Why Brad v Ben in the bedroom is a kiss and tell too far

Ben Affleck is ‘technically excellent’ in bed, according to Gwyneth Paltrow.

Now, aside from querying if this is actually a compliment, I’m also questioning the ethics of discussing your lover’s (past or present) performance. Because to me, like licking your knife or asking for money as a wedding present, it’s just not done.

Sex is deeply personal, the ultimate intimate act, and to discuss it with the wider world without the other person’s consent is potentially humiliating and surely a betrayal of trust. (Says the sex columnist. I know. I can practically see the eyebrows raising as I type.)

Sex is when you are at your most vulnerable. In cavemen times it was when that sabre-toothed tiger would have made off with your hunting haul. Or worse, made you its hunting haul.

We are hardwired to fear our bedroom antics becoming a discussion topic. It taps into the teenage worry that your tragic kissing technique or raging halitosis (I obsessively chewed gum from the ages of 14 to 20 in case I was afflicted) will become playground gossip. That you will be judged on your experience (slapper) or lack of it (frigid).

I’ll never forget one guy at university saying of a girl he’d slept with that ‘she spreads like Flora’. Horrendous. Humiliating.

Of course, the secrecy surrounding sex makes it all the more fascinating when famous people spill the beans on their high-profile partners. Especially if those people are held up as love gods and goddesses. Morally we know we should avert our eyes and close our ears, but our more basic selves want all the sordid details.

Natalie Wood once claimed that Elvis – he of the gyrating hips and come-hither eyes – ‘didn’t know how to screw’. Famous WAG Rebekah Vardy reported that 90s teenage heartthrob Peter Andre was ‘the worst lover’, with a ‘chipolata’ penis. Guy Ritchie quipped that hugging Madonna was like ‘cuddling up to a piece of gristle’.

In another breathtaking display of ungentlemanly behaviour, Backstreet Boy

Nick Carter revealed wild girl Paris Hilton was actually a ‘drunken prude’. But aside from the above examples, I think this is one area, in real life, where men can be more respectful than women. More restrained. Combine lady petrol (rosé) with a group of girlfriends and we can become pretty indiscreet. There are people’s husbands I know more about than I want to. In the trouser department.

I trust (hopefully not naively) that my boyfriend and any of my exes have not revealed what goes on between us. If it was complimentary that would make it less hurtful, but still not acceptable.

In the same podcast that she talked about Ben Affleck, Gwynnie also said there was ‘major chemistry’ between her and Brad Pitt and he was a ‘love of your life’ lover. I’m sure he’ll take that.

I can’t imagine Brad would need to big up his bedroom skills on a date, but I have been out with guys who have talked a good game, which I think is a dangerous tactic; if you set a low bar, you can always over-deliver.

Then again, set expectations too low and it might put someone off even trying. I’m thinking of those self-deprecating, bumbling posh-boy types, like a Hugh Grant romcom character come to life.

In that vein, former public schoolboy Jack Whitehall once described his sexual technique as ‘quick and quiet’ and ‘more M&S than S&M’.

He said, ‘Sex with me is like arriving late at the theatre and trying to find your seat. Some shuffling, a bit of shushing, a pause and then from somewhere in the darkness just a whispered “Sorry”.’

Hilarious. But also, eww.

Some things are best left unsaid.

THERE ARE PEOPLE’S HUSBANDS I KNOW MORE ABOUT THAN I WANT TO. IN THE TROUSER DEPARTMENT