What Exactly Is an Unusual Sexual Fantasy?

Abstract

Introduction Although several theories and treatment plans use unusual sexual fantasies (SF) as a way to identify deviancy, they seldom describe how the fantasies referred to were determined to be unusual. Aim The main goal of this study was to determine which SF are rare, unusual, common, or typical from a statistical point of view among a relatively large sample of adults recruited from the general population. A secondary goal was to provide a statistical comparison of the nature and intensity of sexual fantasies for men and women. This study also aims at demonstrating with both quantitative and qualitative analyses that certain fantasies often considered to be unusual are common. Methods An Internet survey was conducted with 1,516 adults (799 ♀; 717 ♂) who ranked 55 different SF and wrote their own favorite SF. Each SF was rated as statistically rare (2.3% or less), unusual (15.9% or less), common (more than 50%), or typical (more than 84.1% of the sample). Main Outcome Measures An extended version of the Wilson's Sex Fantasy Questionnaire with an open question. Results Only two sexual fantasies were found to be rare for women or men, while nine others were unusual. Thirty sexual fantasies were common for one or both genders, and only five were typical. These results were confirmed with qualitative analyses. Submission and domination themes were not only common for both men and women, but they were also significantly related to each other. Moreover, the presence of a single submissive fantasy was a significant predictor of overall scores for all SF in both genders. Conclusion Care should be taken before labeling an SF as unusual, let alone deviant. It suggested that the focus should be on the effect of a sexual fantasy rather than its content.

The Importance and Meaning of Sexual Fantasies in Intimate Relationships

“…Consistent with psychological studies in general, a large portion of fantasy studies have relied primarily on college student samples. However, even when more inclusive community-based samples are used, researchers continue to find that women prefer submissive sexual fantasies (Joyal et al 2015;Zurbriggen and Yost 2004).…”

Men Presenting With Sexual Thoughts of Children or Coercion: Flights of Fancy or Plans for Crime?

“…17,22]; however, the findings also indicate that sexual thoughts of children can be related to sexual offending. Whilst this suggests that sexual thoughts of children should be a 'flag' for clinicians, indicating an increased risk for sexual (re)offending, offending is not inevitable and the thoughts might not be causal; thus, these thoughts should be considered alongside other personal and social factors.…”

“…As some of the variables within the coding framework were multipleselection variables, which violate the assumption of independence, separate chi-squares were calculated for each code within the multiple-selection variable and a Bonferroni correction applied [52]. When conducting Pearson's chi-squares for contingency tables SEXUAL THOUGHTS OF CHILDREN OR COERCION 17 greater than 2x2, the adjusted standardized residuals (AR) were used to identify which cells were responsible for the significant chi-square value [51].…”

“…Typically, prior research has used long fantasy checklists [e.g. 9,10,17,20], providing insights into the prevalence of fantasies but nothing about their nature. Each checklist item is presented as a separate, discrete fantasy (e.g.…”

“…children might include pre-pubertal children or all people below the country's legal age of consent) [e.g. 11, 15,17], and sexual fantasies of coercing others might be operationalized with items on 'rape' (without a definition), non-consensual sex, or ambiguous references to 'threats' and 'force' [e.g. 9,15,18,19].…”