A recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior provides evidence that the content of a person’s sexual fantasies tends to change depending on whether they are alone or with a partner. Scientists found that fantasies during partnered sex are often more focused on emotional connection, while fantasies during solitary masturbation tend to center more on explicit arousal and people outside of the relationship. These findings suggest that sexual imagination is heavily influenced by a person’s immediate environment rather than just their internal desires.
People often think of sexual fantasy as a private and solitary experience. However, a large body of research indicates that people frequently engage in sexual fantasy while having sex with a committed partner. Despite how common this is, little is known about how the content of these thoughts might change based on the physical setting.
The research team wanted to explore this dynamic in greater detail. “Many people report fantasizing during sex with a partner at some point in their lives, but we still know surprisingly little about how this compares to fantasies that occur in solitary contexts, such as masturbation,” said study authors Aki Gormezano and Sari van Anders.
Gormezano is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research postdoctoral research fellow and a Michael Smith Health Research BC research trainee in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia. Van Anders is the Canada Research Chair in Gender/Sex and Sexual Diversity, a Canada 150 Research Chair Laureate in Social Neuroendocrinology, Sexuality, and Gender/Sex, and a professor of psychology, gender studies, and neuroscience at Queen’s University.
The scientists were specifically interested in two main themes of sexual thought. The first is eroticism, which refers to explicit physical arousal and bodily pleasure. The second theme is nurturance, which involves feelings of emotional intimacy, care, and closeness.
“Dr. van Anders’ lab also has a longstanding interest in questions about ‘nurturant’ (warm, loving, intimate) and ‘erotic’ (more pleasure-focused) sexuality, and so we were interested in nurturant and erotic fantasies as well,” the researchers noted. They were also curious to see if having a partner present shifts who a person thinks about. “And, we were curious about ‘fantasy target’, since whom people fantasize about might matter.”
“We were also interested in how these different aspects of fantasies might be related to sexual satisfaction or relationship satisfaction,” the authors explained. “For some people, fantasies during sex with their partner(s), especially when the fantasies involve someone other than a partner, can also be a source of worry or uncertainty, but that may be unnecessary,” they said.
Past studies have usually focused on people in monogamous relationships, meaning they only have one partner. Because of this, the authors wanted to understand whether these patterns differed across different relationship configurations that might include multiple partners. To answer these questions, the scientists recruited 546 adults living in the United States and Canada using internet platforms and social media.
To ensure a wide variety of perspectives, the scientists recruited a sample that was evenly split between people who identified as gender or sexual minorities and those who identified with majority groups. All participants had been in a committed sexual relationship for at least six months. The researchers chose this timeframe to ensure the participants had established a baseline level of commitment and familiarity with their partners.
In the main part of the study, participants were asked to describe two specific instances of recent sexual fantasies. First, they detailed the most recent fantasy they had during solitary masturbation. Second, they described the most recent fantasy they had while having sex with their committed relationship partner.
For each scenario, participants wrote out who they were thinking about and what happened in their imagination. They also completed a fifty-item checklist developed specifically for this study. This survey tool asked participants to rate how strongly different elements, such as specific sexual acts or feelings of affection, were present in their thoughts.
After describing their fantasies, the participants completed several standardized questionnaires. These additional surveys measured their relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and levels of sexual desire. Two researchers then independently coded the targets of the fantasies into three distinct groups: solely about the partner, about someone other than the partner, or involving both the partner and other people.
“One key takeaway from our research is that people can have different kinds of sexual fantasies in different situations,” Gormezano and van Anders told PsyPost. “Fantasies during partnered sex tend to be more nurturant and more likely to involve relationship partners, whereas fantasies during solitary masturbation tend to be more erotic, particularly when focused on someone other than a relationship partner.”
During solitary masturbation, about 56 percent of fantasies focused on outside individuals, compared to 26 percent focusing solely on the partner. During partnered sex, the focus shifted. About 35 percent of participants thought only of their partner, while roughly 38 percent thought of someone else.
“Indeed, many participants reported fantasizing about someone other than a partner, including during partnered sex, suggesting that these experiences may be more common than assumed and not necessarily a sign that something is ‘wrong’ in a relationship,” the researchers explained. “Related to that, we did not find that whom people fantasized about was directly tied to relationship satisfaction, though there were some nuanced links between sexual satisfaction and different forms of sexual desire.”
The authors discovered that a strong desire for a partner was linked to highly erotic and highly nurturant fantasies about that partner. Experiencing strong desire for attractive strangers, on the other hand, was linked to fantasies about outside individuals. Participants with higher sexual satisfaction scores were about 63 percent more likely to fantasize about their partners and 90 percent less likely to fantasize about someone outside the relationship.
“We were especially struck by how much nurturance showed up in sexual fantasies during partnered sex,” the scientists said. “Sexual fantasies, especially for men, are often assumed to be mostly about explicit erotic content, but many participants’ fantasies also involved closeness, affection, feeling cared for, or emotional connection—particularly during sex with a relationship partner. That finding reinforced for us that sexual fantasy is not just about arousal; it can also reflect intimacy and connection.”
A person’s relationship structure also influenced their thoughts. “Interestingly, we found more similarities than differences across diverse relationship configurations, although people in relationships involving multiple sexual partners were somewhat more likely to report ‘both-fantasies,’ fantasies involving both relationship partners and other people,” the researchers said. People in monogamous relationships reported much higher levels of nurturance during partnered sex compared to solitary masturbation.
But as with all research, there are some limitations to consider. “One important caveat is that we asked people to describe their most recent sexual fantasies in each context, meaning participants were recalling past experiences rather than reporting fantasies in real time,” the researchers explained. This allowed them to directly compare fantasies, but the exact timing and details of recalled thoughts likely varied across the group.
“Future studies that track fantasies closer to when they happen, such as daily diary studies, could provide an even clearer picture,” the researchers suggested. Because the study relied on a single snapshot in time, the scientists cannot prove cause and effect. It is impossible to know if high sexual satisfaction causes a person to fantasize about their partner, or if fantasizing about a partner leads to higher sexual satisfaction.
The authors also emphasized that their results describe overall trends rather than fixed rules about individuals. “Our findings identify broad patterns across participants, but sexual fantasies vary considerably from person to person—whom they are about, how erotic or nurturant they are, and how they differ across situations. So it’s important to note that our results describe overall trends rather than fixed rules about individuals or relationships.”
“If your own fantasies look different from the patterns we observed, that does not necessarily mean anything unusual is happening; people vary in what feels meaningful, emotionally intimate, erotic, or important across contexts. That variation is part of the natural diversity of human sexuality.”
The scientists plan to continue exploring how sexuality shifts within the same person across different environments. “This study is part of a broader line of research exploring how sexuality can vary within the same person across different contexts, and the role of nurturance and eroticism in sexuality,” they said.
“People sometimes talk about sexuality as though individuals have one stable set of desires, interests, or preferences, but our work suggests that sexuality may be more flexible and context-dependent than that—for example, differing across fantasy, masturbation, partnered sex, pornography, or different relational situations. Moving forward, we are interested in better understanding how people make sense of these differences in their own sexual experiences across contexts, and how this relates to wellbeing.”
The study, “Sexual Fantasies Across Solitary and Partnered Contexts: Exploring Eroticism/Nurturance and Fantasy Target,” was authored by Aki M. Gormezano, Val Kutchko, Sara B. Chadwick, Jason Burns, Kate Hunker, Marietta Konermann & Sari M. van Anders.
