Reddit reviews My Secret Garden

Are you sure he wasn't thinking of My Secret Garden, which is a collection of different women's thoughts on sex?

I read a book way back in my uberbeta days that was very offensive to the worldview i had been given. that book is called My Secret Garden.

The book is a collection of responses sent in by women during the 70s mostly responding to an anonymous ad posted by the author. She asked women in large cities "What is your sexual fantasy"

Years of collecting the responses and categorizing them led to the publication of the book.

For someone who believed that male sexuality was shameful and that female sexuality was almost nonexistent, the book was a massive eye-opener.

Spoiler Alert: The number one fantasy most women had? Basically a "safe rape." taken impulsively by an unknown man, in a brutish fashion, using her body, and then leaving her in a mess, fucked but uninjured. That was the most common fantasy. other top ones were voyeurism and being taken by a "savage" whether that was a black dude with a huge dick, or just some crusty gutterpunk type.

I can't tell you how hard my dissonance filter was firing. I couldn't even believe that shit back then.


I really recommend that book for guys (and gals) who still believe in this neo-victorian bullshit of female sexual innocence. for me, a lot of it was being raised in a conservative christian home by a mother who almost completely shut my dad out of sex.

> my info: im a super nerd. like i follow the pro starcraft scene and love space, science math etc. in really tall and am fairly lanky.

That's not necessarily bad... but if you want to do well with women, you'd be well served to not look the part of a "super nerd." Dress fashionably, but with a unique edge that sets your style apart from others. If you need help figuring out how to do that, hit up some of your female friends for advice, peruse GQ or Esquire or Mens Vogue, whatever.

> I tend to only have crushes on best friends and my last crush was when i was 17 (different person). Ive been caled a sweet heart and get frustrated when guys are disrespectful.

Guys get like that when they are scared to break rapport with women, and the only thing they can do is try to use pure "comfort game" to get close to the girls. Unfortunately, the result - as you may have noticed - is not usually favorable. Building comfort is important, but you have to do more... if you want girls, you have to project the vibe of a confident, mature, masculine, "in control", sexual man who "gets it." The "nerdy, insecure, shy, awkward teenage geek" vibe is a lot less effective.


> Ive been caled a sweet heart and get frustrated when guys are disrespectful.

You probably have both Nice Guy Syndrome and a touch of Disney Fantasy. I highly recommend you read the Dr. Robert Glover book No More Mr. Nice Guy, and the Neil Strauss book The Game. The former should help you understand more about asserting yourself, establishing boundaries, and being more authentic in your interactions with people. The latter will blow your mind in regards to understanding how men and women interact.

After that, it might not hurt to read Way of the Superior Man by Dave Deida.

Also, to disabuse yourself of the notion that women are all sweet and pure and innocent and virtuous and made of light (or sugar and spice and puppy dog tails, whatever) spend some time reading stuff like My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday, or The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Girl Sex by Barbara Keesling, or Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life.

Finally, read Sperm Wars by Robin Baker. That will make a great many things much clearer.

Yeah, I don't get how men can state they're sexual perverts that must filter themselves, but women, they don't get perversity. Wouldn't it make sense that we're just filtering ourselves too? We have more reason to be good at it, don't we?

Edit: My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday relevance.

My Secret Garden collection of women's fantasies by Nancy Friday was kind of an eye-opener for me when I was going through a "dry spell".

Admittedly, it is years since I read it, and it is kind of an old book, but although some parts of it were strange, some parts of it did - let's say - affect me somewhat.

Best of luck to you, and I hope that you feel better before too long. I'm no longer on anti-depressants, but they did affect me adversely in some ways as well, so wishing you well, sister.

For the record lots of women have rape fantasies - its not abnormal and you really shouldn't feel guilty about it. I would recommend reading Nancy Fridays My secret garden.


Or download the PDF

A lot ex-mormon guys should read it. Helps you realize women aren't all innocent little angel princesses but in fact have some very sexy-dirty fantasies.

pandorassecrets.com

http://www.amazon.com/My-Secret-Garden-Nancy-Friday/dp/1416567011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344551775&sr=8-1&keywords=my+secret+garden

THE Secret Garden is a children's book, just don't get it confused with MY Secret Garden.

https://www.amazon.com/My-Secret-Garden-Nancy-Friday/dp/1416567011

Whoops, it's "My Secret Garden". It's a collection of female fantasies written out in excruciatingly hot detail.

I doubt you are asexual or that there is anything wrong with you. The validation angle is probably somewhat accurate, and there is clearly an element of disappointment as well; sex can really be that good, if both you and the woman are skilled, deeply attracted, and the setting/build up are right.

