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[narrator]
If you have sex, what does it look like?
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And when you fantasize about sex,
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and we know the vast majority of you do,
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what does that look like?
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Is it sex you want to have?
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Or is it something else entirely?
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On one of the biggest porn sites, PornHub,
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three of the most searched terms
are "mom," "stepmom," and "MILF,"
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another flavor of "mom."
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But porn doesn't necessarily reflect
our true private fantasies.
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To find that out,
you have to actually ask people.
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I surveyed almost 4,200 Americans
from all 50 states,
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people ranging in age from 18 to 87,
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ranging all different gender identities,
sexual orientations,
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demographic and political backgrounds,
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and I asked them hundreds of questions.
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[narrator] According to his survey,
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97% of American adults
have had a sexual fantasy,
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as in imagined an arousing
sexual scenario.
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Eighty-seven percent have
at least one a week.
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And 52% have at least one a day.
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And though we might think our fantasies
are super weird and unique...
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By and large, most people,
regardless of gender,
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are fantasizing about the same things.
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[narrator]
So who and what are we fantasizing about?
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And what do our fantasies say about us?
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Ah, Linda, if you were only here
to nurse me.
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[woman 1]
I love to watch people masturbate.
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[man] I love feet, but I'm like,
"Why are feet fetishized?"
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Why are these things considered
outside of normal?
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[woman 2]
Fantasy is fantasy, and it turns us on.
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They can remain in your head,
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or sometimes you can actually
make them a reality.
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[theme music playing]
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[narrator] Most of our fantasies fall
into three genres:
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having sex with multiple people,
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sex in places or in ways
that we've never done it before
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and fantasies about power
and control.
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The first: group sex,
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like orgies or gang bangs,
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a type of orgy where a lot of men
usually have sex with the same woman.
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Almost every American adult
has fantasized about group sex.
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And over half of the men
said they fantasized about it often.
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And usually the fantasy involves
a specific number of people.
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-I would just say, "a threesome."
-The threesome thing is beautiful.
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I think it's definitely a threesome,
but there's also, like, grapes involved.
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[Justin Lehmiller] When I looked
at the one-word fantasy descriptions
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that people provided,
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when they summed up their favorite fantasy
of all time in a single word,
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I took those words,
and I entered them into a word cloud.
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And the first time I did this,
all it said was "threesome"
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because so many people
wrote that threesome
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was their favorite fantasy of all time.
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It's a way that people can feel validated
and wanted.
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A lot of people really just want to be
the center of attention,
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and they want multiple people
desiring them at the same time.
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So, there's actually
a big emotional component.
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[narrator] And while the stereotype
might be that young people experiment
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with group sex,
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this fantasy is actually more popular
with people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.
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A big part of the appeal of threesomes
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is just that a lot of people get bored
with their sexual routines,
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and a lot of people are in
long-term monogamous relationships,
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and so a threesome is an easy way
of adding some novelty.
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[narrator] And novelty, in general,
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is the second major genre
of our fantasies.
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That's where people are just mixing it up.
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[narrator] In one small study,
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men viewed the same porn clip
over and over,
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and they got less and less aroused.
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But then a new porn clip played,
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and the men's penises
got very hard, very fast.
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A similar study was conducted
measuring women's genital arousal
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with similar results.
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I like the secretive aspect of it.
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More like "I've never done this before"
kind of thing.
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Like, if we're on a plane together,
and "Oh, no, your flight got delayed?
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Why not just come back to my place
for the night?
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I have a spare bed."
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Having candle wax dripped on my body,
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having feathers run across my body.
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More on the exhibitionist side,
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I have done sexual things
on the Brooklyn Bridge.
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The biggest theme that came up
in the novelty category was public sex.
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[narrator] Some of the favorites:
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sex in a park, a car, a public bathroom,
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a locker room, an elevator,
and the office.
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I think a sexual fantasy for me
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would be to have my partner,
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like, going around with a toy
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that I could sort of control and modulate
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at a wedding,
or, like, at a business meeting...
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There is, like, theoretically some risk
of discovery,
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so it's kind of like hot in that way.
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[narrator]
Two-thirds of men and women
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have fantasized about sex toys.
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Two of the most common ones:
blindfolds and handcuffs.
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Which brings us to the third
big fantasy genre
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power and control.
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More than a quarter of people
rated this their favorite kind of fantasy.
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I just like someone who is aggressive.
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[laughing] Um,
someone who can really, like...
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Yeah, just someone who's aggressive.
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I'm gonna leave it at that.
Someone who's aggressive.
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I always thought being like...
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tossed around a little bit
was always really attractive,
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like that scene in Mrs. and Mr. Smith.
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[laughs] They're trying
to kill each other, but it's hot.
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My favorite thing to do in the world
is get into butts.
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It's definitely a power thing
to get into cis-boy butts,
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and I won't apologize for it.
