the other, there was quite a bit of overlap. Men and women enjoyed watching “mature”, “ebony” and “Japanese” porn – all three terms are in the Top 5 Categories for both genders. “Lesbian” featured in the Top 10 for men and women (occupying the top spot for women and (surprisingly) the seventh for men), “transgender” was also mutually popular, as was “anal”, “MILF”, “hentai”, “gangbang”, “big tits” and “big dick”.

As I read Want, I noticed women like thinking about sex with other women. Stereotype-defining soft caresses, invested conversation, and nurturing love were frequent themes, but so were fantasies about domineering older women, MILFs and women who look more masculine. It also struck me that women who considered themselves heterosexual seemed to fantasise about lesbian sex almost as much as women who identified as bisexual, gay or lesbian.

Pornhub’s 2023 overview reflects this preference: the category “lesbian” had 73% more views by women than men and women viewed “scissoring” specifically 196% more times than men. Other categories women viewed more than men were: transgender (175% more views by women than men), pussy licking (105%), and solo male (85%). I expected “bondage” or “BDSM” to be common terms with men and women, though “bondage” was only the 15th most popular category for women and didn’t grace the top 15 amongst men.

Many of the fantasies in Want referred to rough sex, bondage, submission, domination, spanking etc. Anderson writes, “In the hundreds of letters written to me, the predominant theme was that of power: domination and submission.” However, this isn’t so clearly reflected in women’s porn preferences. Perhaps the appeal of fantasies that teeter on the edge of consent is that they are fantasies. “In a fantasy of being coerced or held captive, the woman is necessarily playing the submissive role. But her fantasy is also about controlling her partner. As the one in charge of the direction of the fantasy, she is the puppet master.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s watched porn that deals with power dynamics and closed the tab because the consent felt questionable.

Why might women prefer to fantasise than watch porn?

Needless to say, women are so much more than their porn habits and fantasies. The similarities between what we search for and think of can tell us almost as much as the differences. Our fantasies can involve familiar people and seeking out porn that fits an image of someone we have in our head seems too much effort when porn is a shortcut to falling asleep.

The joy of fantasising is the ability to revel in the pleasure associated with an erotic experience, perhaps adjusting it to ramp up the sensations. I wouldn’t want porn to replace some of my most exciting sexual memories. There might also be things we find titillating when in the depths of Pornhub that wouldn’t play any part in a carefully crafted fantasy.

Want serves up more than just women’s fantasies. The submissions hint at the realities of these women; their histories; their hopes for love. In these pages lies the woman abused as a child, the woman who has only known men to see her “as a living sex toy” and the woman whose husband “doesn’t even like to touch” her.

These fantasies offer a glimpse into the complex, myriad influences on women’s sexual desires, unlike a report about porn trends.

Image by Ribhav Agrawal from Pixabay