Mental Health

Study: Men and Women Have Same Sexual Fantasies

By Staff Reporter | Update Date: Jul 18, 2012 01:38 PM EDT

It is believed that men think about sex more frequently, but are both genders fantasizing about the same thing? That's what a new research is saying. 

According to University of Granada researchers, both, men and women have intimate or romantic fantasies involving their partner or loved one, though men fantasize more frequently than women.

Researchers observed 2250 Spanish people  aged between 18 and 73 years, who had maintained a heterosexual relationship for at least 6 months and concluded that nearly all men and women have experienced a pleasant sexual fantasy in their life, while about 80 percent of the interviewees have experienced a negative or unpleasant sexual fantasy sometime in life.

The study showed that women have pleasant romantic fantasies more frequently than men -a few times a month. Men, however, fantasize more frequently about exploratory sexual activities as group sex and seek new sensations as "being promiscuous," "being a swinger," "participating in an orgy." 

The frequency of these fantasies is "sometime in life" or "once a year. The most unpleasant sexual fantasies are those associated with sexual submission. Women were found to think more frequently than men in "being forced to have sex" - they fantasize about it at least once in life. However, the most frequent negative fantasies in men are associated with homosexual sex.

This is the first study to approach sexual fantasies as positive and negative thoughts in Spain and the results will be published in the Spanish journal Anales de Psicología.

Currently, these researchers intent to elucidate whether negative or unpleasant sexual fantasies are dysfunctional for the development of a number of sexual behaviors. On such purpose, they are looking for adult people (over 18 years of age) that have had a relationship of at least 6 months.To participate in this study, you only have to anonymously answer a set of questions which confidentiality is guaranteed. The survey is available at https://encuestasexualidad.ugr.me/

The University of Granada researchers point out that having sexual fantasies "favors some aspects as sexual desire and arousal". In therapeutic terms, researchers think that it is not only the presence of lack of sexual fantasies what should be considered, but also the patient's attitude towards them.

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