Chitra Ramaswamy

Published on Thursday 2 April 2009 16:33

A London friend arrived on Friday night. The evening began with cocktails and ended with the two of us re-enacting Dirty Dancing. Again. My partner – in bed with earplugs – awoke at 5am to hear my friend earnestly pointing out that just because she has more muscular shoulders than me doesn't mean she should have to be Johnny. Again. Don't worry, we're good friends and we managed to resolve the dispute without any tears or mambo dance-offs. I got to be Baby, but we didn't do the l

Anyway, I digress. Earlier in the evening, when we were still having normal conversations, I asked my friend what her plans were for the rest of the weekend. "Oh, I'm having sex tomorrow night," she said breezily. She is single, which begs the question: how the hell did she know? This was either bravado of Madonna-in-Malawi proportions or big, fat talk. She looked pleased with herself. "Who with? Have you had sex with him before?" I pursued. "Only at Christmas," she shrugged.

My friend is the Samantha Jones of my circle, though I hasten to add that I hate those "Which Sex and the City character are you?" Cosmo quizes that masquerade as the road to female empowerment. No one ever asks a man which one he is in The A-team. There are more than four kinds of women. Still, since there used to be just two – virgin and whore – I guess it's progress.

Sorry, lost my thread again. Ah yes, my sexually liberated friend. She had been wanting to have sex with this man since she took down her Christmas tree but had now gone off the idea. "I can't be bothered to shave my legs," she confessed. The last time they rolled in the hay, she apologised for her hairy legs and said, "They're not normally like this." In other words, she told a sex lie and now had to follow through.

Welcome to the world of 21st-century sexually liberated women. We plan when, where, how often and with whom we do it, and then freak out about furry pins.

But my friend is a cut above. She texted him to find out for sure if they were on or not, because if it wasn't a case of, er, satisfaction guaranteed she wouldn't bother shaving. Now, that's what I call progress.