#sexual fantasy
I want you to do that to me!
What does it sound like when you have sex? Is there any dirty talk? What about panting, moaning, and/or grunting? While people vary in their personal preferences for erotic sounds (both hearing them and making them), research shows that, on average, people tend to find noisier sex to be more arousing.
Noise is often part of our sexual fantasies, too. In fact, in the survey of more than 4,000 Americans’ sex fantasies that formed the basis for my book Tell Me What You Want, I found that 9 in 10 people reported having fantasies that involved dirty talk.
So how can dirty talk and other erotic noises enhance sex? Check out the video below to learn more about what research in this area has found.
Watch more videos on sex and relationships here.
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Video Created by: Katie Adams
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“I felt disgusted, but also very satisfied.”
I just heard this line on an NPR podcast that had absolutely nothing to do with sex—but it really got me thinking because I’ve heard people say similar things about sex on several occasions. Specifically, they fantasized about or performed a sex act that definitely triggered feelings of disgust, but that also simultaneously turned them on.
To many, this might sound paradoxical. After all, disgust is an emotion that usually leads us to avoid something, right? So why does disgust sometimes produce the opposite effect in which we are attracted rather than repelled?
In thinking about this, my brain went to a lot of places—so many, in fact, that I turned off that podcast and just started writing this!
The first thing that comes to mind is that we’ve long known that there is a link between sexual arousal and disgust. Specifically, sexual arousal can reduce disgust, but disgust can also reduce sexual arousal.
For example, as I’ve written before on the blog, our disgust response tends to go down when we’re sexually aroused (see here and here). In other words, things that we might normally find to be gross become less so when we’re already turned on. This makes sense from the standpoint that sex itself can be kind of messy when we’re exchanging body fluids and so forth, so maybe it’s adaptive for us to be less triggered by disgust when we’re having sex.
But at the same time, if you’re already grossed out about something, it can be harder to get in the mood for sex. Evolutionary psychologists think this is about pathogen avoidance: specifically, if a disgust response is triggered, it should lead us to avoid sex in the interest of protecting our health and fertility (e.g., avoiding potential STDs).
While fascinating, neither of these lines of research really tell us why disgust itself sometimes becomes a turn-on. So what’s up with that? I can think of at least three possible explanations.
It might be a learned behavior
As I mentioned above, we know that disgust tends to go down to some degree when we’re aroused—but after we orgasm, that disgust response can come back pretty quickly. I mean, that’s part of the reason why people are often so quick to turn off porn after they’ve orgasmed. They start to feel grossed out by what they’re watching.
So maybe it’s the case that if your disgust response comes back really quickly while you’re still experiencing the pleasure of orgasm that some people start to learn an association between disgust and sexual pleasure.
You can think of this as a conditioning effect: feeling disgusted itself can potentially become rewarding if it’s repeatedly paired with something pleasurable and positive.
It might be more about the appeal of the taboo than anything
Another possible explanation is that disgusting things are also often taboo. We’ve all been told not to do gross things at one time or another. But when you tell people not to do something, that sometimes makes them want to do it even more.
This is a fundamental principle of human sexuality known as the Erotic Equation: attraction + obstacles = excitement. So if you have even a slight inkling to do something disgusting, being told not to do it can increase your interest in it.
As I’ve found in my own research, taboos are one of the most popular themes in our sexual fantasies. So this might not be so much about the fact that something is disgusting; rather it might be more about the fact that it’s taboo.
Sexual taboos might also be especially appealing to people high in sensation seeking tendencies, who need more potent stimuli in order to get aroused in the first place. For them, doing something taboo amps up the excitement factor.
It might be about attraction to power play
Yet another possibility is that doing something disgusting—or being made to do something disgusting by a partner—can be a form of submission, masochism, and/or humiliation.
Think of it this way: there can be a certain pain that accompanies doing something disgusting. But if you’re turned on by pain, then doing something disgusting can potentially become sexually arousing in and of itself.
So through this lens, disgusting sexual acts might sometimes be a vehicle for enacting fantasies or desires about BDSM or power play.
Takeaways
These are just the thoughts that come to mind off the top of my head, so it could be that there are other explanations I’m not thinking of. It’s also potentially the case that there could be more than one explanation and that disgust might become sexually arousing to different people for different reasons.
