When fantasy meets reality: Sexual communication in relationships | Mike Anderson | TEDxUMKC

I would like to begin my talk with what all good social scientists should begin their talk with and that is Icelandic women there's something about them is it the intensity is it the sweaters is it the hair no it's none of those it's the steel blue eyes I'm sure many of you have come across and Icelandic one before and seen those two blue eyes like that pierce then you're so like look inside you this guy has I know he's been touched before too well it might sound crazy but for me who studies sexual fantasies this is actually where my study of sexual fantasies begin I was on a plane from London to Iceland I was sitting at the window seat and I'm looking down the aisle and I see this gorgeous Icelandic moon with a steel blue I know Pierce two years old and as a middle-aged man and I thought ooh hopefully she sits next to me but of course like fate would have it they're both walking down the aisle both looking my way and he sits down right next to me and I think what just my luck not today Mike Anderson not today but then she's she kind of looks at him another strangely and hovers over him and says excuse me sir I think you're in my seat now as you can imagine my excitement was very strong at this point she's gonna sit next to me we're gonna use the whole plane ride from London Iceland to build rapport we're gonna laugh we're gonna cry we're gonna fry like we get to Iceland we're gonna frog some more and we're gonna make Icelandic babies that was in my future a plus B equals C but as fate would have it once again he turns to the Icelandic woman and says well you know what I'm looking at my typic ticket and I notice I'm just supposed to be in a row ahead of you why don't we just switch seats yes I don't know if any of you have ever had Icelandic babies taken away from you did a terrible terrible feeling in that moment I lost something now fear got me that day I should have said no sir she doesn't sit here you don't understand a plus B equals C but it not but in that moment when she agreed with them and turned to go to her seat she looked at me with the steel blue eyes and in that moment she imprinted a sexual fantasy inside of me it was like that movie Inception instead of it's a sexual fantasy within a sexual fantasy deep in my subconscious what power they have and I thought oh my goodness is a wonderful sexual fantasies she's just giving me do i ever share this with anybody now at that time I was getting my masters and I was studying taboo topics in romantic relationships one of the topics that we avoid in romantic relationships were the topics that we consider off-limits no way Jose when it comes to our romantic relationships and hey we have sex is the big one prior relationships you don't like talking about our past partners discussion of exclusivity or state of the relationship conversation we don't like having that conversation about our you know what are we what aren't we like whoa are we drifting apart or what do you think about getting married something like that we're very nervous about having those conversations along with politics religion and money but one of the things all of these studies have in common was sex was the top of the list in terms of taboo topics so for me I was naturally interested in sex or I should say the lack of communication about sex in romantic relationships now not all sex topics are considered the same right another study came around said oh okay we've got all these different ideas on what people talk about when they talk about sex and romantic relationships and then most avoid one of all those with sexual fantasies there's something about sexual fantasies it's the top of the top when it comes to topics that we avoid and so then I thought to myself Oh okay I want to know a why people are avoiding it be the people who do discuss it are they receiving benefits from that and then how of course does that discussion or lack a discussion relate to our sexual and relational satisfaction so what I did is I went out there and gathered sexual fantasies from 500 people jealous and I also looked at okay did they act out their sexual fantasy did they disclose their favorite or most recurring sexual fantasy fantasy I should say to their current or last partner and then of course looking at their sexual and relationship scores amongst all their variables as well and I think it what I found is really groundbreaking because no one's ever looked at okay what are the benefits that we might have talking about one of the most taboo topics in romantic relationships so I came out with four major benefits that people had a if they talked about it they were more likely to act out the fantasy if your sexual fantasy involves having sex under a windmill Don Quixote I'm not gonna guess that I have tried but unless you tell me you want to have sex under you know a windmill of me just as Don Quixote I'm not gonna get there so a lot of times discuss that obviously leads to acting out of the sexual fantasy which also helps with sexual satisfaction improving our sex lives a lot of times in our sexual fantasies we have certain any practices in terms of what's going on the where's going on that might be sexual preferences or might be something that turns us on sexually so by acting this out maybe it's like a role play you've always wanted to act out with someone's dressed as nurse your dress is Don Quixote and we're on the beach all right we have a hot Big Bang I was listening it's a hot Big Bang and you want that on a beach great you can have that but I think what's really interesting also though is I found that disclosing this and having this conversation isn't just beneficial for your sex life it's also beneficial to your relationship as a whole look at the other things I have found people who talked about this topic also said that they have a deeper emotional connection a deeper bond with their current partner and I think that goes the fact that you're very vulnerable when you disclose something the fact that you're disclosing something so taboo it can really bring you closer together as a couple and also really open the floodgates for communication the idea being if you can discuss something so taboo like sexual fantasies we'll then talking about some of the other stuff is a lot easier but the big takeaway was this if you disclosed your favorite or most recurring sexual fantasy to your partner us and acted that fantasy out you had significantly higher levels of sexual satisfaction that those that didn't disclose their sexual fantasy or those who didn't act it out which might make sense right okay you'd make to have sexual fantasy we did it might improve our sex lives but the more important thing is this for those individuals that disclosed their favorite or most reoccurring sexual fantasy to their partner the last partner relationship regardless of whether they acted out that fantasy they still had significantly higher sexual satisfaction and relational satisfaction scores than those that didn't have that conversation so didn't even matter if they'd act out a sexual fantasy couples that talk about it have better sex lives and better overall romantic relationships I know what you're thinking you're thinking Michael not else not all sexual fantasies are created equal some people might have sexual fantasies involving hot BIGBANG's some people might have sexual fantasies that are just very small right just sex in the shower some people might have sexual fantasies involving this very stage right here or the seat that you're sitting in right now obviously what about men versus females it didn't matter the theme of your sexual fantasy didn't matter the gender of who you were didn't matter how long you were in relationship for