This isn’t a horrible book, it’s just not very relevant. A friend recommended it, so I read it.

Tl:dr; women have sexual fantasies

If you didn’t know that or need convincing then this book might help. But, if quite rationally, you already know this, then this book is very boring. I kept reading hoping it would present something like perhaps an analysis of types or frequency, but it doesn’t. It’s just lists of ladies writing in about what they fantasize about.

I suppose if you really need some prurient content and don’t have access to anything other than this, you might want it. But it’s not even particularly good in that sense.

Two stars as the author worked hard and it’s not horrible, but I’m not sure why anyone would want to read this.

This was interesting, not much different from most sexual pseudo-psychology books.

Interesting book. Not shocking to me per say, I can stomach a lot. There's a wide variety of fantasies in this book. From your classic "I want to fuck the post man" to women who want or do, naughty things with their pets. In certain parts, this book just gets downright strange. But, I guess that's the beauty of human fantasy. It's all different and inside a fantasy bubble you can do what you want without being judged. When looked at from a physiological point of view, the book was quite interesting.

A very feminist and important book, especially when you consider the time it has been written (~1970). At one point I started to skip the comments and analyses of the author, because it’s common knowledge nowadays and also badly written. The sexual fantasies are sometimes disturbing, sometimes boring, sometimes it made me horny.

I've read this book as it came to me as a classic must read, and I've found it really interesting, but not by its main content.

Reading this over 40 years after its publication leaves little room for surprise or startling at the fantasies told here, but it is a wonderful portrait of the women at the time and their social environment. Also, for nobody's surprise, it was funny reading about the feminist censorship of the time, not so different of today's.

Definitely way out of my comfort zone and a great recommendation from a friend. Gave me a new perspective on fantasies in general, their purpose and legality in a modern society. As a Male it is always interesting to pick the mind of a woman and see how they express themself in these matters. I would have liked it more if there where larger parts regarding the science behind sexuality, reading fantasy after fantasy becomes a bit mundane after a while.

The premise is very valid, but MANY of the author's own comments aged horribly, and so did the lack of trigger warnings, especially for zooph*lia/animal abuse.

And before internet porn and Shades of Grey there was one clever lady who collected other people's fantasies and packaged them neatly into a book with only the bare minimum of pseudo-intellectual, psycho babble around it as was required to make it past censorship - and hey presto a multimillion dollar book was born. I still take my hat off to Mrs Friday for letting others do the work but also thank her for the copy that existed in my parents' house and that introduced me to fantasising beyond meeting the object of my desire in the first place...although, personally, I could have done without the incest and the bestiality. Tongue in cheek aside: an important book in the liberation of women that deserves its status.

This book seems a bit dated, I skipped over a lot of the blah blah which was aimed at a female audience newly experiencing the sexual revolution. Nevertheless, some of these women's fantasies still pack a wallop.

I just could not get through this book. I started My Secret Garden in December 2021, meaning this has taken me 3 months to get through.

I became aware of My Secret Garden through a book titled Pleasures: Women Write Erotica. Pleasures was released 11 years after My Secret Garden and is a total rip off of it, but it's 10 times better. Pleasures follows the exact same lay out of My Secret Garden, but what separates these two books is the writing. The women who contributed to Pleasures were WRITERS whom the author knew and approached to be included in the book. The women who contributed to My Secret Garden are random women across the country (and Britain) who decided to send in their contributions for the book. I'm glad these women conquered their anxieties and expressed their sexual fantasies, but, Jesus Christ, they suck at writing.

And frankly, I wasn't impressed with Nancy Friday's writing either. At the beginning of each chapter or section she offers her own insight, analysis, or explanation of the upcoming writings. When reading these, I often found myself thinking, "What the hell is she on about?" The goal of this book was to remove the stigma around women's sexual fantasies and desires, and I think that's a great goal. But let's address the elephant in the room here... this book was released during Second Wave Feminism. There are definitely sections that I don't believe fly today. In my criticisms of this book I don't want to come across as shaming any of the fantasies expressed. My goal for this review is not to be the thought police. But I don't think some of the sections are appropriate to be compiled, published, and shared.

For example, there is a section that I did take particular issue with. The section titled "ROOM NUMBER TWELVE: BIG BLACK MEN" that is definitely very fetishy. Nancy Friday starts the section with, "All black people are promiscuous... white people think. They're always fucking or they're about to. They reek of sexuality." And I can't find the exact page, but there's a line that talks about how part of the turn on is the "forbidden-ness" of having sex with a Black man, how it would piss off your mother if she found out. This is incredibly problematic writing to use when describing the sexualities of Black men. The hyper-sexualization of both Black men and women is a product of both systemic and individualized racism, and this issue is still perpetuated today. The idea that Black men are inherently "sexual" "forbidden" and "promiscuous" strips them of humanity and respect. Black men are not sexual objects you fuck to piss off your mom. They're human beings, not tools in your White woman revenge plot.

