When it comes to sex fantasies about mythical creatures, women (esp. straight women) are pretty much just into vampires, whereas men are into a much wider range of creatures. Here's a look at #Halloween themed sex fantasies and the psychology behind them: http://ow.ly/Bnvd50wTV0J 

A little more context for the survey for those who haven't read my work: survey of 4,175 US adults drawn from all 50 states. Average age of 32 (range of 18-87). 49% male, 46% female, 5% non-binary. 28% reported orientations other than heterosexual. It's a diverse sample.

The survey wasn't specifically about mythical creature fantasies--it was about sex fantasies more broadly, with creatures being just one part of it. Participants were asked whether they've ever had a fantasy about a mythical creature and, if so, which one(s).

This is obviously controversial, but vampires were the predominant creature women reported fantasizing about. But let's be clear--this is NOT to say that all women fantasize about vampires or that vampires are the only creature women fantasize about.

As noted in the article, some women reported fantasies about other kinds of creatures. These included werewolves and demons most commonly, with a relatively small number reporting other creatures (e.g., centaurs, giants, zombies, dragons, etc.)

Some people have pointed to the existence of tentacle & monster porn/erotica (a subject I've previously written about) as evidence that my conclusions are wrong. However, that doesn’t tell us about the prevalence of those interests. This is why we need data!

All I can tell you is what the data tell me, and it seems that monster fantasies aren't particularly common. Less than 0.5% of participants reported fantasies about dragons. The numbers were similar when looking at fantasies about zombies, tentacles, etc.

As for all of The Shape of Water references, some people did report fantasies about aquatic creatures, but they were also pretty uncommon. The popularity of that movie doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone who watched it had sexual fantasies about the creature.

Again, all I can say is what the data say--and these are results that come from a large and diverse sample. You don't have to like or agree with the findings. Science doesn't always confirm our personal beliefs and observations about the world.

Follow-up: I've noticed several tweets saying that if a lot of people are commenting about an interest in monster porn or that monster porn communities are thriving on Tumblr, then it must therefore be a common interest. Here's why I'm cautious about drawing that conclusion...

Let’s look at zombie fantasies, which were reported by 0.4% of my sample. If you extrapolate that to the US population (which I wouldn’t recommend because it’s not a representative sample), that would suggest than 1.3 million people have zombie sex fantasies.

If those 1.3 million folks are part of an active online zombie sex community, they could easily support a thriving zombie porn/erotica business and post hundreds of comments on a tweet in short order. That might make zombie sex seem super popular despite being statistically rare.

Again, that's why we need data--we need to test our assumptions. However, my data aren't the final word on the subject, and I didn't set out to address this topic specifically. So more research is definitely needed--and if you come across any, I'd love to see it!

It's fun to see so much monster porn pride in this thread, but sad that there's a lot of kink shaming, too (especially surrounding interest in vampires). Be proud of what you like, but don't yuck someone else's yum.