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A sex room won’t save your marriage Meaningful monogamy can't be bought

She's probably just thinking about the washing up. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

She's probably just thinking about the washing up. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images


August 11, 2022   5 mins

Looking back, I feel profoundly pleased that I was a hottie when I was: after the Pill but before AIDS. The Seventies brought to the masses the sexual free-for-all that the Swinging Sixties” had only really offered the few. A rude, raucous song by Della Reese called “If It Feels Good, Do It” could be heard everywhere as I entered my horny teens and one simply presumed that sex — like social mobility — would go on getting better as everyone had more of it.

But just as social mobility has stalled, so has sex. Faced with an online bedchamber of horrors since they were pre-teens, successive generations are holding on to their virginity longer and having less sex. The proliferation of porn since the Seventies has changed us from chastely yearning swains, capable of producing beautiful sonnets, to masturbating chimps — a process completed during the sad months when we were warned not to touch anyone except ourselves.

Meanwhile, young feminist thinkers have reclaimed monogamy, convinced that all permissiveness offers is men who take, in Germaine Greers memorable phrase, joyless liberties” with them. Once girls stayed virgins for fear of burning in Hell; now they stay virgins for fear of being choked to death by a callow suitor who has picked up his smooth moves from playground porn.

We may be vaguely aware that there was once something better than this, but we have no idea how to go about regaining it. It’s always tempting to think that throwing money at a problem helps. Enter capitalism. The commodification of sex starts with pornography — where one literally chooses from a menu of flesh — and ends up with those nutters who get “physical with” model aeroplanes they claim to be in “love” with. But it also provides the wily entrepreneur with an excuse to get rich quick. Having ruined the sex lives of young men by confronting them with super-schlongs, the market then sells them the chemicals that can “cure” them; the most recent sales figures from Viagra Connect show that more than 60% of users are between 25 and 54 years old. Young women, meanwhile, blaming themselves for their lovers’ difficulties, will spend thousands of pounds while still in their gorgeous 20s trying to emulate the actresses they see writhing on screen.

Sometimes the discourse around these sexual accessories reveals unintentionally amusing things about both the buyers and sellers. Lily Allen probably didnt mean to out herself as a prude when she stated that she didn’t know how to masturbate before she started using “sex toys”. But how else to explain: “I felt weird trying to give myself pleasure. It didn’t feel like something that felt natural to me — then I discovered sex toys and it broke the barrier of intimacy with myself.” Does she think Down There is too dirty to touch? Likewise, though the sexually naive may have found it arousing to see photographs of Cara Delevingne and her girlfriend lugging a £360 “sex bench” into their house, it made me think: “that relationship won’t be lasting much longer”. Within a year, it was over.

It remains a rule of thumb that if you need to spend money on sex, you’re probably not doing it right. But in our efforts to make monogamy last longer than is natural, we’re prepared to purchase endless hardware. We’re so steeped in the flagrantly dumb culture of “retail therapy” that it pollutes the most intimate areas of our lives, giving a glossy sheen to the corrupted heart. The Fifty Shades books were just as reliant on the fiscal as the physical for their appeal: substitute a succession of shabby mobile homes for the string of private jets and suddenly getting bashed about by the boyfriend doesn’t seem luxurious.

So, given the popularity of property porn and porn proper, it was dismally inevitable that Netflix’s How To Build A Sex Room would happen. The presenter Melanie Rose is one of those Game Old Birds who signals sensibleness through her shoes and specs but hints at a raunchy past with cropped hair and Statement Lippy. For over 15 years, Rose has been making “high-end” (over-priced) sex rooms for “bankers, teachers, cops” and more. I’m sure this was meant to be reassuring, but considering that last year a policeman became a household name for abducting and raping a young woman, it failed to give me the warm, snuggly feeling intended.

Still, the couple in episode one, Taylor and AyJay, eyes a-pop with anticipation, reassured Rose (and each other) that “we love each other and we love having sex and we’re ready to have a space to spice things up with a space where we can push ourselves, push the boundaries of our relationship!” Perplexingly, Taylor and AyJay desired “a sex dungeon — but not in any way that a dungeon implies”. Even more puzzlingly, they liked the fact that it was “hidden away, and no one knows that it’s there… It’s a pretty hot little secret”.

Well, unless Netflix has lost even more viewers than they let on, a secret is one thing the couple’s sex room is not. Which is the point. Despite the alleged variety of these couples’ tastes, they’re drearily alike in that they’re all exhibitionists. (Though one man in episodes four and five was very romantic, having asked Rose to help him propose marriage to his girlfriend.) By the time the “polyamorous family” — all seven of the dirty swine — rock up in episode four, you’ll want to watch a documentary on a religious order, just to break the monotony.

