Sex File: I'm dating for the first time after my divorce and I'm worried I'm boring in bed 

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I've just started dating again after a divorce. As a man of 58, I'm feeling daunted because it seems to me that people are doing things differently in the bedroom now. Do I need to increase my sexual repertoire? I feel as if there's a lot more on the menu in the bedroom than when I was last "out there" 30 years ago.

You are correct. Sex really has changed in the past 30 or so years, and thank goodness for that. For a start, people are much more open about it than they were. So first of all you will probably need to learn how to communicate openly. The key is not to make talking about sex into a big deal, even if it feels alien to you. Discuss sex outside the bedroom, try to talk about it regularly and keep it light, so that if any issues arise you already have an open and honest dialogue.

A 2017 British study on how sexual behaviour has changed over the past 30 years found that people born between 1993 and 2001 have much more experimental sex lives than generations before them - and that it is less defined by penetrative sex.

Rather than worrying about other people's sexual repertoires, focus on what is the most important. It's attitudes that have undergone the biggest change since you were last on the dating scene. One of the biggest is the recognition that female sexual pleasure is as important as men's, and that sex is expected to be a mutually satisfying experience. Yes, this should be a given - but for a very long time it was not. As a younger man, for example, you may have taken it for granted that you would receive oral sex during foreplay, but you may not have felt obliged to return the favour. That would not go at all well now.

Men who aren't used to this may be reluctant to reciprocate because they don't feel confident about technique. If that sounds like you, read Ian Kerner's book She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring Women. It will teach you everything you need to know about female anatomy, and arousal. You should also read Emily Nagoski's book Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life. It is a science-based exploration of female physiology, sexual response, and the emotional and relational underpinnings of sexuality, and it also provides useful tips on "what to do in bed". Learning about sex from books may sound old-fashioned, but it is a much better way of finding out what women want than, for example, watching porn.

Research by the matchmaking website OkCupid found that the older men get, the less likely they are to want to date women in their age bracket. While middle-aged women look for partners of a similar age, their contemporaries are often trying to date women up to 15 years younger. However tempting that seems, you have a much better chance of finding a partner who is on your wavelength socially, emotionally and sexually if you fish from the pool of women over 50. What you must remember is that some things will never change. When you meet for the first time, it all still boils down to chemistry.

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