Could a collection of women's sexual fantasies from the 70s still shock a reader in the Fifty Shades era?It sure can.Though it's easy to become desensitised after the first 100 or so pages of orgies, horses, dogs, whips and big black men.But telling those fantasies off as silly or deviant is exactly what this book goes in against.Your fantasies are your own, and while you risk scorn when sharing them with the world, and may experience a feeling of guilt as a consequence, ultimately it doesn't matter if it makes you feel good.What most surprised me about this book, other than the level of openness of these 70s women, other than the large apparent attraction of Alsatians (I learned a word!), and other than the large number of women already married with children and in a not-so-happy marriage by the time they're 22... was how touching some of these fantasies were.(No, not that kind of touching.)A lot of these fantasies seem to reflect a great yearning these women feel for tenderness and love. Many fantasies describe not sexual acts, but situations in which the woman is admired, told she's worth looking at and caring for. Some women just fantasise about walks on the beach. Other contributions that touched me in a way:- The woman, who was most definitely not a lesbian, but who often fantasised about being with a woman, and who often had sexual encounters with a lesbian friend of hers, which made me feel for that friend.- The man who wrote in to tell that his wife had no fantasies whatsoever thank you very much, and signed the letter in her name.- The woman who had been sexually abused in her childhood by a member of the school staff, and grew up to be a member of a school staff herself, and now abused her pupils in the same way. A sad vicious cycle.- The man who wrote in to share the fantasy of his now late wife, who confessed to him about fantasising about a certain actor. During sex they then acted out that fantasy, and the day after he went to buy an outfit reminiscent of that actor. This made his wife cry, as she had been afraid he actually wouldn't be able to look him in the eye anymore after the previous night. Singling out these fantasies probably says something about me in return, but I'll leave it at that.In short, this is a good bedside-table book, or train book, if you're not too much of a blusher.
Oh my good God, this book is filthy. A book warped with women's pseudo-psycho sexual weirdness. A book sooo vastly wrong and repellent to the natural karma of human sexual nature, it makes Fifty Shades read like a Teletubby romp. In fact, this book is sooo filthy you will find your hands blushing shamefully, just because you are holding it, they and perhaps other extremities will glow with guilt. Unless, you too, are pseudo-psycho sexually warped you will feel like you need to go straight to church and repent after reading it. Now let me get this point across clearly. It is sooo filthy that I wouldn't even tarnish my righteous catholic dignity by going into its content publicly, and it is sooo salaciously smutty that I dared not give it more than three stars because then family and acquaintances might assume I had the audacity to enjoy reading it. What? Never! That is, of course, impossible and just well, utterly utterly filthy! :)Retain an open mind if you read this book and never digest content in the presence of nuns or priests.. oh but wait, what page was that fantasy on again?Now lets see.. where can I get the sequel..
What do You think about My Secret Garden (2003)?
In turns titilating and downright boring, this was an eye opener in some ways. I know plenty of guys (myself included) with a long standing history of mentally going to the highlight reel of either past experience or fantasy to get them over the hump when they are having trouble finishing during sex. It really never occurred to me that women might do the same. Once I had the idea presented to me, it made perfect sense. The psuedo-scientific approach was very lacking in any kind of organization, short of allegorically, but the grouping was enough to know when you were about to need to do some skimming over the more disinteresting portions, so I guess there is that.One more eye opening thing that I got from this, was the PURE fantasy. I always thought of fantasies as someting you need to make come true. The fantasy for fantasy sake is another thing that just never popped into my head. Maybe the typical guy mind set of, "Oh you want something, lets get / do / find / buy whatever it is..." is just too ingrained in our heads, but I liked the idea. It made some of the more degrading mixed domination / beastiality much easier to stomache.
—Darth
[These notes were made in 1981:]. Naturally enough, I bought this out of prurient interest. And it is more or less what I expected - longish accounts of various types of erotic fantasy, linked with a facile tho' not by any means illiterate or vulgar commentary. It's printed on cheap paper, has a few typos (Brigid Brophy says no-one can bear to read pornography twice - hence it's never properly proof-read). It is not fiction; nor is it in any way scientific enough to be taken seriously as non-fiction. Yet, for all this, My Secret Garden has one purpose beyond the obvious. It is immensely reassuring. Those aspects of oneself which seemed most isolated, most perverse, have their echo in this book. One is not "sick" - or, if one is, one's in good company. (Note careful avoidance of first-person pronoun. Hypocrite!) And, of course, it was quite illuminating as to how far people will go in their fantasizing, although there is nothing here I haven't already met in the pages of Penthouse Forum. This book, however, lacks the almost flaunted speciousness of Forum's "reader contributions", and is in that degree more reassuring.
—Surreysmum
This book was groundbreaking in its time, but in a time where any fantasy is explicitly displayed on the internet, it's not as thrilling as it once was. Also, the author gets a little... exuberant about the effect of women's fantasy lives. Healthy fantasy and sex lives are important to an individual and a couple in a relationship. This book could possibly help a woman to feel empowered and unashamed of her own strange fantasies, I just don't think it could possibly have the impact it once did because that ground is already broken.
—Kristi
