ABSTRACT
In ‘Hysterical Phantasies and their Relation to Bisexuality’ (1908), Freud makes a distinction between the daydreams common to men and those enjoyed by women. Daydreams, he notes, ‘occur with perhaps equal frequency in both sexes’ but ‘it seems that while in girls and women they are invariably of an erotic nature, in men they may be either erotic or ambitious’ (PFL 10:87). This distinction starts to break down almost immediately as Freud goes on to draw attention to the erotic aims behind men’s ambitious fantasies:
[C]loser investigation of a man’s day-dreams generally shows that all his heroic exploits are carried out and all his successes achieved only in order to please a woman and to be preferred by her to other men. These fantasies are satisfactions of wishes proceeding from deprivation and longing.
