ntering our mid-thirties, my
friends broadly divide into
three camps: those with
young children having
precious little sex, those
trying for children having
precisely timed sex and
those putting off children
having progressively
wilder sex. Obviously I’m
fascinated by the latter
group. Dabbling in
open relationships,
threesomes, masked
orgies in a Mayfair
mansion? Yes, yes, yes!
“Now anytime I sleep
with anyone I’m, like,
‘Spank me’,” says my friend Hannah —
firmly in camp three — over a bottle of red
in a London pub nestled among Soho’s porn
shops, strip clubs and first-date bars. “I’m
just a lot more, like, ‘This is what I want and
this is how I want to be having sex.’ ”
Like most unattached women I know,
Hannah — 35, strikingly attractive,
successful career in advertising — mainly
meets potential partners through Feeld, the
dating app “for couples and singles” that
caters to non-monogamists, polyamorists
(people who have multiple romantic
relationships) and the sexually liberated.
Feeld, which launched in 2014 and was
originally called 3nder until the rival
match-making app Tinder sued, has made
her more adventurous: “When you’re
texting people on the app, they ask what
you’re into, so you have to think about it
and write it down. That processing of those
thoughts starts fomenting ... stuff.” She
wonders whether watching more porn
throughout lonely lockdowns also shifted
her mindset: “Maybe that’s why I’m more
open to trying new things — threesomes,
sex parties, kink — that I wouldn’t have done
before.” Recently she enjoyed a booze-
fuelled ménage à trois with an old friend and
his girlfriend: “We’re lucky it worked out,
but it felt wise to stop there before it turned
into something more complicated.”
Free from our anxiety-ridden, man-
pleasing, often sexually performative
twenties, Hannah and I agree that our
thirties are a prime time for deeper
exploration of our sexuality. “We’ve got
confidence and self-assurance,” Hannah
says. “Plus, we’ve had the pandemic, which
has stunted growth in so many ways.
I feel I need to make up time.”
Over the past month, the more I’ve
grilled my wider social circle, the more I’ve
discovered how my outwardly strait-laced
friends are ripping up the monogamy
rulebook and delving into saucier fantasies.
Couples who’ve been together since
university are blowing hundreds on latex
and lingerie for sex parties such as Torture
Garden, a fetish club night, and Killing
Kittens, a members-only event where tickets
for couples typically cost about £220. Or
they’re swiping through dating apps to find
a “third” to join them between the sheets.
So has Britain been enjoying a bonking
spree since the last lockdown? Has the
pandemic unleashed more kinkiness? Are
people becoming increasingly open to the
idea of open relationships?
Although the much-discussed Covid
baby boom never materialised — the birth
rate in England and Wales dropped last
year — being stuck inside our homes for so
long inevitably affected our sex lives, libidos
and desires. After an initial surge in people
watching porn early on in lockdown, life
became too stressful during the darkest
days of the crisis to be horny, explains Kate
Lister, author of The Curious History of Sex.
E
HEADER Direction: This text is Sunday
Times Magazine dummy text. In
publishing and graphic design Odia
Above and previous pages: pleasure-seekers at a Killing Kittens night in London. Top right: Emma Sayle, the company’s founder and CEO
TV bonkbusters Bridgerton, top, and Normal
People, above, were hits during lockdown.
Right: Laura Pullman in Killing Kittens garb
28 • The Sunday Times Magazine
