By DR PAM SPURR

Last updated at 22:12 05 November 2007

When the feminists of the Sixties and Seventies started protesting loudly about disparities in the treatment of men and women in areas such as equality at work and educational opportunities, they also quite rightly urged women to reclaim their bodies for themselves.

For too long, they said, women had been discouraged from understanding their own desires while pandering to men's sexual needs. Their battle cry was: "It's your body - you should do what you want with it!"

For the first time, women were speaking about taking charge of their sexuality and sexual relationships. Women also suddenly had access to better methods of birth control because the Pill freed them from the fear of unwanted children, and allowed them to postpone motherhood until it suited them.

Previous generations of women had quite literally laid down their bodies because it was widely felt that a man should be able to have sex with his wife whenever he wanted. You were about as likely to find a magazine article on how women could enhance their sexual pleasure as you were to see a female in 10 Downing Street.

It certainly wasn't regarded as being a woman's prerogative in the first six decades of the 20th century to insist on sexual satisfaction from her husband. In fact, such a woman might well have been chastised for even thinking about such fulfilment.

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But feminism was the catalyst for sweeping changes in the sexual landscape as other social factors came to influence the way women thought about their sexual selves.

Music idols such as Debbie Harry of Blondie and Madonna paraded their sexuality on the stage. Films such as Dirty Dancing, Nine-To-Five and When Harry Met Sally showed women discovering their strengths and becoming empowered.

Scores of women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan contained a wealth of articles ranging from advice about salaries to how to demand sexual satisfaction.

So what is the result of this sexual revolution, which seems to have convinced millions of women that "good enough" in the bedroom is no longer, well, good enough?

In my work as a life coach, agony aunt and psychologist, I regularly encounter women in their late 20s, 30s and 40s - the inheritors of the feminist revolution - with bitter regrets over relationships that have failed on one pivotal issue: the issue of sexual compromise.

And professionals such as myself are being forced to realise that feminism, with all the wonderful things it did for women, went too far with the "I will only do as I please" attitude to sex it engendered.

It has produced a generation of women who simply refuse to compromise over sexual matters with their partners. As a result, they have ruined their relationships.

Jennifer, 38, the director of a marketing company in fashion, is an excellent case in point. She arrived at a life-coaching session I was giving, seeking to improve communication skills with her increasing number of staff.

She's a woman who appears to have it all. No man bosses her around because she's her own boss. She earns a six-figure salary, has the luxury-holidays lifestyle along with a supportive and close-knit group of equally successful female friends. But did she also have a happy marriage?

I thought my meeting with her would be a straightforward session about management and communication, but my instincts quickly told me - when she "inadvertently" admitted that her husband had had an affair - that more important things were on Jennifer's mind.

She confessed that during the three years before he had strayed, they'd had virtually no sex - on average once every six months. Because she had thrown herself into establishing her company, Jennifer had been working terribly hard and had shown little interest in sex.

This led to arguments, she told me, during which her husband, a property developer, protested strongly that it left him feeling cold-shouldered. It never occurred to Jennifer - or the countless other women I have dealt with on this exact same issue - that eventually he'd look elsewhere.

Don't misunderstand me. I never encourage or excuse infidelity. But when you hear story after story of men feeling sexually neglected by women who find it perfectly natural to put their own interests before their husband's - and not for a good reason such as a medical issue or a traumatic event like a bereavement - I can't help but feel that some men have little choice, bar ending the relationship. After all, the human sex drive is a powerful thing, and requires careful care and consideration between two people.

Jennifer and her husband failed to repair the damage to their relationship, and many months down the line she was suffering bitter regret over their impending divorce.

Sarah, 39, a solicitor from Surrey, fared a little better. She didn't avoid the emotional pain Jennifer had suffered, but she did avoid divorce when her husband asked her for a trial separation.

After he dropped that bombshell, Sarah was forced to re-evaluate the way she'd been treating the sexual side of their relationship. Having had two children, she'd switched off having sex as though she was turning off a tap.

Her view of what made a contented home life was enjoying her children after a moderately long working day. At that point, sex simply wasn't on the radar for her.

Sarah had been shrugging off her husband's advances with no thought towards his feelings. As her husband, an accountant, wasn't the type to make a fuss as Jennifer's did, Sarah had made the dangerous assumption that all was well in their world, and that their marriage was ticking over the way she liked it.

What she hadn't bargained for was the fact that their virtually sexless marriage had made her husband feel emasculated and unloved. He'd often made advances prefaced by candlelit dinners. Sarah enjoyed the meals, but preferred to do some of her casework afterwards.

