How was it for me, darling? SIMPLY AWFUL!
It’s the verdict no man wants to hear. The TRUTH about how he really rates in the bedroom. Here seven women recall their worst lovers . . .
THIS week, singer Katy Perry caused controversy by giving an interview in which she rated her ex-lovers — from the best to worst. Tellingly, she neglected to mention ex-husband lothario Russell Brand.
Indeed, most women will admit that for every candlelit dinner that ends in romance, there is a disastrous date that can’t be forgotten quickly enough. Here, a panel of Femail writers recall their most toe-curling experiences . . .
CRINKLY SKIN — AND A PAUNCH! Jenni Murray, broadcaster
I WAS young. Not much beyond 20 and I was bowled over by this tall, handsome man who was considerably older and far more experienced in these matters than me.
He was 45, divorced and knew how to woo an impressionable youngster.
The flattery came thick and fast. He told me I was beautiful and intelligent. He delighted, he said, in my youthful enthusiasm, my sparkling conversation and ready wit.
He was well off. He took me to the best restaurants and chose the plays and films I was longing to see.
I had my suspicions all would not go so well in the seduction department when the first kiss occurred. It was sloppy and wet. But it seemed inevitable things would go further.
That’s when I discovered that the body of a 45-year-old was nowhere near as admirable as that of someone my own age.
There was a hint of a paunch and skin that was a little on the crinkly side. He was not nearly as stunning without his sharp suit and pristine shirt.
Nevertheless, I expected skill in the bedroom. I could not have been more wrong. His mind was not at all on tenderness and sensuality. His only concern was the main event. The breathing was laboured and, yes, it was wham, bang.
At least he had the decency to say ‘ Thank you, ma’am’. I stuck to my contemporaries from then on.
I HAD TO STOP MYSELF ASKING HIM: ‘IS THAT IT?’ Maeve Haran, novelist
I MET my worst ever lover when — fortunately for him — I was young and inexperienced or I would have spotted his revolting air of privilege a mile off.
Actually, I should have known from his handshake — like clutching a wet fish — that he wasn’t going to be exactly Antonio Banderas.
But I didn’t suspect quite how unsatisfactory the whole thing was going to be. When it was over, I had to stop myself politely asking: ‘Is that it?’
Yet he was one of those posh boys so used to getting what they want that they think everything they do is brilliant.
The kind of guy who, despite his appalling performance, expects you to sing him Nobody Does It Better over cornflakes, because, after all, it’s no less than he deserves.
I was just starting off training as a barrister at the Middle Temple before I went to university and maybe all the grandeur and history got to me.
Certainly, something did because I wasn’t usually that much of a push over.
Young women may be surprised to know that back in the liberated Swinging Sixties — that celebrated era of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll — it was actually quite hard to turn a man down.
Saying no was considered bad form. And yet, with role models like Germaine Greer and Jane Fonda, we were also supposed to be strong and sassy. What was a girl to do?
I got a slice of revenge on behalf of womankind the next morning when he looked into my eyes and asked me why I was looking so happy. No doubt he imagined it was as a result of his five-star performance.
I think Germaine would have been proud of me when I quipped back: ‘Because I’ll never have to see you again.’
NO SEX — AND I HAD TO PAY THE BILL Liz Hodgkinson, writer
IT IS difficult in a crowded field to single out the very worst lover ever, but an experience I had — or didn’t have — soon after my partner died in 2004 comes close.
An old, married friend from school had contacted me through the Friends Reunited website and we started to converse via email and Skype. Before long, the conversation became flirtatious and it seemed that we were falling in love.
He was living abroad, so it wasn’t easy to meet, but after three months of emails, he messaged me to say he’d wangled a place at a conference in London, and would have the weekend free.
‘I’ve managed to do this just to see you,’ he said. ‘Can you book us into a lovely hotel for the night?’
By now wild with excitement, I chose the most romantic room in the most romantic hotel I could think of, the 14th-century Mermaid Inn in Rye, Sussex, and counted the days like a lovesick teenager. We drove down together and on arrival, he ordered a chilled bottle of champagne. We talked over old and new times and eventually it was time to go to our honeymoon-style, oak- beamed room with its four-poster bed.
But when we got there, he suddenly said: ‘I don’t think I can do this. I feel so guilty.’
I had known that he was married, but our online relationship had moved at such lightning speed that we had even talked about setting up a new life together.
Alas, that’s all it was — talk. We spent the night without even touching and in the morning he said: ‘I am so sorry.’
We had breakfast in the hotel, then he said: ‘Can you pay?’
