Perhaps the real fantasy isn't simply being wanted. Perhaps it's being seen, having your experience matter, and having enough room to discover what you actually want.
Something interesting is happening in bookstores. Women are buying stories about dragons, vampires, warriors, dangerous High Lords and impossible love in remarkable numbers, and romantasy, the meeting of romance and fantasy, has moved from something many women once read quietly to a genuine cultural phenomenon. Sarah J. Maas alone has sold tens of millions of books.⁸ Romance bookstores are opening, midnight releases draw crowds, and book clubs gather to debate fictional relationships, rank the "spice", argue over morally questionable heroes and confess which characters make them yearn.¹
It would be easy to dismiss all of this as escapism, or simply as sex. I think that misses the more interesting question: what are so many women finding in these stories that feels important to them?
A recent feature in The Australian went looking for exactly that. Beneath the dragons and the explicit scenes, the women it spoke with were talking about pleasure, consent, strength, recognition, hope, devotion, finding their voice and becoming more fully themselves.¹ One discussion the article referred to, held at the Sydney Opera House, turned on a deceptively simple question: what do women do with their desire?
That question reaches well beyond fantasy fiction, and well beyond sex.
"Why don't I feel desire anymore?"
There's another set of questions women often carry quietly, sometimes for years. Why don't I feel desire anymore? Why am I so touched out? Why do I love my partner and still sometimes not want to be touched? Why does affection feel like one more request? Why do I feel disconnected from my body, and where did that part of me go?
None of these is even close to "how do I have better sex?", and the difference matters.
A woman can spend years functioning extraordinarily well while slowly becoming less familiar with what she herself feels. Work, children, ageing parents, relationships, appointments, the running of a household, the emotional labour nobody sees, and the constant stream of people who need an answer, some reassurance, a decision or simply her attention. She becomes very good at asking what everyone needs from her, and a little out of practice at asking what she needs, or even what she feels.
That doesn't automatically mean something is wrong with her sexuality. Often the question starts much earlier than sex. Do I want to be touched at all, and if so, how? Do I want closeness, or room to breathe? What makes me soften, and what makes me brace? What actually nourishes me? What happens in me when nobody needs anything?
Those aren't necessarily sexual questions. They're questions of self-awareness, and this is where the popularity of romantasy becomes surprisingly interesting.
Maybe the fantasy isn't simply being desired
The men in romantasy are not known for mild interest. They yearn, they notice and they pursue. They remember the small things, make sacrifices and turn up when it counts, sometimes rather excessively.
The women interviewed by The Australian described the opposite in contemporary dating: ghosting, low effort, indirect communication, endless messaging, several conversations running at once, and a sense that real human connection has become strangely transactional.¹ One member of the book club featured in the article summed up the appeal in five words: "I love a grand yearning."
Real life can't resemble fantasy fiction, and probably shouldn't. But the useful question may not be whether women literally want an immortal warrior prepared to burn down kingdoms on their behalf. It may be what the fantasy feels like: being noticed, mattering, being chosen on purpose by someone who pays attention and who is interested not merely in having access to you, but in your experience.
That points to a real difference between being wanted and being seen. A woman can be wanted while remaining almost completely unknown. Being seen asks other things of a person. How are you, and what are you feeling? Are you comfortable, or would you like something different? What helps you relax, where do you pull back, what are you enjoying, and what would you like?
For a woman who spends much of her life noticing everybody else, having her own experience treated as worth attending to can feel surprisingly unfamiliar.
When women's pleasure is allowed to matter
One of the sharper observations in The Australian's look at romantasy is that the shift isn't simply that these books contain explicit sex. Women have been represented sexually for a very long time. What's different is that the woman's experience sits inside the story. Her consent, her desire, her pleasure and her voice all carry weight. She can want and she can refuse; she can discover things and change her mind, and she doesn't necessarily have to apologise for any of it.¹ Scholars of popular romance have noticed the same thing, reading Maas's later novels as presenting consent as a necessary part of a woman's sexual freedom.⁹
That may be part of why these stories strike such a nerve, because outside fiction, desire tends to arrive with a remarkable number of instructions. How desirable should I look? Am I responding correctly, or taking too long? Should I want this more? Am I disappointing someone? Why doesn't my body respond the way I think it should? Am I normal?
