Looking

Forbidden Flowers
by Nancy Friday

Finally women can talk about what they used to only dream about...

Forbidden Flowers is Nancy Friday's second collection of sexual fantasies — and it's even more explicit and outspoken than her original erotic masterpiece, My Secret Garden. The constant refrain from the legions of women across America who read My Secret Garden was, "Thank God I'm not the only one..." who had those wild, exciting erotic thoughts. With Forbidden Flowers, these women can yet again experience the exhilarating freedom that comes with the awareness and acceptance of their sexual selves.

Chapter 3

Until very recently, it was a cliché even in the medical profession that women were not turned on by reading pornography. When I began researching My Secret Garden, one doctor after another told me that women are unable to become aroused through the same kind of visual stimuli that moved men. "A woman does not look at sex as a kind of simple, physical proposition the way men can," went the usual explanation. "Pornographic books or photos leave all emotion out of sex, but unless a woman can see sex in an emotional context, she just isn't interested."

This may have sounded reasonable enough; on the whole, it is fairly true of the way women lead their lives. The only problem with the explanation is that it does not account for, or even acknowledge, female lust.

It did not help explain to me why. I would always find my eyes riveted to attention when I passed a man on the street who had a noticeable bulge in his trousers... why, when I went to see The Changing Room, a play in which at least a dozen naked men come on stage at one time, it was all I could do to keep my head from swiveling from side to side. I had never seen so many naked cocks presented for my inspection at one time, and although I felt no emotion for any of the actors involved, it was one of the most exciting evenings I had ever spent in a theater.

Was I some kind of freak? I wondered. I had nothing to compare myself to, no role-models whose footsteps I could safely walk in. I had no cultural okay to give sanction to my prurient interest, the way men have for theirs. If a man likes to go to burlesque shows and pins photos of naked women on his wall, it shows he is one hell of a lusty guy. There is even a society based in San Diego made up of young studs who proudly label themselves "International Girl Watchers." But we are only supposed to collect photos of couples walking hand in hand in the moonlight. The whole business seemed unfair to me — worse, it offended my sense of logic and symmetry. There must be a reverse to the coin, even if I had never heard it discussed, even if no doctor would agree with me. I remember talking to a friend's young daughter not too long ago about her experiences at the beach. "Men have these funny bulges in the front of their bathing suits," the girl said, "but you're not supposed to notice them. How do you do that?"

How indeed? I get furious when I hear men and women alike say that the naked male isn't as interesting or beautiful as the naked female. Why? Why should tits be any more beautiful than a man's buttocks or cock? I believe it is men themselves who've set up the idea that their naked bodies are ugly — or at least, too trivial or unimportant to look at, unless they have an errection! If I am right, then it is also men themselves who will have to help both sexes get over this absurd prejudice. Men are going to have to accept their own naked bodies as aesthetically satisfying, and not merely sexually useful; they will have to learn to lie back and enjoy allowing a woman to look at them. Once men can get away from the idea that they are not worth looking at if they don't have a giant, erect cock, they will be liberated from an enormous amount of their castration anxieties. They will be freed from the notion that they are either a giant penis or they are "nothing." They can be men, instead of perpetual fucking machines.

To see a naked man from the rear is a sight that takes my breath away — the awesome shape of power as the shoulders drop away into narrow hips, the hard, muscle-bunched look of an athlete's ass.... There are lines in the male body that have never been mentioned, aesthetics of masculine anatomy women will soon be writing poetry about... if we can give ourselves permission to look.

Unlike men, women have been trained from birth be exhibitionists. Fashion is busily revealing one aspect of our anatomy this year, hiding it the next. Who more than a woman feels more deeply in her bones the erotic power of what the eye can see? It is obvious to me that both sexes must be equally stimulated by reading and seeing sexual sights, but that women — "ladies" — have been culturally conditioned to deny it, even to themselves. Both sexes respond to natural things like sunshine, furry animals, the feeling of speed, the sound of music — why should there be this great divide in what turns on the individual sexes? If both women and men like sex, both must like it in all its manifestations, even the most fleeting. After I had written in My Secret Garden that I was "an inveterate crotchwatcher," woman after woman has taken me aside to tell me, with a relieved laugh, that she was too. (You will also find mention of the pleasures of fantasizing what goes on under a man's tight-fitting pants in many of the letters in this book.)

Roxanne too sends evidence that I'm not alone in getting an erotic charge out of things I see. Her letter contains eleven different fantasies, all of which involve looking and being looked at.

