The ups and downs of modern love from the female perspective

An anonymous Life contributor bed-tests the new sexual enhancement creams for women.

There is something a little desperate about trying a sexual enhancement cream. When my good friend passed some on to me, she gave me a big wink and said rather pointedly that she didn't need it. The implication was that she had the sex drive of a mating elephant.

The stuff, she said, had been given to her by her friend who ran a sex toys shop. He (note he) said it was kindergarten stuff in comparison with the rest of his loot.

That night, feeling a little wimpy that I hadn't marched in and bought some for myself, I read the instructions and then wrestled with the microscopic tube of the delicately named Mycreme to dab the tiniest amount on my clitoris. (Why, as you age, does it become more difficult to open tubes and packets?) I then lay back with my partner - who, incidentally, does have the sex drive of a bull elephant - and waited.

Tingling started almost immediately, focusing my mind, and then I felt a pulse. Perhaps I am extremely susceptible to suggestion, but I did feel forgotten urges returning - a little like remembering an old song.

Two nights later I tried another version, Women's Zone, sent to me by yet another libidinous friend. Possibly helped by such a good response the first time, my performance was described as keen.

According to the instructions, what this gel does is create greater blood flow to the clitoris and results in maximum arousal. I started to think of myself like a bloke. You know what they say - women need heaps on the periphery while men want a bull's-eye, the more direct and explicit the better. Now I was becoming like them. A touch of this rather unattractive brown gel and I was away.

Of course we can all be marvellously intelligent in hindsight. I have always thought that the mind is our largest sex organ, and by making my clitoris huge in my awareness, the associations started.

However, during menopause, when hormones such as oestrogen ceased to roar around my body, so my thoughts about sex had dwindled. Now my body had a kick-start. As my partner puts it, using the cream is like jump-starting a car when the ignition is dead.

Certainly, before the magic cream it took him at least four hours of seductive looks, fondling, even a massage to get me this aroused. Isn't that why women prefer sex at night rather than at the crack of dawn?