- If sex is no more than a source of drunken amusement
then we can stop expecting it to be special or significant ever again.
And secondly, the rise in sexually-transmitted infections has accompanied
the increase in soul-less sex. Is it worth putting your fertility, your
health and maybe your life at risk for McSex? I think not.
-
- Girls, Stop This Soul-Less Sex
-
- It is not often that the editor of Cosmopolitan, a glossy
magazine which has devoted 31 years to liberating women in the bedroom,
is shocked.
-
- In fact, when it comes to sex I can honestly say that
apart from the time I mistook a solid silver sex toy for a designer doorknob,
very little has unnerved me during my day job on what I describe as "the
sexual frontline".
-
- Until now.
-
- Now I'm distressed, depressed and, yes, shocked. The
behaviour of today's young women has put me in the unusual position of
being the first Cosmo editor to say "No to sex".
-
- Why? Because of the rise and rise of a worrying new trend
we've labelled "soul-less sex". What I'm referring to is the
behaviour of young women today whose Saturday nights and holidays seem
to be about sex with men they don't know, and probably don't want to see
again.
-
- Now, I've no problem with the number of men a woman chooses
to sleep with. In fact, during what I light-heartedly refer to as my "summer
of love" (after my first proper boyfriend and before my forever relationship),
my girlfriends and I relished our new-found sexual power.
-
- We took advantage of an open approach to sexuality. We
didn't feel ashamed about one-night stands, we didn't judge each other
and we were not embarrassed by our enjoyment of sex.
-
- This, we thought, is what feminism is about. Along with
millions of other women in the mid-90s (I'm 35 now), we expected satisfying
sex with different men. We didn't always get it but we knew we deserved
it - unlike our mothers who'd encountered extreme prejudice if they dared
to enjoy casual sex.
-
- No, my issue isn't with having a pleasure-seeking attitude
to sex. It's with young women who feel bullied into being part of this
new soul-less sex trend. Women who obviously feel pressured because sex
is suddenly a cool, fashionable thing to do.
-
- When it comes to fashion, women are incredibly vulnerable.
-
- Why else would we cram our feet into the worst-quality
but most expensive heels? Because we're dedicated followers of fashion
and right now, it appears, "Sex is the new black".
-
- Snazzy Notting Hill shops sell vibrators at £1,600
a go (really) and super-stylish champagne orgies are organised in posh
London apartments - it's all as much a part of this new trend as sex on
the streets of Faliraki.
-
- But what about emotions, self-esteem, and most importantly,
your orgasms? Soul-less sex is not a route to any of the above. You don't
have to buy expensive sex toys, you don't have to have as many one-night
stands as possible, you don't have to accompany your lover to flashy sex
parties - unless you want to.
-
- Of course I'm not really saying no to sex (I'd be in
the wrong job if I was). What I am really saying is no to "McSex"
- the rubbish take-away version which is being sold as the latest "must-have".
This soul-less sex is not what feminists fought for and it's something
we've never advocated in Cosmo.
-
- Feminism is about having a choice and it seems to me
that many young women today feel they have no choice. They have to have
sex to be in with the in-crowd. Sexual liberation has been reinterpreted
as an imperative to get sex, whatever the emotional cost.
-
- When we researched soul-less sex what we found was upsetting.
We sent reporters to nightclubs all over Britain, to Faliraki and Ibiza
- they went out on Friday nights and then talked to the young women they'd
interviewed on Saturday mornings.
-
- It's these conversations that disturbed me the most.
We spoke to a 27-year-old who'd had sex with "about 40 men" this
year but never had an orgasm. We spoke to a woman vomiting on a beach as
the sun rose. Was she happy?
-
- "No, I just want to go home," she replied but
when her friends arrived minutes later to pick her up she told them what
a great time she was having. We spoke to women who described the sex they'd
had the night before as "actively unpleasant".
-
- "It's a buzz," one clubber told us, "but
once you have sex the excitement is lost, there's nowhere left to go. I
feel down and a bit deflated."
-
- THIS was the overwhelming message that stayed with me
after reading our report.
-
- Irma Kurtz, our agony aunt, highlighted this sense of
sadness to me earlier in the year because she was getting more and more
letters about soul-less sex. What price are women paying for this aggressive
new sexuality, she asked. Firstly, we all know overspending debases the
currency.
-
- If sex is no more than a source of drunken amusement
then we can stop expecting it to be special or significant ever again.
And secondly, the rise in sexually-transmitted infections has accompanied
the increase in soul-less sex. Is it worth putting your fertility, your
health and maybe your life at risk for McSex? I think not.
-
- I met a forward-thinking man recently who runs parties
where couples enjoy sexual experimentation. Most of his clients are women
in their 20s who take their men along. He summed up the new female sexuality
very well.
-
- "Women", he said, "are now free to experiment,
indulge and enjoy sex as a good, guiltless activity. It's become as fashionable
as the nation's new-found obsessions with interior decorating or celeb-inspired
cooking.
-
- "But it doesn't work for everyone. There are always
emotions attached to sex and that means emotional risk. What works for
one woman may not work for another."
-
- Few of us are like Sex And The City's man-eating Samantha.
I think the emotional price of soul-less sex is too high to pay, and it's
time women loved themselves enough to say no.
-
- - The Rise And Rise Of Soul-less Sex appears in this
month's issue of Cosmo
-
- © owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Digital
Media Limited 2001.
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