Sunday, January 27, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Seventy-One

Cities for seduction
Whatever happens, we’ll always have… where? Eight experts in the art of the amorous reveal the destinations guaranteed to melt the heart of your chosen one, with tips on romantic meals, sexy hotels and how to make that big gesture
Interviews by Liz Bird, Annabelle Thorpe and Jane Dunford, The London Observer (January 2008)

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Sarah Beeny
mysinglefriend.com

Cesky Krumlov

One of the most romantic things in the world is feeling that you are discovering somewhere - that together you’ve stumbled on a secret. Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic felt like that to us: it’s a picture-book place, with colour-washed houses and detailed architecture dating back to the 14th century. The town is dominated by a walled castle so large it’s like a town in its own right. There are beautiful gardens to walk in and a cafe at the entrance which serves fantastic coffee; you could sit there all day and watch the comings and goings from the castle. The town itself is quite chic - lots of cosy bars and coffee houses - but it maintains a historical feel, thanks to all the cobbled alleyways and courtyards. You need time to wander and allow yourself to get lost. The best way to discover Cesky is to set off without a map and simply keep walking.

The big gesture
Hire a boat to glide up and down the Vltava river that surrounds the town. The best time to do this is in the evening: hire a punt and it comes with two guides who will do all the hard work, while you laze together and watch the town drift by. [For information on boat rental see ceskykrumlov-info.cz; or call 00 420 380 712853.]

The meal
The Hotel Ruze (00 420 380 772100; hotelruze.cz) is very plush, does fantastic cocktails and is probably the best place for a romantic dinner. It’s all very Bohemian-Gothic, worth glamming up for, and has a terrace with lovely views over the river.

The hotel
The Hotel Maleho Vitka, which means The Little Vitus Inn (00 420 380 711925; vitekhotel.cz; deluxe doubles from 2,100 koruny/£60) is in a great location very close to the central square and has a simple feel. Everything is made of wood - the floors, the beds, the furniture - and the rooms are whitewashed and feel a bit like something out of a child’s storybook.

· TV presenter Sarah Beeny is founder of dating website mysinglefriend.com

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Jamie Maclean
Editor, erotic review

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is the perfect seduction city for romantics. It offers architectural beauty wherever you look. Don’t be fooled by its compactness - or the guides that tell you you can ‘do it’ in a day. It contains enough piazzas, campaniles and cupolas, steep stone-clad streets, massive walls and bulwarks, quiet cloisters and cool churches (and a tiny, ancient synagogue) to keep you and your partner in a state of wonder and mutual lust for at least a week. It’s no dusty museum town, either. It comes alive at night - with film and music festivals, art galleries and great bars and restaurants.

On a warm summer night in the early 1980s, I sat on the terrace of the Hotel Argentina, wondering whether my girlfriend was going too far. She was dancing energetically, freeform, on a table, barefoot in a clingy summer dress that left little to the imagination. However, our host and fellow invitees appeared to love it.

It was a great party. There was spontaneous close-harmony singing, a lot of grilled meat, and toasts in whichever fiery local spirit you chose. The waiters smiled indulgently as they kept the wine flowing. After all, they knew all about Dubrovnik’s powers of seduction.

Earlier that evening we had drifted arm-in-arm down the Stradun, the city’s main street. The limestone flags, polished by the feet of ages, reflected the soft street lamps. The total absence of cars threw us back to another time, where it was throngs of people, rather than cars, that were the dominant kinetic force.

The traditional passeggiata was in full spate - a river of pretty girls flowed past in their summer best, flirting with the boys, chatting. The warm, scented sea air, the susurration of the crowd, the smell of food from the many restaurants and a quick slug of pale green travarica on the rocks at one of the cafe-bars, all combined to give a heady atmosphere of barely suppressed excitement and sexual promise.

The big gesture
A little before 7pm, look for a small opening in Dubrovnik’s south wall bearing the sign ‘Cold Drinks’. From the narrow medieval streets it will lead you outside the city walls. Buza 2 ( literally ‘Hole two’ ), one of the world’s more precarious bars, is on several levels among the rocks that lead down from the base of the walls to the sea. Order cold beer, enjoy the kaleidoscopic sunset over the sea, and start your beguiling spiel.

The meal
On restaurant-strewn Prijeko Street, you’ll find one of the exceptions to the ‘touristic menu’ rule: Wanda (00 385 98 944 9317; wandarestaurant.com), where the food is delicious and the service friendly. There are grander places to eat, such as Nautika (00 385 20 442526) or some of the big hotel restaurants, where the typically Mediterranean food is also good, but they are far pricier. Seduction special? Lokanda Peskarija (00 385 20 324750) in the Old Port.

The hotel
Price largely determines how central, sensible or sensual. I would tentatively suggest the Hotel Excelsior (00 385 20 353353; hotel-excelsior.hr; doubles from €210/£156; reopens after refurbishment in June), bang next to the grand Hotel Argentina (00 385 20 440555; gva.hr; doubles from €194/£145). Private rooms or apartments can be delightful, but shop around. And my ultimate seduction tip? Buy a copy of Robin Harris’s Dubrovnik: A History. Read it, explore the city together, and get ready for dancing on tables.

· Jamie Maclean is editor of the Erotic Review (eroticreviewmagazine.org).

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James Lohan
Mr & Mrs Smith guides

Marrakesh

Mrs Smith and I first started reviewing hotels in Marrakesh and we loved the place. It’s incredibly atmospheric: exotic and completely out of the ordinary. What better way to spice up your love life than to be seduced by a totally new experience? A hammam for two, browsing in the bazaars, dining on the roof under the stars…

Winter is magical: hot enough to sunbathe while you stare at the snow-capped Atlas mountains; cool enough by night for drinks in front of a crackling fire. Plus, Morocco is only a short flight from London and makes a refreshing change from the more conventional backdrops to seduction, such as Paris or Rome. Choosing a more imaginative destination also means you rack up extra brownie points for knowing that ‘romantic’ doesn’t have to mean ‘run-of-the-mill’.

The big gesture
A hot-air balloon flight might sound a bit obvious, but trust me - this is one place that really justifies giving it a whirl. As you float across the rose-hued medina at sunrise or sunset the mountains rise up on one side and the desert stretches away on the other - it’s an amazing high (obviously, the champagne helps). If this fails, and you have to resort to a shopping spree to win over your loved one, this bird’s-eye view will at least help you navigate your way through the labyrinthine souks when you’re back on terra firma. Ciel d’Afrique (00 212 24 432843; cieldafrique.info) operates hot-air balloon flights in the city from 2,050 dirhams (£135) per person.

The meal
Most riad hotels in the medina will arrange private dining on their roof terrace (balmy night air, flickering candles, total seclusion), but if you want to go out, book a balcony table overlooking the wrought-iron candelabra at Le Foundouk (00 212 24 378190; foundouk.com). You’ll be led down a dark alley by a cloaked lantern-bearer, which sets the mood nicely. Inside, this restaurant has a buzzy atmosphere, great cocktails and sensual Maroc-fusion food: the seafood is excellent, but you must try a traditional pastilla (a pigeon pie dusted with sugar) with some grise, a light Moroccan rosé.

