Men and Women Have Same Sexual Fantasies (Or Everybody's Lying)
Movies will have you believe that women fantasize about Fabio and weddings, and men fantasize about Kate Upton and Victoria’s Secret models. But one study conducted by Spain’s University of Granada seeking to know the truth about heterosexual people’s sexual fantasies has concluded that men and women fantasize about the same things: sex with their significant other.
Researchers interviewed 2,500 Spanish men and women aged between 18 and 73 years old who had been in heterosexual relationships for at least six months. Within the group, 49.6 percent of respondents were men and 50.4 percent were women. The information was collected via an Incidental and Planned Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Several training centers, adult education centers, University of Granada and Universidad Complutense schools, as well as the local library, collaborated on the study.
While researchers announced that men and women had the same sexual fantasies, and that nearly 100 percent of people had had a sexual fantasy at some point during their life, with 80 percent of interviewees having had a negative fantasy. They also said that men fantasized about sex more often than women did.
Interestingly, women had pleasant sexual fantasies at higher frequency than men did. Men fantasize more frequently about exploratory activities like group sex and orgies, but only do so, according to the survey, “once a year.” The most unpleasant sexual activities for women were “being forced into having sex"; for this group of heterosexual men, it was homosexual sex.
Researchers next want to study whether negative or unpleasant sexual fantasies are dysfunctional for various sexual behaviors. In order to participate in the 93-question, 20-minute survey, one should be over 18 years old and in a relationship for the past six months and can be accessed here. (The survey is in Spanish, though, so enterprising individuals may want to use Google Translate, even at the risk of reading questions like “When you first see an attractive person, how strong is your sex?”) While researchers’ earlier survey may have been limited by its focus on heterosexual relationships, the upcoming poll seeks to rectify that problem by asking at least if respondents are in heterosexual or homosexual relationships.
The results of the study will be published in the Spanish-language journal Anales de Psicología.