A new study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine provides evidence that repeatedly engaging in structured sexual fantasies can improve a person’s sexual well-being and desire. Researchers found that writing about erotic scenarios a few times a week tends to reduce sexual distress and performance worries while increasing overall sexual pleasure. These findings suggest that simple cognitive exercises done at home can act as an effective tool for enhancing relationship intimacy and personal sexual health.
Human sexual functioning relies heavily on where people direct their attention. Attention controls how individuals perceive and process sexual information in their environment. People can focus their attention externally on physical stimuli, but they can also direct it internally toward their own thoughts and imagination.
This internal attention powers sexual fantasies. When people use their imagination to create vivid mental images, they engage cognitive processes that support emotional regulation and memory. In the context of sexuality, these internally generated mental images act as incentives that activate sexual arousal even without physical stimulation.
Research suggests that a higher frequency of sexual fantasies is often linked to healthier sexual functioning. People who experience sexual difficulties often report a lack of sexual fantasies.
Rui Miguel Costa, an assistant professor in the Health Sciences Faculty at Universidade Europeia in Lisbon, Portugal, and a researcher at the Research Center in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences, and Human Development, wanted to see if intentionally prompting people to fantasize could lead to measurable improvements.
“Sexual fantasy is an under-researched topic, and interventions based on enhancement of sexual fantasy have been studied even less,” Costa said. “A few studies had suggested that engaging in sexual fantasizing has the potential to increase sexual desire and improve sexual life. Thus, it was very important to examine whether sexual desire and well-being could be enhanced by a brief, easily feasible intervention developed to stimulate sexual fantasy.”
The authors hypothesized that guided fantasy exercises would keep erotic representations of a partner in a person’s mind. By keeping these thoughts active, the researchers suspected the motivational systems related to sexual desire would become more sensitive. They also wanted to see if focusing on pleasurable mental imagery could block out the negative thoughts that often cause sexual distress.
To explore these concepts, the scientists recruited 60 heterosexual adults in Portugal. The participants were young adults, a demographic chosen because they generally experience frequent sexual fantasies but still show a lot of variety in their sexual functioning. Every person in the sample reported being in a sexually active relationship with an opposite-sex partner over the previous four weeks.
The researchers randomly split these 60 participants into two equally sized groups of 30. The first group was the experimental group, which received instructions to complete a specific sexual fantasy task. The second group served as a control group, completing a similar task that did not involve any sexual content.
Before starting the main part of the experiment, all participants visited a university laboratory to complete baseline questionnaires. These surveys measured several aspects of their sexual lives, including their base levels of sexual desire and their general sexual pleasure. The surveys also evaluated their levels of sexual distress, which involves feelings of frustration, anxiety, or guilt related to sex.
The initial questionnaires also measured cognitive distractions during sexual activity. Cognitive distraction refers to times when a person loses focus on the intimate moment because they are worrying about their body image or their sexual performance. Finally, the participants rated the vividness of their mental imagery, specifically how distinctly they could picture their partner in their mind.
After completing the baseline surveys, the participants began a four-week home-based intervention. The scientists instructed the 30 people in the experimental group to write short narratives about an erotic episode at least twice a week. These participants used an online form to describe a sexual scenario involving an attractive partner, which could be real, entirely imagined, or a mix of both.
The prompts encouraged the experimental group to write freely. They could use explicit language, describe their physical sensations, and focus on the emotional aspects of the fantasy. Before and after every writing session, these participants answered brief questions about their current feelings of arousal and their emotional state.
Meanwhile, the 30 people in the control group followed a nearly identical routine. They also used an online form to write short narratives at least twice a week for four weeks. However, the researchers asked this group to write about a pleasant, non-sexual social event, specifically a dinner with friends.
The style and structure of the writing prompts were matched to the experimental group, with only the theme changed. The research team monitored adherence to the writing exercises throughout the four weeks by tracking the submitted online forms. They also sent weekly email reminders to help participants stay on schedule.