The hotel
With its private sunken pool and fireplace, the Harem tent at Palais Rhoul (palais-rhoul.com; doubles €290, Harem €490) is spectacular, but we prefer to be in the medina itself, at the Noir d’Ivoire (00 212 24 380975; noir-d-ivoire.com; doubles from €180/£134), an elegant riad conversion with its own hammam. Noir d’Ivoire also has an excellent chef: dinner is served at candlelit tables around the courtyard, and on some evenings there’s a pianist. The Panther Suite (from €420/£314) has a private roof terrace with a plunge pool and a canopied daybed (we slept under the stars on our first night there); the smaller Elephant Suite (€310/£232) has a screened Juliet balcony and beaten-silver bathtub for two.

· James Lohan is the managing director of Mr & Mrs Smith guides. For more romantic recommendations, see mrandmrssmith.com; 0845 034 0700.

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Sam Roddick
Erotic entrepreneur

Barcelona

There are certain places in the world where you can feel artistic maverickness - and Barcelona is one. People express themselves with a freedom you don’t often get - it’s hugely artistic, very vibrant and sensual. I love the backstreets where you can get lost, and the incredible buskers on La Rambla. Some are phenomenal; others you don’t know if it’s genius or insanity. There’s an edge of mystery about it all. Then there’s Gaudi’s work - his cathedral is so mystical yet sensual, with a sort of darkness attached. There’s a guttural passion in the Spanish that you see clearly in Barcelona - in the food, the architecture, the artistry. Just wandering around, thrilling things happen - I remember spotting an old guy working in a violin workshop near the Picasso museum and he gave me a private concert.

The big gesture
Whenever I do anything romantic, it’s centred on spontaneity, and there’s plenty of scope for that in Barcelona. There are incredible, sensuous food markets - grabbing some delicious wine and ham and having a picnic in the park is a wonderful thing to do. Or why not organise a private tango lesson? (Raul Mamone offers private lessons for €40/£30 an hour; 00 34 678 371 278; tangosurbarcelona.com)

The meal
Some of the gilded coffee houses are phenomenal. Cafe de la Opera (00 34 93 317 7585; cafeoperabcn.com) on La Rambla is all marble steps and chandeliers and is always busy with people drinking hot chocolate and eating churros.

The hotel
The old Hotel Colon (00 34 93 301 14 04; hotelcolon.es; doubles from €110) is magical. Things happen here: people have epiphanies, visions. It’s not trendy but there’s something sexy about it - it’s got an exciting, unpolished feel which makes it seductive. Otherwise Casa Camper Barcelona (00 34 933 426 280; camper.com; doubles from €210) in the El Raval district is more fashion-conscious but still cosy - there are just 25 rooms. It’s owned by the Camper shoe company and is beautiful, modern and safe. For me, though, a back alley is as seductive as a hotel room - anything a bit clandestine I’m up for!

· Sam Roddick is the founder of sex emporium Coco de Mer.

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Tracey Cox
Sex expert

New York

It is one of the most alive and vibrant cities in the world. Anything is possible. More sexy than romantic, it has energy and vitality. While many romantic films have been set there, the Sex and the City TV series has added to its edgy feel.

The big gesture
Walk across Brooklyn Bridge in the snow or go ice-skating at the Rockefeller Centre. And though it’s a tourist attraction, you can’t help but be wowed by the view from the top of the Empire State Building. Alternatively, take a walk in Central Park. The horse-and-carriage stuff is a bit obvious, but the park has lots of little summerhouses where you can enjoy a little privacy.

The meal
My boyfriend and I would go to Raoul’s in SoHo (00 1 212 966 3518; raouls.com), a fancy French bistro with a dark, sexy atmosphere. It’s where lots of people go to propose. I saw Drew Barrymore there a few weeks ago. I’d probably have peppered steak and chips: New York does the best chips in the world. We’d go for pre-dinner champagne at the stylish Hudson Hotel near Central Park (00 1 212 554 6217; hudsonhotel.com).

The hotel
Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking district (00 1 212 206 6700; hotelgansevoort.com; doubles from $450/£228) is a boutique property, not too big, with stylish rooms where they’ve thought of everything. Press a button and a CD player will emerge from nowhere. The hotel has a swimming pool on top, great in the summer.

· Tracey Cox’s new book, The Kama Sutra, is published by Dorling Kindersley at £14.99.

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Stephen Bayley
Design guru

Venice

Where better for seduction than Venice, city of Casanova? Although as soon as I write that, I have my doubts. I am not certain Venice is the ideal venue for the amorous; there are too many other distractions. As long ago as 1494, someone said it’s impossible to say anything new about Venice, and that’s true. It is haunting and romantic; it’s magically easy to get lost, but never harrowingly so. There are those wonderful little bacari, the hole-in-the-wall bars.

And if these don’t detain you, there’s the art, the architecture, the voluptuous sense of place… Actually, I think an airport hotel in Germany would be a better place for seduction: you and your partner would be so starved of stimulus and so avid for gratification that the nylon foam of the Düsseldorf Hilton would be heaving and squeezing to the dynamics of love by teatime.

But that would be like pornography. And the difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting. Venice has the most wonderful light, especially in winter. At this time of year you either get mist, which is wonderful, or crisp, freezing sunshine, which is even better.

The big gesture
Fly to Marco Polo (such a seductive name for an airport!) and pre-arrange a water taxi so someone’s waiting when you get there. Arrive at night and the water taxi is a glorious 25 minutes of thrashing, inky, blue-black romance across the lagoon. You enter the city by the Fondamente Nuove, just opposite the terrible funeral island of San Michele.

BA (0870 850 9850; ba.com) has flights from £84.40 return. Pre-bookable water taxis are available from £67 for two from Consorzio Motoscafi: 00 39 041 522 2303; motoscafivenezia.it

The meal
Get off at SS Giovanni e Paolo and take the short walk to dinner at the Osteria di Santa Marina (00 39 041 528 5239). Eat fritto misto that is astonishingly, meltingly, fresh, not like stale fishy debris marinated in engine oil. Drink a good soave, say a Masi or a Bolla ( seducers take note: soave means ‘smooth’ ). Now walk to your hotel.

The hotel
I recommend the Villa Igea (00 39 041 241 0956; hotelvillaigea.it; doubles from €155/£115), an 1875 wing of a larger establishment. It is in a beautiful, small, quiet campo. With luck (or good planning) they will have given you a bedroom with a view of Codussi’s astonishing church of San Zaccaria opposite; it is so close you could almost touch it. Amateurs of Renaissance architecture will be entranced. Only a complete dotard could fail to be.

Those sensitive to that sense of place will know that Casanova cavorted in the Benedictine abbey next door (although now, a touch unromantically, the building belongs to the police). In a setting like this, resistance is not so much futile as impossible. Or, at least, very bad manners. And next morning, take another short walk to Harry’s Bar (00 39 041 528 5777) for the Bellini they invented there. Yes, of course, it’s a cliche. But so is seduction.

· Steven Bayley is a design critic, and also edited ‘Sex: An Intimate Companion’.

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Peter Stringfellow
Nightclub owner

London

It’s not the city that makes romance; it’s who you take with you. If you’re with the right person, then Barnsley is good. Having said that, one mustn’t underestimate London for a romantic break. The parks are the best in the world and the skyline is spectacular.