As I often like to say, human sexuality is complex! And adding further complexity to this is that disgust in general is a little different for everyone. For some, disgust is easily triggered across situations (they have what we call high trait-level disgust); for others, their threshold for disgust is much higher.
That said, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. Have you ever been turned on by something that you also found to be disgusting? What is it about that disgusting thing that is/was arousing to you? Feel free to share your thoughts below!
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BDSM (which stands for bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism) is one of the most popular sexual fantasies and a significant number of people report having engaged in BDSM acts before. Interest in BDSM appears to have risen in recent years and, at the time time, so has scientific interest. In this post, we’ll review 5 of the key things research has uncovered about BDSM.
1.) There isn’t just one thing that draws people to BDSM—in fact, there are at least 8 possible reasons! For some, it seems to be a lifelong orientation, whereas for others, BDSM interest emerges later in life in response to some experience or to meet some need (such as seeking balance, or coping with the pain of chronic illness).
2.) BDSM isn’t always about sex. Research on kinksters finds that BDSM tends to have sexual elements more often than not—but it’s a non-sexual experience for at least some individuals, with some people deriving personal or other meaning from BDSM. Also, some people who are asexual are drawn to kink, too.
3.) People’s interest in BDSM seems to change with age. In my own research on sexual fantasies, I find that interest in BDSM is actually highest among young adults (those in their 20s) and that it tends to be less common among older adults; however, BDSM fantasies are relatively common in every age group. Why might interest in BDSM change with age? One possibility is that it might be related, in part, to personality shifts that happen as we get older—and those shifts might predispose us to having different sexual interests. Learn more about this idea here.
4.) People who practice BDSM have relationships that are just as happy and healthy as everyone else. Many people (including some sex therapists) have questioned whether you can be into BDSM and have a healthy relationship—however, the research shows that consensual BDSM doesn’t impair relationship functioning or undermine relationship happiness, so let’s put this myth to rest.
5.) Exploring BDSM can boost sexual satisfaction. One of the biggest things that distinguishes the most from the least sexually satisfied couples is that the happy ones are mixing it up and trying new things—and that includes exploring their kinkier side. Research has found that sexually satisfied men and women are 2-3 times more likely to have tried BDSM compared to those who are sexually dissatisfied.
Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click herefor more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and PsychologyonFacebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTubeandInstagram.
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Somnophilia refers to a sexual interest in which someone is turned on by the idea of having sex with a person who is sleeping—or being asleep and receiving sexual attention from someone else. I recently wrote an article exploring what we know about how common this sexual interest is and what somnophilia fantasies look like—but in this article, we’re going to take a deeper dive into the psychology behind it.
A recent study sought to explore how interest in different forms of somnophilia (consensual vs. non-consensual scenario and active vs. passive role) are related to a range of other sexual interests in an online survey of 437 adults.
One of the questions they explored was whether there is a potential connection between somnophilia (specifically, the kind that involves taking on an active role with a non-consenting partner) and necrophilia (a sexual interest in dead people).
I hadn’t previously thought about how these interests might be linked, but it makes intuitive sense. For example, as I’ve discussed before, the single most common reason reported for necrophilia is a desire to have an partner who will not resist or reject you. Having sex with a person who is sleeping and does not wake up would offer another way of fulfilling that kind of desire, right?
Through this lens, then, somnophilia—the non-consensual type—and necrophilia may both be about attraction to passive partners who are unable to reject one’s advances. Alternatively, it may be that somnophilia is a stand-in or substitute for necrophilia in some cases, given that the former may be seen as more feasible way than the latter .
Consistent with this idea, the researchers did find a link between interest in necrophilia and interest in non-consensual somnophilia, which suggests that whatever psychological factors underlie necrophilia could also be what drives certain forms of somnophilia.
The researchers also looked at whether non-consensual somnophilia is related to interest in non-consensual sex more broadly (known as biastophilia)—and, indeed, there was also a connection there. So that could be another motivating factor for some.
And, yet another connection that emerged was between somnophilia interest and having more dominant and sadistic fantasies—but this link appeared primarily for the active, consensual somnophilia scenarios. Thus, when somnophilia is motivated by BDSM, it’s not about wanting to abuse/harm someone or about fear or rejection—it’s about using sleep as a vehicle for establishing a consensual dominant-submissive dynamic.
