That sweet innocent woman sitting across from you at dinner?
She is thinking about something significantly kinkier than you are.
I know this because I went looking for proof. Dr. Justin Lehmiller, social psychologist and author of Tell Me What You Want, conducted the largest survey of sexual fantasies ever undertaken in America. Over 4,000 people. 350 questions. The most comprehensive look at what people actually want in bed ever assembled in one place.
I read every finding. Then I ran my own anonymous survey of 200 women to see if it held up.
It mostly did. With two fascinating exceptions that we will get to as we go.
Counted down from least to most common. Starting now.
Number 10 — Emotional Intimacy During Sex
Not the flashiest entry on this list. Possibly the most important.
Deep eye contact. Feeling genuinely seen. Sex that feels like a real conversation rather than two people going through familiar motions in the dark.
Lehmiller found this less commonly reported as a standalone fantasy. It tends to live underneath other fantasies rather than stand alone. But in my survey of 200 women it ranked noticeably higher, particularly among women in longer relationships. Which makes sense. The longer you have been with someone, the more rare genuine presence feels. And the more you crave it.
“I don’t want him to just be there physically. I want him to actually be there.”
Simple. Devastating. Completely free to give.
Number 9 — Sensation Play
Ice. Heat. Feathers. Blindfolds. Anything that makes the body hyper-aware of every single thing happening to it.
This one belongs to the sensory-oriented women. The ones who notice textures, who melt during massages, who get actual goosebumps from certain songs. Remove one sense and the others go into overdrive. Every touch becomes electric. The brain stops multitasking and focuses entirely on what is happening right now.
My survey aligned closely with Lehmiller here. Neither surprising nor particularly common. But the women who described it did so with unusual enthusiasm.
The blindfold is not the point. The complete surrender to the present moment is.
Number 8 — Being Absolutely Desired
This is not a specific act. It is a feeling.
Being so irresistibly attractive to her partner that he physically cannot keep his hands off her. Watching him visibly affected. Breathing harder. Struggling to focus. Extended oral attention as the main event, not the warm-up, because her pleasure is the only thing on the agenda and he is genuinely delighted to be there.
Lehmiller found this as a moderately common theme across his data. My survey confirmed the ranking but generated some of the most emotionally raw responses of anything I asked:
“We spend so much time wondering if he really wants us or is just going through the motions. The fantasy is that there’s no question. His desire is obvious, overwhelming, impossible to hide.”
Enthusiasm. Not performance. Not flattery. Just genuine undeniable want. It costs nothing and requires only that you mean it.
Number 7 — Taboo and Forbidden Scenarios
Here is something Lehmiller found that is genuinely fascinating. People with more conservative moral frameworks, the ones with the strictest rules about what is and is not acceptable, reported more intense taboo fantasies, not fewer.
The more something is forbidden, the more intently the brain wants it.
Voyeurism, exhibitionism, role play, authority figures, the stranger scenario. This fantasy is about permission more than anything else. Wearing a costume that lets you be a version of yourself that normal life does not leave much room for.
The exhibitionism angle is worth understanding correctly. For women, this is almost entirely about being watched rather than watching. Being on display. Being so desirable that someone cannot look away. A mirror positioned just right. A door left slightly ajar. The electric feeling of being seen as irresistible.
My survey confirmed this ranking closely. The stranger role play scenario came up most frequently. Pretending not to know each other, flirting like it is the first time, recreating early relationship energy without the actual complication of starting over with someone new.
Number 6 — Dominance and Submission
And here is where things get interesting.
In Lehmiller’s broader data this sits at number six. In my survey of 200 women it came in at number one. That is the single biggest divergence between the two data sets and it is worth understanding why.
My audience skews toward women in committed long term relationships. Women who are managing households, careers, children, and the thousand invisible decisions that fill every single day. For these women, surrendering control in the bedroom is not a niche kink. It is a biological necessity.
Being with a partner who knows exactly what he wants and is not asking permission at every step. Who moves her where he wants her. Who leads with certainty rather than hesitation.
“The sexiest thing a man can do is act like he knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. Not aggressively. Confidently.”
