Nancy Friday - Men in Love

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NANCY FRIDAY

author of MY MOTHER /MY SELF

MEN IN LOVE

Mens Sexual Fantasies:

The Triumph of love Over Rage

MEN IN LOVE

NANCY FRIDAY, THE COURAGEOUS, CANDID AUTHOR OF MY MOTHER/MY SELF, EMBARKS ON A BOLD JOURNEY INTO THE SECRET SEX LIVES OF MEN.

LIBERATING ... ILLUMINATING ... THE MOST TALKED ABOUT AND LIFE-CHANGING BOOK OF THE YEAR.

-Michael Korda, author of Power

A LABOR OF LOVE FOR ALL HUMANKIND. NANCY FRIDAY IS STILL ON THE CUTTING EDGE.

-The Houston Chronicle

NANCY FRIDAYS INTERPRETATION OF MENS SEXUAL FANTASIES OFFERS AN INVALUABLE NEW WAY OF SEEING MEN. IT IS CRUCIAL THAT THE FANTASIES ARE UNEXPURGATED, EXACTLY AS SHE RECEIVED THEM; THE WORDS AND IMAGES EMERGE DIRECTLY ... TELLING US HOW MEN SECRETLY FEEL: THEIR ANGER AT WOMEN, AT WAR WITH THEIR DEEPER UNDERLYING LOVE.

Richard Robertiello, M.D.

SHOCKING, REVEALING AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION.

-Barbara Seaman

FRIDAY HAS GONE FURTHER INTO THE WORLD OF MALE FANTASY AND LEARNED MORE ABOUT IT THAN ANYONE WRITING FOR A LAY AUDIENCE HAS EVER DONE BEFORE.... READERS WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK AND ABOUT THEMSELVES FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

-Martha Weinman Lear, author of Heartsounds

ASTONISHINGLY OUTSPOKEN, EVEN IN A PERIOD OF UNUSUAL SEXUAL FRANKNESS.

-Publishers Weekly

BY NANCY FRIDAY

MY SECRET GARDEN FORBIDDEN FLOWERS MY MOTHER/MY SELF

MEN IN LOVE:

Mens Sexual Fantasies:

The Triumph of Love Over Rage

A DELL BOOK

Published by

Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza New York, New York 10017

Copyright 1980 by Nancy Friday

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press, New York, New York.

Dell TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc. ISBN: 0-440-15903-2

Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press. Printed in the United States of America

First Dell printing-February 1981 Fourth Dell printing-January 1983

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank psychoanalyst Richard Robertiello, M.D., for his professional assistance in reading all the fantasies in this book, and for giving me the benefit of his understanding of their meaning. If I have added my own interpretations to the clarity and brilliance he brought to our discussions, it is because great teacher that he is he always encouraged me to question even his opinions.

Further thanks are also lovingly given to two other friends, psychotherapist Dr. Leah Schaefer and psychoanalyst Sirgay Sanger, M.D. Their generosity in giving me so much time, the learning with which they suggested various corrections to my thinking, leave me permanently in their debt.

When I hear other writers deplore the failings of their literary agents, I am always reminded how much I owe my own, Betty Anne Clarke. I may not be able to point to any particular pages of my work and say Betty Anne suggested this idea or that; but without her courageous belief in me during the past six years, perhaps the pages never would have been written.

Happy endings are made all the more poignant by the memory of unhappy beginnings. At a time when few others were interested in my work, Linda Grey came forward with encouragement, advice, counseland a contract. My debt to her is one only the most fortunate of writers can understand.

N.F.

For my husband, Bill Manville, whose name should appear on the cover of this book with my own. However, as women have long known, It is not an equal world.