The big gesture
In a few days, my fiancee, Bella Wright, will be returning from Italy, where her parents live. I’ve got a private jet, so we could shoot off to Paris or anywhere we like, but what we’ll probably do is have dinner at home. We live in a flat on the Albert Embankment, where there are incredible views of the city - the London Eye, Big Ben. There aren’t many panoramas as romantic as that.

The meal
Le Caprice (020 7629 2239; le-caprice.co.uk). I was at the opening some 27 years ago. It’s a wonderful restaurant with a plinky-plonky piano and excellent staff. We usually like the maitre d’ to recommend one of the specials of the day, but Bella loves the pasta with white truffles - so she should, at £50 a go - and I always have the super-fresh fish. For dessert, we generally have the tiramisu.

The hotel
It has to be the Savoy (020 7836 4343; fairmont.com/savoy), although it’s closed until early 2009. I used to live in the Savoy Suites for a few years, so I am very fond of it. There used to be a back door into the hotel restaurant from the suites. I love the olde-worlde feel of it - the old boys on the door… it feels very London. The bathrooms are great - big old sinks and massive roll-top baths. You can’t go wrong if you’ve got a big bath.

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Adele Parks
Romantic novelist

Stockholm

It’s one of the world’s most striking capitals and is where my boyfriend took me for a fabulous romantic weekend a few years ago. Built on 14 islands around one of Europe’s largest and best-preserved medieval city centres, the Swedish capital oozes romance. Stockholm is beautifully positioned bang in the middle of stunning and varied scenery. It offers an abundance of museums, sights and events, but for me, the romance of the city is all about the light - God-made and man-made. The skies are endless: often cobalt blue through the day, followed by breathtaking amber sunsets in the afternoon and, as purple darkness descends, masses of candles light up the streets and squares.

The city is compact and easily explored on foot, although some prefer looking around the archipelago by boat. Start your day with a strong coffee and a cinnamon roll at one of the city’s gorgeous chandelier-lit cafes, then stroll the narrow, cobbled streets of Old Town. Head for Hotorgshallen, a cavernous basement food market, and grab a bowl of delicious hot fish soup for lunch. Wander over the bridges towards Sodermalm, Stockholm’s bohemian southern island, for a peek at bookshops, antiques and curio shops, as well as unusual clothing or music stores. If you can’t face shops, there’s a plethora of cosy pubs serving local beer in the neighbourhood.

The big gesture
An exciting way to see Stockholm is from a hot-air balloon; it’s one of the few cities where balloons are allowed to fly right over the centre. Naturally, champagne is involved. [Far & Flyg (00 46 8 645 7700; farochflyg.se/eng) flies between May and September from 1,995 kronor (about £160) per person.

The meal
Go to the Veranda (00 46 8 8679 3586; grandhotel.se), located inside the venerable Grand Hotel. The hotel opened in 1874 and is still wall-to-wall opulence and old-school romance. The smorgasbord is Stockholm’s best. As a rule I hate having anything to do with buffets, but after gorging on favourites like gravadlax with a tangy mustard sauce, I am converted. Reserve a window seat and enjoy the fabulous view over the harbour and palace.

The hotel
I like chic, and the Nordic Light (00 46 8 5056 3000; nordiclighthotel.se; doubles from SEK1,330/£105) is so chic it hurts. The hotel is all about purity and simplicity, unadorned but for the exquisite, ever-changing light shows. But it doesn’t fall into the dreaded all-style-no-substance category; the staff are attentive, and the food, wine and attention to detail second to none, ensuring a sleek design hotel with a warm soul. All the rooms are equipped to the hilt with comforts; some have saunas and Jacuzzis.

· Young Wives’ Tales by Adele Parks is out now in paperback, published by Penguin.

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Seventy

The Infidelity Files Day 3: ‘Adultery isn’t the end - it’s a wake-up call’
by Angela Levin, the London Telegraph (Jan 2008), Part 3

In the final part of her investigation into Britain’s infidelity epidemic, Angela Levin reveals how wronged partners deal with being cheated on - and how the crisis can improve their relationship

‘Sex is really important. It’s the glue in any relationship, and if you’ve been together for a long time you’ve got to make more effort to keep it interesting.”

It’s the sort of remark that not so long ago would almost certainly have been made by a man.

But, in fact, it was spoken by Rebecca, a thirtysomething married woman with two children - and it is further proof that in today’s world, women are calling the sexual shots as much as men.

She speaks from experience. Five years ago, she became so fed up with her husband’s lack of interest in her that she decided to do something practical about it and take a lover.

“My husband stopped fancying me when I had our first child,” she said. “We used to have a great sexual relationship, but now he keeps making excuses.

I don’t want him to see me just as a mother to his children. I found myself in a situation I’d never envisaged, but I decided it was better to have an affair than to separate.” The irony is that while sex in its many different guises is all around us, it’s often lacking in the one place it should be: the marital bed.

‘Adultery isn’t the end – it’s a wake-up call’

Men, too, don’t want to suffer in silence. “My wife and I have a great marriage and I love my three kids,” explained John, 49, “but I don’t have anywhere near as much sex as I’d like.

My wife is always too tired, and when I bring up the subject it starts an argument. There must be lots of other men like me, who pretend to the world that everything’s OK but who are far from happy.”

The happiness is relative. The partner who chooses to have a fling has to live a life of subterfuge and always be on the alert in case he or she is found out. They also have to deal with their conscience.

Even if they manage to reason with themselves that what they get up to has a positive effect on their core relationship, the truth is that most people don’t rely on their brain to tell them it’s OK to play away.

As well as the obvious health hazards, what you gain from an affair is small compared to what you risk losing - except perhaps if an affair is used as a deliberate exit strategy from the marriage.

It also only takes a second’s carelessness for your infidelity to be discovered. In the five months I spent researching infidelity in the UK and interviewing middle-class adulterers, I came across countless stories where one of the partners, usually the woman, finds an incriminating text on her partner’s mobile.

The straying partner often explains that he was only having sex with someone else because he loves you and is trying to keep the marriage together - but such comments are rarely reassuring.

Sexual betrayal can feel like an emotional juggernaut crashing into your heart, stomach and brain. It’s naïve to expect anyone to shake it off as if it is merely the equivalent of the person you love finding a new tennis partner. And it can take months or years for the emotional swingometer to settle back to anywhere near normal.

So what should the wronged partner do (if indeed there really is a wronged partner)? Affairs are often the result of something wrong in the marriage, rather than just the cause.

A consensual view is to do nothing in a hurry. Both women and men who rage and shout and tell their loved one to pack their bags and leave often live to regret it.

Jill, a 42-year-old accountant and mother of three, is one. She split from her husband two years ago because he had a fling and now thinks she acted precipitately. “I threw him out, despite his plea that he loved me,” she said. “I really miss him.

I thought we were happy and my pride was wounded, but I should have waited until I had cooled down a little. I have been very lonely and we have begun to meet again to see if there is anything left between us. I don’t know what will happen.”

Male partners can be just as crushed. It’s something Ben, 32, who has recently got married, worries about. “I would feel trashed and humiliated if my wife went with someone else. And would no doubt take revenge by finding someone for me. I would also retreat into my shell, but in the end I wouldn’t leave her.”

