I don't know about you, but I'm sick to death of conservative folks complaining that if modern women continue on the path they're currently on, (with supposed rampant casual sex dalliances and shacking up with blokes they don't intend to marry), that we'll be left single, desolate and alone forever.

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" seems to be the current catchphrase of conservative folks as they pooh-pooh and tut-tut over the modern femme's independent prowess.

But a reader with the non de plum Truc, heartily disagrees. "Does sex really matter in the first place?" she asks. The reason she wants to know is this: "My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years now and we've never been intimate because I don't believe in sex before marriage.

He feels OK about it, however my friends think in crazy and say 'Its like buying a car, you have to try before you buy'. They ask me what if he can't perform later on, or if his bits are too small. Does that really matter when you love somebody?"
Sex before marriage is a topic that regularly surfaces on this blog, and one that many of us share strong opinions on. But if we take a different approach to this question and answer her real conundrum: is sex really that important??

Ask any man and the answer will be a resounding yes. In fact, I recently came across an interesting Canadian survey (carried out by Leger Marketing for Aero), which found for men, sex is almost five times more important than chocolate!

Not surprisingly, the women responded that chocolate and sex were equally important. (Who would have thought?) And, one in five femmes wouldn't like to give up the booze for either.

Feminist author Fay Weldon would probably agree with the chocolate theory. According to her tome, What Makes Women Happy, female orgasms do not make a smiling woman. In fact she says they have no purpose, (to her), whatsoever.

"Female orgasm has no apparent usefulness to the human race," she chortles. Instead of putting a smile on our dial, or sending us into bliss like it does to the gents, she says that happy, generous-minded women will do the only sensible thing in the situation: they'll fake their orgasm so at least one person gets to enjoy the lead up.

"Just fake it," she says. Because by her reckoning, most women are after true love, not orgasms anyway.

Now I know you gals are thinking this is all a load of bollocks, so I canvassed sex expert and relationships pyschologist Jo-Anne Baker of the Pleasure Spot, to give us the ins and outs.

Her theory is that the big problem is the missing G-spot.

"The G-Spot has been a controversial subject for many years, it was first discovered by Ernest Graffenberg in the 1940's. Some people believe it to be the female equivalent of the male prostate. It is a cluster of nerve endings and glands, part of the urethra which when stimulated can result in female ejaculation."

And if it can't be found?

Well, according to the experts, 70 per cent of women don't ever orgasm anyway ...

So back to Truc's question: how important is sex? Do you have to try before you buy? And is sex more important to men than women?

What do you think? And for something a little fun, I thought we'd do our own survey ... Sex, chocolate or alcohol? And which would you not mind giving up first?