It's supposed to be tender, romantic, intimate... But sometimes sex is
just a embarrassing cock-up. These women were willing to cringe and tell
about their Sexual Blunders:

"One night my boyfriend and I came back to my flat from a party a bit
tipsy. As I walked in, I switched on the answering machine to hear if
there were any messages. At that point, he started kissing me, and we
ended up having noisy, wildly energetic sex on the floor right there in
the entrance hall. After work the next evening my mum came round for
coffee. On my way to the kitchen, I switched the answering machine on
again and, as we settled down with our mugs for a chat, the unmistakable
and definitely X-rated sounds of our lovemaking suddenly echoed loudly
through the flat. I must have hit the record button rather than the
playback button the night before... My mother prides herself on being
broadminded, but this was just too much for her. She slopped coffee all
over herself."
Maureen, manager, 25

"One Christmas, I went with my boyfriend to his parents' home for a few
days. They are quite open-minded and on our first morning his father
brought us tea in bed. This was embarrassing enough, but as he turned to
walk out the door, I noticed that he was standing on a condom we had
recklessly discarded on the carpet during the night. It was stuck, like
a persistent piece of Sellotape, to his slipper. I was hysterical and we
couldn't think of what to say to him. "Excuse me, father, there's a
condom stuck to your foot." (I think not.) Afterwards we decided to act
as if nothing had happened and so did he. But I wasn't able to look him
straight in the eye again for the rest of the holiday."
Jane, estate agent, 25

"One afternoon I was home alone in the flat I share with two friends,
feeling "experimental". I looked around for something vibrator-ish, and
settled for a cucumber. I had a wonderful time lazing in the lounge,
listening to music and playing around with the cucumber. When I was
finished, I left it lying on the table and drifted off to have a long
bath, thinking I would have plenty of time to throw it away and clean
up  before my flatmates came back. Unfortunately, they returned while I
was in the bath - ravenous. The next thing I knew they were offering me
a spinach and bacon salad with ...cucumber. I didn't have the heart to
ask them if they had washed it. I said, "No thanks, I'm not hungry" -
and I wasn't."
Angela, buyer, 31

"On our first holiday together, we went to Mauritius where we had booked
a room in a lovely hotel. On our first night there, we had cocktails and
then went for a romantic stroll along the beach. When we came back, we
lay down on one of the chaise lounges next to the pool. It seemed
deserted and we started getting really steamy. I kept looking around to
check that there was absolutely no- one there - and there wasn't. So we
slipped out of our clothes and slid into the pool to see if it was
possible to have sex under water. We were doing quite well with our
experiment when suddenly, out of nowhere, a member of the hotel staff
appeared and told us, very politely, that it was better to keep intimacy
to our bedroom. The pool, he added, had an underwater window that made
up one of the walls of the hotel's disco, and we had been the floor show
for all the guests who were dancing -until they had seen us. I was so
humiliated that I made my boyfriend check us out of the hotel first
thing the next morning, and I spent the rest of the holiday dreading the
flight back in case anyone recognized us."
Elana, publisher, 32

"I was about 18 I first went down on a man. It was winter and we were
cuddled up under a heap of duvets. When he guided my head down, I didn't
really know what to do, so I was quite relieved when I heard him telling
me. Although his voice was rather muffled by all the bedding, I did
catch the words, "bite ... bite", so I tried an experimental nibble or
two. Then he started pulling my hair a bit, which I took as a sign of
him getting carried away with passion. Assuming this meant that he was
really enjoying what I was doing, I became a bit braver and nibbled
harder. Suddenly I heard a howl of pain. Only after I'd scrambled out
from under the covers to find out what I was doing wrong did I realise
he'd been saying, "don't bite, don't bite". Telling him that it was my
first time didn't make it any better."
Nomsa, record company executive, 25

"My husband and I, although devout Christians, enjoy a varied and
experimental sex life. I don't think there's anything wrong with a
little role-playing in the privacy of your marriage bed. We have quite a
well-stocked cupboard of fantasy outfits: a little black and white
frilly maid's outfit, an old- fashioned princess gown, a highwayman's
outfit and some rather racy costumes - a bit of vinyl and leather too. A
few months ago my mother- in-law came over one evening to baby-sit our
one-year old and my sister's two daughters. While she was watching
television, the girls - one eight and the other ten - decided to play
"dress up" with the contents of Auntie Trina's cupboard. Imagine my
horror when my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law and I arrived home
to find the 10-year-old attired in a black corset with red lacy
underwear and the eight-year-old dressed as an Egyptian slave-girl. My
mother-in-law was even more horrified. She'd had no idea what was going
on because the girls had been hiding in our bedroom waiting to
'surprise' us - and they weren't disappointed! They had five
open-mouthed adults staring at them in utter amazement. My sister was
furious - and still is, I'm afraid."
Trina, pharmacist, 27

"I'm shy and quite conventional sexually. I'm happiest in the missionary
position. My boyfriend, however, is much more experimental and
encourages me to try different positions. Once, he persuaded me to get
onto all fours and was becoming very excited, ready to enter me from
behind. The mood was right: he'd been coaxing me, convincing me that it
was beautiful between two loving adults and  there was soft music
playing on the stereo, when I let off the most enormous fart. Revolting!
I was so embarrassed that I just wanted the ground to swallow me up. He
laughed and didn't seem to mind at all, which was sweet of him, but my
sexual education was put back by at least 10 steps."
Elaine, pump jockey, 22

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