Notice where the attention goes in every one of those questions. It leaves the woman and travels towards appearance, expectation, performance and somebody else's experience. A more useful question turns back inward: what am I actually feeling? That is a very different place to begin.
Desire doesn't need a relationship to be real
There's another assumption worth questioning. A woman who loves stories full of romance and yearning doesn't necessarily have a man*-shaped hole in her life waiting to be filled. She can be single and content, and she can love her independence and still love romantic fantasy. Divorced, widowed, dating, partnered or entirely uninterested in partnership, she still has desire, imagination, sensuality and a rich inner life.
Recent psychological writing on single life has challenged the old assumption that a romantic partner is automatically the missing ingredient for fulfilment.³ Research discussed by psychologist Mark Travers also suggests that relationship status alone explains relatively little about whether someone has a satisfying life. Social connection, personality, meaningful relationships, and whether a person sees partnership as the thing "missing" from her life can matter greatly.⁴
That gives romantasy another dimension. Perhaps a woman isn't always reading about an extraordinary fictional man* because she wants to find his real-life equivalent. Perhaps she's also exploring herself: what excites her, what moves her, what kind of life feels expansive, which qualities in other people affect her, where she feels powerful, what she imagines freedom feels like, and what she would choose if she weren't forever choosing according to somebody else's expectations.
Desire can tell us something about ourselves without having to be turned straight into a relationship, and I think that distinction matters enormously. A woman's relationship with herself isn't a waiting room until somebody else arrives, and it doesn't vanish simply because somebody has.
Perhaps one of the quieter messages under the romantasy phenomenon is that a woman's inner world can be rich, imaginative and full of desire without that desire defining her by her relationship to a man*. Sometimes the better question isn't "who do I want?" but "what do I want my life, and my experience inside myself, to feel like?"
The man who said "I'm going to make space for you"
A second Australian article, about Queensland romantasy author Sarah A. Parker, adds another layer to this conversation.²
Before she became an internationally successful writer, Parker took an enormous risk. She closed a successful clothing business, committed herself to writing, invested her savings, and became financially responsible for her family while trying to turn the dream into something real. At an important point along the way, her husband, stepped back from a career he enjoyed so she could give more of herself to hers.²,¹⁰ Parker describes the moment as him essentially saying, "I'm going to make space for you." She later drew on that experience when developing the male* hero of When the Moon Hatched.²,¹¹
I find this more interesting than almost anything involving fictional alpha males*, because it offers a different version of masculine strength. Strength doesn't always take up more room. Sometimes it makes room: for another person to speak, to change, to discover, to hold a boundary, to not know yet, and to become whoever she is becoming.
He* didn't complete Parker. He created conditions in which something already alive in her had more room to grow, and that is a profound difference.
There's a principle in that story that applies well beyond marriage or romance: good support leaves a person more room to be herself, not less. It's also the professional principle behind therapeutic Tantra work. The practitioner's role isn't to tell a woman what she should experience or to manufacture a response. It isn't to make her more sensual, and it's certainly not to decide on her behalf what her body wants. It's to offer enough time, clarity, respect and attention that her own experience becomes easier to hear.
Fantasy is not an instruction manual
Romantasy has an uncomfortable side too. Many of these stories deliberately play with danger, obsession, dominance, jealousy, possession and morally questionable men*, and the first Australian article rightly asks whether some of them romanticise behaviour that would be deeply concerning in a real relationship.¹ They can.
But fantasy doesn't always need to be read literally. Being fascinated by a possessive vampire doesn't necessarily mean wanting a controlling partner. A fantasy can exaggerate a quality so that the feeling behind it becomes enormous. What resonates might be certainty, intensity, strength or adventure. It might be the pleasure of being chosen, of someone making a real effort, or of being completely attended to. It might be a moment's release from responsibility, or the chance to feel powerful, protected or free. It may be just doing something out of box or comfort zone.