If the wronged party can hang on, science is on their side. Infatuation has a chemical base as well as an emotional one. When two people’s eyes meet across a crowded room, their pulses quicken and their hearts race.

As they are drawn irrevocably together, certain changes will take place in the body’s chemistry. Three chemicals - phenylethylamine, dopamine and noradrenaline - are released and together produce that amazing euphoria of passionate love.

The chemical combination can last in the body for between six months and two years. As levels drop, it is replaced by oxytocin, the so-called “cuddle hormone” which induces nesting behaviour. Most affairs end around this time.

A recent London university survey gives further grounds for hope by revealing that when unfaithful husbands leave their wives, only three per cent end up marrying their mistresses. When they do, these marriages have a 75 to 90 per cent failure rate.

It confirms the prophetic words of the late Sir James Goldsmith that: “When a man marries his mistress, he creates a vacancy.”

The unpalatable truth is that an extra-marital affair can be a wake-up call to a dull and predictable marriage. It’s harsh and cruel, but can be effective. If the innocent partner can go through the pain barrier, cope with the loss of pride, rise above the humiliation and talk, a relationship can be rebuilt.

“My wife didn’t understand how much sex meant to me until she found out that I had had a brief fling,” said 48-year-old Edward, who works for a marketing company. “It took months of conversation, but she gradually began taking more care of herself than she had done, lost weight and showed more interest in sex.”

Mary, who has had two affairs during her 18-year marriage, is more hard-headed and thinks that both sexes have to move with the times. “I don’t believe that having an affair should lead to divorce,” she insists.

“The whole structure and nature of society has changed. Any couple who have been together for any length of time should try to understand the circumstances they find themselves in and give their best shot at working it out.”

David Miller, who runs a discreet dating agency for married couples, believes that adultery - from which he earns his living - is deeply misunderstood. “No one walks down the aisle thinking: ‘Now I’m married, I can be an adulterer’.

People go into marriage thinking that it’s a lifetime commitment and most of them are deeply upset when it goes wrong. If a woman doesn’t want it to happen to her, she shouldn’t shrink away from talking about sex and then giving her man what he wants and needs.

“If a man doesn’t want it to happen to him, he should not think of her just as a wife and mother. He should make enough time for her, take her seriously, touch her and be romantic.

“From my experience, it is profound unhappiness that drives most men and women into the arms of someone else. Many women have thought about it for years before they are unfaithful. And although men don’t think about it for as long before they act, many feel quite isolated.

They take their partner’s rejection of sex as a rejection of them as people. Many come to see me more in sorrow than in anger.”

It is, of course, unrealistic to expect that the sexual feelings you have for someone you have lived with for years can stay at the level of passion you experienced when you first met.

The daily grind of life acts like a fire-blanket to passion, familiarity breeds apathy, and the “spark” is often the first casualty of marriage, especially when children come along. But you don’t have to let it happen to you and your marriage.

Of course, if an individual wants to have an affair, it’s not easy to know how to prevent it - but there are measures.

Most women and many men will be infuriated by the advice that I have compiled, but it is based on what I have learned from interviewees during my five months of research. Some suggestions may seem maddeningly obvious, but they just might put a tired marriage back on track.

Ten ways to keep your marriage alive

1 Try not to take your partner for granted: remember, no relationship comes with a guarantee.

2 Watch your weight, but don’t go on and on about your diet.

3 Don’t pick your nose or fart if your loved one is around.

4 Don’t slop around in baggy old clothes more than is absolutely necessary.

5 Don’t wear slippers.

6 Keep trying: the slippery slope starts when you feel complacent.

7 Try not to be too predictable - in anything.

8 Make a special time when you talk positively about each other. Avoid talking about nappies, arrangements, anything domestic, unfairness at the office, or, unless you are both sporty, the latest football crisis.

9 Make time for sex. Try to have a night away. Block out a lunch time in your diary when your children are at school. It’s important to keep practising.

10 Think of sex as a skill as well as an expression of love.

If you discover your partner is having an affair:

1 List the good points in your relationship.

2 Write down three things you could improve about yourself.

3 Be brave and ask your partner for three things he or she would like you to change.

4 Ask yourself if you laugh enough together.

5 What is your life really going to be like if you split up - worse or better?

6 Look at the whole relationship, not just at what you feel about him or her after the discovery.

How to stop your wife having an affair

1 Arrange surprises for her.

2 Treat her as a mistress rather than as a mother or a wife.

3 Be romantic, take her out on dates, let her feel that she’s a woman and desirable.

4 Buy her a negligée rather than a vacuum cleaner as a birthday or Christmas present.

5 Constantly show her that you find her attractive, interesting, exciting and romantic.

6 Don’t go to bed with your T-shirt tucked into your Y-fronts.

7 Don’t turn on the television as soon as you come home.

8 Listen to her.

9 Take her seriously.

10 Respect what she does in the home and in her job.

How to stop your husband having an affair

1 Be sexual and adventurous, even if you are tired.

2 Let him feel that he’s sexually exciting, and more than just an equity lawyer or headmaster.

3 Let him know that you fancy him.

4 Let him know you feel you’re lucky to have him.

5 Keep polishing his ego.

6 Don’t go to bed with a layer of moisturiser on your face.

7 Don’t dye your hair or shave your legs in front of him.

8 Don’t lose your own self-respect.

9 Be interested in his life, but don’t live only through him.

10 Don’t talk about the children in bed. HAve your Say

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Monday, January 21, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Nine

Infidelity : ‘Being unfaithful keeps me happy’
by Angela Levin, the London Telegraph (Jan 2008), Part 2

Continuing her investigation into Britain’s adultery epidemic, Angela Levin talks to professional women who have affairs to bolster their marriages - and revitalise flagging sex lives

Sylvia, 43, has a highly paid job in the City. Her husband is supportive and they have two children. She entertains at weekends, enjoys luxury holidays twice a year and has time for her friends.


Get some spice in you life: Many women turn to affairs to cope with a loveless marriage

To those in her circle, she seems to have an enviable life and to have mastered the difficult art of balancing work with home and family. What they don’t know is that she has a higher libido than her husband and regularly takes a lover.

Sylvia belongs to a small but growing group of alpha woman - financially independent, confident and uninhibited - who, like men, have developed a similar pro-active, almost cynical approach to sex.

For them, it is no big deal to seek sexual fulfilment outside marriage and they claim to be able to separate lust from love.

“I am one of those women who want it all,” she laughs. “My life is very hectic and I thrive on adrenaline. I really enjoy sex, but I don’t want any complications. So I am only interested in men, preferably married, who want the same.”

Just how many women today are having sex with men who are not their husband is hard to pin down, but some sex researchers are claiming it is as high as 60 per cent.

Whatever the numbers, much has changed since Emma Bovary decided she couldn’t take the humiliation of living life being branded an adulteress and committed suicide by taking arsenic.

The hard-nosed, predatory female of today is perhaps the evolutionary reality of a phrase originally coined by author Erica Jong in her taboo-busting 1973 bestseller, Fear of Flying.

She described a sexual encounter for its own sake, without emotional involvement or commitment and between two previously unacquainted persons, as a “zipless f***”; she also said it was “rarer than the unicorn”.

Nearly 35 years on, these encounters are available with a click of the mouse.

