DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD

A: Narcissist? Voyeur? Or a perfectly normal man who likes a minor variation from the usual bedroom routine to spice up his performance? Who knows? If I remember classical mythology correctly, Narcissus, the adolescent son of Cephisus, was passing a fountain when he caught sight of his reflection on the surface of the water. He was so overcome by the beauty of the young person he saw that he thought it was a nymph.

Intrigued, excited and, some say, in love with his own reflection, he jumped into the fountain and drowned. Real nymphs recovered his body so that they might give him a decent funeral, but when the time came for this, all that remained of him was a flower. The description narcissist is derived from this.

When looking for a new house, and doing the round of estate agents’ properties, the number of master bedrooms in which there are either mirrors let into the ceiling or incorporated into the wall opposite the bed, is revealing. French interior designers were famed for their ability to arrange bedroom mirrors so that the same scene could be seen many times over and from different angles by those on the bed.

Once, in Berlin, a colleague and I were invited to tea with a gay couple. While they were out preparing the apple strudel my colleague, who had visited the house before, whispered that I should take a peek into the master bedroom. Her nights had been disturbed by yelps, but it was only when she had the opportunity to look into the bedroom that she found the explanation, a splendidly draped 19th-century mirror, with whips leaning against the glass.

The standard advice is that any form of sex play is permissible, so long as it is acceptable to both partners and doesn’t become an end in itself; or if sexual excitement and orgasm are impossible without it. The mirror antics should ideally cause you distress only if your partner is watching himself, and if he couldn’t achieve an erection or orgasm without it.

You suspect that your partner’s interest in the mirror is entirely narcissistic. This may be so, but as you are both part of the image it may well be your body that accounts for his fascination. Some men enjoy sex in front of a mirror in the same way that they would a pornographic film, but with them in the starring role. Conversely, many women dislike anything that hints at sexual exhibitionism.

Your partner’s interest may indeed be narcissistic rather than voyeuristic. Dr Anthony Storr, the Oxford psychiatrist, wrote that most men, however civilised, believed that a display of their masculinity should not only delight them but also their partners. He thought that this was as natural in the human male as was the spread of his tail in a peacock.

There can be few men, to quote Dr Storr’s opinion, who are innocent of any wish to exhibit evidence of their virility. He suggests that they are wasting their time if they hope to impress their partners. For although it may be natural for them to think that a woman should be as impressed as they are by what they regard as their splendidly large genitals, in fact, most women regard a penis as having neither aesthetic appeal nor interest, other than as a functional organ. The suggestion is that male narcissism is often a means of sustaining a man’s self-esteem, especially if he hasn’t much else on which it can be based.

SUZI GODSON

A: I blame Ikea. Though the sliding wardrobe was originally designed to “make the bedroom look more spacious”, Ingmar Kamprad, Ikea’s founder, would be horrified to know what this product is really being used for. Truth is, most couples have a go in front of the mirror at some stage. And why not? Mirrors give sex a whole new perspective, but there is a big difference between using them as a prop to make sex more exciting and allowing the reflected image to become more significant than the actual experience.

It sounds as if your partner has gone off on his own rather peculiar sexual trip. And he has left you, and intimacy, behind. It is not an excuse, but his behaviour could be described as somewhat gender typical.

Men seem to be better at divorcing sex from emotion. In Masculinity Reconstructed: Changing the Rules of Manhood at Work, in Relationships, and in Family Life, by the psychology professor Dr Ronald F. Levant, “restricted emotions” and “sex disconnected from intimacy” are described as two of the “traditional masculine norms”. And in studies of addictive sexual behaviour, it has been observed that men tend to engage in behavioural excesses that require little or no emotional involvement (voyeuristic sex, paying for sex, anonymous sex and exploitative sex), whereas women tend towards behaviours that distort power, either in gaining control over others or being a victim (fantasy sex, seductive role sex, trading sex, and pain exchange).

Men are also more likely to be sexually narcissistic. A whopping 75 per cent of people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are male. The symptoms are infatuation and obsession with one’s self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one’s gratification, dominance and ambition. Narcissists are classified in two ways. Either they are “cerebral”, which means that they “derive their narcissistic supply from their intelligence or academic achievements”, or they are “somatic”, which means that they “derive their narcissistic supply from their physique, exercise, physical or sexual prowess and conquests”. (Sound familiar?) One thing that is common to both is that they are devoid of empathy and unable or unwilling to identify with or to acknowledge the feelings and needs of others.

While I am not suggesting that your partner has narcissistic personality disorder — he may just be a selfish, insensitive tosser — it is worth bearing in mind that you may be trying to communicate with him on a level that he simply does not understand. For your own sake, I would suggest that you try to write down what it is that you are feeling and how you would like things to change in the relationship.

Writing serves several purposes. It helps you to clarify your thoughts and to distil what it is that you would like to express to your partner more precisely. And it gives you an opportunity to get everything off your chest in the kind of language you might normally reserve for speed cameras or Ken Livingston without doing any damage to your relationship. When you feel you can edit your thoughts down to one or two clear sentences, I suggest that you try speaking to him in his own language.

Take a pot of paint and a paintbrush and transfer your sentiments directly on to his favourite mirror. And see if he gets the message.

E-mail your sexual dilemmas to body&soul@thetimes.co.uk or write to Body&Soul, The Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT