From BDSM to threesomes, many people have sexual fantasies that they would love to make a reality.
Now, a survey has shed light on some science fiction-based fantasies - which are more popular than you might imagine.
Sex psychologist Dr Justin Lehmiller surveyed more than 4,000 Americans about their sexual fantasies for his book, Tell Me What You Want.
The survey revealed that more than half of the respondents had fantasises about a fiction character from a book or film, while a third had fantasies about a mythical creature, such as a vampire or werewolf.
Meanwhile, a quarter had fantasised about a cartoon character, and one sixth about sex with an alien.
In a recent blog , Dr Lehmiller has looked into the possible reasons for the popularity of these sexual fantasies.
His first theory suggests that sci-fi fantasies may be a simple manifestation of our need for sexual novelty.
He wrote: “We tend to show less arousal to the same sexual stimulus over time. In order to counteract this tendency, we need to continually introduce novelty into our sex lives—and imagining sci-fi scenarios is just one of many ways of accomplishing this.”
Next, Dr Lehmiller indicates that these fantasies may come from the fact that many people have active imaginations.
He explained: “There’s something called a fantasy-prone personality, which involves being a very active daydreamer. In my research for Tell Me What You Want, I found that people who scored high on this personality trait reported more sexual fantasies about almost everything, including science fiction scenarios.
“So in other words, these fantasies are sometimes nothing more than just the product of a wandering mind.”
Finally, Dr Lehmiller proposes that people may have these fantasies due to a discomfort with emotional intimacy.
Overall, it’s likely that people have such fantasies for very different reasons.
Dr Lehmiller added: “Different people are probably into these scenarios for very different reasons. In short, our fantasies—whether they are based in reality or science fiction—appear to have very complex origins.”
