Apparently the key to having really good sex is to dedicate a room in your house to it, or at least according to the hot new trends for sex in 2020 compiled by the Sun. They’re not the only ones who think so, though. Logan Roy – otherwise known as actor Brian Cox – told the Guardian that he and his wife keep things lively by meeting up in a room a few floors below their apartment. ‘It’s basically her room’ he says ‘and I’m allowed to visit occasionally’.
Now there’s certainly a question of correlation and causation here. People who have enough living space that they’re not sharing it with housemates – [itals] and [itals] can afford a house with a spare room – are probably in a more sexually liberating situation because they’re not surrounded by other people or living on the breadline.
But there’s more to it than that. Earlier this year, my partner and I moved from a one-bed to a two-bed flat, and we I found that the research was entirely accurate.
We never intended to have a dedicated sex room - a concept too Christian Grey for words. But because it’s a little more private in terms of the window orientations, we fell into a pattern of having sex in the spare room, and things developed from there. Before long, going into the spare room was a non-verbal signal that we wanted to get on it. We’ve quite literally carved out space in our lives to have sex, and it’s worked.
Before we moved we were having sex two or three times a week; now it’s more like four or five. Where once we were only sleeping together when we were actually sleeping together; because we were in bed, so why not? Now it’s an active choice that we’re making.
The quality of sex also seems to have improved. Perhaps because the spare room has more space, or because I don’t have to look at the laundry basket during foreplay. It’s like a little piece of escapism, without leaving the house. It mimics the feeling that you get when you arrive at a hotel room with your partner and suddenly you’re like a couple of horny teenagers all over again.
The only real downside of the sex bedroom is that it means that I spend a lot of time my changing the sheets. But in every other sense, it has been an enormous boost to our sex life, which nearly seven years into our relationship needs the occasional leg up.
Having a dedicated sex room isn’t the most democratic of advice, I’m aware. Having separate bedrooms where one party visits the other in order to have sex is well-traversed ground for the very grand, as fans of The Crown will know. Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary once famously told her parents, ‘You know, really smart people sleep in separate beds’.
Having a spare room at all is an enormous privilege, let alone one that we can afford to use for sex and guests rather than renting it out to drum up some extra income. It’s not a luxury that I will always be able to enjoy. If, and when, we have children we’ll have to repurpose it as a nursery, like a sort of funeral for our sex life. But, just as some people will make their singular spare scrap of living space into a ‘man-cave’ (shudder), a study or a gym, our priority is our sex life. So it’s the sex room.
If, like a lot of people, you don’t have a spare room, or you’re not in a position to convert it into a boudoir, there are still ways to use this research as an adrenaline shot for your sex life. The quickest and easiest suggestion is to visit a hotel for a night and enjoy the sense of escapism that they bring. If you’re tight on cash or annual leave, you could try DayUse.com, a website that allows you to rent a room for a few hours. My husband and I tried it (for an article) a few years ago and were surprised by what an aphrodisiac it was that the receptionist thought we were having an affair.
But again, family life and finances might preclude even a snatched few hours in a hotel. In which case, banning phones and laptops from the bed, tidying your room (or at least shoving the mess in the wardrobe), lighting some candles and playing some music is a good start. Sex cliches are cliches for a good reason - because they work.
Whether it’s a dedicated room with wall-to-wall leather equipment, or your normal bedroom with The XX playing and a couple of scented candles, the important thing is to allow your space to be about intimacy and excitement, rather than function.