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I like nurses. I don't know,
something about nurses, cops...
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I don't know. You know what I think it is?
Something mental, like women in power.
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That's sexy. That's what it is.
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Not too much power, though.
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Just enough, you know.
Don't scare the sh-- out of me.
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[narrator] One way to explore power-play
during sex is through BDSM.
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BDSM is bondage and discipline,
sado-masochism.
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It's the erotic pleasure that people take
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in giving pain,
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enduring pain,
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giving dominance,
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giving punishment, "punishment,"
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enduring punishment, giving humiliation,
enduring humiliation.
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But it's all in the realm of playtime.
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[narrator] BDSM is often associated
with fancy props
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and contraptions made of leather.
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I love leather.
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I think that nowadays
people have a view of it,
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of things like Fifty Shades of Grey
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and that kind of stuff.
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It's a very sort of a mainstream idea.
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But actually, my version of leather comes
from a very queer place.
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[narrator] And that all started in the US
in the 1940s
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where there was an emerging biker culture.
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Leather was good protective clothing
for men who were into motorcycles,
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and rugged, all-male clubs
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were good settings for men
who were into men.
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When World War II ended,
some gay veterans stayed on the West Coast
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and joined the biker scene,
embracing a gay, hyper-masculine identity
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and experimenting with kinky sex.
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Soon, gay leather culture spread
to cities across the US and Europe.
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And then a few decades ago,
it became a lot more visible.
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in the late '80s and the '90s
in San Francisco,
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sexuality was something that we were
really in turmoil over
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because of AIDS
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and because of the serious fury
and confusion
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and terror around the disease.
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[man]
Some policemen wearing masks and gloves
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when dealing with homosexuals,
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some morticians refusing
to embalm the bodies of AIDS victims.
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And so BDSM was the perfect
kind of outlet for that.
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[narrator] Condoms, dental dams
and all kinds of latex
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became part of the fun.
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It sexualized all of these things
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that were kind of like barriers
in the past,
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which I think is really healing
and really remarkable.
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[narrator] And it helped people cope
with their anxieties around sex,
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by getting them out of their heads,
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which is still a part of the appeal
of BDSM today.
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It's a full process. It's a full story.
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It's a full immersion that
you're creating yourself
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and that you get to experience
with somebody else,
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and it's what we call in BDSM,
we call it "play,"
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because it is that part of us
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that has forgotten how to just role-play.
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[narrator] But BDSM fantasies go back
way further than the 20th century.
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The "sado" in sado-masochism comes
from the Marquis de Sade...
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a 1700s French nobleman known
for his kinky sex crimes
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and for his novels
depicting kinky sex crimes.
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And the "masochism" in sado-masochism
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comes from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,
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an Austrian nobleman
born a hundred years later,
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whose book Venus im Pelz
told the semi-autobiographical story
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of a man who convinces a woman
to make him her slave.
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The psychiatrist who coined
the term "masochism"
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explained that this "perversion"
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up to his time was quite unknown
to the scientific world.
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But we now know this "perversion,"
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at least imagining it, is widespread.
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More than three-quarters of people
in Lehmiller's study
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had fantasized about bondage,
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as in restraining someone
or being restrained.
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More than half about discipline,
as in giving or following orders.
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And almost three-quarters
about inflicting or receiving pain,
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mostly biting and spanking.
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The fact that almost everyone
was having some type of BDSM fantasy
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tells us this is not some rare
or unusual sexual interest.
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[narrator]
Including fantasies about forced sex,
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in Lehmiller's study, 54% of men,
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61% of women,
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and 68% of non-binary people
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had fantasized about being forced
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to have sex at least once.
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So, it's me being in a position
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where I am being pursued
and I don't want to be
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and almost in a rape fantasy scenario.
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[narrator] In TV and movies,
this fantasy often follows a template:
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a spunky but ultimately vulnerable woman
is raped,
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but then falls in love with her abuser.
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Although, in those two on the right,
it's a little complicated.
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This formula also plays out
in 80% of Thai soap operas.
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It's so normal, the genre even
has a cutesy nickname:
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"slap and kiss,"
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because there's a lot of slapping,
then kissing.
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And this fantasy goes way back, too.
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One of the first modern
rape fantasy novels,
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The Sheik, was published
in England in 1919.
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Such a sensation,
it also got the Hollywood treatment.
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A feisty white woman is kidnapped
by a sexy and violent Arab prince.
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He rapes her, she falls in love,
and they live happily ever after.
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Audiences loved it.
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00:10:49,398 --> 00:10:51,734
The movie broke box office records
in New York
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00:10:51,817 --> 00:10:54,278
and was a runaway hit in France, too.
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And in 1987, a survey of historical
American romance novels,
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which are written and read
mostly by women,
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found that more than half featured
the rape of the lead female character,
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perhaps freeing the heroine
from the "moral slur
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of consenting to have sexual intercourse
before marriage"
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according to one researcher.
