Sex File: Should I explore my lesbian fantasies?  

I can't stop fantasising about women when I have sex with my husband and keep wondering if I missed out on exploring my sexuality

Research found 59% of heterosexual women had fantasised about having sex with another woman, and 26% of heterosexual men had fantasised about sex with another man. Picture: iStock 

I'm a mum of two and still attracted to my husband but I can't stop fantasising about women when we have sex. I never experimented when I was younger and keep wondering if I missed out on exploring my sexuality. Are these fantasies a sign I should act?

The fact you have been fantasising about women is not particularly unusual. In 2018, Dr Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, asked more than 4,000 men and women about their sexual fantasies. He found 59% of heterosexual women had fantasised about having sex with another woman, and 26% of heterosexual men had fantasised about sex with another man.

This was not new information. Back in 2003, a groundbreaking study by Meredith Chivers at Northwestern University, in Illinois, measured the genital and subjective arousal responses of men and women to same-sex and opposite-sex erotic videos. 

One of the main findings was that straight women, unlike straight men, were just as aroused by same-sex imagery. The findings were so conclusive, Chivers proposed "a self-identified heterosexual woman would be mistaken to question her sexual identity because she became aroused watching female-female erotica; most heterosexual women experience such arousal".

A number of hypotheses have tried to explain the phenomenon of female sexual fluidity. Some women may simply be less binary in their desires than they realise, and, of course, sexuality can evolve with age. 

It may also relate to novelty. The fact sexual fantasies are kept private also increases their erotic charge, and once a specific sequence of mental pictures leads to an easy orgasm, it can create a kind of Pavlovian response.

The longer version of your letter suggests this fantasy makes you feel somewhat uneasy. If you think there may be an aspect of your sexuality you have subconsciously buried or are only just becoming aware of, it might be useful to name it, whether to yourself, your husband or a therapist. 

Your efforts to suppress it only serve to intensify it. Leaning into your fantasy might help to change this. Reading some lesbian erotica or watching some porn would probably make your fantasy feel a bit more pedestrian and might help you to shift the narrative.

Thinking is not doing, and fantasy is an almost universal phenomenon. Lehmiller's research found 97% of people have sexual fantasies but although four out of five say they would like to act out their fantasy, only one in five actually do, the main reason being actions have consequences. 

Opening up a marriage is not something to be entered into lightly, and infidelity is infidelity regardless of sexual orientation. Allowing yourself to think clearly about what exploring your fantasy in real life would involve, and the impact it would have on your husband and your two children, is the easiest way to get some perspective on what matters most.

• Send your questions to [e-mail].