The truth about second date sex

According to the often quoted Oscar Wilde: “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” And so it is that I am able confidently to declare my accidental, and by all means wholly unwanted, professional opinion on the infamous … second date sex.

Allow me to clarify some things. I am a 24-year-old, straight female, who has dated and dallied in London for the past six years and racked up my fair share of good, bad and therapy-inducing experiences, which can all be counted on one hand. Possibly three times over.

Now, I would not declare myself to be particularly promiscuous by nature, favouring long-term relationships over casual copulations, yet suffice to say that the latter has contributed most generously to my ... what did we decide to call it, experience? As they say, it’s the mistakes you learn from.

I, like you, live in a world where adverts, daily spam emails, film and TV all work together constantly reminding me I should be having sex, should be having better sex and however much I’m having, I’m not having enough sex. I would be inclined to agree should my sex life resemble that portrayed in Fifty Shades of Grey, but so far it has read more like one shade ... of shite. Seemingly these ideals just don’t translate well in real life.

“Experience” one: after the deterioration of a long-term relationship, I was keen to experience this elusive world where sex was still sexy. I was headed out for my second date and prepared by shaving and trimming as necessary, donning the suspenders and red and black uncomfortable lace underwear previously seen on an Ann Summers mannequin and psyched myself up for a night of what I was certain would be the stuff of E L James’ dreams.

He came round, I lit the room with candles and proceeded to give an awkward, unrehearsed stiletto and suspender-ridden lap dance. It looked like a deleted scene from The Rocky Horror Show. I pranced about waiting for the moment when he could finally resist me no more ... and I waited ... and waited, until I realised perhaps this moment would not occur and what I had done was completely stereotype and misunderstand the fantasies of this poor, now deathly pale-looking man. The light was turned back on, the palpable embarrassment subsequently heightened by the sharing of a packet of milky buttons and then he left. I have never seen him, nor eaten a milky button, since.

Experience two (now infamously known as “The Crab Man Story” by my close friends) proved to be far more traumatic. Having “courted” a guy in his late twenties for close to a month, things progressed to the spare room of his parents’ house. A house, he assured me, that would be unoccupied for at least three hours. Upon entering the room he proceeded to remove every item of his clothing, in silence, five metres away from me. “Slightly odd,” I thought, “but hey, if he’s willing to embrace the awkwardness of this traditionally fumbling charade, so shall I.”

So I did. Before long he was lying on top of me shaking about violently. I was concerned and I must have looked it as he confessed: “Sorry, this is the first time I’ve done this so ... I might be crap.” I racked my brain to find any other possible meaning. “First time in the spare room? First time when foreplay consisted solely of a silent strip?” No. I knew what he meant.

Ever the optimist, I decided to make the most of this unanticipated scenario. “Okay, well, how about if I go on top until we feel comfortable?” Before long I was bobbing about on what appeared to be the most convincing living statue ever encountered. Cautious not to insult, I casually suggested that maybe there was some way in which “when I move down, maybe you could push up ... to get a bit of a rhythm going?”.

“Sure,” he replied. Within three seconds he had got himself into a yoga crab position ... and stayed there. Quite an achievement, which ordinarily I would congratulate, but 4pm in the spare room seemed hardly the time or place. Painfully aware this had resulted from a direction I had given, I decided to roll with the punches. I manoeuvred myself so that I could continue in the near standing position and proceeded surprisingly unperturbed by the now deafening noise from the bed. Yet before any real concerns had a chance to develop I was distracted by the loud and sudden opening of the door behind me. I turned to see the angry red face staring back at me and had ascertained who it belonged to even before she screamed: “What the hell are you doing to my son?”