No fool like an old fool, you may think. I never saw him again.
HE CAME DOWN TO DINNER... IN A DRESS Rebecca Wallersteiner, critic
MY WoRST lovers were all narcissists, focused on their own sexual needs. I remember a banker who talked about himself the whole time.
He lasted a couple of weeks. Although thankfully quick, sex was boring and repetitive. Like him.
However, it isn’t just narcissistic men who make poor lovers. Good guys can also fall short.
Some years ago I met a tall, dark and handsome wine connoisseur at a party and we began dating. Everything about him seemed to tick all the boxes.
He took me for dinner in fashionable restaurants around Chelsea, followed by dancing at Annabel’s nightclub until the small hours. We parted with a peck on the cheek.
I was delighted, then, when he invited me to his cottage in the country.
on our first night all seemed idyllic — chestnuts crackled on an open fire, conversation fizzed and champagne flowed.
He was warm, sweet and thoughtful. Marriage material, I wondered?
Feeling glowing I went upstairs to change for dinner.
When I came down, to my horror, I discovered I wasn’t the only one who had changed into a dress.
The wine connoisseur was awaiting me draped across the sofa in a stunning, long, green velvet gown (an original ossie Clark).
He cried when I left. But we are still friends today.
HE UNDRESSED ME LIKE A BORED NURSE Olivia Fane, writer
I WAS a well-brought up girl. I didn’t drink, smoke or take drugs. I didn’t even dance.
But in my 20s I’d fancied a rather earnest intellectual type with red hair and round NHS specs. He was as as me.
Nonetheless when he arrived one evening in my room I was delighted, yearning to be seduced.
I offered to share my bean bag with him, but he started reading an essay.
‘ The last time I undressed a woman, I was disappointed,’ he told me.
‘Her body was unsatisfactory. I told her to get dressed again.’
I should have shown him the door there and then, but overwhelmed by the occasion, I instead made some pathetic joke about mine. He
undressed me with about as much appetite as a bored nurse about to bathe an elderly patient.
He gave me a full two minutes of his time, before bidding me ‘farewell’.
On the bright side, he taught me what to look for in a lover: one who seduces you without looking too hard, without saying too much; a lover who makes you feel so wonderful that you forget you have a body at all.
HE WAS DISHY, BUT A THIEF AS WELL Julia Stephenson, socialite
ANNOYINGLY, the man I fell madly in love with after I left my first husband had a disease of his nervous system which meant he wasn’t able to have sex at all. I soon got fed up with this and moved in with a German drummer. We hit it off in every way you can think of, but my ardour soon palled when, on our first holiday together, his suitcase fell open in the hotel lobby shedding all of the towels he had pinched from our room. That was a serious passion killer.
I then fell for a Piers, a randy peer I met at a dinner party.
Immediately fireworks flew and chandeliers were swung from. I don’t know what they put in the water at eton, but phew!
The problem was that he was tighter than two coats of paint and had a phobia about paying for anything. Not an attractive trait.
I soon fell for a witty and charming Finnish playright who had no interest in sex.
I blamed myself, but you have to accept that if the physical side of things is lacking there can be no true intimacy.
HE NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT HIS EX Linda Kelsey, former Cosmopolitan editor
He was preening and pretentious and something in the City. I should have known that a man who spent more time looking in the mirror than he did at me was unlikely to be a thoughtful lover. But boy, was he good looking!
He also drove a fast car and had an open wallet, things that momentarily dazzled me as I recovered from the breakdown of my first marriage in my mid-20s.
Another warning sign: despite being educated and cultured, his two favourite topics of conversation were his ex and his mother.
By the time I met him I was 27 and feeling my way into dating as a so-called liberated single woman of the late- Seventies. Making mistakes, I guess, was inevitable.
After a few reasonably enjoyable dates — a classical concert, a restaurant, an upscale hotel bar — and a few kisses rather less sweet than wine, he invited me to join him at a Tuscan villa he was renting.
He was planning to stay with friends and asked if I’d like to fly out for a weekend. I could only spare two days. Thank goodness.
From the moment I arrived I knew it was going to be a disaster. His friends were snobs.
As I flailed around on the tennis court, my prospective paramour informed me what a brilliant player the ex was. He even told me what a beautiful body she had.
The first night was the worst. I braced myself for the inevitable. There was no foreplay, no afterplay and not much middle play either. It was desultory stuff — and ultimately humiliating.
On the second night, I was grateful for twin beds.
The next morning he called a taxi for me so I could go back to the airport. We never spoke again.
I learned a worthwhile lesson — avoid men who are still in love with their ex.