Rose’s RP is clearly meant to give the show a frisson of incongruity, but ends up blurring the tours of various shag-palaces into one. She is not prepossessing, but knowing how horny Americans find English accents, I’d guess that the show’s appeal across the pond is the crisp way she says “tit” — like Mary Poppins on poppers. But her superior air rubbed me up the wrong way. Goodness knows I’m not the wokest, but watching this posh white woman instructing attractive African-American couples on how to have orgasms categorically turned me off.

Watching yet another couple gag each other prior to a good flogging (otherwise known as “impact play” — that creepy infantilising thing again), I reflected that, far from being a bit of fun, such antics may express sublimated resentment between long-married couples. Isn’t gagging what he longs to do when she tells the same story for the nth time? Isn’t flogging what she wants to do when he swipes the remote control? I couldn’t help thinking of the day these couples break up and argue over their sex room’s contents in a small claims court — now that I would pay to watch.

I suppose it shows how far we’ve come that no one will think that any of these couples is immoral. These days, ninnies reserve such judgement for bad people like Boris Johnson, who they childishly scold for “cheating”. At least Rose’s subjects are trying their very hardest — indeed, going to extreme lengths — to remain monogamous. (Except in the case of the seven swine.) But they are certainly misguided to ignore the simple truth that when you’re in the first flush of horniness, every room is a sex room, and when the thrill has gone, no room is — no matter how much money you spend on your “high-end” consolation prize. 


Julie Burchill is a journalist, playwright and author of Welcome to the Woke Trials, available now. Her latest play, Awful People, co-written with Daniel Raven, comes to Brighton Pier in September 2023.

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Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago

I’ve found myself interested in the relationship between sleep and sex. In my 20’s one only happened in the bedroom and the other could happen anywhere.

Now in my 60’s I find the situation entirely reversed.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
2 years ago

Looking back, I feel profoundly pleased that I was a hottie when I was:after the Pill but before AIDS. 

I could say this about the late nineties: it was a great time to be a young man. Women were considered mentally and physically capable of standing up for themselves and better able to deal with men on their own terms.
Lately, I’ve noticed a trend in media portrayals of women. They either laud women as corporate goddesses who are better than men in every way or portray them as sexually fragile creatures who are playthings for men’s lusts. Heterosexual male sexuality is not even discussed.

Last edited 2 years ago by Julian Farrows
JP Martin
JP Martin
2 years ago

Once upon a time, the sexual danger at universities was palpable and the air was charged with hormones. Now the biggest danger is that some miserable student – overweight and libido free thanks to a daily regimen of psychoactive drugs – will turn me in because they looked away from their screen long enough to notice that I said something they didn’t like.

Caroline Watson
Caroline Watson
2 years ago
Reply to  JP Martin

Is that why they are all so fat and pasty-looking? Students used to be thin and active. Now they waddle about looking as if they live underground.

peter barker
peter barker
2 years ago

I’m an old fart but the sentence (para 4) “We may be vaguely aware that there was once something better than this, but we have no idea how to go about regaining it.” rings true for many many facets of life for me.
Nice piece though Julie; you write entertainingly and, as usual, manage to throw some interesting left-field references/ideas in with your main theme.

David Lye
David Lye
2 years ago

God bless Julie Burchill; home truths with humour.

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
2 years ago

I think we need to raise our sights a bit. Here’s one of Larkin’s poems about s*x and violence, The Less Deceived (including the epigraph):

Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain
consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to
discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,
and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt.”

—Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

Even so distant, I can taste the grief,
Bitter and sharp with stalks, he made you gulp.
The sun’s occasional print, the brisk brief
Worry of wheels along the street outside
Where bridal London bows the other way,
And light, unanswerable and tall and wide,
Forbids the scar to heal, and drives
Shame out of hiding. All the unhurried day,
Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.

Slums, years, have buried you. I would not dare
Console you if I could. What can be said,
Except that suffering is exact, but where
Desire takes charge, readings will grow erratic?
For you would hardly care
That you were less deceived, out on that bed,
Than he was, stumbling up the breathless stair
To burst into fulfillment’s desolate attic.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jonathan Nash
Claire D
Claire D
2 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan Nash

Powerful poem, and they want to ‘cancel’ this man !

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
2 years ago

It sounds grim. The de-eroticisation of sex continues. Sex is part of a relationship. It’s not that big a deal. These people are obsessives.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Part of marriage for me. I strain to cut out all the other rubbish we see.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago

And this sentence, “watching this posh white woman instructing attractive African-American couples on how to have orgasms categorically turned me off”, turned me off. I presume the generic “white” woman is the host of this grotesque program, so the black couples, er, “attractive African-Americans” were willingly there for her instruction. Would rearranging the scenario to a posh black woman and attractive Lithuanian-American couples been less ick-inducing?

