![\"Saira](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2016\/05\/20\/01\/345EA0B300000578-0-image-a-25_1463702500594.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAs marital bombshells go, it was quite a big one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saira Khan, runner-up on the first series of The Apprentice and a regular presenter on ITV\u2019s lunchtime talk show, Loose Women, stunned viewers on Wednesday by revealing she\u2019s gone off sex so much she would rather her husband, 51-year-old Steven Hyde, had carnal relations with someone else.<\/p>\n
\u2018We used to have a fantastic sex life,\u2019 she said. \u2018I still love my husband; we cuddle and it\u2019s lovely. But I\u2019m not interested. I don\u2019t want to. I\u2019ve lost the desire and I find I make excuses from around 6pm.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Saira Khan, runner-up on the first series of The Apprentice and a regular presenter on ITV\u2019s lunchtime talk show, Loose Women, stunned viewers on Wednesday by revealing she\u2019s gone off sex so much she would rather her husband, 51-year-old Steven Hyde, had carnal relations with someone else<\/p>\n
So non-existent is her libido that even the slightest prospect of a romantic marital encounter fills her with panic.<\/p>\n
\u2018The other day I was dressed up to go out and he told me I looked nice,\u2019 she added. \u2018I was like \u201cThanks!\u201d \u2014 and ran out.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m embarrassed to say this,\u2019 she continued. \u2018But I told him: \u201cYou can go with someone else if you want.\u201d I want to make him happy. He\u2019ll kill me for saying this … Am I the only one?\u2019<\/p>\n While many viewers expressed their shock at her candour, she later justified her confession by saying that she thought it might help others.<\/p>\n \u2018I like to share so that it can make people feel better that they are not the only ones,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n I suspect poor Mr Hyde isn\u2019t quite so keen on her social philanthropy \u2014 he was certainly quick to deny the couple have any such arrangement.<\/p>\n And deep down, I\u2019m sure if he did take her up on her offer, and seek sexual solace elsewhere, she\u2019d be very hurt. But give Khan her due: she raises a massive problem for modern women.<\/p>\n So non-existent is her libido that even the slightest prospect of a romantic marital encounter fills her with panic<\/p>\n Let\u2019s face it, the life of the modern working mother (Khan and Hyde have two small children, Amara, five, and Zac, seven) is not exactly ripe with erotic potential.<\/p>\n In fact, one of the many problems with Having It All is that, more often than not, this translates into Doing It All. Which, if you\u2019re not careful, leads to Not Doing It At All.<\/p>\n I believe Khan when she says she loves her husband \u2014 but that sex for her is just not appealing any more.\u00a0<\/p>\n And I strongly disagree with the view of Harry Benson, spokesman for the Marriage Foundation, who, when asked his opinion on Ms Khan\u2019s outburst, said he thought her lack of sex drive could be a symptom of deeper problems with the relationship.<\/p>\n \u2018Sex is usually a pretty good barometer of a marriage,\u2019 he said. \u2018If one person has lost [their sex drive] completely, the chances are there is a wider problem in the marriage.\u2019<\/p>\n This is a narrow point of view. There are plenty of couples who are happily married but for whom sex is not really a feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n Besides, a falling-off of sexual activity throughout the course of a long marriage is perfectly normal. After the initial excitement, things inevitably become a little perfunctory.<\/p>\n I believe Khan when she says she loves her husband \u2014 but that sex for her is just not appealing any more<\/p>\n It was ever thus. It\u2019s only in recent decades that marital sex has become the subject of ever higher expectations, with celebrities endlessly bragging about the many and varied ways they like to \u2018keep the passion alive\u2019.<\/p>\n We can\u2019t all be Trudie Styler, you know, having tantric sex with Sting all day long. Nor, frankly, would you want to be.<\/p>\n The unspoken truth about women and their sex-drives is that the female libido, especially in long-term relationships, often has nothing to do with the way they feel about their partner \u2014 and absolutely everything to do with the way they feel about themselves.<\/p>\n Despite the best efforts of third-wave feminists to turn us all into Samanthas from Sex And The City \u2014 heartless, bed-hopping cougars with an insatiable, indiscriminate desire for male flesh \u2014 sex for most women is still very bound up in their emotions and self-esteem.<\/p>\n Self-confidence is a key issue in female sexuality. If a woman feels happy and secure about herself, she will project a greater aura of sexiness. She\u2019ll also feel sexier in herself.<\/p>\n But if she lacks confidence, either emotionally or physically, this can erode her desire. It can be anything, from a fat stomach to extreme tiredness to just, well, a sense that she\u2019s not making the best of things.<\/p>\n Working mothers \u2014 such as Khan \u2014 experience these doubts acutely. Even without the external pressures on women to look perfect, a punishing schedule combined with working-mother guilt can wreak havoc.<\/p>\n Working mothers \u2014 such as Khan \u2014 experience these doubts acutely. Even without the external pressures on women to look perfect, a punishing schedule combined with working-mother guilt can wreak havoc<\/p>\n Childbirth changes you for good, emotionally and physically; and yet the world expects us to \u2018snap back\u2019 into full pre-pregnancy sex-kitten mode immediately.<\/p>\n For men, their wives\u2019 reluctance to have sex must seem completely baffling. To them, they are as beautiful as the day they married. They don\u2019t really mind about the jelly belly or the lumpy thighs.\u00a0<\/p>\n And they tell them so all the time.