My husband won’t be my Valentine tonight

He won’t be able to compete with erotica, burlesque, cocktails – and Pamela Anderson

When I was a child I rather sweetly imagined that spending Valentine’s Day on your own was the worst thing that could happen to an adult woman. That was before I met my husband and spent the next 22 years celebrating the most romantic day of the year in front of Newsnight with a plate of vegetable curry.

True, in our first year of courtship he swept me off to the Ivy for the 14th, where Nigella Lawson was ensconced in one corner, Helen Mirren in another, and I finally felt romance and glamour were mine. Then we sealed the marriage deal and he started saying: “You wouldn’t want to go to a restaurant tonight, would you?” Oh no, not on your Nelly! Just as I wouldn’t welcome champagne, oysters, a Chantal Thomass silk slip, a suite at Claridge’s, or a trip to Venice. What weird excuse for a female wants any of that pampering? One of the many bizarre things about Britain is the ingrained certainty you must never admit to wanting Lavish Romantic Gestures even though your inner Guinevere is longing to ride pillion behind your knight.

So bearing married life in mind, I see the point of erotic boutique Coco de Mer’s new ad for Valentine’s Day, which features Pamela Anderson home alone in a rose-petal strewn boudoir with just a dashing marital aid (removed from a lacquered box) to keep her company. As the video ends, she whispers to the camera, “No one knows you better than you.” This is very true, and knowing me as I do I’ve decided, after brief and not-so-hard deliberation, to spend this Valentine’s with Pamela Anderson.

I probably sound delusional, so I should explain that I also spent Sunday with her. The Baywatch and Borat star had been enlisted by Sotheby’s to debate the vexing question of whether eroticism in art has become harder to achieve in the digital age (part of the run-up to Thursday’s grand London sale of erotic art and artefacts). I was chairing the panel and trying hard to concentrate on the paintings instead of admiring Anderson’s tiny waist and wondering if it was true that she’s taking Julian Assange food parcels at the Ecuadorian Embassy. But then the former Playboy pin-up is a seasoned campaigner, supporting Peta, charities that combat domestic violence, and an anti-crude-porn crusade she terms “The Sensual Revolution.” So it made sense that the artwork she liked most was a time-ravaged Roman sculpture from the second century AD depicting two entwined torsos (the heads and legs are mostly missing) in the throes of lovemaking: a moment so human and touching and eternal it could be any couple in any age. Afterwards, I downed a glass of champagne while we discussed the dire state of sex education in schools and the erotically themed party at Sotheby’s tonight, where Anderson is guest of honour and Britain’s top burlesque dancer, Miss Immodesty Blaize, is in glorious attendance.

You are probably beginning to grasp now why I ditched the husband. Indeed, the preparations for Valentine’s without him have been extraordinary elaborate. Instead of woolly tights and Uggs, I have washed, scrubbed, depilated, exfoliated and rubbed expensive unguents into my skin. You only take this much trouble for someone you truly love (like a Hollywood blonde). I have even travelled to Dalston, home of the bearded hipster, for accessories. Anderson will probably wear a headdress from Philip Treacy and I don’t want to be a total wallflower by comparison – which is how I found myself in the showroom of Fleet Ilyia, bespoke crafters of bondage gear so stylish you could wear it to the Ritz. I tested it out on my husband and sons, who were, admittedly, trying to watch David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. “Mummy, why are you wearing cat ears?”, asked the eight-year-old.

Just as I was feeling a bit guilty about deserting my husband to a lonesome night with Evan Davis, I had a conversation with two Sotheby’s employees who are also going partying with Pamela. “No way am I taking my husband,” said a veteran of 16 years’ wedlock. “There’s going to be erotica, burlesque and cocktails – he’d just hold me back.” Even a sweet young man who’d been married to his husband barely a year said he was leaving him at home. The message is clear: Valentine’s night is too special to save it for your spouse.