A book recommendation for Gillian Anderson’s “Want”
Whoever claimed men are hornier clearly never asked women what they want. Gillian Anderson’s Want unveils the secret lives many women live inside their heads. The unfiltered, sexy, liberated fantasy worlds, far from social scripts, gender roles, and responsibilities.
“I am a firm feminist and have been for the last decade, but when I masturbate, I dream of being held down, handled roughly and called disgusting names that would make the suffragettes faint.”
I almost missed my flight because of this book. I was standing in the airport bookshop, telling myself I’d just have a quick look (it’s never just a quick look), and a thick pink cover with the title Want immediately caught my eye. More specifically, the author’s name – Gillian Anderson. Actress, author, and fashion icon. You may know her as the sex therapist mom in Netflix’s Sex Education. So, of course, I had to pick up this book.
Want is a collection of anonymously submitted fantasies from real women all over the world. 174 women submitted their deepest desires in great detail. Each story is anonymous, but the bottom of each entry notes the woman’s nationality, religion, relationship status, sexual orientation, and income, offering glimpses into their lives and backgrounds.
“When I’m in a boring meeting or sometimes on the bus, I disappear into my dirty fantasy life and I’m a million miles away getting endlessly f*cked.”
The book shows just how varied, complex, wild, and yes, absolutely horny women’s deepest desires and fantasies can be. The submissions range from poetic, philosophical, smutty, hilarious, to inspiring. Some made me laugh, some made me blush, and a few even made me cry. All of them, on some level, are political. Because women’s sexual desires are political. They reflect where we really are when it comes to gender equality. They reveal what is still taboo, forbidden, and shameful for women. What threatens us, what traumatizes us. Whose pleasures we deem necessary and important as a society, and whose we demonize, repress, or ignore. All of this translates into our wants and needs.
In a world that deprioritizes female pleasure, women voicing their wants is an act of resistance. An act toward freedom.
One woman wrote, “My fantasy is to have a man love me for who I am and not see me as a living sex toy.”
Another confesses, “Sex is rare, and when it does occur, it’s as if my husband has completely forgotten what foreplay is.”
Reading these made me realize again how neglected and mystified female pleasure still is. So many don’t know how to really pleasure a woman. Schools barely cover the basics (if you’re lucky, you learned how to roll a condom over a wooden phallus). Forget teaching about consent, proper clitoral anatomy, or how real pleasure works. That leaves mainstream porn and media to fill the gaps, which mostly centre the male gaze and too often glorify violence against women. No wonder so many women have mediocre experiences in the bedroom and crave more.
One woman dreams of hooking up with certified internet daddy Pedro Pascal. Another dreams of her husband doing more of the housework: “To have my husband say he’s done the grocery shopping. (…) To have my husband say I changed the bed sheets and did the laundry and folded the laundry. (…) To have my husband eat me out.”
Never assume a religious woman likes bland, tame intercourse. “Before I die- I must find an empty church (…) and I want a man to go down on me as I lie on the altar and my moans of pleasure fill the echoing room. I even fantasize that I find a young priest who is willing to do this and is not afraid that God might punish him, as I believe sex can be one of the most religious experiences of our lives.” Unsurprisingly, religion has an enormous impact on beliefs around pleasure and shame. Fantasies can be a way to rewrite that relationship.
The future of Robots and AI is also a common theme: “I can’t wait for perfectly built, fully realistic, sexually functioning robots. I would program them to execute my sexual fantasies.”
Other submissions process trauma and patriarchal oppression by flipping the script. They will make your heart ache and swell at the same time. The sheer power of women speaking their wants out loud: raw, honest, vulnerable.
Reading Want reminded me that fantasies matter. They help us process, reflect, escape, and dream. They are freedom where reality might still chain us up (no, here I don’t mean in that way). They are proof that women want more. More pleasure, more softness, more respect, more variety, more communication.
Women are so often the object of desire, but rarely do they get to be the ones doing the desiring. Loudly, freely. Women are taught they exist to be wanted, but not to want.
So, if there’s one book you read this summer, let it be this one. Side benefit: it may spark some inspiration for new fantasies.
“Good sex starts long before a single item of clothing hits the floor. Sex is anticipation, sex is longing.”
And stay tuned for more — Gillian Anderson announced on TikTok that a part two is coming, and perhaps she’s still looking for submissions. Even if she isn’t, write down your own fantasies. For you. For a partner. For inspiration.