The fantasy is not about submission for its own sake. It is about an hour where someone else is completely in charge and she does not have to think, guide, manage, or perform anything at all.
Just experience.
Which raises the obvious question. Do you actually know what she wants? Not what you assume she wants. What she actually fantasizes about, craves, and has probably never said out loud to anyone.
I wrote a free guide specifically for this. The Desire Playbook is 20 questions designed to get her talking about her real desires through conversation alone. No pressure. No awkward sit-down. Just questions that make her feel deeply seen and surprisingly willing to open up.
My own product. Completely free.
Now. The top five.
Number 5 — Passion and Romance
Being grabbed and kissed intensely out of nowhere. Pushed against a wall. Her partner initiating with such urgency that it is obvious he has been thinking about this all day.
Not planned. Not discussed. It just erupts.
What makes this fantasy so powerful is the specific thing it communicates. He walked in planning to do something else. Then he saw her. And everything changed.
“That urgency, that I need you right now energy, is incredibly validating.”
Long term relationships develop patterns. Sex happens at bedtime, in the bedroom, following the same script. This fantasy is about passion that ignores all of that completely. The location is irrelevant. The desperation is the point.
My survey aligned closely with Lehmiller here. Ranked second overall among my 200 women.
Number 4 — Power and Control
Distinct from dominance and submission in an important way. This is less about the psychological dynamic and more about the physical experience of it.
Being restrained. Handcuffed. Wrists held above the head. The specific vulnerability of that position and the trust it requires.
What came through consistently in both Lehmiller’s data and my own:
Forced presence. When you cannot move you are completely in your body with nowhere else to go.
Transferred responsibility. Whatever happens is not something she is making happen. It is happening to her. That removes a layer of self-consciousness a significant number of women carry into every sexual encounter.
Required trust. And trust, it turns out, is one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs that exists.
The women describing this fantasy were not describing a power dynamic. They were describing a holiday from their own minds.
Number 3 — Adventurous Novelty
New locations. Spontaneous settings. Anything that breaks the routine so completely that the brain has no script to follow.
Cars. Dressing rooms. Hiking trails. Hotel rooms in cities where nobody knows your name.
Lehmiller found novelty as the third most common theme across his entire data set. The psychology is straightforward. Adrenaline from risk and excitement feeds directly into sexual arousal. The brain does not reliably distinguish between the two. Your heart is already racing. Everything that follows feels more intense because of it.
My survey confirmed this closely. One consistent thread ran through every response. It was never really about the location. It was about being wanted so urgently that waiting became impossible.
Number 2 — Bondage, Rough Sex, and Kink
Second most common in Lehmiller’s data. Confirmed closely by my own survey.
Hair pulled. Held down. Grabbed with intensity. That specific primal energy where desire overtakes politeness entirely.
One response from my survey that stayed with me:
“I don’t want gentle all the time. Sometimes I want to feel like an object of pure lust. Like he’s so turned on he’s almost animalistic.”
The nuance here matters. This is not about pain. It is about that specific moment where want overtakes manners. Where he is not asking because he simply cannot help himself. That raw unfiltered desire is what the fantasy is actually about. The hair pull is just the evidence.
Number 1 — Group Sex and Threesomes
By a significant margin. 89% of Lehmiller’s respondents had fantasized about threesomes specifically. Group sex was the single most common fantasy theme across the entire data set of over 4,000 Americans.
And here is where my survey diverged dramatically from the broader research.
Among my 200 women, threesomes ranked nowhere near the top.
Why? Almost certainly a combination of two things. Social desirability bias. Admitting a threesome fantasy feels different when the survey feels personal rather than clinical. And audience. My respondents skew heavily toward women in committed relationships where a threesome carries significantly more emotional complexity than pure fantasy. In a relationship with real stakes, the idea becomes less of a fantasy and more of a logistical and emotional nightmare.
The broader data says this is the number one female fantasy. My audience said otherwise.
Both are telling the truth. They are just talking about different women.
So there you have it. Lehmiller’s data. Two hundred women. Zero filters. And two places where the numbers told completely different stories depending on who was in the room.
The woman across from you at dinner has an entire fantasy life she has probably never shared with anyone.
The Desire Playbook gives you the questions to change that.
Love Emma