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Often, our fantasies involve things
that are taboo,
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things that are forbidden,
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things that we feel that we can't express
in everyday life,
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and the simple fact that it's taboo
and forbidden
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is what makes it exciting and titillating.
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That doesn't mean you actually want it
in your everyday life.
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Nobody thinks that if you have
a fantasy about rape
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that you want to be raped,
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or you're someone
who's oriented toward rape.
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For me, it's like,
"Oh, yeah, I like to be the submissive,"
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because I'm in control a lot of my life.
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But being submissive in sex
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doesn't mean I'm not in control of the sex
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'cause I'm in control
of everything in sex.
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So it's just another natural extension
of my own personality.
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[narrator] Our fantasies are also
an extension of our culture.
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A survey of Swedish romance novels,
also done in the 1980s,
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found almost no examples of women falling
in love with their rapists.
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The researcher explained that could be
because "premarital sex was not quite
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the cultural taboo as it was
in the United States" at the time.
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While in India today,
the portrayal of sex is taboo.
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Porn is actually illegal.
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So it's easier to make
in the form of comic books.
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And these are two
of the most popular characters,
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00:12:25,828 --> 00:12:29,165
cartoon housewives Savita Bhabhi
and Velamma.
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00:12:29,457 --> 00:12:32,752
Both maternal figures,
just with different figures,
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who are ignored by their husbands
and bored with their domestic routines,
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so spend their days on the prowl for sex,
often with younger men.
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Pursuing their own pleasure,
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00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:45,222
they boldly violate
every social restriction
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placed on Indian women.
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And in the US,
a popular porn genre among men
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is the humiliation of men.
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A white man watches
his white girlfriend or wife get ravaged
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00:12:56,025 --> 00:12:58,652
by a much stronger
and dominant black man...
256
00:12:58,819 --> 00:12:59,862
It's my house.
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Ah, it is your house,
but I live in it sometimes.
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[laughing]
259
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[narrator] ...playing off a stereotype
of black men as sexual threats
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that goes back hundreds of years.
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00:13:13,334 --> 00:13:14,752
And then in the 2000s,
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00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:17,505
a new threat gripped
the Western imagination.
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Events in Iraq have now reached
the final days of decision.
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We will tear down the apparatus of terror,
and we will help you to build a new Iraq.
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[narrator] During the War on Terror,
the sexy Sheik genre had a resurgence,
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00:13:30,726 --> 00:13:33,229
peaking in the lead-up
to the invasion of Iraq,
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with plot points like: "Al Qaeda ties,"
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"weapons of mass destruction"
and "defeating terrorism."
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Institutionalized racism
in the United States seems to creep
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into our sexual fantasies.
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[narrator] And that affects the fantasies
of marginalized groups, too.
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[Yin Q]
A lot of people who have immigrated here,
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their ideas of success
and safety for their children
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is actually just to assimilate,
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00:13:58,087 --> 00:14:00,047
especially in the Asian-American
community.
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00:14:00,172 --> 00:14:03,175
They want their children mostly
to be successful
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00:14:03,259 --> 00:14:05,928
[laughs] in all these other areas
that have already been approved
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00:14:06,011 --> 00:14:07,096
by this white society.
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[narrator]
Which may be why Lehmiller's study
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found that the vast majority
of Asian-Americans,
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00:14:11,976 --> 00:14:14,311
whether they fantasize about men or women,
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fantasize about white people most
of the time.
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00:14:17,940 --> 00:14:19,942
And you know there's a long history
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00:14:20,025 --> 00:14:22,736
of white men fantasizing
about Asian women,
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as you can see
in movies that go back decades.
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[man] At this moment,
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00:14:26,323 --> 00:14:29,493
all my honorable intentions are getting
sort of weak in the knees.
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Your eyes are as soft...
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00:14:32,121 --> 00:14:33,706
your hair is pleasant to my touch.
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00:14:33,789 --> 00:14:35,082
Take clothes off?
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00:14:35,583 --> 00:14:37,209
No, I've never tried nudes.
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Good time to try.
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There's so much about us that
is really about sexualization
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from the white perspective
or the male gaze,
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but it's really not about our sexuality,
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where we have agency,
we're telling the story.
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[narrator]
Which is why Yin Q created a web-series,
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Mercy Mistress,
based on her career as a dominatrix.
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[laughs]
For me, I'm hardwired to be kinky.
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It's part of my sexual orientation.
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It's just part of my queerness.
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00:15:05,738 --> 00:15:10,367
I was really drawn to Mercy Mistress
because I really love the idea
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of having an Asian-American dominatrix
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talking about her life.
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00:15:17,207 --> 00:15:21,128
I love any story
that's about Asian-American sexuality
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00:15:21,211 --> 00:15:22,922
because we don't really have one yet.