But her letter ends on a sad note, I feel — one that does much to explain why women are so afraid to confess their excitement at seeing something sexual. "...I must stop now," Roxanne concludes, "as my husband is coming home. He's great but rather traditional, so I don't want him to see all this." Instead of seeing women's sexual response to things they see or read as one more erotic avenue to explore together, too many men see it as a threat, a sign of raging sexuality that they are afraid they may not be able to satisfy. "My ex-husband would rather think of me as frigid," a friend recently said to me, "than think maybe I wasn't getting enough."

* * *

Roxanne

I have a number of favorite fantasies — I say favorite because if I described all of my fantasies I'd be able to write a book myself. So anyway, as my vaginal juices start proliferating, here goes:

Fantasy 1: There is a pornographic book and magazine store fairly near where I live. The magazines are especially great, with all types of pictures and advice, including how guys can best fuck guys, and so forth. Anyway, I see myself going in there with some type of revealing clothing on and definitely NO underwear of any kind. Whatever the top material is, my nipples will be clearly visible, and the bottom part will be some sort of skirt-dress. I go in and start paging through some magazines when I accidently on purpose drop one. I bend over to pick it up, thus revealing my ass and cunt in all their glory. The young male proprietor naturally is watching me all along, and he has all he can do to contain himself. Sometimes he'll rush over and before I even get a chance to get up, he sticks his enormous prick in me — in my asshole, in my cunt — no matter — and pumps to our hearts' delight.

Sometimes he won't approach me, so I'll take a few magazines to him to purchase and say, "Boy, I'll bet you get horny working in a place like this," or "You should have a back room where horny females like me can get some fucking when they need it — like right now." He looks at me with lust and tells me they do have such a room! He directs me and in I go with my throbbing body. What should be in there but three gorgeous guys, and I direct the show. Wow — have you ever had all three holes fucked simultaneously?

Another great feeling is to be held by two guys and raised up and down on a third guy's prick — first slowly and then with progressive speed.

After all this, I still want more variety. I take one guy into the adjoining shower with me and ask him to pee on me — yes — pee on my boobs and tummy and cunt. That's exciting! After that, I bend over on all fours and tell him to "stick it up my ass," which he obligingly does.

This particular fantasy usually ends about here. This very morning, I went to the bookstore to act this out (at least in the initial stages) only to find out they had gone out of business. Would you believe that? And I was ready! All I had on was a white peasant blouse off-the-shoulders and a short peasant type skirt — no undies! If I had bent over or if a good wind had come along, I either would've been arrested or raped — maybe both. I sure was disappointed and frustrated! I went home and masturbated with an artificial banana, which, believe me, was no substitute for a cock (or cocks).

Fantasy 2: I have tremendous exhibitionist urges — like the bending over previously described. I get a lot of these ideas from looking at magazine photos. I'd LOVE to perform a strip act which culminated in fucking the whole damn male audience. I'd like to masturbate manually or with cucumbers or whatever on stage and drive men to distraction.

Fantasy 3: I'd like to be casually dressed in some public place as a department store with my button-down-the-front blouse open just far enough to let a boob show from the side for the benefit of male passersby. Occasionally, someone grabs it and starts tearing my clothes off from lust.

Fantasy 4: Here's something I actually did a few weeks ago. I again had on no underwear, and I parked my car in a parking lot next to a tall building where construction was being carried out. There were workmen a few floors above me, so I decided to give them a treat.... I pulled my skirt up (in the car) and began to masturbate with my finger. After a few minutes, I had quite an appreciative audience. I would've liked screwing one or more of them, but time pressures didn't allow. Alas!

Fantasy 5: I'd love to be seeing a porno film in a theater — I can feel and see myself getting hot and wet because the film is really turning me on. All of a sudden, I feel a strange hand on my thigh slowly heading for my black tiny bikini panties. The hand reaches its mark and finds me wet and ready. To avoid creating too much of a disturbance, I remove the panties, and he opens his fly. I move over and sit on his lap thereby causing his twelve-inch-long sex tool to go easily and smoothly into my burning sex hole — up and down I go till we exhaust ourselves in climax. Then we part and he moves to a different location in the darkened theater. I've never seen his face — it wasn't necessary.

I just now stuck my finger up my twat as I'm writing this — my god — I don't even feel human — just one whole sex machine.