Contents

1. Drake, Harry, Bill, Allan, Lester, Clifton, Hal, Don, Jud, Julius, Burt

2. Leon, Bryces girl Helen, Vances wife, Lee, Penrod, Chip, Les, Warren, Christopher, Murray, Patrick, Miguel

3. Dan, Donald, Fred, Russell, Lou, Al, Jerry, Bradley, Ben, Wayne, Oliver, Steve, Eddie

4. Theo, Hamilton, John, Bruce, Herb, Walter, Seth, Alvin, Salty, Hugh

5. Jackie, Vito, Mitch, Lawrence, Lewis, Henry

6. Tim, Dyson, Bennet, Sailor, Dan, Jake, Butch, Phil, Chet, Jefferson

7. Roy, Kip, Neil, Tucker, Jack, Keith

8. Bernard, Dennis, Hank, Melvin, Fitz, Cyrus

9. James, Greg, Josh, Jess, Kenneth, Mel, Sandy, Maurice, Daniel

10. Crosby, Trenton, Clive, Steven, Prentiss, Gene, Leonard, Luke, Perry

11. Gerald, Buck, Rick, Dale, King, Ludwig, Craig, Paul

12. Michael, Conrad, Ned, Gilbert, Mort, Clement, Deke, Dayton, Rudy, Lowry, Lennie, Kent, Jason, Ed, Vern, Ben

13. Vance, Troy, Virgil, Austin, Susie, Thomas, Mac, Jeffrey, Reynolds, Roddy, Clayton

14. Justin, Lars, Harvey, Allen

15. Jock, Connard, Wade, Sam, David, Everett, Tex, Jonathan, Chandler

16. Farrell, Clark, Jones, Andre, Blake, Jeff, Will, Jimmy

17. Nick August, Jonas, Tommy, Philip, Red, Arthur, Fritz, Jethro, Joe

18. Joey, George, Dayle, Howard, Crane, Lloyd

19. Alex, Brewster, Horatio, Joan, Dean

20. 

    Eliot, Tod, Larry, Matthew, Hank, Rock, Vince, Rod, Gerard, Nigel, Douglas, Peter, Dr. Lewis Brown, Ronald, Clifford, Roy, Zack, Vincent, Boyd, Benjamin

21. Vernon, Eddie, Omar, Buddy, Sherwin, Andrew, Shep, Milt, Cecil, Dale, Foster, Davey

The Masculine Conflict

This is a book about men who love women.

Women may not easily recognize that emotion in these pages. These are not conventional valentines. His secret garden is not like mine.

A contemporary confusion is that if the sexes are equal, it must mean they are identical; men often predicted Id find their fantasies similar to womens. We may seek the same goal in fantasy sexual excitement but men and women get there by different paths.

A fantasy is a map of desire, mastery, escape, and obscuration; the navigational path we invent to steer ourselves between the reefs and shoals of anxiety, guilt, and inhibition. It is a work of consciousness, but in reaction to unconscious pressures. What is fascinating is not only how bizarre fantasies are, but how comprehensible; each one gives us a coherent and consistent picture of the personality the unconscious of the person who invented it, even though he may think it the random whim of the moment.

A man has a reverie of meeting a blond woman in a purple nightgown. He doesnt know why the colors are exciting; his unconscious does, but doesnt bother to explain. The man only knows the blonder, the purple ier, the more heated he grows. Soon he is inventing scenarios of bare-breasted models hired to test new peroxide hair bleaches, supplied by a company that arbitrarily orders all contestants to wear purple underwear. If the plot seems silly, what does it matter? The erotic has its reasons that reason doesnt know.

Like an Einsteinian equation whose logic would take hours to unravel, a fantasy appears in the mind with the speed of light, connecting hitherto seemingly unrelated and mysterious forces mysterious forces in the internal erotic universe, resolving inconsistencies and contradictions that seemed insuperable before. Nothing is included by accident. If the woman is tall or short, if she forgets her birth control pills and so intercourse carries the risk of pregnancy if there is a cuckoo clock on the wall it is all meaningful to the inventors heightened sexuality.

In real life, ambivalence abounds. Women want men, men want women; our dreams of one another, fantasies, not only express our most direct desires but also portray the obstacles that must be symbolically overcome to win sexual pleasure. Fantasy is as close as we will ever come again to the omnipotent joys we once knew as infants. In a moment of rage we say, Id like to kill you! This is a fleeting fantasy, a satisfying violent image which expresses the overheated mood of the moment. But how likely are we to pull a gun and do it? It is important to recognize that not all fantasies are frustrated wishes. This is one of the most common misconceptions about fantasy.