Sex File: She likes to sext, but avoids sex 

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My girlfriend and I work in separate rooms during the day. She often sends me saucy messages, which I love receiving and make me look forward to clocking off. However, by the time we've finished work she never actually wants to have sex. This is confusing.

Sexting is a form of psychological priming. It makes you think about sex, and naturally you then begin to feel aroused. That's the point of it, really. It doesn't even have to be explicit, and in fact can be much more effective when it's subtle and your imagination is forced to fill in the gaps. And in the same way that asking someone not to think about a white bear ensures that white bears invade their thoughts, once your brain is distracted by the possibility of an orgasm it's difficult to think about anything else.

What I don't understand is why you are waiting until the end of the day, when you are both too Zoomed out and exhausted to do something about it. As soon as she sends you a saucy message you should be jumping at the chance to get offline and head straight to the bedroom.

For cohabiting couples with no children in the house, the chance to down tools and squeeze sex into a lunch break should be an unexpected highlight of lockdown. The trouble is, most of us are so concerned with persuading our employers that we are not still in our pyjamas that we have been working more, not less.

Data suggests that many of us are ignoring basic employee rights, such as lunch breaks. It is partly because working patterns have become so fluid that people routinely arrange "meetings" during their lunch hour, but there is no reason you and your girlfriend can't ring-fence a specific "lunch" hour a couple of times a week.

Maybe you can escape for only 20 minutes. Fortunately, that's likely to be ample, because the median duration for penetrative sex is 5.4 minutes. We know this because of a study by Utrecht University in the Netherlands in which researchers gave stopwatches - yes, really - to 500 men. Although please don't take this as a reason to rush things.

Having sex during the working day feels wrong, but that is what makes it so right. And while I absolutely do not suggest that you tell your employer what you've been doing during your break, your bosses really shouldn't mind, because research shows that it can have a positive impact on productivity.

A small study was conducted by Keith Leavitt, an associate professor at Oregon State University's College of Business in the US, in which married workers kept journals documenting their moods, their levels of workplace productivity and their sexual activity over a two-week period. It found that men and women who had sex were not only in a better mood, but were more focused at work, and experienced higher levels of job satisfaction for 24 hours afterwards.

A survey of 2,000 people by the sex-toy manufacturer Lelo found that 80% reported feeling happier and less stressed after an orgasm, and 66% of men and 63% of women noticed an increase in their productivity at work the next day. So while taking time out for sex may feel as though you're bunking off, it could do wonders not only for your relationship, but for your job.

Lunchtime sex breaks up the monotony of the working day in a way that no sandwich will. Sex decreases stress, boosts mood, and significantly increases productivity and job satisfaction. When we are all back at our offices you won't have the luxury of being able to act on impulses while you are actually feeling them, so make the most of WFH while you can.

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