Fantasy 6: At other times, I see myself as a teacher of middle-to-late teen years boys. They don't especially turn me on, but I'd like to sit on the desk with my legs apart and turn THEM on by letting them see my sex organs "accidentally." Sometimes, a cooperative fellow teacher (male) comes into the room, and we demonstrate to them "proper" oral lovemaking. He undresses me slowly and completely, and I again sit on the desk — now completely naked. He asks me to sit with my legs apart so the whole class can see my cunt and asshole. He spreads my labia part and describes my female anatomy to the class. While he's touching and describing, I'm going crazy and am moving my body about in wild abandon. The boys at their desks are one-by-one opening their flies to let their cocks escape. Here and there, I see a fountain of semen exploding. My fellow teacher now goes down on me by titillating my clitoris with his tongue. He goes down slowly until his tongue slips into my vagina, and his finger is up my ass. I'm still on the desk. By now, boys are fucking boys and several are clawing at me — sucking my nipples and trying to move the teacher out of the way so they can get at me. This goes on and on....

Fantasy 7: I really get turned on by looking at naked men in Playgirl. While looking, I sometimes imagine myself at home with minimal revealing clothing on — maybe a see-through shortie nightgown. I've been looking at myself in the full-length mirror in the bedroom and admiring my body. In front of the mirror, I've been executing some bumps and grinds in various stages of partial disrobing. I've also been watching myself masturbate. but this never really satisfies me, so I'm in one hell of a bad way when there's a knock on the front door. I go to the living room, peek through the blinds, and see a deliveryman with a package for me. By this time, he's really banging on the door, so I figure, "Oh, shit, if he's in such a hurry, I'll just open up." And open up I do — both the door and myself. When I open the door, he asks me to sign for the package; as I am signing, he is looking. When I finish signing, it is my turn to look — at his crotch. Needless to say, it is really bulging! He is standing slightly inside the door, so as I reach to close it behind him, my nipples brush his bare arm. That's all he needs. He grabs me, lifts me up, and carries me over to a living room chair, where he places me on the chair with one of my legs over each arm of the chair, thus leaving me slightly suspended and with my genitals completely exposed. He pulls up my nightgown over my head and leaves me with nothing on. I am so excited I can feel the juices coming out of me. He whips out of his pocket an artificial cock and sticks it in me — up and down it goes till I come and come and come. Then he picks me up and puts me on the floor and fucks me till I'm delirious. While this is going on, my dog enters the living room and starts sniffing and whining, and his prick starts popping out. He doesn't have a chance, though, because my deliveryman is delivering too good for me to pay any attention to my dog... maybe some other time.

Fantasy 8: I'd also like to find a guy who would like to lie down in the bathtub with me straddling him and let me pee all over him.

Fantasy 9: I occasionally visualize myself walking into a college fraternity and announcing my availability for ANYONE who's there and ready.

Fantasy 10: I'm a patron in a strip-bar. The girl on stage is doing her thing and has nothing on but a G-string. I'm there alone, and the room is filled with men who are all excited from watching the stripper. Strippers excite me too — but I want a MAN to satisfy me. One approaches me, sits next to me, and puts his hand under my skirt. In a very short time, he's got four fingers in my hole, and I don't give a damn who's watching. Pretty soon, all eyes are on us. I'm laid out in the booth, and he's undressing. He gets on top of me, and then me on him; when I'm on top of him, my boobs are bouncing like crazy, and pretty soon I feel another prick going up my ass. We're all keeping time to the music. The stripper is still dancing, and she takes her G-string off and starts masturbating herself with a candle from one of the tables. People are applauding, yelling, and cussing, and the music gets louder and louder. It feels so good — it just never ends.

Fantasy 11: I love to pose for porno pictures in real life.... not professionally — just for my lovers. God, that's exciting. I'll pose in ANY way regardless. You name it — I'll do it. I love to later look at the pictures and get excited all over again. Once, a guy and myself took a picture in a mirror of me sucking his cock — to look at that later was absolutely fascinating and thrilling.

I walk around most of the time in a horny condition. Sometimes I can't even concentrate, and that's bad because I'm a college-educated professional person.... I won't say what profession, because I can't risk identification in any way.

Well, there are more, but I must stop now as my husband is coming home. He's great but rather traditional, so I don't want him to see all this.

I'm anxious to read your second book — hope you can use some of this in it.

* * *

Copyright © 1975 by Nancy Friday

About the Author

Nancy Friday is the bestselling author of My Secret Garden, Jealousy, Men in Love, My Mother/My Self, Women on Top, The Power of Beauty and, most recently, Our Looks, Our Lives. She lives in Key West, Florida, and in Connecticut.