Sex was pretty soon the topic of conversation when we had a few friends around for dinner last night. I’ve got quite skilful at cajoling people into revealing what they do and what they don’t do. Occasionally someone will say, ‘People who talk about it don’t do it.’ But, of course, that’s not true. Do you know people who talk about skiing if they don’t go skiing?
‘I don’t understand the point of Tantric sex,’ said J, who knew I’d written a book on the subject. ‘It would be like coming for dinner and not eating anything.’ He gestured at the food my partner had prepared.
It’s a common misconception that Tantra is all about non-ejaculatory sex, but I let that pass. J is over 80 so I pointed out to him that by not ejaculating he’d be able to have sex for longer and more frequently. At this G, who is pretty young, interposed that he neither wished to have longer sex nor more frequent sex, and his even younger partner nodded in agreement.
I’m always astonished how infrequently most couples have sex and how little time they spend over it.
‘You could have sex every day,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’
‘That would just be boring,’ said H.
H had already told me that he’s had sex with over 300 women so his opinion counts for something. But he’s wrong on this.’You eat three times a day and don’t say that’s boring,’ I pointed out. ‘If you don’t ejaculate you can turn a snack into a banquet that goes on for an hour, two hours, three hours…’
‘Ah! Terrible!’ said E, who is G’s partner. ‘I’d just get sore.’
‘Could someone just pass me the olive oil?’ I asked, and trickled some onto my pasta. ‘That,’ I said, ‘is the secret. Plenty of lubrication.’