The Fifty Shades effect: why sex talking 'clubs' are the new book clubs

It’s a cold winter's Wednesday night in Hoxton, east London, but things are heating up in one softly-lit apartment, filled with chocolate parquet floors and Moroccan lanterns. 

Trays of virgin mojitos and canapés are neatly arranged in one corner, and perched on red velvet cushions around the others are some 20 professional women, ranging in age from 25 to 45. All, at first glance, look like the kind of nice, normal people you might share an escalator with at Peter Jones.

All are also members of Scarlet Ladies, a new all-female club that models itself on the book club formula – drinks, nibbles, gossip, no men – only the chosen theme is not books, but sex.

Scarlet Ladies is a new, all-female sex club

The club reflects a wider change in social attitudes. Most of us talk about the sexual revolution taking place in the 1960s and 1970s - as if it both started and ended then, but, in truth, changes in sexual behaviour are still going on. New boundaries are constantly being crossed. 

Tomorrow night, psychotherapist Philippa Perry will present Channel 4’s Great British Sex Survey, a taboo-breaking show based on a nationwide survey that quizzed more than 2,000 Brits on the most intimate area of their lives, and posits that 'kinky sex' has become much more widespread - if not quite the new norm - across all demographics.

Back in 2011, before Fifty Shades fever properly took hold, the results of an earlier Channel 4 survey revealed that it was the over-45's who were the most likely to use certain outré items such as nipple clamps - and Waitrose shoppers, a category synonymous surely with the most demure and conservative of British values, the most likely to have had sex on the beach.

In the context of this brave new world, it is perhaps little wonder that there is a growing appetite for clubs such as these, where women of all ages have the opportunity to bring their sex lives out from under the covers, without fear of judgement.

Philippa Perry hosts the Great British Sex Survey CREDIT: MARTIN POPE

The Hoxton sex club was founded just six months ago by Jannette Davies, 28, a bubbly British Sierra Leonean blogger, and Sarah Beilfuss, a 34, a German ‘burnout and fatigue’ health coach. The pair are friends though not obvious kindred spirits. “Our reasons for starting the club are very different,” says Sarah. “Jannette is sexually quite liberated, but I have a lot of hang-ups.”

Together they are determined to transform the way women navigate sex. “One of our goals is to normalise sexuality,” says Sarah, the more thoughtful and serious of the two. “Sex is a major part of who we are. There should be sex talks in every neighbourhood.”

"45 to 54 year-olds were the most likely to use nipple clamps"

The evening kicks off with short introductions from a panel representing the more risqué end of the spectrum. Joining us tonight is a leather-trousered blonde called Emma (posh, athletic and boarding school-educated) who organises ‘tasteful’ sex parties, a leggy, scantily-clad brunette called Catherine who specialises in ‘authentic tantra’ (her female lover is sitting among us) and a voluptuous Polish sex blogger called Natalie, who teaches workshops on the female orgasm.

Intriguingly a fourth panellist, a Good Housekeeping journalist, has failed to turn up. Did she get caught up testing the vol-au-vents in the Good Housekeeping Institute - or cold feet?

Will sex clubs replace book clubs? CREDIT: FILM STILLS

This week’s special topic – ‘orgasm assertiveness’ – has attracted even more fortysomethings than usual. “As they get older, women realise they can’t blame their partners for their dissatisfaction,” says Sarah. “They start to understand that they have to take things into their own hands. At 19, very few women have that sense of responsibility.”

As a member of the older crowd who have paid £15 to attend tonight’s event, Hastings mother, Clare, 41, says it’s important to “make time” for this side of life: “Here I can have frank and funny conversations and nobody bats an eyelid.”

So what of tonight’s hot topic? Sarah reels off a few figures. “Only 25 per cent of women reliably experience orgasm,” she says, solemn-faced. “Five per cent never have one.” For men it’s a different story: ‘Seventy-five per cent orgasm every single time through penetrative sex,” she says. “And if they don’t, they get a medical diagnosis.”

“As they get older, women realise they can’t blame their partners for their dissatisfaction”

Sarah Beilfuss, health coach

Nobody appears to be remotely downcast by the news that men have it easier. Within seconds members pitch in with tales of their own experiences. One woman says she had her first orgasm aged just five! Another says it was with a boyfriend at 23 (“I was a late bloomer”).  

Disclosure levels are high: one woman claims to have orgasms from bench presses at the gym. “What’s wrong with me?” wails one club member. “I go to the gym six times a week.” Another says she often climaxes when travelling solo on packed trains (apparently it’s all in the mind; she doesn’t move an inch). Men with erectile dysfunction or other performance problems, it’s suggested, can make the best lovers. “They put a lot of thought into their craft.” 

"Only 25% of women reliably experience orgasm" CREDIT: REX FEATURES

Meanwhile Catherine, the tantric goddess, tells us there are “over 50 types of orgasm”. She points to various improbable parts of her body - calves, anyone? - while several of us gasp in a mixture of wonder and incredulity.

Unnamed husbands and lovers pepper the discussions, though there is very little man bashing. “Hands up who’s ever faked an orgasm?” says Sarah. One in three arms are raised. I cast my eyes about the room: it’s a brave thing to admit to in public, but then some studies put the figure as high as 80 per cent.

Where does all this talking and learning about sex actually take us?

Does having an orgasm matter? “Sex should be about pleasure, less about orgasm as an end goal,” says Sarah, hopefully. Nobody looks convinced. From there we revert to orgasm tips. We’re told that pelvic floor exercises are a must (Natalie, the more practically-minded panellist, swears by Minna Life’s kGoal kegel trainer, which allows you to track your efforts on a smartphone app, much like a Fitbit for other bits). We're advised to read Dr Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are, a book that uncovers the science of female desire. We learn, too, that eating cinnamon is great for “awakening the erotic energies”.

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At the end of the evening, I buttonhole the woman sitting next to me. Katy, 36, is an attractive City lawyer who hails from Derbyshire and describes herself as “hetero, on the whole”. I notice she hasn’t spoken out. Does she find all this sharing a bit toe-curling, a bit too Oprah? “I’m here to learn,” she says. “Everyone has issues in their sex lives that need exploring. And it’s interesting to hear the different speakers. It makes me feel normal.”

Isn't all this sharing a bit too Oprah? CREDIT: PAUL REDMOND/WIREIMAGE

The Hoxton club is no one-off. Actress and writer Florence Keith-Roach, 28, launched her own sex club two years ago; its aim, to create “an encouraging open space” where her female friends, an arty mix of architects, curators and set designers, can “voice their fears” and “explore their sexuality”.

Members meet monthly in different people’s flats, just like a book club, but the conversation is a long way from Middlemarch. “Women talk about sex all the time,” says the actress, a Classics graduate and English rose who trod the boards with Cressida Bonaslast year, and is currently appearing in a play at London’s Vault Festival. “The difference is we’re trying to do it with a critical and questioning eye.”

But where does all this talking and learning about sex actually take us? “It teaches women how to have a better time in bed,” says psychosexual therapist Kate Moyle, who regularly counsels couples unhappy with their sex lives. 

But doesn’t it leave men feeling left out - or under fire? “Not at all,’ says Moyle, who has just launched ‘Pillow’, an intimacy app designed to draw couples closer. “It means women have the confidence to ask men for what they want. That way both sexes enjoy it more and want to do it more often.”