Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age

by Nancy Friday

This text illustrates how and why the face of sexual fantasy has become more imaginative. The book collects the sexual fantasies of dozens of women and men, and teaches us to proudly own the creativity of our sexual imagination and indulge in the power of our sexual visions.

Genres: Sexuality, Erotica, Nonfiction, Psychology

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2009

About the author

Nancy Colbert Friday was an American author who wrote on the topics of female sexuality and liberation. Her writings argue that women have often been reared under an ideal of womanhood, which was outdated and restrictive, and largely unrepresentative of many women's true inner lives, and that openness about women's hidden lives could help free women to truly feel able to enjoy being themselves. She asserts that this is not due to deliberate malice, but due to social expectation, and that for women's and men's benefit alike it is healthier that both be able to be equally open, participatory and free to be accepted for who and what they are.

Reviews

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nancy Friday's Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age is a bit of a disappointment. Known for her prior compilations of (mainly female) sexual fantasies, here Friday offers sexual fantasies submitted by both men and women in addition to Craigslist and other online ads. As the title implies, one of the themes is that as women achieved more equality though the feminist movement, more fantasies became centered on giving up control as the source of sexual pleasure. The internet has made fantasies more risqué. However, these new ideas seem at odds with her usual psychoanalytical bent, i.e., much of our sexual desires develop under the influence of Mother, before we are consciously aware of them, which is still very present here. There also seems to be much more of her editorializing relative to actual material submitted by others than in previous works. Thus Beyond My Control didn't meet my expectations.

[Jessika · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book lacked in originality & at times lingered too long on the author's narrative, a story told in her previous book(s) by the sound of it. She is like a middleman telling another's story but over editing and making it all about her. I thought a more recent book would be more relevant but in retrospect, i should have gone with the one for which she's known (even though it was published in the 70s).

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

With so much information about psychology and sexual fantasies available elsewhere the author may have benefited from a different approach rather than a rehash of a book done over twenty years ago. I mostly got the feeling that she is trying to stay relevant in a society that tells all to everybody; she's not quite succeeding.

[Blančitos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Takový průměr, ačkoliv u některých představ jsem mela oči v sloup. 🙄

[Ramona Silverwing · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you think about your sexual fantasy and think "OMG how false is that or how dirty is this" think no longer about it start reading That book because you will find out soon enough it is not dirty nor it is false.
Nancy Fridays books ,again,hard to put down.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't love this book. It was okay but I felt like it could have been much, much more. The stories felt very forced and poorly written/edited. I expected more.

[Lytton Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you think you'd like to read about other people's sexual fantasies, let me warn you that folks are even more conventional and predictable than you feared. Disappointment doesn't begin to cover it. If I felt like a freak before, now I'm certain I'm from another planet. Or dimension? Anyhoo, it can be a lonely archipelago, as far as archipelagoes go.

[LH Carter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just was not what I expected or wanted. The comments made by the author felt off for me and I ended up skimming the last 100 pages.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up on this less than 60 pages in and had even skipped some of that. Nancy Friday may have been at this kind of thing for a long while as the back cover blurb claims but her constant psychoanalysis drove me crazy!

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, but more for a general reader than for academic research. A good read all the same, and it really made me think about why we fall in love and why we choose the people we do to desire.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some interesting observations on the socio-psychological compunctions and childhood issues that manifest themselves in our adult lives.

[Babar Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to read