Daily Telegraph Archive

The reasons for non-consummation are the same as ever, she reports, in spite of our apparent enlightenment on sexual matters. “Some fail to consummate because of parental prohibition: they think their parents would be against it. Some need to be told it’s all right to do this thing. Some married women have

Others say they’re both Christian and so didn’t do it before they got married—and then cannot bear to do it after marriage. For them, sex has been built up into such a magnificence, with the Earth moving and the communion of the spirit that it can seem such a disappointment the first

In some bedrooms, it seems, the Victorian age lives on. There are still men like John Ruskin, who failed to consummate his marriage due to the shock, on his wedding night, of finding out that women had pubic hair; hitherto he had only seen smoothly sculpted, “naked” classical statues. Ross Clark, Not

There was a time when failing to consummate a marriage was something to sing about: before the advent of the monasteries, which took celibates out of circulation, not doing it with your husband or wife was seen as a virtue. Ross Clark, “Not tonight, darling”, Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1996 Favorite0

But according to Julia Cole… it is not the broad technical details that modern married couples lack so much as the artistry. A wag once commented that school sex education told you everything about the sexual act—except for the fact that you would very likely enjoy it. Ross Clark, Not tonight, darling,