<\/p>\n Trouble is, women don\u2019t listen. Or if they do, all reason is drowned out by the voices in their head, that ones that tell them constantly how useless they are. How old and fat and totally inadequate.<\/p>\n They see a world obsessed with female perfection, a world where only the lithe and beautiful deserve to have sex. A world in which they don\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to underestimate the levels of self-loathing that affect women these days. Take a straw poll of any group of women, even the most outwardly successful, and the majority will find themselves wanting in one way or another.<\/p>\n When you look at the type of women who are held up as icons, it\u2019s easy to see how these insecurities \u2014 which we all have \u2014 are reinforced and fuelled.<\/p>\n Just take, for example, the photos emanating from Cannes this week: an endless succession of perfect bodies barely clothed.<\/p>\n It used to be easy for women like me, in our late 40s, just to ignore these images.\u00a0<\/p>\n Model Bella Hadid, who redefined the notion of how little can pass for a dress in a red number slit every which way possible, is about 12. I wouldn\u2019t dream of comparing myself with her. But now we don\u2019t even have age as an excuse any more.<\/p>\n Women such as Helen Mirren, who looks outstanding for 70, have raised the bar impossibly high.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s no coincidence that Khan described being panicked by the thought of sex: that is a woman in the grip of anxiety<\/p>\n Nowadays, a woman has to look hot to trot well into her 80s \u2014 or it\u2019s shame on you.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see why any ordinary woman would look down at her imperfect body in the bath or in front of her bedroom mirror and ask herself: \u2018Why would anyone want to sleep with that?\u2019 If we don\u2019t love ourselves, why would anyone else want to?<\/p>\n And the more stressed we get about our inadequacies, the less able we are to let go. It\u2019s no coincidence that Khan described being panicked by the thought of sex: that is a woman in the grip of anxiety.<\/p>\n This generation of women has the highest incidence of depression ever recorded. According to a recent study, one in three of the female population has taken antidepressants at some point \u2014 and those are just the ones who admit to it.<\/p>\n Others simply self-medicate with alcohol \u2014 the infamous wine-o-clockers \u2014 or food. Or both.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a well-known fact that antidepressants \u2014 especially those in common usage, such as fluoxitine, a SSRI, or Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor \u2014 suppress normal sexual desire.<\/p>\n As for our reliance on food for comfort \u2014 well, it only leads one way: to obesity. We have gone from being a nation that seeks its pleasure in family, relationships, books and music to one that finds happiness in a family-sized bucket of KFC.<\/p>\n Of course, sex hasn\u2019t gone away. It\u2019s just that rather than make the effort to do it ourselves, we seem to enjoy watching others do it.<\/p>\n Online porn has had a huge effect, not just on the younger generation, but also on the expectations of the older.<\/p>\n Put it this way: I\u2019m at least a stone overweight, I\u2019ve got jelly belly and bingo wings, I\u2019m almost as wide as I am tall \u2014 how in God\u2019s name am I going to compete with Katriona from Yalta with her caramel-coloured limbs and perfect (artificial) breasts?\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the internet is swarming with Gwyneth Paltrow and the Helmsley sisters wannabes, all plying their mantras of perfect living and promoting impossible lifestyles that either require acres of leisure time or bottomless bank accounts \u2014 or both.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s Mrs Average is tired, depressed, demoralised, overwhelmed, often tipsy and if not actually fat, she almost certainly thinks she is.<\/p>\n No wonder we\u2019re not much fun in bed.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all so different from my parents\u2019 generation. They didn\u2019t have online porn to remind them how sexually inadequate they were; there was no Instagram, chock-a-block with people doing inside-out yoga and dining on courgetti-spaghetti.<\/p>\n The curse of the camera phone was not yet upon us. It was possible to go entire years without being photographed, never mind being coerced into taking a selfie.<\/p>\n I suspect poor Mr Hyde isn\u2019t quite so keen on her social philanthropy. And deep down, I\u2019m sure if he did take her up on her offer, and seek sexual solace elsewhere, she\u2019d be very hurt. But give Khan her due: she raises a massive problem for modern women<\/p>\n A girl could happily delude herself that she looked the same at 40 as she did at 20: chances are there would be very little visual evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n Nigella Lawson had not yet persuaded us that food was better than sex, and feminism had not yet persuaded women that in order to succeed, they had to behave like men.<\/p>\n We need to slow down, relax and think again.<\/p>\n We need to stop stuffing our bodies full of drugs.<\/p>\n We need to stop living our lives vicariously through celebrities and learn to inhabit our own skins again.<\/p>\n Because, after all, sex with someone you love and trust \u2014 and one who loves and trusts you \u2014 is one of life\u2019s great joys.<\/p>\n It would be a colossal shame if it disappeared for ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As marital bombshells go, it was quite a big one.\u00a0 Saira Khan, runner-up on the first series of The Apprentice and a regular presenter on ITV\u2019s lunchtime talk show, Loose Women, stunned viewers on Wednesday by revealing she\u2019s gone off sex so much she would rather her husband, 51-year-old Steven Hyde, had carnal relations with Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2016\/05\/19\/01\/345C808700000578-0-image-m-33_1463617102864.jpg\")
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