THE RULES OF SEX DO NOT APPLY

WHAT IF THE NARRATIVE WE’VE BEEN SOLD ABOUT OUR LIBIDOS IS ALL WRONG? Clover Stroud ROMPS THROUGH A SEX LIFE WELL-LIVED TO DEMONSTRATE THE TRUTHS (AND LIES) OF FEMALE DESIRE

Clover Stroud explores the transformative power of sex, and how her past encounters have been linked to the major turning points in her life

It’s early afternoon; the house is empty. I’m sitting at the kitchen table, distracted when I should be finishing a piece of work, laptop open but neglected. I glance at the clock. There’s time still, before that rush at 2.45pm, when I will throw biscuits into a Tupperware box and dash to the school gate, where I will smile and admire my children’s paintings and smile more, like a good mother, as I ferry them to swimming club. Until then, however, I’m alone, distracted and horny.

I am 44. I have five children and I love having sex with my husband, but he’s away a lot. So sometimes I watch porn. I am sure lots of mothers, and women who work from home, do too. People don’t tell the truth about it, though, the way they don’t tell the truth about sex. Not what it’s really like. What it feels like in your heart, or how good or bad it can feel in your body, or how it changes the inside of your head, and how it alters across the decades. We tell each other lies about it, lying that one-night stands are a source of endless orgasms, or that a long term-relationship is boring, or that sex must grind to a halt when adults become parents. None of these things have to be true. And good sex – how to find it and maintain it – isn’t a linear experience. Sometimes, the best sex arrives when you least expect it.