Sainsbury’s thinks it can help the one in three Brits who are not happy in the bedroom by selling cheap sex toys. So now you can buy a dildo with your duck and all will be well. I don’t think so. Can you imagine anything less sexy than something called a rose gold bullet arriving with your carrots? Imagine if you get them confused and accidentally roast it? Actually, by the look of it, it might improve its performance. It’s not that I think it’s inappropriate (I loathe that word it immediately makes we want to be as inappropriate as possible) but I just don’t think it’s very sexy. A lot sex is in the mind. Most would agree that a large element of attraction, lust, love or whatever you want to call the thing that compels us to leap into bed with someone that is dependent on how we feel mentally. And a sex toy you associate with a supermarket just doesn’t really cut it.
Give me the French way of buying sex toys any day. I once had to research the subject for a book I was writing on French women and found myself in the basement of Sonia Rykiel in Paris. Any savvy Parisian knows this candle-lit basement on the left bank is the only place not to be seen buying sex toys. The choice ranges from the rather scary (I never did find out what an arse-blaster does) to the positively tame. The standout (pardon the pun) best-seller being the pink rabbit. An extremely knowledgeable, pretty sales assistant explained how it worked, its various speeds and how best to look after it. Naturally, I made my excuses and left, but if I ever am in the market for a sex toy I will be heading to Paris, and not Sainsbury’s.
Milk, butter, dildo anyone?
Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.
Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.
Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.
In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group.
Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.
Bibliography
More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004
Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)
All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006
Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007
Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006
Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007
So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)
More, More France; Gibson Square 2009
To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)
The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009
Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011
The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013
Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016
The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016
Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018
The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019