title: My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies
author:  Nancy Friday 
description: This book caused quite a ruckus when it was released 25 years ago because it directly quotes the sexual fantasies of dozens of women, ranging from the "very common" rape fantasy to lesbian affairs to unusually explicit scenarios that are unmentionable here. While author Nancy Friday maintains that <i>My Secret Garden</i> served to free millions of women from sexual oppression, there's still a need today to get rid of the guilt that millions more still feel when it comes to fantasizing, having orgasms, and making one's sexual wishes be known. "How could it be, you might ask," she writes, "that women today, at the turn of the century, would still think they were the only Bad Girls with erotic thoughts? What kind of prison is this that that women impose on themselves?"
zlib_text: > Also by Julie Buxbaum  
  >  _The Opposite of Love_
  
  ![](Images/image00164.jpeg)
  
  _For Indy, my home spot_
  
  ![](Images/image00168.jpeg)
  
  > > >  _“You are going to be sent home,” Basil said to her, “at the end of the
  > week. And we’re glad of it.” “I’m glad of it, too,” answered Mary. “Where is
  > home?”_
  
  > > > —THE SECRET GARDEN
  
   **1**
  
  ![](Images/image00165.jpeg)
  
  Let’s pretend that things are different. That in the last couple of days, I
  haven’t become the kind of person who resorts to wishing on eyelashes, first
  stars of the night, and the ridiculous 11:11, both a.m. and p.m., in earnest
  and with my eyes closed. That Lucy and her family haven’t transformed into
  tabloid stars with a full picture on the cover of the _Daily Mail_ with the
  headline _Notting Hill Murdergate!_ , and the lead story on the BBC evening
  news. Let’s pretend that I am home, on the right side of the Atlantic, the one
  where I understand the _English_ language, and that tomorrow will be just like
  early last week,