Begin Again with Davina McCall - Begin Again Moments: Female Fantasy & Asking For What You Want | Gillian Anderson & Cindy Gallop

Episode Date: May 3, 2026

In this powerful episode, Gillian Anderson opens up about what women really want; exploring the hidden world of female fantasy and the surprising truth about how little we’ve progressed when it comes to openly talking about desire. Drawing from thousands of anonymous submissions to her book, she reveals the shame, curiosity, and untapped honesty that still surrounds women’s inner lives. Sex expert Cindy Gallop then takes the conversation one step further, sharing practical, empowering advice on how to actually ask for what you want in the bedroom, and just as importantly, how to express what you don’t. From navigating awkward conversations to turning communication into something genuinely exciting, she breaks down how owning your voice can transform not just your sex life, but your confidence everywhere else too. Together, these moments explore desire, communication, and the power of knowing, and asking for, what you truly want. Watch the Full Episode With Cindy Here: https://youtu.be/PAnPAbVZvmg Watch the full episode with Gillian Here: https://youtu.be/XKQOTwY7TRk  Saily - Download from the app store and use code DAVINA at the checkout for 15% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Wayfair, every style, every home. You said about sex education being a kind of stepping stone to want, and I really want to get to want. Yeah. How did Want come about? Like, what was your... thinking and how did how was it born? It actually in the first instance wasn't my thinking at all.

It was my literary agent who had come across her mother's copy of My Secret Garden. Yeah. So she had. So let's talk about My Secret Garden. Anybody that doesn't know what it is because I think actually they should all go and buy it. Yeah. If they haven't read it.

They've just republished it. And that's thanks to you. They're probably very happy about that. So could you just explain what secret gardeners? So Nancy Friday was an author in the 70s and she decided that she was going to put together, she was going to ask her friendship group and her community to write in sexual fantasies to her anonymously. and she would publish them under the name, My Secret Garden. And so it was, you know, a relatively small community cross-section of women,

but they were some really, really raw, moving, sexy, some dark, some beautiful, very powerful letters in the book that she published. And it was a bestseller. It was, you know, I'm sure it was banned in various places. But it was incredibly successful in Europe and in the States. And very often women would buy it and hide it in their bags or under their beds or whatever. Yes, I mean, I bought men in love, which was the men's fantasies, but by Nancy Friday. And it wasn't under the duvet job at all.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It would have been so shameful. Whereas this, on the other hand, is like say it loud, say it proud, have it on the coffee table, which is so brilliant, Gillian. Anyway, yes. So my literary agent, since sex education, I'd been asked or my agent had been asked whether by publishers, various publishers, whether I'd be interested in doing a book talking to sex therapist or a book, as if it's, if I were a sex therapist, to women about,

you know, sex or whatever. And I'm not even sure whether she passed on any of those requests to me. But then she had an idea of, when she saw her mother's copy of My Secret Garden, she thought, actually, this is interesting. What if instead she were to do a modern-day version

of My Secret Garden? and, you know, and show how far we've come or not between, you know, 2025 or 24 and we published it and 73, which is when Nancy's Bridey's book came out. Wow. And then when I started to talk to her about it, what I was interested in different from what Nancy did was to, because of, you know, the age that we live in, put a very wide call up. I was really interested in having as many women from as many places around the world as possible to represent representation of women, differently abled women and trans women and binary people. And so it's, you know, it is that. And so we put the call out through Blimbsbury.

They created a portal. and we got I think 1800 submissions in the month that we had the portal. In the month? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's mad. Yeah. And not all the submissions were finished.

You know, they were started. I think in the end we had about, if I'm remembering correctly, we had about 900. Which I'm quite grateful it wasn't more than that because it takes quite a long time to read. I think that was about, the equivalent of about 800,000 words or something. Yes. And so that really led to this book and I wrote the introduction to the book and to the different chapters. We put the letters into chapters. And did you go back and read Secret Garden again?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And did you compare? I compared to the. Well, yes, I compared. I don't think I'd realized, you know, because I kind of skimmed it for, for sex education, just in terms of, you know, thinking along the lines of that world and how open my character, Jean, was. but it wasn't until I started working on this book that I properly went back and read it cover to cover.