because you had to be at least in a relationship longer than two months for the study it didn't matter that benefit permeated through all those different variables now there was interesting thing that I found in that the level of involvement or specificity of the sexual fantasy did make a difference in terms of your sexual satisfaction so I coded each sexual fantasy in terms of specificity or involvement a scale from zero to three zero mean you didn't have a sexual fantasy three means you had a very elaborate sexual fantasy you had a very elaborate sexual fantasy there was a who there was a what there was a when there was a why and most importantly there was a how so because I'm sure you're all very interested in nosey I'm gonna read some sample three sexual fantasies my sexual fantasy is the level three sexual fantasy the highest level of involvement my sexual fantasy include being taken into the bedroom having previously dressed for an intimate evening under my professional clothes of the day and being slowly undressed tied seductively to the bed and pleasured by miral by my romantic partners mouth all over my body silk ties at the arms and feet blindfolded but with a warmth and scent of candles lighted around the room and quote some might consider that more very traditional fantasy if I didn't matter traditional or non-traditional all I was looking for with specificity involvement let me give you a second level three fantasy and for the art of it I will read it in a more Shakespearean way it starts with a candlelit dinner the Rupert Grint except he has a mullet he comes across the table towards me throwing our dinner to the floor he takes me by the hand and leads me to another room where there is a hot tub full of vanilla pudding he throws me into the pudding head first unfortunately I can't swim in pudding but he jumps in and rescues me I've never been so turned on or so covered and putting in all my life little did I know while struggling to rescue me from the pudding all of our closures happen to slide off Turner deal suddenly appears as our naked lifeguard probably know one demerit that is Turner Gill selfie appears as our naked lifeguard he began giving me the hottest wettest mouth-to-mouth resuscitation not necessarily on my lips that breathe it's not over exhilarated they came at me and started tag-teaming me it was the it was getting hot and heavy after we reached our steaming climax we clothed shake hands and go our separate ways and quote no obviously that is very different than level one sexual fantasies which involve in a field full of grass he's wearing lots of leather and just plain old [ __ ] nurse so they're very different in that regard he was the most important thing if you looked at who in my study had the lowest levels of sexual satisfaction its those individuals that had level 3 sexual fantasies and hadn't or didn't disclose them either because they couldn't or because they were worried about their partner said so those individuals that really have elaborate involve sexual fantasies but don't feel I've I can disclose that their sexual satisfaction their sex lives are much significantly lower than people who have disclosed their sexual fantasies regardless of what level of sexual involvement of the fantasy hat so it's a very interesting dynamic if you look at people's level 3 sexual fantasies those individuals who disclose their sex lives with way up here if you didn't disclose it is way down here the difference was highly significant now another thing interesting to point out once again as as I said it didn't matter what your theme of your sexual fantasy was you still get the benefit by disclosing it but everyone wants to know okay what's the most common one for men and women and what I found is there was definitely a common sexual theme for women but not as much for men the most common theme for women was themes of dominance and Submission now I know what you're thinking okay this is Fifty Shades a great thing but I did this study before the Fifty Shades of Grey ever came out 40 percent of females have a sexual fantasy that involves some level of dominance or submission either that be a rape fantasy or being tied up being handcuffed in some way share form submission dominance so basically I'm trying to say it's four out of ten women in this audience have that very sexual fantasy you know you're looking all around right now aren't you you think that's bad timing 500 sexual fantasies in your head I can no longer go to frisbee golf courses makes you think now isn't it so we see that fairly consistent females but you know what we don't really see interestingly enough we don't see that same theme of dominance or submission even the other way around in men for men the themes were all over the place there was one theme that came out 15 percent of men which was the most did have a theme involving multiple partners so about 15 16 percent of men that their most common theme for men with but again it's only 15 16 percent involved there was an extra person there whether that be a female will that be a male will that be Don Quixote doesn't matter that was the most common theme for men but a lot of times I'm asked okay who's the most common person into sexual fantasies and I want to end with this because I think it's really important and I think it's almost comforting that I say this a lot of times we have sexual fantasies and we don't want to know our partners sexual fantasy because world-war like oh my goodness they're gonna say like Taylor Swift they're gonna say George Clooney they're gonna say you know someone specific that I can't be so all these people that I got sexual fantasies from 500 people only 5% of individuals named a specific person that wasn't their current partner it's only 30 people out of 500 their sexual fantasy is a specific person that's really low so we're always constantly worried now some people did have sexual fantasies like oh it's a firefighter it's a fire marshal it's a cop it's a robber it's our football player but that's a character that's not a real person so we're so worried that people are thinking okay they're thinking about Taylor Swift the whole time having sex I mean not really know people with their sexual fantasy they're much more specific and much more desiring the where the when the what and specifically how the sexual fantasy more so than who on the sexual fantasy so again I leave with that idea that it's very important to have these sexual fantasies we all do most of us do anyway and I'm not saying this is a magical pill that you're gonna take and it's gonna cure everything in your romantic relationship was in queue your sex sighs I can't say that it's not capital-t truth but what I can say is that what I discovered is that those individuals who share their sexual fantasies with their partner have better sex lives and established deeper emotional connections and bonds and have better communication than those that don't and I think it's a powerful takeaway message again can't say what's for everybody the majority of individuals we talked about generalizability I promise you I'd say the most calm person in these sexual fantasies but again take this with a grain of salt because we're dealing with only like 30 to 35 people out of 500 they actually name a specific person but maybe this will help you a trivia night or something like that or impress your friends but what I discovered the most name person and sexual fantasy research is Flo from the progressive commercials and the craziest thing is she is not Icelandic oh well thank you all for listening so much how terrific

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 588,967

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Sex

Id: B4uUgdh3pmY

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2015