Women's Sexual Fantasies 50 Years After Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden

Continuing Nancy Friday’s legacy of honest, erotic confessions.

In 1973, a book hit the shelves that shocked polite society, titillated feminists, and changed the cultural conversation around women and desire forever.

That book was My Secret Garden, and it wasn't fiction.

Nancy Friday, a journalist with a curious mind and a tape recorder, spent years collecting real women's sexual fantasies. What she discovered blew the lid off a centuries-old myth: that women didn't think about sex the way men did. That women were passive receivers of pleasure, rather than the architects of their own erotic kingdoms. That desire, when it came to women, was quiet, clean, and modest.

The fantasies in My Secret Garden were anything but. They were raw. Curious. Visceral. Messy. Some were tender and romantic. Others were wildly transgressive. A few were borderline disturbing. And that was the point.

One woman wrote about imagining herself licking a stranger's sweat off a subway pole. Another described watching her dog and thinking, what if? A third wrote about sneaking peeks at men's bulges and imagining the fruit beneath the cloth. These weren't cries for help. They were creative acts of reclamation, even rebellion.

Friday offered women the freedom to be honest—and they flooded her inbox with secret worlds they had never dared share.

Now, five decades later, we ask:

What do women fantasize about today?

And perhaps more importantly:

Why are we still afraid to talk about it?

The Revolutionary Context

The early 1970s were a time of profound social upheaval. The feminist movement was gaining momentum, the sexual revolution was challenging traditional morality, and women were demanding equality in every sphere of life. Yet when it came to sexuality, women's voices remained largely unheard. Medical texts portrayed female sexuality as passive and responsive. Popular culture depicted women as either pure or promiscuous, with little room for the complex reality of female desire.

Into this landscape stepped Nancy Friday, a young journalist with a radical idea: what if women's sexual fantasies were as rich, varied, and powerful as men's? What if the key to understanding female sexuality lay not in clinical studies or male perspectives, but in women's own words about their desires?

Her idea wasn't just provocative — it was explosive.

Friday didn't interview sexologists. She interviewed the secret selves of everyday women. Housewives, office workers, students, grandmothers. The women who cooked your lunch and balanced the books also had secret desires that were wild, dark, luminous, or deliciously weird.

Nancy famously wrote:

“It is a measure of how far women have come that they are willing to admit they have sexual fantasies at all.”

Fantasies Are Not Plans

Friday's approach was radical in its simplicity. Rather than conducting formal interviews or surveys, she invited women to share their fantasies through anonymous letters. No filter. No follow-up. Just the voice of desire, uncaged.

The response was overwhelming. Letters poured in from women across America, sharing fantasies that ranged from tender romantic scenarios to bold explorations of power, control, and forbidden attraction.

Some wanted to be ravished by strangers. Some wanted to be watched. Some wanted to take a whip to the patriarchy, literally.

And what Friday understood—what the culture still struggles to grasp—is this:

A fantasy is not a plan.

Just because someone fantasizes about being dominated doesn't mean they want to be hurt. A woman might imagine submission as a way to let go of control in a world that constantly demands she hold it together. Another might fantasize about seducing her boss not because she wants to ruin her career, but because power is sexy, and forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.

Fantasies are how the body-mind rehearses sensation, explores identity, and accesses parts of the self that don't get airtime in daily life.

They are private playgrounds for the soul.

What Women Still Want in 2025: The Themes That Remain

So what kinds of fantasies are women still having in 2025?

At Juicy Times, we've been listening. And while the cultural script has evolved—more acceptance, more education, more visibility—the fantasy currents remain deeply recognizable. Common themes include:

• Power & Control: Fantasies of being taken, restrained, or worshipped. Sometimes all three in the same dream.

• Voyeurism & Exhibitionism: Wanting to be watched. Or watching. Or imagining yourself doing something so shocking in public you'd never tell a soul.

• Taboo Attractions: From professors to priests, stepbrothers to strangers on the bus—the very fact that it's off-limits makes it hot.

• Multiple Partners: Whether it's a threesome or an orgy in a candle-lit mansion, the fantasy of being adored and devoured by many is timeless.

• Total Surrender: Not just physical surrender, but emotional surrender. Being completely known. Seen. Touched in the soul, not just the skin.

And then there are the deliciously weird ones: being objectified, worshipped, paraded, or even ignored.

Wanting to be someone else entirely: a courtesan, a goddess, a maid, a beast.

Fantasies about roleplay that blends tenderness with absurdity—a knight pledging allegiance between her legs, or a barista who kneels after spelling her name wrong.

These aren't deviations. They're declarations.

Her Secret Garden: A Modern Archive Of Women's Erotic Fantasies

A modern intimacy project Fruit & Flowers from New York created their own continuation of Friday's work: a living archive called Her Secret Garden.