Consistent with this idea, among those who reported interest in passive somnophilia (that is, being asleep while someone else has sex with you), this was linked to having more fantasies about submission and masochism—as well as more fantasies about being “forced” to have sex (i.e., consensual non-consent fantasies).
This study doesn’t provide insight into every possible origin of somnophilia fantasies—it’s possible that interest could be motivated by other factors, too. And the motives are probably very different in cases of somnophilia where the sleeping partner wakes up and continues sexual activity (i.e., Sleeping Beauty Syndrome), which this study did not explore. Also, it doesn’t shed light on which motivations are most common, although it is worth pointing out that interest in consensual somnophilia was more common than the non-consensual forms, which would suggest that ties to necrophilia and biastophilia may not be the main drivers of this.
It’s also worth pointing out that there were some gender differences in this study, with men being more interested than women in taking on an active role in the scenario; however, men and women did not differ in their interest in taking on a passive role.
With all of that said, the results of this research suggest that the psychological roots of somnophilia—like most other sexual fantasies—are diverse. Different people can be drawn to it for very different reasons; however, in exploring the underlying motivations, it is essential to avoid looking at somnophilia as just one thing and to consider the role people are taking (active vs. passive) and whether or not consent is present.
Somnophilia is often discussed in the popular media in the context of sexual abuse—and, indeed, it is abusive when consent is not present. However, given that non-consensual somnophilia interest is less common than the consensual type, this suggests that somnophilia in general may not necessarily be indicative of a proclivity toward sexual offending.
Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click herefor more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and PsychologyonFacebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTubeandInstagram.
To learn more about this research, see: Deehan, E. T., & Bartels, R. M. (2021). Somnophilia: Examining its various forms and associated constructs. Sexual Abuse, 33(2), 200-222.
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Some people are turned on by the idea of having sex with a partner who is sleeping—or being asleep and receiving sexual attention from someone else. This sexual interest is known as somnophilia, and it’s a subject I’ve been increasingly asked about by journalists, often in relation to stories about sexual assault. However, speaking from a scientific perspective, there hasn’t been much to say about this because there’s almost no research on the subject, in part, because it has been assumed to be a pretty rare phenomenon.
So how common is somnophilia, and what do somnophilia fantasies look like?
Before we go on, I should mention that the terms somnophilia and “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome” are often used interchangeably to refer to arousal from the idea of sex with a sleeping person. However, some psychologists have characterized Sleeping Beauty Syndrome as a specific type of somnophilia in which arousal is increased by the sleeping person waking up during sex. In other words, Sleeping Beauty Syndrome is just one form of somnophilia—other forms exist that do not involve the sleeping person awakening.
We really have no idea exactly how common somnophilia fantasies are because it’s not something that has been included in many sex surveys—but here’s what we know:
In a 2015 study of 1,516 adults surveyed online [1], participants were asked whether they had fantasized about “sexually abusing a person who is drunk, asleep, or unconscious.” In total, 22.6% of men and 10.8% of women reported having had this fantasy.
However, this question wording conflates sleep with intoxication and is framed in terms of “abuse,” meaning it focused only on non-consensual acts. It also did not ask whether people had fantasized about someone else having sex with them while sleeping. Thus, I’d be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from these numbers because the question isn’t optimized for assessing prevalence of somnophilia fantasies. However, the findings suggest that having ever had a somnophilia fantasy of some type before probably isn’t all that rare.
However, for somnophilia to be one’s preferred or favorite fantasy content is a different story. In the survey of 4,175 Americans’ sexual fantasies I conducted for my book Tell Me What You Want, I did not ask specifically about somnophilia fantasies because they weren’t on my radar at the time; however, I did ask people to write out their favorite fantasy of all time in their own words. So I went back and performed a search for “sleep” in those fantasy narratives and looked at each instance that came up.
Sorting through the responses to pull out the somnophilia fantasies was honestly kind of a pain because a lot of people mention sleep in their fantasies—but the vast majority weren’t talking about anything remotely related to somnophilia. Most of the sleep mentions consisted of people talking about either (1) wanting to “sleep with” a specific person (i.e., using “sleep” as a synonym for “sex”) or (2) falling asleep after sex (often in the arms of their lover).