Just relax, it isn't a big deal. Find a woman who turns you on both mentally and physically, and plan a really nice evening from start to finish. Too many guys plan the outing and expect the sex will just work itself out, or don't even bother to consult the woman and find out what really turns her on. Have your love nest set up for when you get home like some kind of exotic shrine or alien altar; typical bedrooms are a drag. She should have an idea what she is in for (but don't ruin all the surprises) because, to quote Oscar Wilde, "the suspense is terrible, I hope it will last." Also, once you initiate landing sequence, don't do anything to break state.

I suggest you pick up a copy of My Secret Garden and Forbidden Flowers.

Good sex is an art young man ;)

http://www.amazon.com/My-Secret-Garden-Nancy-Friday/dp/1416567011

Purchase. Read. Embed vibrator. Repeat if necessary :)

First, know that you are normal. As I discussed in this post today, one study in Canada suggests that almost half of all women may fantasize about dominating other people sexually.

>I want to consume as much as possible before I jump into anything.

Well, since you asked, my specialty just so happens to be in giving people way more reading material than they actually wanted...

• Start with Emily Nagoski's Come as You Are. It's written by a female sex researcher for women, though as a man, I still found it immensely helpful for understanding both my own and my wife's sexuality. Not about kink specifically, but all about self-discovery and self-acceptance, which sounds like what you're looking for right now.
  
• Next, Nancy Friday's Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age. I haven't actually read this one, but I have read her more well-known work, My Secret Garden. That was her original, ground-breaking study of women's sexual fantasies. However, I'm recommending Beyond My Control for you because it is more recent (2009) and deals extensively with female fantasies of domination, whereas most of the fantasies in Secret Garden revolve around female submission (a scandalous idea back when it was first published in 1973).
  
• Optional: Julia Heiman's Becoming Orgasmic. A fascinating read even if you already know how to orgasm. An excellent guide to self-exploration and a wonderful primer on female sexuality. The intended audience is women who have never achieved orgasm through masturbation or are trying to learn how to orgasm with their partner. I read it because I thought it would help me better understand my wife's sexuality and help me help her orgasm in my presence, but what I ended up learning from reading the book and talking to my wife is that she's currently not all that interested in orgasming in my presence...and that's OK. What I'm trying to say is I am not the intended audience but still found it immensely helpful. Nevertheless, it's an unconventional recommendation, so that's why I mark it as optional. But if you do decide to read it and think about gentle femdom while doing the suggested exercises, I think you will learn a lot about yourself.
  
• Optional: Easton & Hardy's The New Topping Book. I haven't read this one either, but I have read the submissive counterpart, The New Bottoming Book. It was a bit "old guard BDSM" for my tastes, if you know what I mean, but I list it here anyway because I see it recommended so often, which suggests it must be helpful to other people. The one thing the Bottoming Book did teach me is that one of the things I bring to the table as a submissive is responsiveness, so now I make it a point to moan like a whore whenever my wife is doing things to me. I can't speak to what the Topping Book may or may not teach you as a dom.
  
  Your post seems to imply that you are not currently in a relationship and want to focus on self-discovery before pursing one. Once you have come to a better understanding of what you want and are ready to pursue a relationship, I recommend the following two books:
  
  
• First, Emily Nagoski's A Scientific Guide to Successful Relationships. Read the whole thing, but know that Part 3 is the most helpful for learning how to communicate what you want with your future partner. The principles of staying over your own emotional center of gravity, self-assertion, and self-protection are worth their weight in gold.
  
• Next, Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages. It's not all about sex. This really surprised me, but Chapman's book improved my relationship with my wife and my sex life more than any of the other ones on this list. Some people are turned off by the author's Christian perspective, but his faith is not even made explicit until about halfway through the book, and there's a reason it has 12,674 reviews on Amazon (96% of them 4- or 5-star) and is still the #1 bestselling book on marriage on Amazon even though it was first published way back in 1992. Once you know what you want and how to communicate that to your future partner, you still need to know how to best communicate your love to that boy. It could be touch, it could be words of affirmation, it could be gifts, it could be quality time, and it could be acts of service or any mix of the above.

You need to read the Nancy Friday books. They will get your sexy time gears turning again.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Secret-Garden-Nancy-Friday/dp/1416567011/

Olympia Press put out some great smut back in the day, as well as risque literature from William Burroughs, Henry Miller, Nabokov, and more.

Anais Nin has been mentioned already, and I second that.

My Secret Garden, published in the 1970s, is a compilation of women's fantasies. There's some icky stuff and some hot stuff, but it's all from real women.