This toy was definitely designed
Women on Top sees Nancy Friday, groundbreaking author of
My Secret Garden, return to the topic that first made her famous - women's sexual fantasies.
Written almost twenty years after My Secret Garden, Women on Top follows much the same formula. Friday has interviewed a slew of women who anonymously submitted their favorite
sexual fantasies. She presents them in all their raw, uncensored glory (with a few pseudo-psychological wisdoms thrown in during the process.)
Despite having such a similar concept, Women on Top is actually very different to My Secret Garden and it's sequel,
Forbidden Fantasies. This is because the twenty years between books has seen the world women inhabit change entirely - and their sexual fantasies reflect that.
Sexual liberation, equality in the workplace and a move away from the fantasy of woman as sex-object, wife and mother means that women dream of different things now. That alone makes Women on Top a fascinating book to compare to the original.
That being said, the hundreds of sexual fantasies Friday has collected prove to be somewhat lackluster compared to the raw and gritty fantasies of 1973's My Secret Garden.
Maybe we've all become desensitized to erotica due to the popularity of porn. Maybe the popularity of porn has meant these women's fantasies start to resemble it. Whatever the reason, the sexual adventures women fantasize about in Women on Top are just not as, well, adventurous as they were.
Women on Top still delivers far more than cynical 'erotica' does. These sexual fantasies are exciting because they come from the minds of regular women - the mother-of-three in the store, or the girl at Starbucks. Seeing how deliciously twisted and kinky their fantasies are is enormously exciting.
If you want a book as a turn on, though, I'd recommend My Secret Garden or Forbidden Fantasies, Nancy's two earlier books. Women on Top just seems a bit tame after reading those two.
Interesting about the change. It's almost as though going against the grain and society as a whole made the stories more raw and gritty, and now that it's more acceptable, the theme and feel has changed.
Great review!
Hi Dame Demi!
I don't know about sexual fantasies in general, but comparing this book to My Secret Garden seems to suggest that 'modern' women seem to have more fantasies about being in control. There's one in particular in this book, about a woman fantasizing about being queen of a tribe who was sexually worshipped that stood out in my memory!
That being said, there are still a whole slice of stories dedicated to submission since that seems to be a consistant feature of many of the sexual fantasies Nancy Friday has chronicled.
That being said, the whole 'point' this this book seems to be suggesting that the sexual liberation has dramatically altered the way women fantasize and that's why there aren't an overwhelming majority of 'submissive' fantasies like in My Secret Garden.
Since we live in a world where women are more "empowered" than they were 20 years ago, do the fantasies tend to be more dominant or submissive than in the earlier books? I'm interested in how real world power translates into the realm of fantasy--if the women want to be in charge there, too, or to submit themselves to men (or other women).