Wicker, a new film adapted from Ursula Wills-Jones’s fable The Wicker Husband, shows how this works. Olivia Colman plays a lonely fisherwoman who asks a basket weaver to make her a husband, and the man he weaves is tender, caring and a listener. Reviewing it for The Australian, Nikki Gemmell calls it an “adult fairy tale” with “real feminist bite”: brides in its village wear collars at their weddings and vow “with this collar I accept my lifelong duties”.¹³ Nobody leaves the cinema planning to commission a husband from a basket weaver. Exaggeration is how a fairy tale makes its point, and the point here is an ordinary one: the weight of being valued for your duties, and how different it might feel to be met with care instead.
So the useful question may not be "do I actually want a dangerous man*?" so much as "what is it about this fantasy that affects me?" The second question swaps judgement for genuine interest, and that kind of interest is where Tantra becomes very relevant.
From fantasy to the body
Fantasy lives mostly in the imagination. What might I want? What might excite me? Who might I become in another world?
Body awareness adds a different layer, and its question is plainer: what am I actually experiencing? Not what should feel good, or what usually does, or what somebody else enjoys, or what looks sensual, or what a novel suggests should make your knees buckle. What is happening inside your body, right now?
The answer might be breath, warmth, tension, pressure, weight, resistance or restlessness. It might be ease, comfort, relaxation or just deep peace, calm, stillness. It might be a clear yes, a quiet no or a maybe. Or perhaps nothing particularly obvious at all.
We spend an enormous amount of time thinking about our bodies: how they look, how they age, how attractive they are, how they change after children, how they ought to behave and whether they're responding correctly. Body awareness asks something much simpler. What does living inside this body actually feel like? It's a quieter question, but it often reveals far more.
Tantra doesn't have to be sexual
This is also where a common misunderstanding about Tantra deserves clearing up. Popular culture tends to present Tantra as an exotic form of sexuality. Historically and practically, it is much wider than that. Tantric traditions have included meditation, breath, attention, ritual, sensory awareness and practices concerned with the body and its deeper awareness. Tantra is not synonymous with sex.⁵
The work I offer at Sukh Tantra draws on that broader understanding, and its focus is therapeutic: breath, body awareness, presence, boundaries, consent, unhurried touch and receiving, rather than producing a sexual response.⁶ There's no requirement to become aroused and no expectation of orgasm. There's nothing to perform, and no expectation that your body should react in any particular way.
Often the most meaningful information is far simpler than anything dramatic. I didn't realise I was holding my breath. I didn't realise I was holding my breath. I didn't know how tight my shoulders were. I can't remember the last time I was touched without it being a question. I didn't have to look after anyone. I thought I preferred firmer touch, but today I don't. I wanted slowness more than intensity. I want a bit more room. I want this to stop. I want more of this. I liked being asked rather than assumed. I relaxed once I knew nothing else was expected. I rested without feeling I had to earn it. My body felt like my own for a while. I don't actually know what I want yet.
That last one matters as much as any of the others. Not knowing is allowed. There is no correct response your body has to produce for the experience to be worthwhile. There is no wrong response.
When you feel "touched out", more touch isn't automatically the answer
There are stretches in many women's lives when being offered more touch sounds like the opposite of nurturing. Children may have been climbing over you all day. A partner wants closeness, the phone wants attention, work wants something, family wants something, and everyone seems to need a small piece of you. At some point the body may simply say: enough.
Sukh Tantra's own guide on feeling "touched out" starts from an important distinction. Wanting less touch doesn't necessarily mean wanting less love or less connection. Sometimes affection has slowly become tied up with expectation, obligation or one more thing to manage.⁷ If every cuddle carries an unspoken question (is this going somewhere?), even affection can start to feel demanding.
That's why good body-awareness work should never be about persuading a body to "open". It also has to be able to hear when a body wants to close. What happens when touch is genuinely optional, when a pause really is a pause, when saying no doesn't mean managing someone else's disappointment, and when nothing else has to follow?
