Ugh, February – the worst time of the year. It’s cold, Christmas has been and gone and it stretches out in a series of bleak, grey weeks with nothing to look forward to except Paddy’s Day, which seems a long way off. Plus, to make things worse, there is Valentine’s Day.

Does anyone actually like Valentine’s Day? I doubt it. Is it any wonder that the abbreviation of both Valentine’s Day and venereal disease is VD? No. Like herpes, Valentine’s Day is sexually transmitted, unpleasant and outbreaks occur at regular intervals.
Despite this, every year, like suckers, millions of us spend money we don’t have, often on people we don’t love, in order to mark this supposed celebration of romance and sex. The only thing that makes it vaguely tolerable is chocolate. Well, sex and chocolate, but mostly chocolate – after all, you can have sex on any of the 365 days of the year, but only a few of these occasions demand a chocolate offering beforehand.
Until the 20th century, chocolate was both rare and expensive, which is one of the reasons it was considered romantic. The other is that eating it gives you a pleasurable, almost sexual buzz – your blood pressure increases, your heart flutters and sensation is heightened, similar to what you experience during an orgasm.
There is a good scientific reason for this – phenylethylamine. Chocolate is a source of this very unsexy sounding chemical, but phenylethylamine is linked to feelings of sexual pleasure and happiness. The idea of giving someone chocolate is: they connect those gratifying feelings with the giver.
It’s possible that there is a second link between chocolate and sex. An Italian study found that women who eat chocolate regularly had more sex. In all honesty, the results were far from conclusive – chocolate fans tend to be younger, which means they have higher sex drives naturally. Nor did the study actually suggest that eating chocolate will lead to a greater number of sexual experiences, but if I choose to interpret it that way as I tuck into yet another vanilla ganache, that’s my business. There is no point in taking unnecessary risks, after all.
As a fan of both sex and chocolate, I naturally wondered what combining these two great pleasures would be like. When I suggested it, my boyfriend at the time, a man with both a spirit of adventure and a sweet tooth, decided we needed champagne – or a least a bottle of fizz – to create a kind of sex and chocolate picnic. We messed chocolate on the sheets and spilled plonk on the carpet, but all in all it was a resounding success. Not perhaps the kind of thing you’d do once a week, but on occasion, messy chocolate sex is not to be dismissed.
I presumed that chocolate sex was pretty much a rite of passage – something everyone tries at least once. But when I asked around, I was surprised to discover this is not the case.
Tom seemed a bit confused about the idea. “Does masturbating while scoffing a bag of Minstrels count?” he asked. “I dunno if I should be proud or ashamed,” he added, and frankly, neither do I.
When Sean admitted the same thing, I was beginning to wonder if chocolate masturbation was a kink I’d yet to hear of. “It was awesome!” he declared, but then asked, “Is that weird?”
Possibly, but who am I to judge? After all, neither chocolate phenylethylamine nor masturbation is as much fun as sex, so perhaps the two together works a charm.
Frankly, I was amazed that so few people had tried chocolate sex or had even heard of the idea. Damien’s response was typical. “I presume you melt it as opposed to just having sex while horsing into a Twix?” he asked.
Melting the chocolate is indeed the standard modus operandi, but it’s a risky business. First off, since you’re probably going to whack it in the microwave instead of lovingly softening it in a bain-marie, getting the temperature right is tricky. Hot sugar is very, very hot and unless you are some kind of blister-loving pervert that’s not much fun.
Secondly, chocolate doesn’t stay melted for long, and as Emma helpfully pointed out, combining chocolate and hairy men is a recipe for disaster.
Andrew had first-hand experience of this.
“Chocolate covered Turkish Delight has been attempted. It’s a no go! Can’t believe I did not have the foresight and general knowledge to realise that this was going to become a pubic disaster of epic proportions. Took me ages to wash it out. You would not believe how quickly it gets hard, and I ain’t talking about my own appendage under these conditions. Suffice to say the whole experience was really funny, but ended in zero sex.”
Yup, that’s right kids. Melted chocolate in your pubes is rather like chewing gum in your hair – best avoided.
“I’m not a fan,” said Ciaran. “It demands a shower afterwards which means no time for cuddles, and cuddles rock.”
Not only that, but melted chocolate makes a mess of the sheets, and the last thing anyone wants to do in a post-orgasmic haze is change the bedclothes. But if you don’t, you may wake the next morning with sticky brown goo in places where sticky brown goo has no right to be.
Chocolate body paint, on the other hand, should allow you to avoid most of these problems. It saves you having to melt the chocolate and it comes with a brush allowing you to create intricate chocolate designs on your partner’s body. In theory, it’s a winner; in practice it’s a disaster, for the simple reason that it tastes foul. I appreciate quality chocolate as well as quality sex.
Given all of the above, it’s no wonder that most of the handful of people I found who had tried combining sex and chocolate, decided it was just one big mucky disappointment. Wrong. Actually, all you need is a little forethought and planning.
A small amount melted in a bowl strategically applied to various key body parts works well. Think delicate, chocolate-covered nipples instead of mud wrestling. Alternatively, try laying a number of small chocolates across the body. With body heat, they’ll melt a little, but since the chocolate isn’t gooey you can take your time savouring the sweets and your partner.
In our body-conscious world where food is the enemy and love handles a tragedy, anything that is vaguely fattening is treated as a vice with far-reaching consequences that you’ll regret. You know the kind of attitude I mean – “Once on the lips, forever on the hips.”
I say: nonsense. The pleasures of life – at least the ones we can all afford – are few and far between. Whether it’s sex or chocolate or a combination of the two, we ought to indulge ourselves.