Gillian Anderson asks women to send her their sexual fantasies

Telegraph reporters
Wed, 1 February 2023 

Gillian Anderson in Sex Education - Sex Education

Sex Education actress Gillian Anderson has asked women to send her their stories about sexual fantasies for a book she is curating.

The actress, 54, who plays a sex therapist called Jean Milburn in the hit Netflix series, will publish a selection of these testimonies anonymously, sent to her and addressed "Dear Gillian".

They will appear in a book based on female liberation author Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies, which the actress read to prepare for her role in Sex Education.

The 1973 book was published during the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and became a cult hit.

With her Sex Education on-screen son Asa Butterfield - Sam Taylor/Netflix

Anderson said: "As women, we know that sex is about more than just sex but so many of us don't talk about it. Our deepest, most intimate fears and fantasies remain locked away inside of us, until someone comes along with the key.

"Here is the key. I want to hear from you. This will be an anonymous, revelatory book compiling your letters to me to explore how women think about sex.

"Because when we talk about sex, we talk about womanhood and motherhood, infidelity and exploitation, consent and respect, fairness and egalitarianism, love and hate, pleasure and pain."

Sex Education, which has run for three series, follows the son of Anderson's character - socially awkward high school student Otis as he navigates sex and relationships with his friends.

Anderson said she is looking for "fantasies, frustrations, explorations, the forbidden, childhood, sounds, fetishes, guilt, insatiability", and her invitation is open to both women and people who identify as women.

Stories sent to Anderson at deargillian.com before midnight on February 28 could be included in the book, provisionally titled Dear Gillian, which will be released by Bloomsbury Publishing.