Gillian Anderson wants your anonymous sex stories

"What do you think about when you think about sex?"
 By 
Rachel Thompson
 on 
A close up of Gillian Anderson's as she attends The Crown Season 5 premiere
Gillian Anderson attends "The Crown" Season 5 premiere in November 2022 in London. Credit: Samir Hussein / Contributor

Gillian Anderson wants to talk about sex. Your innermost fantasies and fears. Who you're sleeping with.

To be clear, the Sex Education star (who plays sex therapist Dr. Jean Milburn in the Netflix show), wants you to write her an anonymous letter all about sex for for a "generation-defining book". Announced on Wednesday, the project is currently called Dear Gillian and the book will be published by Bloomsbury.

In a Twitter video, Anderson talked about the purpose behind the project. "As women, we know that sex is about more than just sex. And yet so many of us don’t talk about it. Our deepest, most intimate fears and fantasies remain locked away inside of us, until someone comes along with the key," she said.

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"I would love to know your fantasy: the secret desire you’d share with only the most trusted of confidants. Whatever your background, whomever you do or don’t sleep with, whether you’re 18 or 80: if you identify as a woman, I want to hear from you," she added.

Anderson is asking anyone who identifies as a woman to write an anonymous letter of around 1,000 words (no more than 2,500 words) describing "your most intimate, private sexual fantasies."

"Simply open your letter with ‘Dear Gillian,’ and let your imagination run wild. I will, of course, also share my own."

For more instructions on what you should and should not include in your letter, as well as important privacy terms, visit the Dear Gillian project's dedicated website.

Topics Celebrities

Rachel Thompson, sits wearing a dress with yellow florals and black background.
Rachel Thompson
Features Editor

Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.

A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.

Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.

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