The only lie my mother ever told me about sex is that it was better with someone you love. I wish that was true, but it isn’t – at least not all of the time.

What exactly is the relationship between sex and love? As Valentine’s Day approaches I’ve been thinking about this. I’d better tell you straight off that I don’t have the definitive answer. If I did, I’d be sitting in a desert oasis in Nevada charging celebrity acolytes the tens of thousands of dollars they would part with to understand the secret.
We all know that sex and love are connected, but it’s not a straightforward cause and effect relationship. If it were, life would be a lot simpler – and almost certainly duller. Instead it’s more of a heated, tempestuous relationship, involving screaming matches, clothes thrown out on the lawn, doors slammed and passionate make-up sessions. It’s the mystery that has inspired thousands of songs, poems, books, plays and films.
Back in the dark days of my early teenage years I believed that sex should be saved for the person you loved. No, I really did! This was the rule of thumb all my friends subscribed to, and I accepted it without question. None of us thought that waiting until marriage was a viable option, but we were good Catholic girls at heart and we convinced ourselves that love would remove any essence of sin from the act.
The idea of not having sex until you’re in the transforming power of love is a nice idea, but in my case at least, it wasn’t very practical. As my teenage years drew to a close, I’d had a number of boyfriends. They were sweet, funny and sexy – but I wasn’t naive enough to imagine that I was truly in love with any of them.
If I’d stuck to the idea that you should wait until you are in love with someone to have sex, chances are good that – with the obvious exception of nuns – I’d have ended up as the world’s oldest virgin. Or that I’d have convinced myself eventually that I loved someone I plainly didn’t! Not being sure which fate would be worse, I opted instead to dilute the ambition. Waiting for love became downgraded to waiting for someone I ‘really liked’, and luckily for me – and for him – I ‘really liked’ a beautiful blond Polish boy called Marek.
Having been undone by one lucky beau, I felt far less inhibited. Having tasted the forbidden fruit, I wanted an encore. And not just from Marek!
If like me you’ve ever found yourself in the throes of sexual obsession with someone you hardly even like, let alone love, then you’ll know that sex has its own power over you, and that love – while certainly wonderful if you can get it – isn’t the only thing that keeps you going back for more.
My quarry’s name was Adam. Come to think of it, I’m sure he’s still called Adam. I met him at a party. I was stuck, my lift was drunk in the corner and Adam offered to drive me home if I went out with him the next day. Adam was gorgeous, so I was more than happy to oblige.
The date was a disaster. We sat in uncomfortable silence for large parts of it. When we did manage to get a conversion going, we disagreed about everything. He liked Beavis and Butthead; I preferred the Brontës. I thought he was stupid; he told me months later that he thought I was a stuck-up bitch. But seeing as it was a date and he was a horny dog, he chanced his arm anyway, and gave me a good night kiss.
I was being polite and so I let him. It was a big mistake. My knees went weak and my insides turned to jelly. My mind may have been rebelling but my body knew exactly what it wanted. I was never going to fall in love with Adam, I didn’t ‘really like’ him, but oh, I wanted him. Badly.
My relationship, for want of a better word, with Adam lasted for a few months. He drove me nuts, both in and out of the bedroom. If we weren’t shagging, we were arguing. I’d kiss him just to shut him up, and half an hour later, find myself naked in his arms yet again. I resolved to stop seeing him after every encounter with him, but it was no use. There was no choice but to let my obsession run its course. Cruel, cruel fate.
Sex with someone you love may be a more emotionally rewarding experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s a more exciting sexual one. It’s a cliché that cheating is a symptom of other problems in the relationship. I don’t think that’s always true. Sometimes people play away because no matter how good a relationship is, or how much you love someone, you can’t help but be attracted to other people and, in particular, the thrill of someone new.
In many of my relationships I found that, as time went on, I’d begin to get bored. I thought I was in love and the sex may have been great, but I’d get itchy feet and a wandering eye and the temptation to risk the relationship for a temporary passion would become overwhelming. On the surface I looked like a serial monogamist, but the truth was, I was a serial cheat. Like trying to squeeze into a size zero pair of skinny jeans, fidelity just didn’t fit me. My only commitment was to my commitment phobia.
The truth is that sex and love can both make you do crazy things you’d never have thought yourself capable of. They inspire people to take risks and make act in ways that go against all your instincts. Whether great sex is the result of love, or necessary for love to become great is hard to say. It’s the classic chicken and egg dilemma.
Sex with someone you love may not always be better than sex with someone you don’t, but if there is one thing experience has taught me it’s this: sex is never better than with Thomas. And that makes all the difference.