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The former Erotic Review magazine editor answers your sex questions...
QUESTION: I am eight months pregnant with my first child and am feeling increasingly nervous about the effect the birth might have on my hitherto wonderful sex life. So many of my mummy friends seem to take perverse pleasure in telling me horror stories about it never being the same again or about husbands who couldn't face making love to their wives after witnessing difficult births. I'm already feeling depressed because my libido has nosedived with every month of the pregnancy. My husband is being wonderfully supportive, but I know he's disappointed by my lack of desire. Is it all downhill from now on?


I command you to stop talking to your mummy friends. Think of them as seasoned soldiers wilfully telling hair-raising stories to young recruits, then laughing to one another: 'Did you see her face!'
I had my first boy by emergency C-section, and when I decided to eschew an elective Caesarean to have my second child naturally at home, some of my oldest friends couldn't resist amping up the terror.
One warned 'You'll never be able to bounce on a trampoline again' - not that I ever did or do. This, apparently, was because my pelvic floor would have taken such a bashing.
Then they all weighed in with tales of how they 'couldn't sit down comfortably for six months'.
There appears to be some form of maternal conspiracy by which all expectant mums shall be terrorised within an inch of their sanity by those who have gone before.
Nobody is allowed to break ranks and say 'Actually, I had a perfectly straightforward birth, my undercarriage is fine and my husband and I were back in the saddle within six weeks', although there are plenty of births like that - because you will look smug, and smug is the arch mummy crime.
For some reason, the crime of smugness does not seem to apply to pregnant mums who boast of how sexy they feel.
Don't ask me why the rules are different on this one, I didn't make them up, but I suspect it's got something to do with the fact that pregnant women are viewed as goddesses, while labouring women are seen as martyrs.
All I know is that the divine radiance of Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie et al when pregnant looked smug as hell from where I sat and, excuse my bitter little brain, I wanted to nuke them with slurry.
I'm not saying the hormonal glow thing is a myth - many non-celeb women feel a sexy surge - it's just that an equal number of females experience pregnancy as a hormonal grump.