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The end of another long day. Like thousands of women across the country I have spent the evening on a treadmill of duty — preparing dinner, ferrying children around, policing homework and then, finally, sorting laundry for the morning.

Now, as the Ten O’clock news finishes, I wipe my last surface and switch on the dishwasher. The house is blissfully quiet. Then a voice — my husband’s — calls hopefully from the top of the stairs: ‘Are you coming to bed now?’

Standing there, dishcloth in hand, my heart actually sinks. This is the moment when I know that my day is far from finished. There is still one, last, conjugal chore to be performed(...)

‘It’s the nights when I come to bed and can hear him in the bathroom gurgling with mouthwash and “freshening” that I start to panic,’ one friend admits. ‘Sometimes I manage to creep back downstairs really quickly before he’s seen me and I spend the next hour or so in the utility room ironing so I don’t have to come up with yet another excuse as to why I don’t want sex(...)’


Married women aged 16 to 24 have sex on average six times every four weeks. This falls to twice in four weeks for women in the 45 to 59 age group(...)