Bad news. That flirtatious glass of bubbly that eases you into the mood might actually be killing your sex life.
Scientists have analysed seven scientific studies involving more than 50,000 women aged 18 to 79 and concluded that alcohol reduces women’s sensitivity to touch and can lower their libido — meaning they’re less aroused during sex and the experience is less intense.
‘Since a healthy sexual function is essential for a good quality of life, policymakers may consider using the results to raise awareness among women,’ researchers at Iran’s Gerash University of Medical Sciences said last week, conjuring up bizarre images of Health Secretary Steve Barclay lecturing women on the lesser-known effects of ‘wine o’clock’.
So have you been doing it wrong all this time? Is sex really more satisfying if you pack away the pinot grigio?
Here, four brave writers debate a tipple before a tumble versus stone-cold sober sex…
Is sex really more satisfying if you pack away the pinot grigio?
SQUIFFY: A tipple makes me feel nicely frisky
Katie Glass, 42, is single and lives in Somerset. She says:
Some of the best sexual experiences of my life have taken place after a few drinks. Of course they have — I am English!
If I’d stayed sober for my whole dating life, then I’d probably never have had any sex in the first place. Indeed, when my married friends tell me their love lives have dried up, the first thing I ask them is if they’re drinking enough.
It’s not like I need alcohol to go to bed with someone. I can appreciate the pleasures of a nice morning cuddle and the intensity (and sometimes emotional significance) of being soberly present for sex.
But if I had to condemn myself to either having sex sober for ever or always doing the deed after a bottle of champagne . . . well, there would be no contest.
I don’t drink to get s***faced, as J-Lo eloquently said recently, but I do like the way a few drinks so gorgeously takes the edge off things.
A nice cool glass of wine, half a cider or a shot of Jack Daniel’s makes me feel delightfully frisky and brave enough to flirt. It makes everything a little softer, pleasantly blurred and rose-tinted and everyone prettier, which is a necessity when you’re past 40.
Some of the best sexual experiences of my life have taken place after a few drinks. Of course they have — I am English!
I like the way a drink makes me bolder, more confident in my body and less inhibited about trying new things. Having sex is like dancing — everyone is better at it after a few drinks.
God knows how these researchers concluded alcohol lowers women’s libido. Have they never seen a group of women after a bottomless prosecco brunch?
Of course, sober sex can have a certain intensity. But equally intoxicating is the way alcohol creates something of a fantasy state, which is exciting to explore with a partner.
It’s a state especially welcome when most of the time you and your other half are talking about the dull stuff, such as whose turn it is to do the washing-up. Nothing changes the mood as quickly from Waltons-esque domesticity to Eyes Wide Shut eroticism as necking a shot.
I wouldn’t trust a relationship where I could only sleep with my partner while drunk, but I’d be far more suspicious about dating someone so determinedly in control of themselves that they couldn’t enjoy the odd pre-coital tipple.
Don’t they know the pleasure of sweet strawberry daiquiri kisses, going to bed after an afternoon on the cab sav or the joy of taking a lover and a bottle of champagne to bed?
I’m not shocked by this absurd study. Telling women they shouldn’t drink before sex seems like just another, new, humourless way of trying to stop us from having fun.
Is it any surprise this research comes out of Iran — a country where, recently, some young women were arrested for the crime of daring to dance without their hijabs on?
Will I be taking their advice for a sober sex life?
No thanks, I’ll keep dancing, drinking and getting it on.
SOBER: Nothing’s worse than a drunken fumble
Antonella Gambotto-Burke, 57, has a 17-year-old daughter from her former marriage. She lives in Kent and has been with her partner for 18 months. She says:
The idea of having sex while drunk fills me with sadness. That boring bumbling, the fumbling, those sloppy expressions of desire.
Critically, the forgetting of who you really are or what it is you’re really feeling, as I did decades ago when, for a relatively short period of time, I drank.
Frankly, the latest study about the relationship between alcohol consumption and female sexual problems comes as no surprise to me.
Heavy social drinking has, over the past half-century in particular, become a rite of passage for British women.
On a midnight train from London to Kent recently, I watched with embarrassment as a young woman, clearly inebriated, planted her feet on the arm rests of her seat and with one fist raised in the air began clumsily twerking above the aisle. Booze had not so much lowered as completely erased her inhibitions.
Heavy social drinking has, over the past half-century in particular, become a rite of passage for British women
In the same spirit, unhappily married middle-aged women joke about ‘wine o’clock’ and mask distaste for their husbands in a semi-permanent fug of alcohol.
In my early 20s, I shared a flat with a colleague who took immense pride in ‘drinking men under the table’. She appeared to take equal pride in the drunken gropes she had with drunken men in bars, pubs and at boozy work functions.
In the morning, I’d regularly find her fully dressed and face-down on the living room floor, her skin colourless and reeking of tobacco. Sober sex, to her, would have been unimaginable.
On a handful of occasions in my late teens, I had empty drunken encounters with otherwise lovely men that, in their wake, only filled me with disgust and regret.
Despite this, I continued drinking. I drank to disguise fear, inexperience and loneliness, and because everyone else I knew was drinking. I stopped in my 30s when I realised how unhappy it was making me.
