When you climb into bed after a long day, do you wonder: a) my goodness, where have I put the fur handcuffs, or: b) where is my new Philippa Gregory novel — I really must get back to the Earl of Leicester?

If the answer is b), you are most likely a woman in her prime. According to a survey of women between the ages of 45 and 60 by the maker of Astral moisturiser, a good two-thirds of us like books “with plenty of sex scenes” because we find them “titillating”. And a raunchy 10% actively seek out books with sexual content.

There is only one explanation for this and I am afraid it has something to do with middle-aged men. Given the choice between a real encounter with a mate with significant nostril hair and a fictional romp with a man with all his own teeth who never gets a twinge down his left leg, is it really any wonder that ladies of a certain age would rather get to the end of the chapter than burrow under the duvet?

Not all of us can be cougars: predatory women of a certain age who hunt down younger men for fun and frolics. I know Samantha does it in Sex and the City but, let’s face it, Samantha is clearly a gay man, or at least a gay man’s fantasy of a middle-aged woman. Samantha is always ready for action; real women balk at all the waxing and tweezing involved in being in a permanent state of sexual code red. I would much rather read about a threesome in a museum courtesy of The Sexual Life of Catherine M, the bestselling erotic memoir of a French intellectual, than actually have a threesome in a museum (suppose the sprinkler system went off?).

You would think that all the hot-flushers reading under the bedclothes would be good news for Black Lace, the shamelessly erotic women’s imprint that features titles such as Gemini Heat by Portia Da Costa — “in sizzling July, twins Deanna and Delia find themselves rivals for the attentions of wealthy entrepreneur Jackson de Gaulle, who draws them both into a web of luxurious debauchery” — or Amanda’s Young Men, which involves a chain of shoe stores and any number of willing young assistants (now there’s a fantasy: a shoe store full of really helpful young men panting to fetch you a size 6).

Black Lace, however, is not publishing any new titles this year, because the bottom has dropped out of the erotica market and the parent publishing company, Random House, has decided to prioritise its non-fiction lists.

The news has prompted an outpouring of upset online, where it has been described as “a sad day for the world of smut”. “There’s a lot of bewilderment, sadness and anger,” writes the author Kristina Lloyd. “It’s been a long, difficult weekend.”

I think we all feel for the likes of Primula Bond, Monica Belle and Portia Da Costa — those pseudonyms required real thought — but I am not surprised that the female erotica market is drooping. It must be age, but personally I like the kind of sex scene in which I can remember the names of the characters involved and respect them in the morning. The last book I read that fell open at the dirty bits was the school library copy of To the Devil a Daughter by Dennis Wheatley. I’ve had a soft spot for satanists since: all those goat’s heads and pentangles.

These days, excitement is not enough, and I demand more in the way of foreplay and aftercare: I thought the library scene in Atonement was sexy but I would rather have every hair on my body removed by tweezers than read the Black Lace title Learning to Love It, in which the art historian Lissa and doctor Colin discover their mutual love of bondage, spanking and dressing up while promoting their respective books at the Frankfurt book fair (I’m thinking that its author, Alison Tyler, needs to get out more. Trade fair fetishists? Please).

When I scan the list of the books Astral moisturiser reckons to be the most popular among mature women — Notes on a Scandal, Birdsong — I see I am not alone in preferring the dirty bits to be the cherry on the cake rather than the cake itself. Another of the books listed is Memoirs of a Geisha, and while it has an overtly sexual theme I am pretty sure most women were reading that for the kimonos rather than the ritual deflowering.

We are talking about a generation of women whose sexual fantasies almost certainly include Colin Firth emerging damply from the lake at Pemberley — with nothing more explicit than a brooding stare. Suggestion is definitely all.

In the interests of full disclosure I have to admit that when I gave the first draft of the novel I am writing to my editor, she said she was worried that some of the sex scenes were perhaps “a bit too graphic”. As I am a woman who can’t type “throbbing member” or “glistening manhood” without blushing crimson, I can assure you that my purple passages were the palest mauve.

I worry that I am falling prey to romantic novelist syndrome, in which fiction looks altogether more enticing than fact. Jilly Cooper, queen of the bonkbuster, once told me her husband had complained that every night he went to bed with Jilly and Rupert Campbell-Black, her devastatingly priapic hero. There were many headlines last week suggesting that since scientists are close to being able to manufacture sperm, men are no longer necessary; I would suggest that for novel-reading women of a certain age this has long been the case.

Oedipus Down Underwear

When an 18-year-old New Zealand boy was told by his mum to start pulling his weight and clean out the garage, he was outraged by the insult to his manhood. Revenge was in his grasp in the form of some “glamour” photos of his insensitive parent in suspenders and thong, which he put up for sale on an internet auction site under the title Five Naked Photos of My Mum.

When his mother found out, she called him a “cheeky little git”. She became truly annoyed, however, when the site took the photos down because “we don’t really want to be the place where people sell pictures of their mothers in their underwear”.

She has insisted that her son put them back up: “They are quite artistic. There is nothing dodgy about them. They were taken by a friend about eight years ago. I wanted 50% of the sale, but, more than that, I miss the nice comments.”

Anyone wanting to do a modern-dress version of Oedipus knows where to set it.

Times Recommends

• Nerdy cafés no longer maid in heaven
• Cameron will not break marriage vow
• Avatar will make the case on climate