Sex – everyone is doing it, but why are women in particular so shy to talk about it? Well, Gillian Anderson wants to give women the opportunity to write about their most intimate sexual fantasies.
She’s launching the ‘Dear Gillian’ project. A generation-defining book, where women will write anonymous letters to Gillian, exploring what they really think about sex. “I am asking for letters of around 1,000 (but no more than 2,500) words, in any language, describing your most intimate, private sexual fantasies,” Anderson says.
“Simply open your letter with ‘Dear Gillian,’ and let your imagination run wild. I will, of course, also share my own,” she adds.
Writing in the Guardian, Anderson spoke about reading My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies’ to prepare her for her role as a sex therapist, Jean Milburn in the Netflix series, Sex Education. “I’d always heard people talk about My Secret Garden, and so in preparation, I read it for the first time,”
“Its unfiltered and painful honesty shook me. These letters and interviews were incredibly intimate and very raw. They weren’t necessarily over polished, or trying to be literary; they seemed to come straight from the mysterious heart of the women’s innermost yearning.”
Whilst reading the book Anderson recalls feeling sad at the amount of sexual frustration the women in the book were experiencing. “I’d always heard people talk about My Secret Garden, and so in preparation, I read it for the first time,” Anderson says.
“Many had never experienced an orgasm. Some didn’t know what a sexual fantasy was; others could not acknowledge that they had them,”
She now wants to write the 21st-century version of My Secret Garden. “Let’s create an era-defining text that cuts right to the heart of what it is to be a woman today. A book that will hopefully inspire women for generations to come,” she says.
The book will be published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Submit your letters here by midnight, 28 February.