The Independent

Inside Love & Sex

Love: The old, old story

It's the fact of life they rarely teach you when you're growing up: the slow, inevitable cooling of desire that creeps up on us with age. Should we welcome it – or rage against the dying of sexual intoxication? Thomas Sutcliffe reflects on love and time

Visitors catching a glimpse of 'Love Land', billed as China's first-ever sex theme park, before its demolition

China takes wrecking ball to erotic theme park

This investment turned out to be as risky as it was risque.

Passing passion: Kathleen Horan's remembrance made her
realise her relationship 'wasn’t all crap'. It also inspired a website for
others to write which has fuelled a book

Queen of broken hearts

How many ways are there to deal with a painful break-up? There's bagging up or burning an errant partner's belongings. Perhaps a few evenings of weepy movies and a bottle or three of Pinot Noir. You can cry it out, exercise it out, diet it out. Or just go-out-it out, hurling yourself around the nightclubs in search of deliciously meaningless rebound sex.

Big Think: The Steam-Powered, Coal-Fired Vibrator

The 'Technology of Orgasm' author, Rachel Maines, recounts the outrageous history of female genital 'manipulators,' from water-powered turbines to the contraption called the Chattanooga.

Modern Cupid: Does Matthew Hussey hold the secret every heterosexual woman needs for relationship satisfaction?

Lessons from a love guru

Romance coach Matthew Hussey tutors women in the art of attracting – and keeping – a man. Can he teach Charlotte Philby anything about the opposite sex she doesn't already know?

David Letterman with Obama on his chat show

Celebrity sex scandals

This week, chat show star David Letterman shocked his audience when he revealed he had slept with female employees, and as a result had been blackmailed for 2 million dollars.

Grahame Bond rented out Halswell House to a Dutch company but failed to research their parties

It's a very nice house in the country (but not for an orgy)

Wealthy guests sipped champagne, but at midnight everything suddenly changed

Catherine Townsend: Why some men's 'hot' sex scenes leave me cold

I wasn't surprised when Katie Roiphe wrote in the New York Times book review that these days, male writers tend to craft sex scenes that are a bit, well, flaccid.

The Shady Lady Ranch is seeking to recruit male prostitutes for the first time

Shady Lady seeks male escorts with staying power

A Nevada brothel is recruiting to take advantage of a law change and offer services to women clients

The G-Spot and other myths about sex

No sex please, we're British. As tight-lipped as the average person is about discussing sex, there are loads of rumours about the act - probably stemming from the playground - which seem to have worked their way into the mainstream.

Robin Tyler and Diane Olson became the first same-sex couple to be married in Los Angeles

State of the union: 18,000 Californian gay couples are legally married in a state which outlaws it

Last year, California passed a controversial law allowing same-sex marriage for the first time. But now, the state's Supreme Court has overturned that right, resulting in a uniquely bizarre situation whereby 18,000 gay couples are legally married in a state which outlaws it