Over a five-month period, I talked to almost 100 middle-class professionals, both male and female, who confessed to being unfaithful.

What was remarkable was that not one of the women said they felt guilty. And those who believed they might get emotionally involved tried to work out hard-headed strategies of dealing with it.

Although it would seem that no-strings-attached sex is the emotional equivalent of McDonald’s - in that it can satisfy a certain hunger but is quickly forgotten and doesn’t do you much good - many of the women I spoke to saw it as a better option than having an affair with someone they work with, which could put their career at risk.

Nor did they want to get involved with a family friend.

Lynne, a 45-year-old married administrator, thinks the growing popularity among women of no-strings relationships is a result of their success in the workplace. “Now we are as successful as men at work and other areas of life, women like me think, ‘Why the hell not?’ My lover won’t jeopardise my work or family life. I am doing something that makes me happy, which, in turn, makes home happier, too.

“Women have come a long way in the last 20 or 30 years, so why should taking a lover without commitment be a male preserve? I just think, ‘Lucky me.’?”

Jenny, 48, who runs her own business, thinks the trend for uninvolved sex is part of today’s have-it-all society.

“In the past,” she says, “a wife would think, ‘I’ve got a decent husband and live in a presentable house, so I can’t expect too much.’ But now our expectations are much higher and we don’t want to compromise. I’ve done it and don’t feel guilty at all.

“I spend a lot of time caring for my husband and child and running my business, and I think of this as something for me. Women have always had sexual needs, but culturally we’ve not been encouraged to attend to them. Now we are more willing and able to make decisions about what happens to us. Some of us might choose to go to the cinema for a night out. Others might prefer to have sex.”

So while more men are in tune with their feelings and want more from an extra-marital relationship - emotional companionship as well as physical contact - some women want less. Less involvement, less friendship, and more sex.

But can women really be quite so matter-of-fact and unemotional about infidelity? Can evolution be gradually turning women, whose priority was once to build nests and care and be cared for, into hunter-gatherers?

Are Byron’s words: “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; ‘tis woman’s whole existence” really no longer valid?

Possibly. Most women are sexually experienced before marriage. They are financially independent. Nor is there a stigma attached to the adulterous woman.

As recently as 1970, if a woman was found to have had an extra-marital affair, she not only forfeited her right to maintenance but also risked losing her children.

It was a penalty Diana, Princess of Wales’s mother, Frances, discovered to her cost. After years of an unhappy marriage to Earl Spencer, in the late 1960s she had an affair with wallpaper merchant Peter Shand Kydd.

She left her husband, taking their four children with her. He felt so humiliated by her adultery that although, at the time, women were routinely given custody of the children, he fought her in the courts and won.

The judge made much of branding her as an adulteress and seemed to take no account of her cross-petition on the grounds of cruelty. Now, when couples divorce, any sexual misdemeanours by the woman are considered on a par with a man’s.

We do not yet, however, have a no-fault-based divorce system like Spain or Canada.

Nor are women who have extra-marital relationships confined to a particular age group.

While today’s women of 40 and younger see having great sex as their right (some studies show that the more sexual partners a person has before marriage, the more likely she or he is to cheat on a spouse), many fifty- or even sixtysomething women, in common with their male counterparts, don’t want to be left out.

These are the generation of women whose children have left home. They are fitter and better looking than their predecessors, thanks to HRT, Botox and plastic surgery, and seek new challenges.

While some choose physical challenges, a recent report from Germany cited that one in three fiftysomething women are looking for a sexual adventure. Perhaps they are catching up on all they missed during those sleep-deprived times when their children were small.

Teresa, who is 52, is one example. She has been married 27 years and, when her youngest left home she decided she wanted more excitement in her life.

“I have a good husband, but I have spent my life lying on my back thinking of England when we have sex. He’s never been any good in the bedroom. He has a low libido and little interest. I knew that when I married him and he is a good man in every other respect.

“For years, I kept wondering what it would be like to meet someone who was really exciting in bed. Then about nine months ago I placed an ad on the internet just for the fun of it. I was inundated with replies, but mostly from losers. There was only one man who stood out. We met and there was instant chemistry between us. We met again on an occasional basis, but then I realised that psychologically I wasn’t the type to be unfaithful. I would hate my husband to find out, so I stopped. But I don’t regret it.”

Julie, 49, who is married with one son and has a senior position in a health authority, knew she wanted more out of an extra-marital relationship than just sex.

“My husband and I haven’t had sex for years,” she explained. “He is 15 years older than me and although it wasn’t a problem when we first got married 20 years ago, his approach to life now is that of an old man. We sleep in separate bedrooms and I don’t think he sees me when he looks at me.

“For much of our marriage, I put my needs to one side and concentrated on my work and looking after my family. But about five years ago, I began to feel increasingly unhappy and unsettled. I wanted to do something about it, but didn’t know how to go about it. The only men I met were my husband’s colleagues or fathers of my children’s friends. So I contacted a dating agency for married people. I was a little nervous of the interview, so I took along a close girlfriend.

“I only wanted to meet married men who wanted to stay married. I want to be happier, but not wreck my marriage. Although I’m not in love with my husband any more, he’s becoming elderly and I wouldn’t want him to be a lonely old man. I wanted to take a lover to keep me happy.

“I was offered a choice of three men. I contacted each one, we met for a drink, and I then spent about five months getting to know the man I most liked. It was important for me to develop a friendship and trust before we had sex. If I had just wanted sex, I could have tried to pick up someone in the local pub.”

The relationship wasn’t, however, as manageable as she hoped. “I broke off with him after a year because I found myself getting too emotionally involved and realised I would get more so if I continued. Although my partner, who is also married, enjoyed being with me very much, he didn’t feel involved with me in the same way.”

Other women, like Mary, 55, claim to have affairs to help them stay with their husbands until the children leave home. “I know that eventually I will leave my husband, but I don’t want to while our children are still at home,” she explained.

“I have a lover, our relationship has lasted two years, and I hope I don’t have to have another one. Although it has made me slightly distant with my husband, I am also less irritable and if something happens in the relationship I don’t like, I tell myself that I have different pleasures.”

Others, like Anne, who is 54, chose to have an affair because she wanted to be indulged and spoilt. “I entered into a relationship because I wanted to be adored, desired and given lots of attention - all things I don’t get at home. And that is what I have found.

“I meet my lover every two or three weeks in a hotel. He always pays and nearly every time buys me presents - nothing that would be awkward to explain, but perfume, chocolates and flowers. Of course, I can never take the flowers home and after our couple of hours together they end up in the bin in the hotel room, but he understands that.”

Getting caught is not a pressing worry. “I hope I don’t live to regret this,” she continued. “But I honestly don’t think it would occur to my husband that anything could be going on. If he did discover I’ve been unfaithful, he would probably be crushed. It makes me feel uncomfortable but not guilty. Guilt is a pointless feeling. Nor do I feel guilty about my lover’s wife. His relationship with her is quite poor. He hadn’t had sex with her for years, not just for a month or two.

“My daughter is a different kettle of fish. A short while ago, she commented that I seemed much happier than I had been. I fobbed it off. She once picked up my mobile and started playing with it. It gave me a fright as my lover regularly sends me sexy texts. I’ve since changed the pin number. I would hate to go down in her estimation.”

