“I was 22 the first time I had sex. I had been going out with Irfan for almost a year,” says Anjeli.

“He recited a poem for me before class over a breakfast of tea and biscuits. And just like that we became a couple.” Part three in our First Times series.

“No matter where you are on the attractiveness scale, there’s always someone out there who finds you attractive,” says Danish researcher Gert Martin Hald.

He stumbled upon this finding in a study on how people respond when strangers chat them up. Hald told Love Matters about his surprising unpublished discoveries at the World Congress for Sexual Health.

“Hi there! Would you go to bed with me tonight?”

A guy who tries this chat-up line on a girl is heading for a big brush-off. Yet reverse the roles, and the guy will probably seize the opportunity (as well as the girl) with both hands. Sounds obvious? Danish researchers set up a ‘sexual invitations’ experiment to test the theory.

“My guy and I had to find safe spots to have sex. There was no privacy at home so we had to venture outside,” Priya says.

Like many Indian couples, Priya and her boyfriend made love in parks and other deserted spots because both lived with their parents in Mumbai and didn’t have their own rooms at home. “What else could we have done,” she asks.

Where do you go to get private with your partner? It could win you a dinner for two!

Kuber raised a storm in his blog last week with a call for a public space where people can get private. If people have to hide in dark alleys to get intimate, he fears things can get dangerous. The subject clearly touched a nerve. So we’re launching a photo contest to find out more.

Q: I often read and hear people talk about a ‘healthy’ sexual relationship – but what exactly is ‘healthy’?

I mean I think I enjoy sex with my partner but I still think about sex with other women and also fantasise. Does that mean I’m not having a fulfilling and healthy sex life? Dibakar, Indore

I’m told sex outside the bedroom is exciting. Have any of you tried it? If not, you should – at least that’s what a friend of mine thinks.

“Sex is great anyhow. But once you’ve been a relationship long enough, it gets monotonous, so you need to spice things up a bit. And getting out of the bedroom can be a start,” a friend told me.

More than a quarter of the men surveyed in two recent studies have faked an orgasm at least once. So how do they do it?

People often assume it’s virtually impossible for men to fake orgasms since it means pretending to ejaculate too. Guys were asked to give away their secrets by psychologists at the University of Kansas. Seventy-eight percent said they acted out an orgasm.

Q: Auntyji, I love my wife very much and find her very attractive, but she doesn’t respond when I try to arouse her.

We’ve been married for just over a year. She uses excuses to put off having sex and when we do, she doesn’t seem to enjoy it, though she’s never said so outright. What can I do to bring her round?
Nitin, Noida

The Orgasmic Woman is a self-help programme that can train women to have more sexual pleasure, says its developer, Swiss psychotherapist Annina Sartorius.

She devised the sexuality course together with a tantric guru. It blends yoga exercises and meditation with elements of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy.