Dialogue: Damned if you do - and if you don't

By ELIZABETH EASTHER

What a fascination we have for sex in this country, and such a prurient interest at that. And our engrossment is making itself more apparent than ever what with the virgin thing that's going on.

Once we used to be intrigued by a person's actual sex life - what they did do, not what they didn't. So, why is it that I can't turn on the television, the radio or open a magazine without being assaulted with news of yet another person who has recovered her maidenhood. Or, rarer still, never lost it.

Rachel Hunter is the latest to make it onto the list (born-again obviously) despite the whirlwind of wagging tongues her last visit caused. Not the behaviour of a maiden, if you believe everything you hear, but then memories are often so short. And then there's Petra, except now that she's married she'll have given up her spot at the top of the list.

Perhaps that's it - the media are looking for another virgin, having lost their cover girl to wedlock. Well, how about me? I'm headed the born-again way, having just begun seven years of celibacy. Ostensibly I'm doing it to find myself but the real reason is more to do with the ending of yet another relationship and my wondering why I ever have them. If history is anything to go by, they always end in tears, so best I get out while I'm ahead and still have, if not my maidenhead, at least my dignity intact.

And it makes a lot of sense these days to abstain. The Pill, which seemed such a blessing in the 1960s, has lost much of its appeal, people being more reluctant than ever to mess with the delicate balance of hormones in the body. Unwanted pregnancy is still on the rise, despite the availability of a wide range of alternative contraceptive devices.

Then, of course, there are all those diseases, a few of which won't be kept at bay by condoms alone anyway. Somebody asked me why I was giving it all up for seven years, implying that I must be some kind of freak. But the seven years is just a number picked at random to imply well into next month.

And the actual business of not doing the business - well, its just that sex can make life more complicated than it already is. Although sex is fun if done well and is a wonderful way to express affection for someone special, it is also a really serious business. For all the sexual freedom that has been afforded us since the revolution, sex is often still bound up in guilt and power and neediness. I don't want to care about all that stuff. I don't want to spend a high proportion of my waking moments wondering how I'm going to get it - where, when or with whom.

Its difficult enough these days dealing with myself; to put another person in the mix would be madness. I am making sense here but, despite the logic, my curious friend wondered why I couldn't just have sex without the complications. Good question. But the actual practice of free-love isn't that simple. One person will almost always end up wanting more than the other wants to give and, once the balance of power is out, it's all downhill from there.

A girlfriend of mine had sex with a relative stranger recently, swore she was just in it for the fleeting pleasure, although we all knew she was keen as mustard. When he didn't call the next day, or the next week, she tried to hide it but we all knew she was gutted.

The more I think about it the more I'm sure I'm not going to miss it. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that sex, whether you do it or not, is a highly personal issue, I might have even thought about Professional Virgin as a life path. A few magazine covers a year, probably get my house renovated for television and I'd be asked to comment on stuff.

"Well, no there wasn't a lot in the Budget this year for virgins." Then again, I could always just get a job.