In measured tones, he'd often asked if there was anything that he could do differently to reignite her sexual interest? But she'd pooh-poohed the very thought, as the cut and thrust of her legal work was more exciting.

In the end, he didn't seek out an affair, but he was seeking a separation; quietly sick of being refused the warmth and intimacy they'd once enjoyed.

Once she was over the shock of his suggestion, Sarah came to realise that what she'd seen as a cosy little world had excluded him as an equal partner. With a good deal of effort on her part, and goodwill on his, they managed to work through their difficulties and re-establish a sex life that both were happy with. But it could have been very different.

Over the past two decades, I've noticed how much the issues women raise with me in terms of their sex lives have changed. When I was in my teens, what was on everyone's mind was simply experimenting with sex. Women began to feel a real sense of freedom about harnessing the pleasures their bodies could provide them with.

The message of feminism at that time was that women no longer had to be frightened of having sex on their terms. And as sexual matters have become much more open for discussion, there has been a sea-change when it comes to women asking their partner to satisfy them. Women are far more likely to seize the sexual moment and have one-night stands, shortlived flings, and sexually experiment the way a woman of 40 or 50 years ago never would.

Over the past couple of decades, women are also more likely to have had far more sexual partners, whereas their mothers and certainly their grandmothers may have had only one partner and presumed that what they shared was all there was to sex.

Unfortunately, alongside this growing knowledge of what was satisfying for an individual woman - and what wasn't - was a feminist-inspired selfishness in relationships when it came to sex.

In researching my new book I've come to this conclusion: what's been forgotten is that such selfishness and other feelings of empowerment, which have served women well in the boardroom, don't necessarily translate to the bedroom.

One divorcee I encountered, Elizabeth, 44, a high-flying advertising executive, had carved out a successful career from saying "No" at work to bad ideas and pushy colleagues, and setting firm limits on what others could and should do. The problem was that she instinctively translated that hardheaded-attitude and applied it to her own sexual relationship.

She loved her long-term boyfriend, but said his lack of foreplay skills was killing off her sexual interest. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, she'd every right to say "No" to sex. He was hurt and angry every time he was rebuffed. An invisible wall grew between them until he suggested breaking up.

Only after much soul-searching did Elizabeth acknowledge that her blanket ban on sex was destroying their relationship. Brought to the brink, she realised that actually encouraging sensual skills in him was a better solution.

Of course, I meet people with all sorts of relationship problems, but when sex is at the heart of it I've met literally hundreds of "Sarahs", "Jennifers" and "Elizabeths". They've lacked interest in sex for a variety of reasons, and expected to set the ground rules with no negotiation. The consequences? Troubled or broken relationships.

Some have decided it's worth learning to compromise over sex, while others have steadfastly refused to budge. All have experienced some unhappiness, be it dealing with arguments or discovering affairs, or facing a break-up they didn't want. But the consequences have definitely been worse for those who fail to compromise.

Just as you may hate being the person responsible for remembering every one of his relations' birthdays as well as your own, he may hate being the one who has to take garden waste to the tip. But such things are all part and parcel of ensuring a relationship works.

You may think it's a terrible comparison to make between chores and sex. But I believe that sex should be seen as a duty because it is one of the most fundamental ways in which you can make your partner feel better.

What it all boils down to is that just as you'd expect to have discussions over how to spend any spare cash, where to holiday, and whose parents to spend Christmas with, so, too, do you need to discuss your sexual desires and needs.

That's what's empowering. It's actually not empowering when a woman simply says: "No, my body is mine and I'll never meet you halfway." Because ultimately it may destroy her relationship.

No doubt women of all ages will have strong reactions to what I'm saying, but it's interesting for me to speak to people from older generations about this issue. Without compromising all the wonderful freedoms women now enjoy, not least equality in the workplace, we can still learn something from our grandparents.

Rather than taking a "me, me, me" attitude to life as soon as you step into a relationship, it should be a "we, we, we" attitude, which gives equal weight to both partners' needs. Sometimes that means making love to your partner even when you're not in the mood. But you do so because you know it'll make the person you love happy.

Obviously I'm against any excessive pressure from a man for you to have sex when it's not desired. But rejecting him time and again simply because you can is almost guaranteed to lead to disaster.

Did those feminists who made so many marvellous strides for womanhood realise what road they were urging women to travel down when they urged the sisterhood to take control of their sex lives? It's a credo I believe has left many women with failed relationships, many with regrets and bitterness.

You may not want to have sex, just as you may not want to visit his parents, but you must tend to every aspect of your relationship if you wish it to survive.

• Dr Pam Spurr's new book, Fabulous Foreplay - The Sex Doctor's Guide To Teasing And Pleasing Your Lover (J.R. Books, £7.99), is out now.