She admits she doesn’t always practise safe sex. “At the beginning of our relationship, I made sure he used a condom but when it looked as if it would work out, we both went to a clinic and got ourselves checked, showed each other the results, and then stopped using protection.”

Several women, including Mary, mentioned how much they enjoyed the feel-good factor that comes from a fulfilling sexual relationship. “I’ve relearnt how to be a sexually confident woman, which is a good thing,” she said. “I also take much more care of my appearance.”

If a woman starts to feel vulnerable, Anne, 45, believes in handling it rationally. “Women are naturally more emotionally vulnerable than men,” she conceded, “so we have to exercise self-discipline. Everything in life has its disadvantages and we have to learn to cope. It is easy to get too involved but we just have to stop ourselves and know where to draw the line.

“There’s no reason why a multitasking woman can’t handle extra-marital relationships in a similar way to a man. I multitask to an astonishing degree in my business life, and all I am doing is taking that ability into my personal life. It isn’t a big deal.

“The point is, I don’t believe one person, man or woman, can meet all your needs for the duration of your life. And having a discreet affair is one way of handling that.”

TOMORROW
How to cope if your partner has been cheating on you

Note: Names and some personal details have been changed

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Eight

The Erotic Print Society presents . . . .

F**k Fashion
by Ben Westwood

In his iconoclastic Fuck Fashion (we use the asterisk treatment for nervous media folk and bookshop managers), Ben Westwood lets rip. Frustrated by the censorship imposed by publishers on his previous books, he wanted his explicit images to be available to the public as well. Much to our delight he approached us with a portfolio of his, shall we say, less inhibited work, and a new book was born. The results are fabulous. In this collection of over 200 provocative images, the work is split into roughly three groups: Pinup, Porno-chic and Bondage. The colours are bold, electric, saturated; the models are stunningly sexy and pretty (and occasionally rather forward with one another). The lingerie is carefully chosen and in some cases designed by Ben himself; the shoes are often by Vivienne Westwood, no mean fashion iconoclast herself. Ben has a unique flair and style which is sassy and streetwise; in this instance the genre will appeal to girls as much as boys; as one-time production manager to his mother, Vivienne Westwood, he gained essential experience which he uses to great effect in the mise-en-scène of his photographs. Here is an extraordinary and sophisticated visual talent, which is only now beginning to be recognised. Fuck Fashion comes with an introductory essay by author and journalist Stephen Bayley, one of Britain’s best-known cultural commentators.

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Seven

Exceptional Artists
from Coffee, Cake & Kink
The only kinky cafe gallery in the UK

John Chilton

Smoking Room

Chained Reaction

Passion n Pain

Stiletto

Tender Touch

* * * * *

Elsie McKeegan

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Georgie Tier

Black on White

* * * * *

Ray Leaning

Eve Four

* * * * *

Matthew Slade

Blue

The Whip

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Six

A R C H I T E C T U R A L

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Five

Pay for Play: Did the Romans issue sexually depictive tokens for use in foreign brothels?
from Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope

Dear Cecil:

In a Discovery Channel program I saw about the history of sex, there was a brief discussion of “Roman brothel tokens,” coins showing images of various sexual acts. Lustful Roman soldiers in far-flung corners of the empire apparently used them to overcome the problem of expressing their specific desires in the local dialect. This all sounded very interesting if true, but what’s the straight dope? — hoarj

Cecil replies:

The use of tokens or other counters in various sex-for-pay setups — as advertising to prospective johns, to keep track of how many had been served and by whom, to keep cash out of the workers’ hands, etc — wasn’t uncommon in the past; examples abound from the American frontier, Boer War-era South Africa, and turn-of-the-century Manhattan. In 1919 Upton Sinclair described learning in his youth of a system under which a brothel patron would pay a cashier up front and receive a so-called “brass check,” a token he could subsequently redeem for a sex worker’s services.

So if something similar was going on in ancient Rome involving the racy coins known as spintriae, it wouldn’t be much of a shocker. After all, the Romans, who were nothing if not well organized, enjoy a richly deserved rep for ingenuity in logistics-oriented fields including architecture, engineering, and military strategy; it makes sense to suppose they could have devised a token system to streamline the economics of prostitution, had anyone seen the need. It’s not clear, though, that this was the case.

Somewhat smaller than a quarter and struck from brass or bronze, a spintria typically depicts an X-rated scene on one face and a Roman numeral from I to XVI on the other. (In coin-collecting lingo, the side with the image would usually be designated the obverse, or front side, but in this case, depending on the activity depicted — well, you see where I’m going.) They’re thought to have been minted somewhere between the years 22 and 37, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, about whom more later.

Typical rates for prostitutes at the time were somewhere in the range of two to ten asses (giggle if you must, but yes, the basic unit of Roman currency was called the as), which lines up fairly well with the 1-to-16 range imprinted on the coins. Throw in the fact that the hanky-panky is shown taking place in a luxe setting possibly suggestive of a high-rent cathouse, and you can understand why many have guessed that spintriae were in fact standardized sex tokens, with the number on the back naming the fee for the act shown on the front. Offered in support of this conclusion is a study by a Warsaw professor who surveyed modern-day prostitutes (ah, academia) and found that their higher- and lower-priced services corresponded to acts pictured on the higher- and lower-numbered tokens respectively.

Not so fast, say other researchers — for one, Geoffrey Fishburn of the University of New South Wales, whose 2007 paper “Is That a Spintria in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Pleased to See Me?” is well worth perusal by anyone interested in the topic. Such skeptics note that (1) the same sex act sometimes appears on coins bearing different numbers, which hurts the number-equals-price theory; (2) unambiguous references to such tokens are strangely absent from Roman writings (the purported examples that do get cited are notably iffy); (3) identical scenes show up in Pompeiian murals, suggesting these may have been commonly depicted artistic themes; (4) spintriae have been found in excavated bathhouses but never (points out Anise Strong of Northwestern U.) in the ruins of actual brothels; (5) the correlation between modern prostitutes’ rates and the tokens’ numbering system isn’t as neat as the Polish study would have it; and so forth.

We’ll likely never know for sure, but if spintriae weren’t a foolproof means for a Roman soldier to place his bordello order, what were they? Possibilities include gambling chips or markers, or claim-check tokens from bathhouse locker rooms. They could also just have been some kind of risque novelty item — the 30 AD equivalent of a ballpoint pen sporting the image of a bathing beauty in a disappearing bikini.

Whatever the intent behind their manufacture, spintriae apparently became objects of political humor. Tiberius was famously rumored to be into the kinky stuff (in citations provided by the OED, the adjective spintrian, basically meaning “anything but vanilla,” comes up several times in conjunction with his name), and since official coins bore his likeness, the idea of alternate, sexually explicit versions may have struck some as a joke at Tiberius’s expense — a sort of ribald editorial cartoon in brass. Which seems plausible enough: at this point, if you happened upon a fake 20 with a truly raunchy scene where the White House should be, tell me you wouldn’t at least for a moment think, yup, that’s what the administration’s been doing nonstop for seven years now.

