What do women really want in bed?

What do women really want in bed?Nikki Gemmell on why complete sexual honesty is something very few people can cope with

George Orwell listed four writers' motives: sheer egotism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse (the desire to record things as they are, for posterity) and political purpose (the desire to push the world in a certain direction). I have a much simpler reason for writing: to be in control. As a wife and a mother, as a woman, my desk is the only place where I have complete control in my life. It is also, ironically, the only pocket of my life where I can be utterly truthful - especially in terms of sex.

It is hard, in a relationship, to be completely honest: to show your partner your secret self. Vita Sackville West described herself as an iceberg, and said her husband could only see what was above the water's surface. She speculated it was the reason their marriage worked. What relationship can survive the harshness of absolute candour?

I can't stand giving blow jobs, but I have never said that to a lover; for years I have dutifully kneeled. Many girlfriends feel the same. One describes it as a chore in the same way she describes defrosting the fridge. Yet, of course, she has never told her husband this.

Why is it still so hard for women, basking in the glow of so many feminist advances, to be more honest about sex? To say such simple things to their sexual partners as: "No, I didn't have an orgasm." Or, "I find it incredibly monotonous when you make love to me, and sometimes it hurts."

Why are women still so subservient to their partner's pleasure at the expense of their own? Why aren't we more in control? Because we don't want them to turn away from us, perhaps. We don't want them to find the woman who loves giving blow jobs (yes, they do exist). Because we want our partners to think we are someone else. Because sometimes we are willing to put up with a lot, to keep a relationship steady, to have children.

Is complete sexual honesty the last frontier that feminism has to tackle?

I loved the idea of diving under the surface of a woman's life, a seemingly contentedly-married woman, and exploring her secret world. In my book I wanted to say all those things we may think, but never actually say - especially to our lovers.

I had fully intended to put my name to The Bride Stripped Bare when I began, but soon found I was censoring myself: afraid of too much honesty, afraid of hurting the people closest to me, and afraid that no man - husband included - would ever want to sleep with me again, knowing that they were being so judged.

I was judging the dishonesty in my own sexual life most of all. The aim was to be as merciless in print as a Chuck Close painting or a Ron Mueck sculpture - but as far as I know, those artists do not often turn their extremely critical eye upon themselves. Now I know why. I am not someone who is completely relaxed about nudity, have never been comfortable in a bikini. And like many women in a swimsuit, I'm afraid of revealing too much.

But when the idea of anonymity came to me, everything clicked. I was suddenly like a woman on a foreign beach who is confident that she doesn't know a soul and parades her body loudly and joyously, without worrying what anyone thinks of her. I had opened a door to a reckless, exhilarating new world, and could say whatever I wanted.

Like, I have never climaxed during vaginal sex. And I was 30 before I had my first orgasm and I have lied, often, about whether I have had one. And I am often thinking of another scenario entirely as I am being made love to, that has nothing to do with the man inside me. And for years I wasn't sure I was going about it the right way, because I was getting so little from the experience. And it was such a relief to read that Marilyn Monroe had said, "I don't think I do it properly."

What's all this about big penises? I would much prefer a snug fit than one that makes me feel that I am being split apart. And, actually, I really don't like my breasts being fondled and a lot of women I know feel the same.

Anonymity gave me the freedom to voice, for the first time, exactly what I wanted when it came to sex. I found the freedom to vent all those doubts I had felt for so long - and to write about a woman finding a way to be in sexual control. Finding a way to have exhilarating sex, the kind that can transport you to another plane. I wasn't sure, though, that I wanted my husband to know of this woman. I'm seen as a good, sweet wife. I didn't want to let him down.

Naively, perhaps, I thought I could get away with it: no one would know it was me behind the book. It also meant I wasn't afraid of it failing. It seemed such a strange hybrid of novel, memoir, treatise and sex manual; I wasn't sure it worked. I was a very new mother, and I had lost my professional confidence. I was exhausted, and my brain didn't work in the way it used to.

Then the story broke about the authorship, just after the book had been sold to its publisher. Suddenly I lost control; journalists were camping on my doorstep and doorstepping my husband (to this day my publishers, agent and myself don't know how they found out).

I couldn't lie about the its authorship, for Bride, above all, was about honesty. One reader wrote, "I would never have had the courage to have said what you did - it's so raw, so open. You're very brave." I laughed when I received this, for, of course, I would never have had the courage to say what I did either if I had thought my name would be attached.

I still have my husband to deal with. He has just read my book. We haven't made love since, because he is feeling raw and vulnerable. But also, I must say, more than a little turned on.

I hope the book works; I hope honesty works. I don't know yet, it is too early. I am not sure if our relationship can survive the spotlight of so much frankness. Perhaps I would need to read his side of the story: a man's secret life. To know what he really wants from sex, but has never dared say. At least to his wife.