An official government report in the UK recommends that children as young as 11 should be given compulsory lessons on sexually transmitted diseases and contraception. All secondary students should be taught about infections such as chlamydia and also taught how to put on a condom.

The document, compiled by a panel of sexual health experts for Ministers, has horrified and angered many parents who do not want their children involved in explicit lessons on sex. The current law says that pupils must only be taught the bare minimum biology of sex, and how the body changes during puberty. Teachers are encouraged to teach students about relationships, how STDs are transmitted and how to use contraception, including how condoms are put on. Most teachers allow parents to exclude their children from these classes.

The UK has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe and abortion rates are climbing towards 200,000 a year. Will teaching a child how to put on a condom ensure that he will use it when the time comes? Maybe. I think it would be a good idea to not only teach kids about sex but also what a healthy, monogamous relationship is like.

If sex and relationships education is made a statutory subject, then parents would have no say on what is taught. It will be a biggie to get some parents to agree. Sure, they should have input but parents have been in control all this time and their guidance certainly hasn’t lowered teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections!

The sexual health report, released July 28th, also called for easier access to abortion and better availability of contraceptives. Its main recommendation was on making sexual and relationship education (SRE) a statutory responsibility for secondary schools.

Making sex and relationship education compulsory will secure its place in the curriculum with equal access for all students, and will ensure schools have appropriately trained teachers.

Baroness Gould, who chaired the group, said: ‘We must have consensus that good sex and relationships education is essential if we want our young people to live free from disease, have reduced pregnancy and abortion rates, and experience fulfilled sexual lives as adults.

Rebecca Findlay, from the Family Planning Association, said the problems of teen pregnancy, abortion and STIs were too important ‘just to let young people get on with them’. She said, “Young people live in a very sexualised society which is very pressured and they need advice and help to make sense of it. When sexual and relationship education is given, young people are less likely to become sexual at a younger age.”

Yesterday one of our staffers brought a member problem to me to decide how to handle it. A woman has been a paying member since 2002 (yep, that’s right) and her credit card is going to be updated and she’s afraid she will have to pay the current membership fee which is well above what it cost in 2002. I told my employee how to handle it so the woman could continue paying the same price but it made me think.

Why would anyone need to be a member of a dating site for more than 6 years?

Surely in that amount of time you could find someone to go out with. The more I thought about it, the more curious I became so I decided to do some investigating and see what she’s been up to.

Sure enough, she joined in 2002 and has written to ….get ready for it… more than 1000 men. Most have written back to her according to the logs. At first I thought maybe she was a professional who was using our site to get customers but I noticed one name in the logs that I recognized so I wrote to him and asked about her. Turns out, she just loves to date. She doesn’t want a relationship that lasts very long because she likes the excitement of a new relationship.

In all the years I’ve been running a dating site, I’d never met a female serial dater like this. I’ve seen a bargeful of men who are afraid of commitment but most women are looking for a more secure relationship.

I was intrigued.

So I wrote to her and thanked her for being such a loyal member of our site and could she indulge me and answer a few questions. Here are the questions and her answers.

How many men have you met in person? More than 250

How many of these men did you meet for a second date? About 20 or 30

How often do you meet men for dates? Every weekend

Do you usually have sex on the first date? It all depends – many times I do but not always

Are you a member at other adult dating sites? No, I keep busy right here and I love the chatrooms

Do you think you’ll ever settle down with just one? Maybe. I’m 42 now and as I get older I might want just one but at the moment I crave variety.

Mr. Flirty keeps telling me that my own views are not the views of every woman and this one has really shaken me. I have a tough time with the first time naked scene so it would be difficult to be with a different man every weekend. Could you date different people every weekend for years?

Have you ever heard of this site? If you haven’t you’re about one in about ten who haven’t. It’s near the top of the Alexa rankings. They’re the folks that keep tabs on all the websites and let you know which sites are most popular. DivineCaroline.com is a class act from beginning to end.

I was sent the link by someone and I started to have a look around and in just a few minutes I wanted to make a comment. Usually when that happens I try to bite my fingers off because I know I’ve got to put my details in and then wait around for mail to get on a carrier pigeon and then I have to validate the mail and by then I’ve forgotten the name and password. Not so with DivineCaroline.com. They didn’t ask for many details and then POOF I was in. Not only that, but the first page you get to after logging in the first time gives you all the options on what to do next.

