Gillian Anderson: I was surprised by shame of sharing sexual fantasies
Gillian Anderson tells me she is “very comfortable” talking about sex. The clues were obvious even before we met to talk about her new book, Want, a collection of women’s sexual fantasies.
The actor - once deemed the sexiest woman in the world by FHM magazine - wore a dress covered in vulvas to an awards ceremony and has a soft drinks brand called the G Spot.
She’ll forever be associated with frank discussions about intimate activities, after her role as a sex therapist in the hit Netflix show Sex Education.
But Anderson says even she “struggled” to express her own sexual fantasy in words for the book, as requested by her publishers.
“Suddenly describing the imagery that’s been in my head for a while and the action of doing that, added a level of intimacy that I wouldn't have expected, and I wouldn’t have expected myself to be so shy around it."
Anderson’s fantasy is hidden amongst 174 in a book she curated that is not for the prudish.
The actor, who first made her mark as Dana Scully in the TV show The X Files, and her publishers received 1,800 anonymous submissions from women around the world.
The letters were whittled down and collated into 13 chapters with titles including "To Be Worshipped", "Exploration", "Power and Submission" and "The Watchers and the Watched".
The contributors were self-selecting and anonymous detailing only sexual identity, age, income, relationship status.
Clinical psychologist Professor Susan Young, who's read the book, tells me "sexual fantasies are a healthy and normal aspect of sexual expression, provided they do not cause distress and harm".
They allow people to explore “in a safe, private and controlled environment - their minds”.
Some of the fantasies in Want are moving - the bereaved woman who craves touch and mourns the secondary loss of sexual relations. “I do wish there were more discussion of grief and spouse loss and sexuality,” she writes.
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Others are almost pastiches - a fantasy about “very hot, sensual, passionate sex” with Harry Styles.
One contributor, whose orthodox religion forbids women from stepping up to the altar, fantasises about getting intimate on an altar in an abandoned church.
Anderson describes the stories as “honest and raw and intimate and beautiful”, adding: “We’ve got letters fantasising about having sex with strangers and talking about being turned on by the idea of voyeurism."
“What I was most interested in was the joy and the enjoyment that the women had clearly in writing, how much it opened them up to understanding themselves more, it seemed. Ultimately, this is not my book. This is the book of every woman who contributed."
Want is a 21st Century take on another collection of women’s fantasies, My Secret Garden, published in 1973. The journalist Nancy Friday’s groundbreaking book became a global bestseller, the first time female desires had been made so public.
Fifty-one years after My Secret Garden, Anderson says she was “surprised” how much shame there still is around talking about sex and sharing sexual fantasies with friends or partners.