And I was shocked at how raunchy some of it is. You know, there's part of me that, you know, just completely stereotyp, you know, but wanted to, you know, put ladies in the 70s under boxes of the must. Surely they were more prim and proper than we are today. but there's there's there are some some doozies in there and and so that was fascinating I was I was assuming that our letters were because of the degree to which porn is such a big part of society today because of how much sex we you know we see it everywhere we see everywhere, magazines on telly on our phones.

And it feels like it is so at our fingertips. I had assumed that conversation around it or the concept of fantasy and desire, and particularly women's desire, was going to have properly moved on. Yes. And it hasn't to be. as much as I...

Fascinating. ...would have thought that it would have. Because, I mean, I think there's... You know, there's a lot still about... It's not just about shame. It's not just about shame about... You know, the fact that we even have fantasies or even shame to admit that there is a fantasy

that one might think about when either masturbating or having sex. But the biggest one for me was... was, you know, shame around the very idea of talking about it with one's partner or even asking for what you might want in the bedroom. I think what's interesting about asking a partner is this idea that you are telling them a fantasy. The idea of a fantasy is that it's not going to happen. It's a fantasy because it's something that is safe. If you can think about it, it might happen if you both say, okay, well, we've talked about this for a couple of years.

Like, would you like to try and make this happen? Yeah. Or a couple of months or whatever. Yeah. But actually, genuinely, a fantasy really is a fantasy and it's safe. Yes. Because it's something that you're thinking about. But you have to have that conversation before with your partner to say, please don't shame me.

When I tell you this, it's taking a lot of courage for me. to tell you this thing. And I really need you to, like, be the same with me after I've told you not change in any way. Because I think women feel unsafe sharing sometimes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, on the one hand, I'm sure that men do too because they think, oh, this is silly or this is, you know, if they knew that this is what goes through my head. If it's something from the office, your wife or girlfriend might be absolutely hideous to that person from the office when they see them next at the office drinks at Christmas or something like that.

Well, like not even want you to go to the office. Yes. Christmas party or whatever. But I think what was remarkable about the book and the conversation that it started was because of the courage of the women who submitted the letters and the fact that not only were the readers being able to see, you know, there are people out there too who have thoughts and desires and feelings like I do. or, oh my gosh, mine is nothing like what is out there. Or, you know, but to me, almost even more importantly, is this thought process, which is, hang on a second. There is something that I think about, but I've never actually even thought about it as fantasy.

And if I were to want something, what would that actually be? and in fact while I'm in the process of asking myself what it is that I might actually want, do I actually even like the sex that I'm having? Am I satisfied with the sex that I'm having with my partner? And if I'm not, how am I complicit in that? And if I'm complicit in it, why don't I feel like I can talk about it? Is that me or is that them? And if it is me, why don't I try it?

And if it's them, I need to think about that and have that conversation. God. Yeah. This is amazing. Yeah. Why do I feel uncomfortable? Is it because I know that they're going to feel judged? I know they're going to think that, oh my God, it's been so long and I've always been doing it this way and they actually want it this way.

I know that, you know, all of these things, or there's going to be some form of, you know, backlash or judgment or, you know, whatever it might be. Yes. It's so complex. But then there's another part of the thought process, right? I just say, yeah, this is gold. Like, I can see people listening to what you've just said and having literal light bulb moments. Well, there's a bigger light bulb. I don't know if I can handle that. The bigger light bulb is, if I'm not able to ask for what I want of the person I've been married to for 25 years, does that have any link to why I'm not able to ask for what I want in the work that I do

and the raise that I've been thinking about asking for? Or actually to assume that I might be talented at this other thing that I haven't gone after because I've been kind of wrapped up in doing this and being this for this person or whatever. It could change your whole of life. Do you know what's amazing? I now totally understand why you called it want. I've got goosebumps.