Coming back to the body doesn't always begin with more sensation. Sometimes it begins with discovering that your signals will be respected, and those signals include no, not yet, slower, different and enough, as well as yes.
Receiving is not the same as giving up control
Many women are extraordinarily practised at receiving responsibility: the calendar, the shopping list, the emotional temperature of the house, the message from school, the ageing parent, the problem at work, the birthday nobody else remembered, the friend who needs support, and the endless small things that keep a life running. What can feel far less familiar is receiving something that doesn't create another obligation. Attention, care, time, stillness, touch or rest, without immediately wondering what you need to give back.
This is one reason one-directional therapeutic bodywork can feel so different. You don't have to reciprocate, offer or chase a particular emotional response or perform relaxation. You still lead through your boundaries, preferences and choices, while allowing yourself simply to receive.⁶
That isn't surrendering control. In many ways it's the opposite: learning that you can receive while staying completely connected to your own voice.
"I feel disconnected from my body"
Women sometimes come to this conversation believing there's an earlier version of themselves they need to recover. I used to feel more alive. I used to enjoy touch. I used to have desire. I used to feel confident. Where did she go?
But coming back to yourself doesn't always mean reconstructing a younger you. Life changes us. Motherhood, stress, relationships and age change us, and so can perimenopause and menopause, grief and illness.¹² Bodies change, and desire can change too.
When those changes are sudden, painful, persistent or distressing, the right medical or psychological support matters, and Tantra should never replace qualified healthcare. But not every change needs to start from the assumption that something has gone wrong.
A kinder set of questions might be: who am I now? What feels good now, and what doesn't? What does this body need now, and what helps me feel present? What have I outgrown, and what am I curious about? That moves the aim away from becoming the woman you think you're supposed to be, and towards getting to know the woman who is actually here.
Desire is bigger than sex
Perhaps this is where the word itself needs broadening. Desire doesn't necessarily mean wanting sex. A woman might desire rest, solitude, adventure or beauty. She might want touch, or no touch at all, or tenderness. She might want creativity, recognition, freedom, conversation, movement or silence. It might be a different career, a room of her own, a weekend alone, a deeper friendship, a firmer boundary, a more affectionate relationship, or a more alive relationship with herself.
Sarah Parker's own story is a good example. Her desire wasn't only romantic. She wanted to write, to create and to find out what she was capable of. One of the great acts of love in her story was another person making room for that desire, rather than asking her to make herself smaller.²
Perhaps that's why the question of what women do with their desire is so much bigger than sexuality. Desire can be information about what wants more life. Sometimes desire is not asking you to do anything at all. Sometimes it is simply asking to be noticed.
A note from me
As a man, I don't claim to know first-hand what it's like to live inside a woman's body, and I don't think I need to pretend otherwise. My understanding comes from listening closely to women, working with women over years, studying Tantra and body-based practice, and noticing how differently a body can respond when there's time, attention, clear boundaries, no requirement to perform and nothing to chase or achieve.⁶
I can bring knowledge, experience and care. What I don't get to do is tell a woman what her body means; she remains the authority on that. It matters most in work involving touch, because the purpose shouldn't be to swap one set of outside instructions for another. It should be to make those outside instructions quieter, so that she can hear herself.
From imagined desire to lived experience
Romantasy offers an extraordinary imaginative laboratory. A reader can enter another world and explore passion, danger, courage, eroticism, strength, vulnerability and possibility without any of it having to happen literally. That has real value.
There's another kind of exploration available too. Alongside "what excites me in imagination?" sits "what happens inside me when I slow down enough to notice myself?" Instead of "what kind of person do I fantasise about?", perhaps "which qualities let me feel safe, relaxed, alive or curious?" Instead of "why am I not the woman I used to be?", perhaps "who am I now?" And instead of "how can I make myself want more?", perhaps "what becomes possible when I stop demanding an answer from my body and start listening to it?"
