🎯 SPOT-ON : Want by Gillian Anderson 📚

Every week, I share my Spot-On : 1 thing that gave me confidence.

You think your kinks are weird ? You’re ashamed of your rape fantasies as a feminist ? You would never, ever, not even under torture, share that thing you always go back to when you feel like escaping or need things to move just a little bit faster ? Do you get turned on by things that put you off in the outside world ?

Then you will realllllly want to get your hands on Want, a collection of 174 female sexual fantasies submitted by anonymous women across the world and collected by Gillian Anderson.

You’re an activist in the outside world. Thank you. Respect, equality, kindness, legality, hygiene, love, romance, clothes, door knobs, conventional and healthy interactions matter to you. Great. But fantasies belong to our inside world. Even when they’re inspired by it, they have nothing to do with our reality. And just as I watch fucked-up limited series about psychopaths without making case for murder, I believe we can play those movies within ourselves without judgment or being confused as to what’s going on there. Fiction. That’s what’s going on. Touching yourself ? Imagine you’re actually pressing a Play button. Cause that’s what you’re about to do. Play. Not fight the patriarchy.

Let’s allow those little movies to entertain us, let’s allow them to come to us so we come too ! and come out better… ! I believe each of our fantasies hold a secret key to our soul. Look deep into your fantasy’s eyes and you will know more about what humiliates you, what traumatized you, what it is that you dream about, what it is that’s missing. And what it is that you really want to be filled with.

Don’t escape them. Don’t shut them out. They shouldn’t abide to any rules or make you feel ashamed and I actually think we should have fun sharing them with our friends and special partners. I often say in French « tant qu’on acceptera pas la sauvagerie qu’on a tous en nous, la sauvagerie sera partout » (as long as we don’t accept the savagery deep within us, savagery shall be everywhere.)

I see you. You always reallllllllyyyy feel like peeing when your girlfriends start sharing what kind of porn they consume. And not because you’re getting all excited and riled up. I want you to stop thinking you’re strange. I want you to understand that your contradictions are not the worst part of you. They’re the best. That’s exactly where lies your magic. And I think you should read other women’s scenarios to start paying attention to your own inner movie. We pay for books, we go to the movies, we spend all this money on culture and we do all these things to satisfy our human need for storytelling but we have this inexhaustible, pure, magic source deep within us that we’re not tapping into. Dark romance has become this insane industry but baby, we are dark romance.

Turns out anything CRAZY you’ve ever imagined has already payed rent in somebody else’s brain. Turns out that nappies, peeing yourself, doorknobs and a lot of unexpected shit (that as well) is getting people hot and fuzzy and that’s wonderful. If you can imagine it, you can… imagine it. And you do that ! You’re not alone and no matter how unique and how original you deeply are, no matter how vivid and wild  your imagination is, there’s probably a whole section somewhere that’s all about what you still think is an incurable sickness.

I didn’t think I could LOVE Gillian Anderson more than I did a week ago. I am extremely flattered to hear she is allegedly my celebrity lookalike (can’t wait to be 56), very proud that I also got to play a sex therapist on my very first @Netflix show (Super Mâle directed by Noémie Saglio, coming out in December) and although I am head over heels for her magnetic character as Jean Milburn in Sex Education, I still try to step into her shoes everyday in the work I do as a coach. Like Jean, I don’t consider my own chaos as inconsistent with my practice. On the contrary. It allows me to understand, adore and help women because I’ve had those thoughts, I’ve done those things, I’ve been, and still happily am, that paradox.

And if I’ve dedicated my newsletter’s name to her soft drinks brand it’s probably because Gillian… as a sober person, you’re the closest thing to a high.

Her book gave me the confidence this week to confront my own cryptic desires. Reading pages in public spaces and on the subway has turned out to be extremely sexy. You should have seen me closing the book after every letter and closing my eyes, as I let each really sink in. My cheeks were the same color as the book : bright pink. Some really resonated. Others felt very off. But I never felt disgust or judgement. I felt very close to these women who took the time and had the courage to share their secret world with us. And I loved trying to guess which of the letters was Gillian’s very own anonymous contribution. 👀

The book also made me want to write my own letter and how fun was that ! I spent two hours putting down one of my own fantasy and that was one enlightening activity ! I have decided to integrate the exercice to some of my self-confidence coaching sessions, especially those where I coach women who are feeling blocked and disconnected from their sexuality, because of how interesting a tool it can be. I definitely think you should give a try : instead of your usual morning pages, why don’t you put your hands on a notebook or a new note on your phone and put into words your wildest fantasy ? Don’t leave out any details and do not, under any circumstances, censure yourself. Nobody will read it. Maybe you can do this regularly when new imagery comes up, just as some people write down the dreams they have at night.

In fact ! We talk about our dreams over breakfast on family holidays and yet we keep our fantasies to ourselves. Not suggesting you share your strangest kinks to your mother over English breakfast but we should all try to have those conversations with the people we trust and feel comfortable with but especially with ourselves.

Because diving deep into our minds, well that’s… actually penetrating.

xx GG

It’s already been translated in French for my French readers.

🇬🇧 https://amzn.eu/d/7sDaZfs

🇫🇷 https://amzn.eu/d/0i3MduW