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[narrator] We may not be able
to get rid of our fantasies.
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00:15:26,425 --> 00:15:29,762
Some researchers say our turn-ons
are like languages:
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00:15:30,095 --> 00:15:33,432
we can't unlearn them,
but we can learn new ones.
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Just watching porn can also
shape people's fantasies as well.
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Maybe while you're masturbating
and edging,
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00:15:39,438 --> 00:15:40,898
where you're on the brink of orgasm,
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and you come across something
that's new and different
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00:15:42,983 --> 00:15:45,152
that you've never seen before
that's maybe really kinky,
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00:15:45,361 --> 00:15:47,237
because your disgust response is lower
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00:15:47,321 --> 00:15:50,741
that might open the door to you watching
that video till the end,
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00:15:50,950 --> 00:15:53,661
at which point you might have
this powerful orgasm
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00:15:53,744 --> 00:15:56,789
that you might start to associate
with that that kink.
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00:15:56,872 --> 00:15:58,290
[woman moans]
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And as a result, that might lead you
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00:16:00,626 --> 00:16:02,795
to want to fantasize more about that
in the future.
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[narrator]
And while 79% in Lehmiller's study
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00:16:06,090 --> 00:16:09,426
said they want to act out
their favorite fantasy of all time,
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00:16:09,718 --> 00:16:13,013
only 23% said they'd actually tried.
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00:16:13,222 --> 00:16:15,683
If you're in a loving,
intimate relationship,
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00:16:15,766 --> 00:16:18,769
where you are sexual with somebody
that you're very trusting of them,
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00:16:19,144 --> 00:16:23,232
and you feel like you can share
these taboo parts of yourself,
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00:16:23,315 --> 00:16:26,485
that can be a really good way
to sort of see
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00:16:26,819 --> 00:16:28,445
how intimate we can be.
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00:16:28,570 --> 00:16:30,614
Real intimacy isn't just sharing
the beauty of who we are,
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it's also sharing the ugly,
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00:16:32,449 --> 00:16:35,035
and the ugly can actually
be very gratifying.
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[narrator] And if your fantasies are
on the violent side,
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00:16:37,746 --> 00:16:40,165
that requires a lot of communication.
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00:16:40,290 --> 00:16:42,793
[Margaret Cho] There's a very safe way
to work through all fetishes
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00:16:42,876 --> 00:16:47,256
and all kinds of ideas
and kinks through BDSM.
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00:16:47,339 --> 00:16:49,758
It's actually a wonderful way
to do that.
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00:16:50,467 --> 00:16:53,220
It's one of the great things
about sexuality.
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00:16:53,303 --> 00:16:54,972
It can bring us closer in a way
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00:16:55,055 --> 00:16:57,474
that maybe other forms
of communication can't.
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[Yin Q] It's the setting up
and the continuous check in
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00:17:00,602 --> 00:17:03,397
of consent that that person
that you're playing with
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00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:06,692
is continuously enjoying
what they are experiencing with you,
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00:17:06,942 --> 00:17:08,819
and that there's actually safe words
345
00:17:08,902 --> 00:17:12,573
that are set up to protect both sides
of going too far.
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00:17:13,115 --> 00:17:16,368
[narrator] Most of our fantasies
reflect basic human needs:
347
00:17:16,452 --> 00:17:18,245
Feeling desired and validated,
348
00:17:18,579 --> 00:17:20,247
breaking out of our routines,
349
00:17:20,456 --> 00:17:22,082
and coping with anxieties.
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00:17:22,541 --> 00:17:25,919
And many of our most popular
fantasies mix and match these genres.
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00:17:26,670 --> 00:17:29,089
Like mom fantasies: That's pretty novel.
352
00:17:29,173 --> 00:17:31,383
And it's definitely power play.
353
00:17:31,467 --> 00:17:34,261
Or gangbang fantasies,
which are group sex,
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00:17:34,344 --> 00:17:36,472
usually with a dash of power play.
355
00:17:36,597 --> 00:17:39,808
Or The Sheik,
which is a racial power play
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00:17:39,892 --> 00:17:42,770
and forced sex and romance.
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00:17:42,936 --> 00:17:46,774
Often fantasies come
from a variety of different places:
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some memory of something,
some book that you read.
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00:17:50,486 --> 00:17:52,988
It becomes this kind of mishmosh
in your mind.
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But there's a lot of variability
in sexual fantasies,
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00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:59,953
and they don't tell you anything reliable
about you.
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If you have fantasies
that disturb you or scare you,
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00:18:03,624 --> 00:18:06,376
and you wonder what they mean,
they don't mean a lot.
364
00:18:06,460 --> 00:18:08,712
So, don't worry so much about them.
365
00:18:10,839 --> 00:18:12,716
[theme music playing]