The site is filled with great articles about everything from relationships, food, travel, fashion, careers, money — frankly anything that would interest a woman is here. It’s now my first go to place when I log in every day just to see who’s written what. There are also forums and a place called chitchat but I haven’t checked that out yet.

The best bit is that I’m going to contribute some articles there in the relationship section. You can too. All you have to do is have a subject to write about (they’ll even give you suggestions on that too) and then submit your article. They’ve got editors galore who’ll get your words published on the site in just a day or so.

Anyway, see you there!

Am I the only woman who likes a man with a great ass packed into a nice pair of jeans? I could sit outside at a cafe and watch men walk by all day long. What drives me nuts is when you see a guy and you’re pretty sure he’s got a bum to admire but you can’t find it because the ass of his pants is all loose. You know what I’m talking about.. where you can reach up and grab nothing but a handful of cloth. I hate that.

Mr. Flirty has been losing quite a bit of weight. I told him the other day that if he didn’t pick his bottom up off the floor, I was going to cut his jeans up.

“I don’t want to buy new jeans until I lose all the weight,” he said.

“Surely we can afford ‘interim’ jeans, ” I replied.

“Maybe.”

I told him that I chose him because he had great legs and a nice ass and if I couldn’t see them, maybe I wouldn’t feel quite so flirty any more. By 4pm there were new jeans in the closet.

It’s all in how you present your argument, isn’t it?

Then yesterday I was in town walking the dog and in front of me was a young couple pushing a baby in a stroller. The guy’s jeans were hanging off his bum to where his butt met his leg. All I could see was a pair of saggy blue underpants and then what looked like a pair of pants hanging on a hook. It hurt to look at him. I really like perving at men while they walk down the street but yesterday was a total washout.

Come on guys, what’s woman got to do to see a great bottom in a pair of jeans that fit?

One thing I always had difficulty in understanding when I was younger and still do sometimes even now, are the secret signals in body language that someone might be sending across to me of interest, anger, frustration or some other emotion. Sometimes I got so confused that I felt like a jerk afterwards, not to mention the letdown I felt after all the build-up of anticipation I had fantasized about.

I’m not alone in this, it seems. My much younger and prettier neighbor Cyndi recently shared an experience that showed that there are more people who sometimes misread signals and body language.

For almost a month, maybe more, this guy would come into where she worked. He’d stand in her line and always smile a great big smile when he saw her. He’d also make direct eye contact the whole while. They’d exchange pleasantries and over a bit of time she thought, “What a pleasant guy.” After a little while she began to wonder if he was interested in her in more than a shopper/check out chick relationship. Was his body language saying something without speaking anything? She knows she saw him look around for her when he came into the store and if she was busy he’d wait til she was available. Every time he came in, she fully expected him to ask her out and it didn’t happen. She wondered if she’d say yes when he asked and where they’d go.. all the things you do when you think someone is flirting with you. Of course she’d have gone because she thought he was very special. He was attractive, friendly and seemed really kind.

Nothing every crossed the line into anything more than a general social exchange of pleasantries and she knew it wasn’t her place to do so. She remained respectful and served his to the best of her ability but all the while, keeping her eyes on his. It seemed that every time he was in the store he never took his eyes off her, so what was she to think? Why didn’t he ask her out kept going through her head. When nothing happened she thought maybe he was toying with her and maybe he was a shit but he had done nothing wrong. He always acted with good manners and friendliness.

Then, a couple of weeks ago she looked up from serving another customer to see him holding the door open for two other people accompanying him. Again he stood in her line and when it was his turn, proudly introduced his wife and her mother. Seriously. To say that she was a thrown for a loop would be accurate, not to mention the feeling of foolishness that she felt. She wondered how she could have misread or misinterpreted what had happened and how could she be so far off. It sure made her glad that she hadn’t ever said anything inappropriate.

Could one attempt an explanation by saying that a lot of women would think that a man who always seemed happy to see her and kept that eye contact, might be interested in her? Of course it would be natural for her to think so, based on what I told you above. But it wasn’t. It was simple friendliness, nothing more, nothing less.

I know other women have also felt foolish in misreading body language and what they perceived as a secret signal, wasn’t, and you know what? The best we can do is laugh at ourselves and let the experience teach us that misunderstanding silent signals is a part of life. Over time, hopefully, we’ll learn the difference.