And then there are sections like, "ROOM NUMBER TEN: INCEST" and "ROOM NUMBER ELEVEN: THE ZOO". I don't think I'm equipped to handle the feminist analysis of these sections, but I do have some thoughts. I don't really want to dig my nails into women that fantasized about incest or bestiality. I understand if you want to, but I'm just not interested in my review coming off this way. However, I do question the decision to compile sections of these fantasies and publish them. One could argue that it normalizes these behaviors. And many of the women who write about these fantasies have acted them out. More than a handful of the women in this book have participated in bestiality. To be very clear, this is illegal and HIGHLY unethical. And the incest chapter is just sad. It's mostly women writing about times their family members sexually assaulted them and they now think back to these moments when they fantasize. I am DEFINITELY not equipped to discuss the psychological aspects of these fantasies, but I do question Nancy Friday's decision to create a chapter that is clearly heavily built upon women's assaults.

Now, you could argue "Well, if the goal of this book is to remove the stigma of women's experiences, then including these traumatic events removes stigma from sexual assault." I disagree. Nancy Friday repeatedly refers to the work she put into compiling these writings as "research." That's fine, I have no problem with her using that word. However, I don't believe anyone is reading this book for "research." This is clearly an erotica, and people are clearly reading it to get off on it. Compiling a section that is heavily built upon women's real experiences with sexual assault in an erotica just doesn't sit right with me.

I respect the ultimate goal here. I think it's great that Nancy Friday wanted to discuss women's sexualities during a time when marital rape wasn't outlawed in all 50 states and women couldn't own a credit card in their own name. However, many parts of this book just didn't age well. And I hate seeing it on those "Greatest Feminist Eroticas" lists. You know the ones I'm talking about.

Just read Pleasures instead. Trust me, it's way better.

I will now leave you with my favorite line of My Secret Garden: "I rather like this and wouldn't really mind being treated like a whore... an expensive one."

Could a collection of women's sexual fantasies from the 70s still shock a reader in the Fifty Shades era?

It sure can.

Though it's easy to become desensitised after the first 100 or so pages of orgies, horses, dogs, whips and big black men.

But telling those fantasies off as silly or deviant is exactly what this book goes in against.Your fantasies are your own, and while you risk scorn when sharing them with the world, and may experience a feeling of guilt as a consequence, ultimately it doesn't matter if it makes you feel good.

What most surprised me about this book, other than the level of openness of these 70s women, other than the large apparent attraction of Alsatians (I learned a word!), and other than the large number of women already married with children and in a not-so-happy marriage by the time they're 22... was how touching some of these fantasies were.

(No, not that kind of touching.)

A lot of these fantasies seem to reflect a great yearning these women feel for tenderness and love. Many fantasies describe not sexual acts, but situations in which the woman is admired, told she's worth looking at and caring for. Some women just fantasise about walks on the beach. Other contributions that touched me in a way:

- The woman, who was most definitely not a lesbian, but who often fantasised about being with a woman, and who often had sexual encounters with a lesbian friend of hers, which made me feel for that friend.

- The man who wrote in to tell that his wife had no fantasies whatsoever thank you very much, and signed the letter in her name.

- The woman who had been sexually abused in her childhood by a member of the school staff, and grew up to be a member of a school staff herself, and now abused her pupils in the same way. A sad vicious cycle.

- The man who wrote in to share the fantasy of his now late wife, who confessed to him about fantasising about a certain actor. During sex they then acted out that fantasy, and the day after he went to buy an outfit reminiscent of that actor. This made his wife cry, as she had been afraid he actually wouldn't be able to look him in the eye anymore after the previous night.

Singling out these fantasies probably says something about me in return, but I'll leave it at that.

In short, this is a good bedside-table book, or train book, if you're not too much of a blusher.

[These notes were made in 1981:]. Naturally enough, I bought this out of prurient interest. And it is more or less what I expected - longish accounts of various types of erotic fantasy, linked with a facile tho' not by any means illiterate or vulgar commentary. It's printed on cheap paper, has a few typos (Brigid Brophy says no-one can bear to read pornography twice - hence it's never properly proof-read). It is not fiction; nor is it in any way scientific enough to be taken seriously as non-fiction. Yet, for all this, My Secret Garden has one purpose beyond the obvious. It is immensely reassuring. Those aspects of oneself which seemed most isolated, most perverse, have their echo in this book. One is not "sick" - or, if one is, one's in good company. (Note careful avoidance of first-person pronoun. Hypocrite!) And, of course, it was quite illuminating as to how far people will go in their fantasizing, although there is nothing here I haven't already met in the pages of Penthouse Forum. This book, however, lacks the almost flaunted speciousness of Forum's "reader contributions", and is in that degree more reassuring.