Secret life of a sexpert

JUST imagine for a moment that you are a sex expert, with a monthly column and a TV series.

What do you think the best bits would be? That women would envy your expertise, and men would kill to experience it? That people going out with your ex-lovers would live forever in fear of comparison? That you'd be sent sex toys as often as other people get Cup-A-Soup samples? Or that Cond Nast would break its firewall just to let you access hardcore internet sites one afternoon because you were a bit bored? That's when I realised I had finally achieved sex- expert status.

Helping out at the men's magazine GQ last week, I noticed a colleague was trying to access www.livesexchat.com as research for an article (honest, guv). He failed. I sauntered over and winked, saying: "I can get you in." I rang the systems people and stated my request. "We don't allow access to those sites," the voice snarled. "Who's calling?" "Kate Taylor," I said.

"Oh," the voice replied. "Ahhhhhh."

As you can imagine, I've handled a few "Ahhhhhh"s my time. As soon as they hear my job title, people expect me to behave badly (and I hope I oblige).

Big-shot names in publishing greet me at parties with a loud shout of: "Had any anal lately?"

When I'm at the Cond Nast offices, I can be quietly working away until Nicholas Coleridge (the MD) walks in to say hello to the people in the office. They get a hello, I get a huge shout of "Kate! I just loved your spanking!", which can be hard to explain. He once introduced me to some Japanese clients when I was doing a day at the new fashion glossy Glamour.

"This is Kate, who is absolutely filthy!" he beamed.

When they bent over to bow, I fled. I was terrified they wanted a demonstration right there on the photocopier.

However, you can't argue with a career that allows you to laze around in free La Perla underwear all day, thinking of new words for erogenous zones. I didn't plan this job, but I like it. In fact, I don't know anyone who "decides" to write about sex for a living. It sneaks up on you and takes you from behind, as it were. I got into it by accident, when I was asked to write a style feature for GQ on what men should wear in bed. I sweated over it all night (and boy, have I done that since) and eventually turned in what I thought was a serious piece of fashion journalism. I was wrong. The then editor James Brown came bursting out of his office and cornered me. "This is disgusting!" he shouted. "Pure filth. Cheap and tacky and ..."

"I'll change it!" I begged, grabbing for the pieces of paper.

"You 'll not change a word," he replied.."You 're our new sex columnist."

IDIDN 'T realise then the effect it would have on my sex life.Men I meet fall into two categories terrified and competitive.The scared ones cower under my duvet, frightened to put a foot wrong in case I stop them with a derisive snarl of,"Tantric Sex?God,that 's so last night ." The competitive ones,, however,do the opposite, undressing to impress and then launching into moves so advanced even Bangkok bar girls would blanche.

They become Supershag Man,wearing my pants over their trousers and greeting me at the door with clingfilm and a banana.But I 've never once had a boyfriend try to persuade me to give up the column.

Even the sweet, sentimental ones who get jealous reading it seem to enjoy the status that rubs off on them. Their mates all think that we're doing it all the time. Last week a girlfriend rang for more seduction ideas for her new bloke. I talked her through a complicated series of starters through to a Tantric sex manoeuvre. When I put the phone down, my boyfriend was looking at me. "Will you tell her," he said, "or shall I, that we never ever do that?"

"Darling," I replied, "let her dream."

The most-asked question is, "Is it all true? The stuff you write about and talk about on TV?" and the answer is a When Harry Met Sallyesque "Yes, yes, yes!" But that's not to say it's all happened to me.

Most of it is stuff I've heard from mates or picked up from trains, radio, TV or read in books. Not surprisingly, then, most of my friends have clammed up.

They start every sentence with a "Don't put this in your column!" and talk to me like they would an extremely elderly aunt. But that's OK, as near-strangers are always desperate to share. Maybe they want their 15 minutes of fame.

It's my family I feel sorry for. They're bemused, not amused. Dad's still waiting for me to write a serious political commentary, while Mum is worried I'll get branded as a slapper. But they're proud, in moderation. Mum always rings up Grandma to tell her when I'll be on TV, although she's been known to ring back 10 minutes later and shout: "Turn it off !

Kate's talking about clitorises again!" Mum's sister, Auntie Val, has been forced to tell her friends I've retired from writing. She used to read my articles aloud on her free Tesco bus but stopped when I started using words like "spasm-chasm". I think she feared for their pacemakers.

So do you still want to be a sex expert? Now you know that potential lovers will flee in terror as soon as they hear your CV, that strangers will show you their bikini waxes and that you'll be cut out of the family will for saying "willy", are you up for it? If you are, you'll need determination, stamina and an interest in everything rude. You'll have to devote weeks to reading intensive sex manuals and be able to demonstrate vibrators on the shopping channel. And you'll probably die lonely with a headstone that reads: "We fully expect a second coming."

_ Kate Taylor is GQ's sex columnist and expert on Channel 4's Sex Tips for Girls, Thursdays, 10.30pm.

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