Actor Gillian Anderson has collected anonymous women’s deepest sexual desires for a new book. In this extract, she introduces tales of lust and longing
• Read an interview with Gillian Anderson: ‘We’re not as open about sex as we imagine’
I was barely five years old in 1973, when the novelist Nancy Friday’s cult classic, My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies, began making its way on to the bookshelves and into the handbags of millions of women. What Friday’s book revealed was that – unconstrained by assumed social conventions, self-consciousness, or perhaps the fear of making our partner uncomfortable – in our imagination we can indulge in our deepest, most transgressive desires. It was provocative, even revolutionary, at the start, and then it became required reading, a global bestseller.
I read My Secret Garden for the first time when I was preparing for my role as the sex therapist Dr Jean Milburn in the TV series Sex Education. I am a woman, with a sex life and fantasies of my own, and I was curious to know how women’s deepest desires had changed in the 50 years since the book was published. In which ways would a diverse group of other women’s fantasies be similar to, or different from, mine? I sent an invitation to women across the globe to share the sexual fantasies, thoughts and feelings that so many of us hold in our heads but so rarely speak out loud. A chance to gather a new book of fantasies for a new generation.
