Imagine this: you are a middle-aged woman. In the morning, you are a perfect mum. During the day, you are a financial analyst. And in your free time, you happen to be a very popular woman who meets several people for sex of different kinds—or for pure kink play. What would you call yourself? The autocorrect function on my phone would immediately replace this entire description with “nympho MILF.”
But here’s the trick: replace the word woman with man, and suddenly everything becomes glamorous. He would be seen as irresistibly attractive. Women would empathize deeply with his single-parent status. He might even outshine Christian Grey, because my imaginary man is far more realistic. As for his sexual freedom, there is no shortage of flattering words: player, stallion, Don Juan. Cultural hypocrisy doesn’t get much clearer than that.
The woman I’ve just described is the protagonist of my novel. Yes, that’s right, I let this average middle-aged female live out both her kinks and her sexual fantasies. The kink part was easy—let’s say that some of it is less fictional than it appears. Sexual fantasies, however, were far more difficult.
I wanted my character to have a sexual dream that would resonate with female readers. It had to be hot, appropriate for a female dominant (meaning no pink fur handcuffs), and yet relatable.
My own imagination didn’t take me very far. What could it be? A foot massage followed by toe-sucking? Sex in a swimming pool? No—once you’ve had children, a swimming pool doesn’t feature in your sexual fantasies for many years. Neither does the kitchen table.
I didn’t want to rely on statistical data about what kind of porn women search for on specific websites. I didn’t want low-minded internet stories either. I wanted first-person confessions from women who take their children to the same sports practices and dentist appointments as I do—women who don’t look like Instagram models.
That is why I interviewed many women of the same age in Sweden (where the story is set), Germany, and France. It took a lot of drinks, tissues, and all my skills as an interviewer. But it was worth it. Learning about someone’s deepest fantasies was fascinating.
Some fantasies were quite innocent: spontaneous sex in a public toilet—with their own husbands, not with strangers. Conventional sex in various positions, lasting more than ten minutes, was everyone’s baseline. Many women dreamed of trying double vaginal penetration (sorry, gentlemen—anal sex did not rank high, despite your wishes). Another surprisingly tender fantasy was going to a sex club, lying on a couch, and letting several men touch, kiss, and please them.
What all single middle-aged women had in common was the desire to be free in their behavior in the same way men are. To go on a date with a younger man, have great sex, without long discussions or obligations. Just enjoy life. The opportunity to talk openly about desire without the risk of being judged or diagnosed also seemed almost unattainable.
Remember Analyze This? There’s a scene where a mob boss refuses to perform certain sex acts with his wife: “That’s the mouth she kisses my kids goodnight with!” Nothing has changed since 1999. The stigma attached to a woman—a mother—having sexual desires is still there. Fifty Shades permitted women to fantasize, but only about submission. About being used. When it comes to women driving their own pleasure, we haven’t moved much further since then.
What struck me most, however, was the unanimity of women’s response:
“I’m already dirty just for thinking about certain things. I don’t even watch them on Pornhub. An orgasm from oral sex is the only sexual desire I can admit. I will deny everything else. I don’t want to be called a nymphomaniac. A whore.”
This is how my character’s most discreet sexual dream became… receiving oral sex to orgasm. Yes—oral sex. Something considered entirely commonplace in both vanilla and kink relationships. But, as usual, the devil was in the details. Most women told me they wanted to experience an orgasm from it, not just pleasure as foreplay.
To the women who shared their secrets with me over wine and tears: I am equally afraid of being accused of being “psycho” because of my desires. That is why I never used my own sexual fantasies. I cowardly chose to hide them behind those of other women. The least I could do, out of gratitude, was to let my character live out theirs.
Ana from Sweden, November 2025