So when I narrowed down the responses, I could only identify about 20 folks whose fantasies could be characterized as somnophilia or some variant of it. In other words, we’re only talking about one-half of one percent of the total sample. This would suggest that, while it may not be uncommon for people to have ever had the thought or fantasy of somnophilia, it is rare for it to represent someone’s favorite fantasy of all time.
To give you a better idea of what the somnophilia fantasies looked like, here are a few examples. Many took the form of Sleeping Beauty Syndrome—but it was more common for people to fantasize about being awakened while someone was having sex with them than to fantasize about awakening someone else with sex:
“My boyfriend comes to me while sleeping and awakens me to oral pleasure.”
“I awake to the sucking of both of my tits and tongue on my clit. What is going on? How can that be? I don’t care. It feels so good.”
“My favorite sexual fantasy is about me and a certain someone. He comes in my bedroom while I’m sleeping and wakes me up by running his hands over my body, paying special attention to my nether regions. I wake up. We make out. I undress him slowly, kissing him and licking him all along the way.”
“While I’m still asleep and relaxed, I fantasize that my partner would begin to caress me softly all over my body and kissing me in various places while I’m still asleep. Then I wish he would proceed to stimulate my clitoris and vaginal parts with a hand job and later oral job. I would want him to continue until I reach climax and orgasm. After that I would like to continue with penetrating sex and I want it deep.”
“To be sleeping in my bed alone with the door closed and for my partner to pretend to sneak up on me and force himself on me. Although I would know it was him all along, the sensation of being a complete victim of someone else sexual desires would turn me on like crazy.”
“I’m asleep and one or more women—usually my wife and a friend of hers or mine—have decided to have some fun and start taking advantage of me in my sleep until I wake up. Sometimes, it’s complete strangers. Sometimes they tie me up while I’m still asleep and force me to perform for them. If it’s just one woman, then when I wake up, I dominate them for taking advantage of me in my sleep. Mainly it involves being desired and wanted so badly that the partners will use every advantage to have me that they can.”
What you can see in some of these fantasies are themes of sexual submission—there’s a BDSM component to many of them, with being asleep representing a way to give up control. For some, that may be part of the appeal of the fantasy. For others, however, it may be more about a partner having overwhelming desire for them—a partner who starts having sex with you in your sleep may find you to be irresistible. Interestingly, in pretty much all of the fantasies where people described a partner having sex with them while sleeping, the individual woke up at some point and continued the interaction.
Here are a few examples of somnophilia fantasies from the other perspective—people who fantasized about having sex with a sleeping partner:
“I would love to go into my sister-in-law’s room while she is asleep, slowly pull the covers off her, and uncross her legs slowly. I kiss her through her panties and smell her luscious juices as she gets wetter. I watch her morning in pleasure like she is having a sex dream.”
“While he’s asleep, I begin sucking him. As soon as he wakes up, he’s hard and I start riding him as he’s wiping sleep from his eyes.”
“I love any sort of thought of domination, humiliation, and control. My favorite fantasies involve mind control or sleep. I can describe them all, but they involve me being in complete control of the woman and her doing whatever I want.”
“Coming home late after playing hockey, my wife is laying naked in our bed as she always does. Seeing the lovely woman sleeping peaceful and silent gives me the strong desire to have some fun while she sleeps. So I crawl onto the bed and start kissing my way up my wife’s silky smooth legs. Licking, nibbling, caressing up past her soft thighs to the warm delicious flower between her long beautiful legs. Slowly I place my mouth then tongue onto the softest flesh I know. Within a few minutes, I’m feeling her body responding to my mouth and the honey starts to flow into my waiting mouth…In her sleep she now places her hands on my head and pushes me into her swollen wet flower. I continue, hoping she does not wake…She pulls my head into her tight and rides the waves of pleasure over and over as she cums…Her hands leave my head and I move to lay beside her, cuddling and falling asleep till morning. Morning comes and she tells me of this strange and wonderful dream she had. Saying it felt so real. I just smile and think of the next time it may happen.”