That, to me, is where Tantra becomes relevant. Not because women need to become more sexual, not because fantasy needs to be recreated in real life, and not because every woman secretly wants the same thing. Quite the opposite: the interesting part is discovering that there may not be one universal answer.
Perhaps the real fantasy is having your experience matter
Maybe that's what sits underneath the dragons and the yearning heroes. Not only the wish to be wanted, but the wish to be seen: to have your experience count, and to have enough room, and enough quiet, to discover what you actually want.
Perhaps that is what is easy to miss when romantasy is dismissed as simply “spice”. Again and again, the woman at the centre of the story matters. Her inner world matters. Her choices matter. Her pleasure matters. Her boundaries matter. Her strength matters. Her becoming matters.
And perhaps something culturally important is happening when women talk about those things so openly — reading about desire, laughing about it, questioning it, debating it and giving it language without automatically apologising for having it.
Desire does not have to mean wanting more sex. It might mean wanting more aliveness. More rest. More tenderness. More autonomy. More adventure. More creativity. More space. More connection. More of yourself.
Fiction is a good place to explore that, and it can stay fiction. The more lasting version often lives closer to home: in how seriously you take your own signals, in the boundaries you keep, and in what you allow yourself to want, whatever shape your life takes.
And this, for me, is where Tantra becomes relevant.
Not as a way of recreating fantasy. Not as a way of making a woman more sexual. And not as another set of instructions about what she should want or how her body should respond.
Tantra can offer something quieter: time to slow down, come back into the body, notice what is actually happening, and listen without rushing towards an outcome.
What feels nourishing? What feels like too much? Where is there ease? Where is there hesitation? What does your body say when it knows it will be listened to?
The answer does not have to arrive all at once. It does not have to look like anyone else's.
Sometimes Tantra begins there — not with wanting more, but with having enough space to hear yourself.
Man*, He* means a partner of any gender.
Sukh Tantra offers therapeutic Tantra bodywork for exploration and self-awareness; it is not substitute for medical treatment, psychotherapy or sex therapy, and does not replace care from a qualified health professional.
References
The Australian (2026). Feature on romantasy and women's desire, including a Sydney Opera House discussion and a romantasy book club.
The Australian (2026). Profile of Queensland romantasy author Sarah A. Parker.
Girme, Y. U., Park, Y., & MacDonald, G. (2023). Coping or thriving? Reviewing intrapersonal, interpersonal, and societal factors associated with well-being in singlehood from a within-group perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(5), 1097–1120. doi.org/10.1177/17456916221136119. Also: Walsh, L. C., Horton, C., Rodriguez, A., & Kaufman, V. A. (2023). Happily ever after for coupled and single adults: A comparative study using latent profile analysis. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. doi.org/10.1177/02654075231197728
Travers, M. (9 October 2026). 3 signs you're built for a happy single life, by a psychologist. Forbes. forbes.com
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Tantra (religious texts). britannica.com. Also: Urban, H. B. (2003). Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion. University of California Press. muse.jhu.edu
Sukh Tantra Newcastle. About and Offerings pages: the therapeutic approach. [Link to add.]
Sukh Tantra Newcastle. Women's Guides: feeling "touched out". [Link to add.]
Publishers Weekly (16 December 2024). PW Notables 2024: Nigel Newton (Maas's books have sold more than 55 million copies worldwide since 2010). publishersweekly.com
Speese, E. K. J. (2024). Came for the smut, stayed by consent: Desire and consent in Sarah J. Maas's fictional worlds. Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 13. doi.org/10.70138/UJXK7901
NZ Woman's Weekly / Now To Love (2024). Sarah's new chapter: "I've found my voice!" nowtolove.co.nz
Christchurch City Libraries (26 June 2026). Sarah A. Parker's When the Moon Hatched: "Write your soul book." my.christchurchcitylibraries.com
Better Health Channel, Victorian Department of Health. Menopause and sex. betterhealth.vic.gov.au
Gemmell, N. (November 2026). Film review of Wicker (written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson). The Australian.