It's big. Yeah, it is big. It's massive. It is. Yeah. And I've had women come up to me completely unexpected. I didn't expect the reaction that we've had, and I didn't expect that these were the types of conversations that we'd be having.

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In a relationship, sometimes women don't feel they have a voice. Or if something is suggested, it's like, oh, I have to go along with this. How do women find their voice and verbalise their desires? And if they, should they, if there was somebody they really love and they want to try something and the girls are like, oh, my God, I'm a bit nervous. Should they give it a go? Should they not give it? Like, what do they do? Sure. So first of all, I'm biased because obviously I designed a solution to this. But I want to say that, you know, what girls and women tell us when they watch make love not porn, because what they are seeing there is orgasm equality. I mean, equal everything. One young woman left a comment on one of our videos

saying, after watching this video, I felt so enabled and empowered in my own sexual agency. Thank you for this gift. We give girls and women sexual agency. That's a great expression. Isn't it just? I mean, they see how they can choose the sex they want,

ask for the sex they want, have the sex they want. And again, all of it boils down to, I mean, the, you know, one word answer to your question is communication. And yes, you absolutely should communicate. Because you were just saying, yes, we want to, they should have the sex that they want, get the sex and they want, but what about the sex that they don't? Same deal, communication. Okay.

So, so essentially if somebody is doing something that you do not like, yes, absolutely stop, stop and have a conversation about it. And, you know, it is ironic how difficult people find this. But, you know, to use my own example, just to reassure our listeners. So I, you know, as you know, I date younger men. And I absolutely encounter that moment where you're in bed with somebody and he breaks out the porn moves. And I go, okay, we're going to have to have a conversation. And I am fully aware that, you know, what do you, sorry, just quickly,

just so that people know what we're talking about. When you say porn moves, it's something that he probably saw in a porn movie, but that's not very connected or... I mean, basically, you know, if someone, by the way, the obvious example, because it's absolutely happened to me as non-consensual choking, okay, which I'm not having any of, by the way, at all. But also, if it's sort of ridiculous positions or, you know, or anything you don't particularly want to happen,

I'm fully aware that, you know, I think to myself, right, the moment I say something, the atmosphere in bed is going to change, but I have to have this conversation for every other woman he will ever sleep with, you know. Oh, wow, that's a nice, also a nice way of looking at it. And the key thing here is, first of all, when you actually speak up and talk about what you want to do it, and the key thing, by the way, Davina, is I always do it as positive reinforcement, okay, so I go, what you're going to, you know, what you're going to do. Okay, so I go, what you want. You know what would really turn me on is if you stop doing that and why do we do this? Whatever. But essentially it's, you know, this is really hot and it's going to be even hotter if we. Right.

So first of all, I have never ever had a bad response when I've broached that conversation. Because fundamentally, everybody wants to be good in bed. But no one knows exactly what that means. So I found people are really open to, right, you know, I'm going to learn something here. And she's saying it'll be even hotter if I do this. And that's, you know, bring it on. And then secondly, it is actually very sexy to talk about sex in bed

with the person you're having it while you're actually having it. Because this is, and the term dirty talk does not do it justice because dirty talk is often taken to me like forbidden words. Literally, talking in bed is fantastic because there's nothing hotter than going. I love it when you do this. And if you do this to me, then it'll be even better. And that's a real turn-on in itself. You know, I think I said this last time we spoke, the single biggest turn-on in the world is to be in bed with somebody and know they're having a bloody amazing time because of you. And people are really open to conversations that are making sure that is the case. And by the way,

you know, I think people are also open to the fact that this is a chance to add to their own sexual repertoire in a way that can only benefit them.