The games we play: Our top five sexual fantasies revealed

The authors of the Adam Smith Institute study argue this means that the numbers of people in the UK likely to be interested in viewing “fantasy” depictions of non-consensual sex is likely to be “quite high”.

Data from the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project, a survey of 19,000 people, found that:

• 86 per cent of men and 56 per cent of women have looked at pornography.

• 29 per cent of both sexes fantasise about playing a dominant or “aggressive” role during sex.

• 33 per cent like to think about playing a submissive or “passive” role.

• 4 per cent of people entertain the idea of being violent towards someone during sex

• 6 per cent fantasise about being a victim of such violence.

Researchers suggest that when extrapolated to the wider popular this means some 2.2 million people in Britain have violent sexual fantasies of some kind.

But they insist there is no proven link between such fantasies and the risk of committing a sexual offence.