The Sex Trap

Writer Ed Vanstone sifts through the aspects of life most crucial to your health and happiness. This month, a little bit of the other

- Ed Vanstone

LESS SEX. It’s not often among life’s big regrets, so the old joke runs, mumbled on your deathbed. But when it comes to the final analysis – light fading, family crowding near – few would argue that little matters more than the successes (and failures) of your romantic relationships.

In his 2010 novel The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis puts it more succinctly. “Unusually for a 20-year-old,” Amis’s narrator writes, “…Keith was aware that he was going to die. More than that, he knew that when the process began, the only thing that would matter was how it had gone with women.” How it has gone with women. Sexually. Romantically. Conjugally. This, in the end, is how we judge ourselves. Riches, prizes and fame be damned. Did you get the girl you liked the most? And did she stay?