There’s something about having sex with someone the same gender as you that is just… different. Magazines still publish articles instructing women how to please a man, as if that is the sole ambition of heterosexual love-making. But having sex with someone whose genitalia is the same as yours is pleasure of the highest level – it’s so deeply intimate and mutual and generous that there's no need ever to fake anything. And of course, two women (or two men) can go at it unhampered by any kind of contraception. "Sex has completely changed for me now – I love its newness, the fun and lightness around it," says Mia. "And the fact that the desperate need has been replaced with a gentle desire to explore and discover." Alice agrees. "When you’re in your 50s, your sex drive is different; there’s no imperative to reproduce and that feeling of 'Ugh, I need to get laid' has gone. Sex now is tender and intimate. It’s nourishing because we have such a deep connection." Many women experience the desire to have sex with another woman in an undefined way, perhaps because of the allure of that connection – and when Alice started to tell her friends about her relationship with Mia, many of them confessed to having same-sex relationships in the past, more than she had realised.