Last edited 2 years ago by Allison Barrows
Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 years ago

Willingly there? I would presume they were paid to be there in order to have the “correct” cast.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

Yeah like the TV adverts.

Fred Paul
Fred Paul
2 years ago

I think in the States, it’s erotic for a white woman to dream about sex with a black man. I think. Not sure. Don’t quote me.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
2 years ago

Interesting that a recent Tic-Tok by a Gen-X’er noted her distaste for feminism in it’s effort to have women as corporate slaves instead of tending to home and children. She is likely not finding a partner and is lashing out. I suspect trying to turn women into men and vice-versa isn’t working well in terms of actual human needs. And sex is a major part of those needs.

Fred Paul
Fred Paul
2 years ago
Reply to  Hardee Hodges

My third wife earned far more money than I did. I turned in my suit for an apron. Don’t knock it till you try it.

MDH 0
MDH 0
2 years ago

(G)-spot on! Brava Julie!

Warren Trees
Warren Trees
2 years ago

I enjoyed the reference to the “secret” room being divulged on Netflix for the world to see. We are merely rubes these days.

JP Martin
JP Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Warren Trees

This means that none of them really have sex, I would think. Like the people who don’t cook but watch every cooking show available.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
2 years ago

“But they are certainly misguided to ignore the simple truth that when you’re in the first flush of horniness, every room is a sex room…”

Got it in one Julie. I couldn’t care less what others get up to in the privacy of their ‘sex rooms’ or any other private place, but I find all this sado-masochism, sodomy, polyamorousness, orgyism and etc. utterly repulsive.

Love making with a woman I love… special, intimate, exclusive, thrilling, tender, utterly beautiful… that’s what it’s all about. The rest is debased and vile.

Last edited 2 years ago by Martin Smith
Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
2 years ago

Dull young halfwits who think they have found the key to life by aligning their genitals with a quirky looking (to halfwits) Presenter with a posh voice talking them through their artless fumbling with an arched eyebrow. I didn’t watch but I can predict.

Penny Adrian
Penny Adrian
2 years ago

Brilliant!

Fred Paul
Fred Paul
2 years ago

Do you remember the energy crisis of the early 70s in London…. the lights turned out? And if a shop had lights, it apologized with a sign stating that they own a generator?
We were a Canadian high school doing band concerts in the London area. Those of us who were planning to continue to University attended a 5-year high school course. Needless to say, we were of legal age at home and in London. And then we hooked up with the high school from North Carolina. We were a technical school, so we were entirely male. We completely ignored the boys (at least I think we did) and focussed on the girls.
Back then, we had the Canadian flag sewn to our pants hip pockets and found that we could get into any establishment without getting into lines. The Americans weren’t as lucky. Actually, they didn’t show their flags. The girls caught on and went with us. Well, there was more. We knew how to hold our liqueur. I think we were more courteous, and let’s face it, the music back then was far superior than it is today. Can you whistle today’s tunes?
Sex, back then, as well as WWII when my brother wore a Canadian uniform, was the same as it always was. You simply worked it more. You showed each other a good time. Went to dinner or a pub. No doughnut shops back then with fancy coffees. You enjoyed the music. You danced to the music. You slow danced to it. Often, it would be steamier on the dance floor than in the room upstairs.
For the kids, the grass was in. Hard drugs out. For the most part. The guys were focused on the latest stereo equipment, the gals on the guys with the best stereo gear. Fashion was either a downright protest of the establishment with jeans and white t-shirts or fancy bellbottoms and frilly blouses. Then hot pants. Who could forget hot pants? Cars, not so much. That was an American thing.
University didn’t cost an arm and leg… just a pinky in Canada. It was possible to hold down a part-time job to pay for most of it. And, if you weren’t interested, there were jobs that paid well above the minimum wage. And to be honest, what would you buy? A new Mini? A one washroom home with maybe a single garage? A flat for a quarter of your paycheque?
Orrrrrrrr…. Fancy kitchen appliance? Eight huge LED TVs? Two vacations a year? Tickets to a show that could also buy you plan tickets to Vagas? A cell phone that puts Star Tek to shame. Gourmet takeout with phoney Italian names? Video games with bodies to lust for. And all that wearing dirty shorts, a stupid T-shirt, a baseball cap on backwards, and maybe sneakers to the date!! And that university course you took put you in hawk for the rest of your life.
To put it another way, people today have no idea what to do with themselves outside of their homes. They have far fewer friends. Usually, their imaginary friends are on US sitcoms and use dating services when their curiosity takes the best of them after their fifth porn for the night… or a better toy.
Is it any wonder that people continue not to shake hands after the pandemic?
Dear me, I just remembered that “hooked up” means an entirely different thing now.

Last edited 2 years ago by Fred Paul
chris sullivan
chris sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Fred Paul

very good thanks !