—CECIL ADAMS

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Four

Infidelity: Desperately seeking someone
by Angela Levin, the London Telegraph (Jan 2008), Part 1

In the digital age, having an affair has never been easier. Author Angela Levin spent five months interviewing middle-class professionals for an extensive study that charts the rise of the no-strings-attached* relationship. In the first of a three-part investigation, she reveals why the UK is in the grip of an infidelity epidemic.

‘Been left parked in the garage of marriage too long, battery getting flat and needs somebody to give it a spark of life, full tank and ready to go.


Clincher: many unfaithful men blame their wives

“Present owner does not like going for a ride any more but am not up for sale. Seeking discreet lady mechanic, preferably married, to enjoy some NSA run-outs together.”

This advert was posted by John, a 44-year-old married IT manager on a popular dating website favoured by men like him who want no-strings-attached (NSA) relationships.

“I try to make my adverts witty because I don’t want sex with someone who doesn’t have a sense of humour,” the father-of-two explained. “At the same time, I want whoever she is to know from the start that if she is after a relationship, she can forget it.

“I have no intention of leaving my wife. I realise it sounds funny to say I care about her, but I do. I am just a bit bored.”

Quite how many married men and a smaller, but increasing, number of women are risking their emotional and physical health in this way is difficult to know, as few people ever tell the truth about their sex lives. However, a survey last week claimed that more than half of married people admit they are not completely happy in their relationship, and that 59 per cent of wives would leave their marriage if they could afford to do so. Seemingly trapped by their unhappy domestic situation, eight out of 10 couples will, at some time, be unfaithful to each other.

Of course, men have sought mistresses since time began. The difference is that we now seem to be in the middle of an infidelity epidemic. The dilemma seems less about whether to have an affair and more about finding the most convenient way of doing so. As a result, no-strings-attached relationships have become something of a cultural phenomenon.

In spite of a recent survey revealing that 70 per cent of married women and 54 per cent of married men don’t know about the extra-marital affairs of their spouses, infidelity remains the most common reason for divorce - a situation that is currently affecting 40 per cent of all UK marriages.

But is it realistic in this day and age to expect decades of fidelity? And should society come to a new accommodation of marriage and long-term relationships? “An awful lot of both men and women commit adultery but don’t want their marriage to end,” says James Stewart, a divorce lawyer at leading London solicitors Manches. “They can be quite shocked when their spouse considers it a deal-breaker.”

There are many reasons why more people than ever are having extra-marital affairs. We are all healthier and living longer, which means marriages can last decades more than they used to and there is an increasing chance of people growing apart or getting bored of each other. We also live in a me-generation, and fewer of us are prepared to compromise on the kind of life we want. Women today are more financially and psychologically independent than ever before, and more sexually active. They are far less likely to stick with a marriage if they are unhappy than ever before in history.

Viagra and other drugs help men stay sexually active for longer, while women have access to HRT, Botox and cosmetic surgery to keep themselves looking good. And - thanks to modern methods of communication, such as email, mobiles and text messages - affairs are far easier to run than ever before, at least in practical, if not emotional terms.

Over a five-month period, I spoke to nearly 100 men and women - all middle-class professionals with good homes, decent jobs and, on the surface, happy families - who have had extra-marital relationships. It was a random rather than scientific study but it confirmed that there seems to be a seismic shift in people’s attitude to adultery.

What used to happen (and still does to some extent) is that an individual met someone, perhaps a colleague or their spouse’s best friend, fell for them and as a result had an affair. Nowadays it is often the other way round and almost brutally clinical. Individuals decide objectively and in advance that they want an affair and then set out to find someone suitable. It’s almost as if he or she is a commodity to be taken off a supermarket shelf. As it has never been easier to find illicit sex, the adulterous shopper is often spoiled for choice.

Type “discreet relationships” into Google and an astonishing 1,670,000 websites come up. These include marriedsecrets.com, illicitencounters.co.uk, rekonnect.com, meet2cheat.co.uk, askmen.com, philanderers.com, and the sizeable personals sections on sites such as gumtree.com and craigslist.org. They cater for people of all ages who want to advertise for sexual partners.

But a glance at the type of advert placed reveals the age old differences between the sexes. While the men are self-promoters and boast about their sexual prowess, the women tend to undersell themselves. “I am not a stunner, just average,” begins one modest female. “I have no wish to lie about my circumstances. I am at the end of a long marriage but can’t leave just yet because of the children,” writes another.

John has been advertising on two sites with some success over the last nine months. “I’m doing it because my life has become dull and predictable,” he says.

“My job’s OK. I can pay my mortgage and go on holiday. My children are doing reasonably well at school. My wife works part-time and runs the home. But I want to feel adrenaline running through my body again and only great sex can give me that. I feel really excited when I place my advert. I have opened up a separate email account so it is unlikely that anyone at work or home can discover it. I’ve had a few short-term flings and haven’t got it right yet. But it is addictive, so I shall keep trying. You don’t know who is going to be out there.”

Some older men admitted that they have advertised for a sexual playmate to relieve the boredom of early retirement. “I had a busy career but now that I am at home all the time, I find life very dull,” one 60-year-old confessed. “I want what everyone else is getting. I can always get some Viagra if I find a much younger woman. I’m still very interested but my wife lost interest in sex long ago.”

Blaming their wanderings on their wives’ sexual rejection of them is a common way for men to justify their behaviour. Richard, who runs his own marketing business, shows unwavering confidence in his sexual prowess and has successfully found several casual encounters. His advert - “Another married guy, 54, looking for NSA married fun with married woman” - is pragmatic and to the point, but hardly enticing.

He insists his unemotional affairs are saving his marriage rather than putting it at risk. Like many men he doesn’t want a divorce, partly to avoid the financial wrangling and also because he wants to stay close to his children.

“I’ve been married a long time and have a high sex drive. My wife doesn’t. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but she either gets angry, withdraws or cries and the atmosphere between us can be awful for days.

“But I don’t want to leave her. We are good friends. We have a lot in common, including our children. So having an NSA arrangement suits me fine. I love the excitement of a different body and know for certain that without it my marriage would be over by now.

“I have sex with a woman, rather like casual friends might meet for a drink. I don’t get emotionally involved. I enjoy the chase and can get very intense when I am after someone new. I send lots of flirty texts, and emails. Women are very susceptible to flattery. Most feel self-conscious about some part of their body and reassurance soon makes her mine.

“When the sex is good I feel 50 feet tall, confident and relaxed. Otherwise, I’m climbing up the wall, am bad tempered, difficult to be with and very critical of my wife. It’s as simple as that.” He believes men have been genetically programmed to stray: “Men can’t resist temptation. I get a thrill from chasing new women. I prefer older married women, because they know what they want and have fewer hang ups.”

The most likely times for a man to stray are after the first year of marriage, when the emotional high of finding the right partner subsides; after his first child is born, when he suddenly sees his partner as a mother figure rather than a lover; after between five and seven years of togetherness, when he’s bored, doesn’t want to settle into a cosy routine and yearns for excitement; and then at intermittent intervals.

Tony, 53, believes he could never be faithful, whoever he married and in whichever century he had been born. “If I wasn’t involved in NSA relationships I might have had more complicated affairs or even used prostitutes. Most prostitutes today are drug addicts whereas most of the women I’ve been with have been quite respectable.

“I like the fact that I don’t get involved in talking about mundane stuff like problems with the washing machine or little Billy’s latest upset at school. I get those passion-killers at home. Instead, I wipe out everything that is going on in my life for a couple of hours.

