What Does The Research Say Are The Most Common Female Sexual Fantasies?

After an upsetting breakup and relationship counselling it was clear that my relationship of eight years ended due to my ex-partner and I having too many sexual differences. In an attempt to try and understand this better I have developed a keen interest into sexual psychology and have recently carried out research exploring the most common sexual fantasies shared between both men and women.

The research was derived mainly out of an article from the Independent which provided research from a group of scientists in Quebec who asked 1,517 Quebec adults to rank 55 separate sexual fantasies as well as describe their own personal favourite. While the research was extremely extensive and provided a great insight to what some of the most popular sexual fantasies are from around the world, it was only based in Quebec, and so I decided to do a little more research of our own and see how all the information stacks up against each other. As less is known about women’s sexual thoughts, desires and fantasies I decided to focus mainly on the female population.

The original research in Quebec, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, was conducted with 799 men and 718 women, 85.1% who identified as heterosexual, 3.6% as homosexual while 11.3% identified as neither. This found that the most common sexual fantasies among women were, in no particular order:

• 92.2% said that they like to feel romantic emotions during a sexual relationship
• 72.1% enjoyed giving fellatio
• 78.5% desired to take part in oral sex
• 81.7% wanted to have sex in an unusual place
• 86.4% said that atmosphere and location are important in their sexual fantasies
• 84.9% of women wanted to have sex in a romantic location
• 71.4% wanted to be masturbated by their partner
• 66.3% fantasised about having sex with someone that they know who isn’t their partner
• 64.6% wanted to be dominated sexually

The research also showed that 29% of women fantasied about being forced to have sex, 32% wanted to be photographed or filmed during sex, 36% enjoyed being spanked or whipped, 52% wanted to be tied up, 48% wanted to dominate someone sexually and 52% had sexual thoughts of having sex with a famous star or well-known person.

The research has become the basis of many blog posts, newspaper articles and newly-sparked sexual conversations around the world; it shows that women have a wide range of sexual desires just as men do - and in some cases are even kinkier than the men. It was this data that lead me to work with Tempt Me Tease Me to produce an infographic which explored the data in a visual way. Working with an online retailer has been very interesting as it has allowed me to pair up my research to actual buying behaviour here in the UK. This has given me an a greater insight into the differences between women and men. It’s clear from looking at the data and through my work with Tempt Me Tease Me that men have a greater variety of fantasies, whereas between 30% and 60% of women had certain fantasies, particularly those around submission, that they did not actually wish to come true. Women are also much more likely to include their partner in their sexual fantasies whereas the men were not. I found this in itself very interesting.

Cosmopolitan focused on a book published by Emily Dubberley titled Garden of Desires in their article on the eight most common female fantasies. The results were, in no particular order:

1. Women expressed a new desire to be dominant alongside the usual assumed submissiveness, partly sparked due to the Fifty Shades of Grey whirlwind. Women want to feel empowered both in and out of the bedroom, so it’s no surprise that this featured highly.
2. Wearing a (large) strap-on dildo featured heavily among women as well - something which didn’t feature in the research from Quebec.
3. Group sex fantasies were extremely popular - whether this be threesomes or full-blown group orgies. Women always expressed the wish to be the centre of attention when it came to these group sex scenarios, no matter how many people were involved. Some also said that the desire for this group sex came out of the idea of having sex without emotion.
4. Ever heard the saying ‘it’s not the size of the ship, it’s the motion of the ocean?’. Well, surprisingly, size doesn’t seem to matter. Many women aren't bothered about size, and for some a penis wasn’t even involved in their fantasies! Many said they liked to be splashed with water, get spanked or have a lesbian orgy.
5. Many women had fantasies that involved voyeurism - that is watching other people engage in sexual activities. This was similar to the research from Quebec, which found that 42.4% of women wanted to watch two women make love, while 31.8% wanted to watch someone undress without him or her knowing.
6. Something that didn’t feature in the research from Quebec however was paranormal passions. Many woman expressed fantasies that involved vampires, werewolves or some other creature that is from the fantasy world itself.
7. A slightly stranger fantasy was the desire to feed a lover to make them fat, or indeed being fattened up themselves.
8. Many women don’t feel that penetrative sex is the only thing that can equal a happy night in the bedroom, unlike the men, and many seem to desire exploring other areas with activities such as oral sex or clitoral stimulation.

This article seems to show different results to those that were presented in Quebec, and while it doesn’t list percentages it still shows the huge range of sexual fantasies that women have.

Finally I looked at this article from AskMen which says that women “are experts when it comes to dreaming up the sauciest of fantasies, and they don’t bother limiting themselves to the traditional”, and lists the top 10 female sex fantasies in numerical order:

1. Domination – I’m not talking about the women being dominated here, one of the most common fantasies that AskMen found, that fits in line with the research from Quebec, was that the women wanted to dominate their partner. She wants to be worshipped and have her partner begging her for attention, enjoying the control that comes with it.
2. Domination Part.2 - But of course, while the woman likes to dominate she also likes to do the dominating. She wants to be thrown around and pinned down; ultimately she wants to be owned.
3. The Teacher/Student Fantasy - Many women seemed to like the idea of dressing up, especially as schoolgirls. Tied in with this, they also expressed the wish to be spanked.
4. Stranger Sex - Many women, while not actually wanting to follow through with it, have expressed a desire to have sex with a total stranger. The research from Quebec found that only 19.8% of women desired this.
5. Threesome With Another Woman - This is becoming a much more common fantasy, and many of the women involved expressed a desire to watch their man engage with the other woman as well.
6. Threesome With Two Men - Less common than the previous point, this fantasy involves the woman being worshipped by two men with her as the centre of attention.
7. Voyeurism - As the two other pieces of research found, women do enjoy watching other people have sex. This might be watching complete strangers, the neighbours from across the road or even just watching her partner.
8. Force Fantasies - As the Quebec research found, and as I’ve included in my infographic, women seem to enjoy being forced into sex. It allows them to have the wild sex that they desire without having to feel guilty about it. I can’t condone this one for obvious reasons, unless its 100% consensual!
9. Exhibitionism - Many women have fantasied about that idea of exhibiting what they’ve got, although generally many are too body-conscious to make this fantasy into a reality.
10. Private Dancer - Lastly, many women desire to privately strip it all off for you, it’ll make them feel wanted seeing you enjoying yourself.

Again, while not as specific as the research that was conducted in Quebec, it bears many similarities but also some key differences. So what does this research tell us? Much of the other research is not as specific as that provided in Quebec - but it seems that all those involved wanted different things. It would be interesting to see the research that was conducted in Quebec to be replicated on a much larger scale across different populations, but one thing I know for certain is that women have fantasies that are just as wild as the men, maybe even more so in some cases.