Sex fantasies tap imagination

Men thinking more about made up characters than friends, coworkers

By STEVE TILLEY, Sun Media

Last Updated: 5th October 2008, 3:09am

Calling out the wrong womans name during sex is the absolute, ultimate, no-going-back romance killer. And if the romance is the only thing that gets killed when you shout Oh, Jennifer! instead of Oh, Amanda!, you got off easy.

Luckily, this is the kind of thing we usually hear about in tales passed along by hapless male friends, rather than through firsthand experience. Not so fortunately, that may just be because a lot of men are biting their tongues so they dont slip up.

Sun Medias Great Canadian Male Sex Survey reveals that most men have at some time or another thought about someone other than their partner while having sex.

Fantasies about friends, coworkers and imaginary characters (Wonder Woman? Princess Leia? A female Hobbit?) win out over celebrities, a member of the partners family and the partners coworkers.

Not that its going to be much comfort for a woman to know that her man is thinking about his secretary instead of a greased-up Jessica Alba while theyre bumping uglies. (Although for all we know, shes picturing Daniel Craigs abs instead of your flabby gut.)

But to take the glass half-full perspective, 49% of the 1,026 heterosexual men who took part in the Sun Media-Leger Marketing poll responded that they dont know if theyve thought of someone else during sex. Lets choose to take that as a simple no, shall we?

The thing about sexual fantasy is when people hear that term, they usually think of imagining a famous person or some elaborate scenario where someone is dressed as Tarzan or Jane, said Cory Silverberg, co-owner of Torontos Come As You Are sex shop and a certified sexuality educator.

In fact, from a sexual health perspective, sexual fantasizing is any thoughts about sex that arouse you, Silverberg said. Using that definition, most of us fantasize most about people weve already had sex with, because remembering a sexual act or encounter thats a sexual fantasy.

So that friend hes thinking about in the sack might actually be an ex. This just isnt making us look any better, is it?

Moving right along, and hopefully on a more enlightening note, most men dont care if their partner gains some weight during a relationship. In fact, 27% of the guys surveyed said 25 pounds was OK, and 24% said any amount of weight gain is fine. Maybe were not so shallow after all.

The single ideal of the skinny blonde woman with large breasts just isnt true, Silverberg said. All you have to do is look around and see people in loving, sexually satisfying relationships and see that we all like a wide variation, including in weight and size.

And speaking of wide variation, men want their ladies to be good in bed, but not at the expense of the women having gained those skills through lots of experience in the field.

Only 9% of men said theyd want their partners to have previously had multiple partners with greater sexual experience, versus 37% who preferred that their gals previous relationships were long-term with emotional depth.

Besides, having sex with a lot of people doesnt necessarily mean youre good at it.

People like that kind of sex because its adventurous and its new, but its not always that great in terms of intensity or technique, Silverberg said.

If you have sex with someone seven or eight times, hopefully by the seventh or eighth time theyre going to say, I dont quite like it when you squeeze that so tight or bite me there.

And by then, itll be a lot easier to remember her name.

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This article reminded me of the thread created earlier about loving/dumping your partner after weight gain.