Published research on the development of sexual fantasies

January 28, 2011 10:07 PM

I'm wondering if there exists a published timeline that explains all the psychological changes before, during, and after puberty in regards to sexual fantasies.

I'm wondering what typical is, as to how sexual fantasies generally mature as one is growing up.

I've tried searching online and I can't seem to find anything along these lines. It's not so much for the purpose of comparison to myself; I'm just curious as to what information there is in published research and other sources about this for an interesting read. Essentially I want to know what has been established in this regard as to knowledge of this topic. Usually you see physical signs mentioned more often, but it would be nice to know those changes that occur having to do with your erotic thoughts and imaginings.

posted by antgly to Science & Nature (5 answers total)

If you're in college, you have access to all kinds of medical and psychological journals that you can't get from Google. Your school's library should be able to give you a tutorial. That way you can look up this information to your heart's content.
posted by amethysts at 10:12 PM on January 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

This article is a widely cited paper that includes a comprehensive literature review of a bunch of previously published work on sexual fantasies. If there is something out there that characterizes sexual fantasies by age a la the various "developmental benchmarks" for cognition posited by Piaget, Kohlberg, and others, I have not encountered it, and nor had Zurbriggen and Yost at the time they wrote that paper.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:27 PM on January 28, 2011

(I suspect there'd be some pretty major human subject concerns with asking pre-adolescents about sexual fantasies.)
posted by bluedaisy at 10:35 PM on January 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Adults asking pre-teens about their sex fantasies would probably raise a lot of red flags, calls to the police, and possibly organization of a lynch mob, so information about it may be sparse.
posted by freakazoid at 6:09 AM on January 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

The late George Carlin said it best:

Lotta guys thought about movie stars...and a lotta guys thought about girls in the neighborhood. I always did because they seemed more possible, y'know. "Hey, this can happen!"
posted by JohntheContrarian at 1:00 PM on January 29, 2011