B Davis
B Davis
2 years ago

It remains a rule of thumb that if you need to spend money on sex, you’re probably not doing it right.” Perhaps it’s just Ms.Burchill’s thumb we reference?
Would we equally say, if you need to spend money on child-rearing, you’re probably not doing it right? If you need to spend money on jogging, you’re probably not doing it right? If you need to spend money on seeing, you’re probably not doing it right?
C’mon now…surely we all can recognize and understand that there any number of goods which are used by ordinary human beings (usually NOT the ones who appear on “How to Build a Sex Room”) to enhance otherwise ‘natural’ human experiences. Does that make the enhancement bad? Does it make the experience somehow ‘less’ than it otherwise might have been?
Yes, I could run a 5K with bare feet, but honestly don’t we all prefer shoes? Does that mean I’m running races wrong’?? You should try a bare-footed 5K if you thinks so.
The truth is that the effort to enhance “X” does not, in and of itself, devalue or destroy “X”. What the enhancement actually is….how it’s acquired…how it’s applied…how it’s perceived…how it’s REceived…all these things must be understood in the context of the marital relationship itself. Outside that context, the purchase examined in brutal isolation, is unknowable.
What we do know is that if a marriage is fundamentally broken, it can’t be fixed with a credit card.
Ms. Burchill ends by telling us, “… that when you’re in the first flush of horniness, every room is a sex room, and when the thrill has gone, no room is — no matter how much money you spend on your “high-end” consolation prize.” But what she misses is love.
In the absence of love, lust is everything. And lust dies (the thrill evaporates) in tiresome redundancy. But when love becomes lust becomes love & lust again…in perpetual amplifying spiral, then the so-called ‘sex room’ is exactly where you are, even if you’re both sitting there, in the family room, watching silly shows on Netflix.
Sex is not, per se, the act itself. Sex is everything, even the passing touch on the back of the neck when handing her her coffee.
When we are old & grey and lean to kiss the other, yes, we kiss her lips at 65…but we also kiss, in that same flashing instant, those same soft lips at 25…and 35…and 45. And when we look into the Other’s eyes, what we see is timeless. And what we see is Desire.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  B Davis

Beautiful. I agree entirely. Love endures forever.

Pete W
Pete W
2 years ago

Nice one Julie. For genuine eroticism on this subject, look no further than Tomasi di Lampedusa’s description in his classic The Leopard, of when the young lovers Tancredi and Angelika happen upon an ancient and long-unfrequented room in the family’s Donnafugata country estate. They are transfixed by an exquisite collection of silk binders, soft leather straps etc, and in a silent, mutual state of extreme arousal, don’t lay a finger on each other.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago

A lot of truth put over with good humour. The old ways endure for me. Stay pure until you are ready to marry. I am talking about a man and a woman. Nothing supercedes that. Create your own world but no third parties, no adultery, no porn just you two and the love you have for each other. It works. This will l offend some but it doesn’t change the truth.

Last edited 1 year ago by Tony Conrad
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago

Edward VII had one at Elveden when Maharajah Duleep Singh owned it… it is still there! A real brother boudoir, and if he selected your wife at a shooting dinner, you just had to put up with it… as did she: so, those who point shaking petit bourgeois fingers at today’s Royals should remember that the media and the internet has merely publicised what has gone on for hundreds of years!

Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
2 years ago

Oh go away Julie – have you ever had good sex in your life ever? My late husband and I were into kink, nothing to do with trends because we started in the late 80s. Impact play can be incredibly sensual, as well as more hardcore, I love both personally. As a relatively young widow at 53, toys are my friend as I do not know if I will ever be ready for a relationship with another man after losing my husband of 33 years. Our relationship was always fully consensual, in fact it was me who encouraged my husband into kink in the first place. I hate this kind of sneering dismissal of those of us who enjoy something other than vanilla – infantalising? Do not presume to tell the rest of us what is, or is not, acceptable or satisfying in our sex lives! This article has raised my blood pressure, not a good thing given its pretty high at the moment.

Last edited 2 years ago by Nikki Hayes
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
1 year ago
Reply to  Nikki Hayes

You are saying Nikki that a little kink can be part of a good marriage and is nothing to do with what is going on today. Some have been like this for decades and shouldn’t be put in a box with the immoral outside marriage stuff that goes on today. If that is what you are saying I agree. Anyway these things are private between two people in a marriage so really it is nothing to do with the world.

Hugh R
Hugh R
2 years ago

Jaybie is knocking on, of course she is.
This was not an article that climaxed in a crescendo of fireworks and trains entering tunnels. No, for me, it was a vision of my maiden aunt asleep propped up on a mountain of pillows. There she is, scone crumbs down her cardy, and a half finished Barbara Cartland open on her lap, showing a couple of jammy fingerprints.

Bless her, she’s earned it.