“I’ve met some attractive women who are fed up with their husbands because they have gone to seed and lost interest in sex. All they have to do is understand the deal.

I am straightforward about it, always use contraception, and if they show signs of getting involved I move on.”

All the men I spoke to were careful to take precautions and tried to ensure their wives didn’t find out what they were up to. But they all persisted in the belief that if she did catch them out, she shouldn’t take their behaviour seriously. “Although in some people’s book what I am doing is immoral,” said John, “I think it’s pretty harmless. No man wants to swap a meaningless relationship for a marriage. Particularly if it’s lasted a long time and you are good friends.”

It is perhaps the only saving grace of an NSA relationship. If there is a scale of adultery, NSA liaisons surely come nearer the bottom than the top. They are essentially top-ups, a desire for variety and sexual thrill and not intended to break up an established relationship. “It’s a bit like not wanting the same sauce on your pasta every single mealtime,” one man told me.

An alternative, that simplifies the process for both sexes and saves time, is offered by David Miller, a self-styled businessman turned adulterers’ guru. David, 53, runs lovinglinks.com, a London-based internet dating site that has 23,000 members all, in theory at least, married men and women who want to stray. He also runs “a bespoke one-to-one service” for a select few, where women pay £350 and men £1,500 every eight weeks for his services. ("Men pay more,” he explains, “because the type of men I deal with are usually high earners. It also helps ensure they are respectable.")

David, who is twice divorced and now “extremely happy and faithful” in a long-term relationship, likes to think of himself as a cross between a service provider and a social worker. “I am not in the sex industry,” he insists. “I am just a realist. People have these situations and want to deal with them elegantly.”

He used to produce TV commercials but 13 years ago decided he wanted a change. “I toyed with the idea of opening a specialist dating agency but realised married people don’t really want to get involved with singles. So I ran an ad in a Sunday newspaper with a PO box number that read, ‘Attached? Married? Bored?’. I was inundated and it went on from there.”

He meets each applicant personally and over a drink or two finds out his or her needs and desires. He then provides three carefully chosen individuals at a time for them to chose from.

His clients are wide-ranging. “I have all sorts of high-ranking professionals come to me and, recently, far more women. Many of my female clients are psychotherapists. I haven’t a clue why.

“All the women tell me they feel safer if I vet men for them before they meet - while the men are often so busy they rely on me to find them someone discreet and personable. I’ve even had a woman bring her son-in-law to meet me. She could see that there were things going wrong in [her daughter’s] marriage and thought a discreet affair might prevent a break-up.

“Nor are most of my clients only interested in the sex aspect. They also want to be able to talk intelligently with whoever they are with and even go out to dinner. They don’t want something dirty, nasty or sleazy. They want fun and quality in their life and I try to find it for them. I am a romantic and I want people to be happy.”

Isn’t their happiness at the expense of their married partner? “People can get hurt,” he agrees, “but they can get hurt anyway, and sometimes these type of relationships, if they are handled discreetly, are the Band-Aid a long-term marriage needs.

“Women have usually thought about it very carefully often for years before they approach me, and by the time they do they have already bought a separate mobile and set up an email account - whereas most of the men haven’t even thought about how they will manage it. Women also can handle a portfolio of relationships, men can usually only handle one. And not just because they are so busy.”

His liaisons are not for the emotionally vulnerable or faint-hearted and should come with a health warning. “Once people get involved in the type of situation I provide, it’s hard for them to stop,” he says. “They are the crack cocaine of relationships. People get addicted to the buzz and adrenaline rush of new encounters.”

Anyone who seeks a casual fling needs to have a cast-iron emotional constitution.

Re-assurance or tenderness isn’t part of the deal. It’s a take it or leave it situation, although it’s not always expressed in such basic terms. He, and particularly she, also needs to understand the difference between lust and love and try to protect their heart as well as their health - and that of their spouse. The health risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are well-known, but the risk of psychological damage, particularly for the vulnerable and needy, can be underestimated.

Note: Names and some personal details have been changed

TOMORROW
Why more women are turning to NSA relationships

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Three

From Quiver Books . . . .

The Art of the Quickie
Fast Sex, Fast Orgasm, Anytime, Anywhere
by Joel D. Block, Ph.D.

It’s unrealistic to expect to engage in full-on sex all the time, which is why “quickies” are not optional, they’re damn necessary. The Art of the Quickie is a book that will coach readers how to have quick, but rewarding sex. Quickies can be even more fulfilling than those long sessions because the thrill involved in having sex unexpectedly and/or in forbidden locations adds a potent element of excitement. But what about women, is the quickie fair to them? The Art of the Quickie features definitive guidelines for women to experience faster orgasms (in 5 minutes!) thereby relieving men of the performance anxiety that often accompanies the responsibility of bringing their partners to orgasm. The Art of the Quickie features twenty-five full-color photographs of various techniques, positions, and exciting, forbidden places that are perfect settings for a quickie.

Dr. Joel D. Block is a senior psychologist at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center and is on the clinical faculty of Einstein College of Medicine. He is the author of sixteen books, and has written for popular magazines and appeared as a guest on numerous television and radio shows including TODAY and GOOD MORNING AMERICA. In addition, he is the relationship guru on lifestyles.com, the second largest condom company in the United States.

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Two

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-One

Guy Bourdin

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty

Gerhard Richter

Zwei Liebespaare / Two Couples

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Fifty-Nine

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Fifty-Eight

Clit Capsule
from WomynsWare, one of Vancouver’s Finest

To paraphrase the Bionic Man (okay, our age is showing!) and with a grateful nod to the original narrative: ... Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic silicone dual vibe. Clit Capsule will be that toy. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Sometimes it’s a challenge to classify a toy that’s multi-functional. Consider Clit Capusle ... it’s certainly good as a dual vibe (penetration and clit stimulation) and special use dill on its own but it’s just as functional when used with a partner. The vibe cavity fits two fingers nicely! Consider two fingers in the enclave and the thumb on the clitoral pad and the manual manipulation possible when used thusly ! What an adventure for both the master of the toy and the receptor!

On the heels of seven years of invaluable customer feedback we recently had the opportunity to improve on all our silicone exclusive designs. Its predecessor was the pioneer silicone dual vibe, Clit Capsule takes the concept further by enhancing the pad with capsules. Besides caressing the clitoris, the clitoral pad now includes a great deal of movement from the newly engineered capsules. Envision a sea anemone swaying in the ocean current and you’ll get an idea of what the clitoris will feel.

Made of silicone, when you manipulate the shaft, the lanes of vibrating capsules run along the clit. We’ve maintained the curve for G-spot pressure, textured shaft for drag on the vaginal walls, and head for even more potential contact points. These features provide excellent vaginal stimulation to couple with what is going on at the pad. Thus, a dual silicone vibe (vibe is easily removed for clean up and replaceable over the long term) that can be used for many years. Womyns’Ware Exclusive Warranty.  Surface area of the clit pad is 1 3/8” x 1 3/4”.  Available with or without vibe. Vibe requires two AA batteries. Variable speed.

Colour Choice: Womyns’Ware cobalt purple only

Dimensions: 3 1/4” x 1 3/8”

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©