Interestingly, in these fantasies, most did not involve the sleeping partner waking up. People talked about their partners becoming aroused—and, in some cases, experiencing it as a sex dream. In other words, they seemed to want their partner to experience pleasure and to have the sexual sensations transferred over into their dream content.
As you can see, there can also be some BDSM components to these fantasies (i.e., having complete control over someone)—and there can also be taboo elements (e.g., having sex with someone you’re not supposed to), perhaps with sleep being seen as a way of carrying out a taboo act without anyone else knowing.
With all of that said, somnophilia and Sleeping Beauty Syndrome are not common when you look at people’s favorite fantasy of all time. However, among those who are aroused by the idea, there appear to be very different factors that draw them to the fantasy. And while somnophilia fantasies are frequently discussed in the context of sexual assault in the popular media, people’s descriptions of these fantasies (at least in the data I have) don’t necessarily seem to be about the desire to abuse another person for the most part, with many involving themes of mutual pleasure.
Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click herefor more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and PsychologyonFacebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTubeandInstagram.
[1] Joyal, C. C., Cossette, A., & Lapierre, V. (2015). What exactly is an unusual sexual fantasy? The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 12, 328-340. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12734
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Advice Please.
If I wanted to express a sexual fantasy to someone what’s the best way to go about it?
Msg me if you can help ✌
Reblog if: you have a fantasy of having sex with a friends girlfriend or boyfriend
A (FICTIONAL?) STORY. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY. Most of us enjoy sexual fantasies, situations that arouse us erotically when we think about them, even things such as castration or a clit head being cut off, perhaps even imagining it happening to us, but it is important to keep it there, a thought that you find sexually arousing, it should never become a reality, and if actual play is involved, it is important to know where to stop, before any permanent damage is done!
PMG never recommends or condones any permanent mod such as cutting off a clit head, but may report on such mods that have been done. The younger you are, the more important it is that you never do anything permanent, as you may not really understand what you are doing and will have a long time to regret it afterwards.
Here we have a story from a girl who did just that, had her clit head cut off and now regrets it. True or not, it should act as a warning to anyone considering doing something similar.
Because it would require uninterested people to scroll down for ever to get past it, I am only posting a short extract, to read the whole story you will need to go to the link provided below.
EXTRACT:
“Sometimes you do stupid things when you are young. Wish I could undo this.
So this is a story about what life can turn out like it you make a really stupid choice when you are too young to understand what you’re doing. I did, and I definitely regret it. This is a true story, unfortunately, which I don’t really expect you to believe.”
“… We were going to pierce my clit. We had done it before, with small needles. This time, we were going to use a big needle, so we could pull on it. We put string around the needle, and pushed a cork over each end. The other end of the string went around a piece of metal pipe from the radiator. I sat, knees up and feet together on the floor in the bathroom. Using my feet, I pushed away from the wall and pulled the string, which pulled a lot on my clit. It stood out quite a bit. Then, we started cutting. The plan was to go all around, in a circle. We started at the top, down the left, first just a tiny cut down through the hood and to the base. As I pulled on the string, more and more tissue came out, that seemed to stop the bleeding. Then, the same, down the right. I was running totally on adrenaline. We didn’t speak. Mike started to cut along the bottom, but I wasn’t ready for that.. it hurt so much more than I expected to cut into the base of the clit. I recoiled away from the knife, but held onto the string, gripping so tight… he cut again, and for a few seconds it got really intense, but eventually I felt no tension anymore. I looked down and blood began to gush out. I held a towel and Mike lit the cigar.. we pressed it in to stop the bleeding. …”
PMG says definitely do not try this at home, or anywhere else!
Remember that anything you do as a result of seeing it on one of my blogs, you do entirely at your own risk. Always do good research and get professional advice.
Link to the Original Poster for the full story HERE.
LATER NOTE: Oh dear! This post has produced more critical “Replies” than anything I have ever posted before!
Yes, the story is just that, a story, PURE FICTION, the author’s name is “afabiano“, as you will see if you follow the link to the full version.
Yes, my disclaimers and warnings were excessive, and evidently annoying to some, though perhaps worth it if they discourage anyone from seriously thinking of going down that particular road.
Yes, the idea (in the story) that you could get the whole structure of the clit out, or even an appreciable part of it, by pulling hard on the clit head is absolute rubbish.
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