Photo: Jacob Lund / Alamy Stock Photo
Sex is a release. It lets us escape from ourselves – gets rid of the tension built up after someone in your house group chat ate your hummus again, or from your boss calling you "buddy" for the seventh time in a day. It makes sense, then, that during sex our minds might sometimes wander, bringing unexpected things to the surface.A new survey by IllicitEncounters.com seems to confirm just that. Two-thousand British people (an even split of men and women) were asked to name the fantasies they dream up while having sex, and the results ranged from shagging an ex to, erm, having a quickie with a traffic warden? Here’s the top ten:1: Sex with an ex - 55 percent
2: A sex scene on TV or online - 40 percent
3: Sex with a celebrity - 38 percent
4: Sex with my current partner - 36 percent
5: Sex with a stranger - 29 percent
6: An affair with a work colleague - 27 percent
7: Sex with a friend - 25 percent
8: Group sex - 19 percent
9: Sex in a public place - 14 percent
10: Sex with someone in authority; police officer or traffic warden - 11 percentWhat this basically tells us is that a) Brits are fucking vanilla (I think we knew that anyway, though – we're a nation that was sent into a full week of uproar over a fake meat sausage roll, which does not really scream "hot passionate lovers" on the whole); and b) over 10 percent of the general public currently out roaming the streets are going home and just extremely thinking about having a parking ticket slapped to their arse while they rail their loving partner. It takes all sorts?In terms of gender splits, women were more likely than men to fantasise about exes (57 percent to 53 percent), and were also more likely to think about sex with a celebrity. Men, on the other hand, were more into fantasies about group sex and sex with strangers. It's also worth noting that Illicit Encounters is a site for married people, and therefore probably doesn’t count millennials as its main demographic. If it did, the results would probably be quite different (shagging house plants – 56 percent; Watching Russian Doll after this is over – 71 percent).
2: A sex scene on TV or online - 40 percent
3: Sex with a celebrity - 38 percent
4: Sex with my current partner - 36 percent
5: Sex with a stranger - 29 percent
6: An affair with a work colleague - 27 percent
7: Sex with a friend - 25 percent
8: Group sex - 19 percent
9: Sex in a public place - 14 percent
10: Sex with someone in authority; police officer or traffic warden - 11 percentWhat this basically tells us is that a) Brits are fucking vanilla (I think we knew that anyway, though – we're a nation that was sent into a full week of uproar over a fake meat sausage roll, which does not really scream "hot passionate lovers" on the whole); and b) over 10 percent of the general public currently out roaming the streets are going home and just extremely thinking about having a parking ticket slapped to their arse while they rail their loving partner. It takes all sorts?In terms of gender splits, women were more likely than men to fantasise about exes (57 percent to 53 percent), and were also more likely to think about sex with a celebrity. Men, on the other hand, were more into fantasies about group sex and sex with strangers. It's also worth noting that Illicit Encounters is a site for married people, and therefore probably doesn’t count millennials as its main demographic. If it did, the results would probably be quite different (shagging house plants – 56 percent; Watching Russian Doll after this is over – 71 percent).