Gavin, my partner, has no issue with the fact I don’t drink because he also stopped drinking years ago. While he certainly enjoyed drinking more than I ever did, he hated the effect it had on his relationships.
When we make love, there’s no need to hide or pretend. Sex — to us — is an evolution of feeling. Yes, it can be awkward. Yes, it can be confronting. Yes, it can feel overwhelming. But we stay with the feeling, focusing on each other and the high we get from that.
Our relationship is too valuable to risk derailing it with drunken arguments or the lack of thoughtfulness that drunkenness entails. Alcohol-fuelled sex seems so silly in comparison.
Antonella’s new book Apple: Sex, Drugs, Motherhood And The Recovery Of The Feminine (£14.99, Pinter & Martin Ltd) is out now. Follow her @gambottoburke
SOBER: No booze has done wonders for my sex life
Daisy Buchanan, 38, has been married for eight years. She says:
This may shock you, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I had sex after a few glasses of wine.
That isn’t because booze has made my memory hazy, or because I kept falling asleep half way through.
About a year ago, I stopped drinking alcohol altogether. But, long before that, I decided to stop drinking before getting intimate with my partner. The decision to stay sober has done wonders for my sex life.
I wasn’t always like this. When I was in my 20s, alcohol was a huge part of my life. As a fan of Sex And The City, I believed drinking and dating went hand in hand.
With plenty of strong cocktails under my belt, I could become the sort of woman I desperately longed to be: wild, uninhibited and up for an adventure.
This may shock you, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I had sex after a few glasses of wine
Even when I was in a long-term relationship, I didn’t stop drinking. I was terrified of becoming ‘boring’, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to be an exciting, open-minded partner.
I thought I needed wine to be at my best in the bedroom. To me, it was as important as clean sheets and nice lingerie.
However, when I met the man I’d eventually marry, something started to shift. He was — and is — kind, funny and loving, and made me feel incredibly secure. I was shocked to find myself initiating intimacy when I was stone-cold sober.
Then, less than a year into our relationship, I noticed something startling. We’d gone out for dinner, and come home tipsy and giggly. One thing led to another, and I caught myself thinking I’m too drunk to enjoy this. It’s not bad — but it’s not great.
I wasn’t very drunk, but I was drunk enough to realise that I didn’t feel present in the room — or in my body. The alcohol had made me numb, and my senses were dulled.
Alcohol can definitely lower libido and make experiences less intense. But there’s a darker side to our drinking, too. I’m starting to realise how incredibly vulnerable alcohol made me. On more than one occasion in the past, I woke up in the wrong place with the wrong person, feeling confused and ashamed.
At the time, I tried to shrug it off, telling myself that it was all part of being young and single, but now, as a sober woman approaching 40, I realise that when I was drinking heavily, I wasn’t able to consent to sex in a clear-headed, wholehearted way. I believed I needed alcohol to give me sexual confidence. But sober sex makes me feel more confident than booze ever did.
I understand that the prospect of sober sex is daunting for a lot of women. We live in a world where we’re encouraged to develop negative thoughts about our bodies — and it’s harder than ever to switch our brains off.
So many of us struggle with anxiety and insecurity, and alcohol is an instant short-term cure for those problems.
Putting down the bottle can be a challenge, especially on a date night. However, I think it can change everything. For me, it’s led to better sex, more body confidence, and a huge boost in happiness and self-esteem.
SQUIFFY: Being a little well-oiled makes sex better
Susannah Jowitt, aged 54, has been married for 24 years and has two grown-up children. She says:
Who doesn’t love being lectured about one’s sexual functionality by a bunch of university researchers? It’s enough to drive one to drink!
We women should actually count ourselves lucky. Men have had the relationship between alcohol and sexual dysfunction all to themselves for so long.
Brewer’s droop has long caused flops in foreplay and it was only a matter of time before they shared the pain with us.
Of course, what any woman knows — especially the modern woman who juggles school runs, Ocado orders, worming the dog and cooking supper with the voracious demands of her HRT-fuelled libido — is that alcohol may well reduce our sensitivity to touch, but it also raises the chances of us wanting to be touched.
We women should actually count ourselves lucky. Men have had the relationship between alcohol and sexual dysfunction all to themselves for so long
I finish most days wound up and worn out, so any hope of a midweek tumble depends on a change of gear to fire up the sex drive. For my husband and me, that transition happens as we prepare supper — I chop and cook, he pours — and we both chat about our day over a bottle of wine.
A tipple or two later, we are relaxed and beginning to flirt. I might even pinch his bum as he turns to get the plates out of the cupboard. From there, all sorts of options begin to open up . . .
Two or three nights a week, we don’t drink that bottle of wine and, trust me, those nights are duller. We chat less, eat quicker and because those are our ‘sensible’ nights, we focus on going to bed earlier. Tucked up by 9pm, no alcohol to blunt our senses, frankly I’d rather read my book.
Very few animals are designed to feel pleasure during sex and we humans are top of the passion pops, so we might as well sip from the cup of wild abandon and arousal rather than lie back and think of research studies.
I’m talking a drink or three at most, not a full-on, big-night-out binge. We want blurred edges, not full blackout.
So back off, scientists. Seduction is an art and middle-aged sex is supposed to be fun as well as functional.
If being a little well-oiled helps the moving parts run smoothly, then go for it, I say.
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