Women`s empowerment in the workplace is freeing them to have increasingly explicit sexual fantasies, says Nancy Friday, author of ”Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women`s Sexual Fantasies” (Simon & Schuster, $22).
Friday, who documented women`s hidden desires in a 1973 book, ”My Secret Garden,” says women`s fantasies are changing: During the `60s, women thought mainly about being seduced or raped by dominant men, but today, women are just as likely to fantasize about being the seducer, overpowering a man to reach their own sexual gratification.
”Women on Top” is a compilation of letters written since 1980 mostly by women in their 20s and solicited by Friday.
”Prior to the `70s, most women didn`t even admit to having fantasies,”
Friday says.
As more women entered the workplace, she says, ”real life” strengthened their fantasies, helping those thoughts become more explicitly erotic, giving features to the once-faceless male seducer.
Friday says women`s fantasies are increasingly about being in control, being free to take part in activities once considered taboo.
”For the majority of the women in this book, it`s in their minds that they explore,” she says. ”These days, it`s the safest sex around.”