Meet woman who got married at 40 while still a virgin

Right from the start, I was sensitive and a bit of a nerd. I remember my parents’ friends commenting that I looked like a little professor, and I was. At 26, the pressure and stress were getting to me. I tried online dating agencies with no success. I was simply not equipped to get along with women. I spiralled into alcoholism and eventual recovery.

I met my wife towards the end of my heavy-drinking period, and we pretty much clicked instantly. Our marriage has lasted 25 years, and it’s been solid throughout; we get on well and love each other deeply. But we’ve had our challenges over the years with sex. I was a 40-year-old virgin when we married and she’d had sex only once before: at 21, consensual but traumatic, at a party.

She had been imbued with the idea of “a woman’s duty” or “Lie back and think of England”. Sex was invariably initiated by me and, at around 46, my wife’s interest waned. The menopause came and went, her libido dropped away and our sexual encounters stopped. We are physically affectionate and greatly attached, but I miss sex and that moment of communion. I masturbate most days, mainly to the kind of Internet porn that shows “real couples” or homemade stuff, but I miss body contact.

I have developed a yearning for what is highly improbable: that I can take up with a young woman for casual pleasure without commitment. I have discussed this with my wife, who has not expressed hostility to the idea; she said she just wouldn’t want to know the details. The last thing I want is to hurt her. Many of my friends confess to me the infidelities that they’ve kept secret, and I simply can’t comprehend such a thing. It would be agony. But I never sowed my wild oats, you see, and I regret that. Is it too late to make up for that somehow?

‘I remember driving across town to have sex with a stranger’

Jonathan, 50, 40 partners

I’m definitely a one-to-one guy. I’m not into sleeping around. For me, a big part of sex is getting to know someone. The more you feel that sense of commitment, that locking in of trust, the more playful and expressive you are able to be.

I’m not in a relationship at the moment, but I can remember times when I’ve had to stop the car to have sex with a girlfriend on the way to Brighton, and it’s commitment that has enabled me to be mischievous and expressive like that.

The truly great moments? The very first time is up there, because it felt significant and I felt really loved. I was 17. If there is such a thing as a top 10, I’d include those moments in a relationship when you wake up in the night feeling horny and have to have sex. Also, I remember chatting to someone online when the Internet was still a novelty and driving across town to have sex. I didn’t know her and I didn’t see her again, but it was thrilling.

There have been all sorts of times, in tents or up mountains, but great sex has always been when I’m in tune with someone. I don’t find uncertainty thrilling; I find it a pain in the arse.

‘I had a very experienced lover. I wasn’t in love: he was just the facilitator of my fantasies’

Rachel, 55, a few hundred partners

Generally, I feel a bit flat. The ups and downs you get when you have periods are all gone. But it’s not as if I’m thinking, “I wish I’d had more group sex” or “I wish I’d shagged 100 more people.” Because I did more in 10 years than most people have done in their entire lives.

I think there is a surge of hormones in your early 40s – maybe your body is trying to fulfil its destiny – because I felt up for it all the time. I was divorced, I’d had my children and I was involved with a man who was a very experienced lover. I would tell him what was going through my head and he would make it happen. I wasn’t committed to him, I wasn’t in love. It was just: “You are the facilitator of my fantasies.” I wouldn’t even know what was happening half the time, because there were so many different sensations going on in my body. It was quite spiritual, in a weird sort of way.

Women in their 40s are dangerous. They’re nuts. The great thing is that you have the mental capacity to switch off all the drama that you had in your 20s – “Does he love me? Does he not love me?” In your 40s, you’re like, “I definitely do not love him but, by God, he’s a good shag.”

I think, for women, desire happens in the brain. This is something I am constantly telling my current partner. We’ve been together three years and he doesn’t get it. It amazes me that no matter how intelligent guys are, they simply do not seem to get that if you don’t do certain things, you’re not going to come. I think there must be a lot of women who fake it, because how else have men come to the conclusion they’re all so amazing?

‘The mind is an erogenous zone. It doesn’t have to be intercourse’

Angela, 61, one partner

I have been married for 38 years and my husband is the only sexual partner I’ve had. For the last 10 years, our marriage had lacked intimacy. It wasn’t that we were unhappy, it just happened as it does to lots of people: familiarity, failure to communicate, the omnipresence of children.

Just over a year ago, when I was feeling particularly sad and frustrated about this, my husband reached out to me in bed. I think he just touched me. It was as simple as that, but it was as if a floodgate had opened. It was like a thin wall had been there, so thin you could put your finger through it, and that’s all it took for someone to break it. There’s been no looking back since then, and sex is a wonderful part of our lives now.

I’m sure it was exciting and lovely when we were younger, but I think it was probably more goal-oriented, and it isn’t now – that’s a huge difference. Now it’s more about being in the moment. The whole body can be an erogenous zone. The mind is an erogenous zone. It doesn’t have to be intercourse. That’s a tiny part of it for us. This is the greatest time of my life, sexually. Everything feels very heightened and real.

My husband said he didn’t know how interested in sex I was, and he delights in it now. And because I’ve become more open and able to express myself, he has as well. You think, why didn’t I say this a long time ago? Because it wasn’t hard in the end. But there’s no judgment or feeling of disapproval or shock or anything. It’s all just… wonderful.