Is there anything less erotic than scheduled spontaneity? Along with organised fun and deliberate wackiness, surely it rates fairly highly in the list of crimes against humanity? And yet scheduled spontaneity is exactly what relationship charity Relate is telling British couples to look to when it comes to spicing up their lacklustre sex lives. A YouGov study has found that 51% of British people have not had sex in the past month, in part, apparently, because they put so much pressure on themselves to have “amazing sex” that they either end up failing to appreciate the positive aspects of their sex lives or end up not doing it at all.
“The essence of pleasure,” said Germaine Greer, “is spontaneity,” entirely contradicting Relate’s advice that couples should not shy away from planning intimacy. It may be the romantic Celt in me (oh, do grow up), but surely if you have to plan for intimacy then it cannot be all that robust within your relationship? Indeed, if you were to compile a Buzzfeed-style list of your own personal “26 greatest ever erotic moments” how many of them will have taken place after a meticulously planned, micro-managed outing to your local Pizza Hut armed with remote-control vibrating knickers that you bought online, rather than the time you did it bare-bottomed in an open cornfield with your breeches around your ankles? (Perhaps some of us are suffering the after-effects of too many BBC costume dramas.)
Anyway, if we did embrace Relate’s advice, we wouldn’t be the first generation to plan their sex lives. Post-industrial revolution, working-class parents would bundle their many children off to Sunday school so that they could make full use of what was then the only day of rest. Now trying to find the time is even trickier as we work even longer hours – in Britain the third longest in the EU, 47 hours a week in America (and Jeb Bush is telling you all that you need to work even more), and years of economic gloom has led to an increase in second jobs.
Then you have the problem of unpaid overtime, childcare commitments and the lack of flexible working hours, not to mention technology making midnight requests from the boss an ever-increasing reality.
Indeed, technology also has a lot to answer for when it comes to sexual dissatisfaction. Those who are putting themselves under pressure to have “amazing sex” will partly be doing so because they are so surrounded by manufactured confections of it. From the porn- and Tinder-addicted, to Ashley Madison cheaters to Babestation to Hollywood films, the perception is that everyone’s at it, and in ever more adventurous, kinky and exotic ways. It used to be that, save for a small circle of friends and acquaintances, humans were blissfully ignorant of what their peers got up to, but now, just as the internet has opened up a world full of people who are fitter, thinner, richer and more successful than you, we are now inundated with show-off marathon shaggers swinging from chandeliers and boasting about their multiple orgasms.
It is good, and right, and proper that people are demanding better sex. What is sad is that so many sexual droughts seem to be because we have lost sight of what it is that truly matters in life. So many of us are anxious, preoccupied, exhausted, and spending far, far too much time on the internet. Today’s revelation that an estimated 1.2bn selfies were taken in Britain last year begs the question whether people are so busy taking pictures of their bodies that they are forgetting the wanton purposes for which they were originally intended. Certainly society’s increasing tendency towards self-obsession is not going to be conducive to a healthy sex life. In an economy where most things have been repackaged and commodified, has sex become all about “my orgasm” and “my pleasure” and “what can you do for me”?
And yet, you don’t have to read umpteen ubiquitous “regrets of the dying” articles to know that no one ever looked back on their life from their deathbed and wished that they had worked more, but they might very well wish that they had had more sex. The important things in life are to be cherished, even if it means scheduling a weekly date night. Britain and America would do well to look to Latin countries for inspiration, where the strength of the economy comes second to the things that really matter in life. The four Fs, in other words: friends, family, food and, well, you know the last one.