It's an invitation for modern women to share their erotic dreams—anonymously, courageously, artfully. A few recent excerpts:

“We haven't even spoken outside of the class yet, but I see him every week. I imagine him pulling me into the coat closet after class. My legs still in yoga pants, his breath on my neck, both of us knowing we shouldn't…”

“I dream of lying in a field of flowers, blindfolded, hands tied in silk. One by one, masked lovers come. I don’t know their faces. I don’t want to. But each one knows my name.”

“I want to be read like a book. Touched like a sacred text. I want someone to kneel between my thighs like an altar. And stay there, in worship.”

These are not “dirty stories.” They are soul songs. They are the kind of stories that rarely get told — not because they don’t exist, but because women are taught to keep them hidden.

Friday cracked that door open. We’re walking through.

Why This Matters Now

Even today, more than half of women say they feel uncomfortable admitting they have sexual fantasies. Many have never spoken them aloud. Not to a partner. Not even to themselves.

This shame isn't biological. It's cultural. We've been conditioned to believe that good girls don't desire. That fantasies should be filtered, edited, beautified.

But the erotic mind doesn't care about filters. It thrives in the wilderness.

And when women reconnect with that wilderness—even through a single fantasy—they come home to themselves.

Friday's legacy wasn't just about titillation. It was about truth-telling. Giving voice to the untamed, unapologetic, unconstrained parts of womanhood.

We need that more than ever.

Not just in the bedroom, but everywhere. Because a woman who can speak her truth in pleasure can speak it in business, in politics, in relationships, and in leadership.

Our erotic imagination is not frivolous. It's sacred.

Ready to Explore Your Erotic Fantasies?

Step Into the Garden

If you've ever had a fantasy that felt too strange, too dark, too much—you're not alone.

That's exactly why Her Secret Garden exists.

But this isn't just another submission form. It's a sacred passage where your deepest desires transform into art, community, and healing.

We've created an anonymous pathway for your fantasies to enter the world safely, beautifully, and without shame. If you've ever whispered a dream to yourself and wished someone could hold it with reverence, you've found your sanctuary.

A Sacred Journey in Five Steps

Step 1: Begin with a Sacred Whisper

Meet Confess.AI—your private, compassionate companion designed to help you explore and articulate your deepest desires without judgment. Whether you prefer to type your thoughts or speak them aloud, this sacred guide will help you process the emotions behind your fantasy, transform raw desire into beautiful expression, and prepare your story for anonymous sharing. No judgment. No exposure. No rush. Just your truth, gently blooming.

Step 2: Enter the Anonymous Garden Circle

Join our private community—a sacred space where women worldwide gather to share, witness, and celebrate each other's erotic truths in complete anonymity. Create your anonymous identity, enter with the sacred phrase "her secret garden," and you'll be welcomed into our private submission sanctuary. This isn't social media. This is sisterhood.

Step 3: Your Fantasy Is Received with Reverence

Once shared, your story enters our curation process—where each submission is read with the care it deserves. If your fantasy is selected for transformation, it may bloom into a poetic short story in Juicy Times, an intimate AI-voiced performance, a visual multimedia experience, or social content that inspires other women. All transformations happen anonymously. Your courage becomes art. Your vulnerability becomes healing.

Step 4: Witness and Be Witnessed

You're now part of our bloom-circle—a living community of women reclaiming their right to desire. In this sacred space, you can read other women's fantasies as they unfold, offer gentle reflections or witness in loving silence, discover you're not alone in your wild, tender imagination, and find inspiration for your own continued blooming. This is where shame transforms into celebration. Where secrets become sacred stories. Where you remember: your desires are holy.

Step 4: Return Whenever You're Called

The garden never closes. Your sanctuary awaits. Return when new fantasies rise within you, when you need to witness other women's courage, when your soul craves authentic connection, or when you want to see how your story has inspired others. We'll be here, tending the garden, holding space for your truth.

Your Invitation Awaits

Fifty years after Nancy Friday first gave women permission to speak their desires, we continue that sacred legacy. But now, instead of letters in the mail, we have AI companions to guide your exploration and anonymous communities to hold your truth.

Your imagination isn't broken. It's blooming.

Your desires aren't dirty. They're divine.

Your fantasies aren't shameful. They're sacred.

The garden is waiting for you to plant your truth and watch it grow into something beautiful that might heal another woman's heart.

🌸 Begin Your Journey with Confess.AI

🌿 Enter the Geneva Garden Circle

Let's keep the garden growing, one sacred story at a time.

Her Secret Garden is a project by Fruit & Flowers, continuing Nancy Friday's revolutionary work of giving women permission to speak their desires without shame. All submissions remain anonymous, and participation is always voluntary and self-directed.