How does a shy forty-one-year-old woman go about losing her virginity? Well, the first idea that suggested itself to me was newspaper ads. There were lonely heart ads in the local paper, and other ones called “contact” ads that were a bit more direct. “Tall, slim, healthy male, separated, seeks mutual pleasure and fulfilment with sympathetic woman.” That kind of thing. Not much question about the agenda. The biggest decision I had to make was whether to tell them about my... inexperience before I met them. I felt that I should, because I didn’t want any dishonesty, but when it came to writing an actual reply to one of the ads I found that I couldn’t say it. In fact what I said was a complete fabrication. I said that I had been in a long relationship which had ended a few months ago due to my partner’s death. It wasn’t too far off the truth and it let me keep a measure of my self respect. What was the alternative? I’m a repressed forty-one-year old virgin who has lived all her life with her mother and now wants to find out what, if anything, she’s been missing. No, I don’t think so.