After the four-week period ended, all 60 participants returned to complete the exact same set of comprehensive questionnaires they took at the beginning of the study. When the scientists compared the baseline surveys to the final surveys, they found that the experimental group experienced significant improvements across all measured areas. Participants who completed the sexual fantasy writing tasks reported a marked increase in their sexual desire compared to the control group.
They also experienced an increase in their general sexual pleasure. Beyond just boosting positive feelings, the sexual fantasy exercises helped alleviate negative ones. The experimental group showed a significant reduction in their overall sexual distress.
They also reported fewer cognitive distractions during sex, specifically showing a drop in worries related to their sexual performance. In contrast, the 30 people in the control group showed no significant positive changes in any of these areas, and they even reported a slight decrease in sexual desire.
The researchers also found that the experimental group experienced an increase in the vividness of their partner-focused imagination. By regularly practicing these mental exercises, these individuals became better at creating detailed mental pictures of their partners.
“We tested the effect of the intervention on how vividly study participants imagined their partner in daily life after the fantasy exercises, without formulating an a priori hypothesis,” Costa told PsyPost. “This effect was confirmed, and this enrichment of fantasy life may contribute to enhancing sexual desire and well-being, as well as greater partner connectedness.”
The authors interpret these overall findings through the lens of attention shifting. They suggest that repeatedly engaging in partner-focused sexual fantasies helps people redirect their minds away from anxiety and performance evaluations. Instead, the brain learns to focus on pleasurable, emotionally rewarding representations of intimacy.
Mental imagery is known to evoke stronger emotional responses than simply thinking in words. By actively creating positive, sex-related emotions through imagination, the participants likely weakened their habits of self-criticism during sex. This shift provides evidence that structured fantasy can be an effective way to improve an individual’s overall sexual experience.
For people hoping to apply these findings to their own relationships, the advice is simple. “Accept, cultivate, and enjoy sexual fantasies; enjoy the arousal, fun, and sense of mystery they evoke during your mind-wandering,” Costa recommended. “This may improve your sex life, and reduce your worries about it, even if you do not intend to turn these fantasies into reality.”
“If you like to write, try to write them down. If you decide to write them, you may even use some predefined questions for each fantasy you have (for example, describe the characteristics of your partner, describe the sexual acts, what you say to each other, what each of you is feeling and doing).”
While the study provides promising evidence, the authors note several limitations that require consideration. First, the experiment relied on a relatively small convenience sample, meaning the participants were drawn from a group that was easy to reach, like local university students.
“The fantasy exercise we tested was done in a nonclinical sample that nevertheless showed space for enhancement of desire and pleasure, as well as for reduction of sexual distress and distractions during sexual activity,” Costa explained. “However, this study was exploratory and warrants replication. Also, it is presently unclear if this type of intervention is effective in alleviating sexual difficulties in clinical populations.”
The study also relied entirely on self-reported questionnaires. While this is standard practice for measuring subjective feelings like desire and distress, self-reports can sometimes be influenced by a participant’s wish to provide the expected answer. The researchers note that they cannot rule out the possibility that simply expecting to feel better might have influenced some of the positive changes.
Future research should address these limitations by studying larger and more diverse groups of people. A larger sample size would allow scientists to see if men and women respond differently to sexual fantasy interventions. “It would be important to replicate this study with larger samples; this would allow us to ascertain if, for example, the effects are similar in men and women, and in people in relationships of varying durations,” Costa stated. “Another important goal is to evaluate this intervention in clinical populations.”
Future studies should also include long-term follow-up assessments to see if the benefits of the four-week intervention last over time. In the meantime, the current findings offer a fresh perspective on the internal aspects of human intimacy. “Sexual life is made up of sensations, feelings, and imagination; this study highlights the importance of a rich and vivid fantasy life,” Costa said.
The study, “The role of sexual fantasy on sexual desire, distress, and sexual worries: a randomized controlled study,” was authored by Pedro Campos, Isabel Leal, and Rui Miguel Costa.
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