Loose women’s Saira Khan caused a storm after revealing live on TV that she would let her hubby Steven Hyde sleep with other women.
The 46-year-old mum-of-two told viewers she had lost her s£x drive.
She said: “I still love my husband, we cuddle and it’s lovely. But I’m not interested [in s£x]. I said to him, ‘I’m just not in that place. You can go with someone else if you want’.”
Steven, 51, has since denied he has ever strayed.
Her bold confession shocked women nationwide and drew gasps from the TV audience – as Sun columnist and Saira’s fellow panellist Jane Moore reveals below.
But not everyone was surprised.
Here, three women tell us why they send their partners into the beds of other women.
‘I know he loves me. The women are just one-night stands to him’
LAUREN Lockwood, 20, lost her libido after pregnancy.
She distanced herself from a s£x life with a partner of three years John McFadyen, 23, after feeling uncomfortable making love while expecting.
With their non-existent s£x life, Lauren decided to let her man satisfy his s£xual urges with other women.
The full-time mum to nine-month-old Samuel from Blackburn, Lancs says: “We’ve always had great s£x life and made love three times a week.
“But when we had been together for 18 months I fell pregnant and was not in the mood for s£x any more.
“At first it was the repulsion of having s£x while carrying a child that put me off, but it spiralled from there into a psychological feeling of being completely off intimacy.
“I totally get what Siara Khan means when she said she feels like running away when her husband wants s£x – that’s how I felt.
“At five months pregnant I went off it completely and it has now been over a year.
“Men need to make love regularly, so I decided I would rather give him my blessing to go out and have fun with other women, otherwise I think he would leave me.
“Many women may think this sounds like a crazy decision, but I know he loves me. It is me he comes home to, so I am completely fine with him having s£x with other women.
“When we are together it’s our time, and he spends 90 per cent of his time with me so that’s good enough.
“I have some rules, John cannot have a rendezvous with anyone I know, or from the where we live.
“Also I don’t want to know details and he must use protection.
“I believe he meets the girls in bars, but I have no idea of the number of girls he has seduced – that is too much information for me.
“I’m sure I will get my mojo back in the near future as I’m only a young woman, but I am happy with my decision until then.
“These women are just a one night stand to him and mean nothing.
“My mates think I’m mad and would never let their partners do the same, but it is my life and I am very open-minded.”
Care worker John McFadyen, 23, says: “I love Lauren, she is my world, and I’m very lucky to have such a cool partner that lets me have s£x with other women to satisfy my needs.
“My friends think I’m the luckiest bloke on earth and that my missus is a legend.”
‘He told me from the start he’d no intention of being faithful’
MARIA-LOUISE WARNE lets her partner of eight years bed others after he told her he would leave her if she made him become faithful.
Teacher Maria-Louise, 59, admits she was horrified when Tim Roch, 58, first suggested it. But Tim, a GP, views s£x as just an act.
She said: “To him, sleeping with another woman is as natural as eating or sleeping. It’s a physical desire every human has.”
Twice-wed Maria-Louise, from Guildford, Surrey, says fidelity had always been non-negotiable – until Tim.
She adds: “We became a couple in 2008 and he informed me from the start he has never been faithful and had no intention of starting now. That’s why I’ve agreed to him having a long leash.
“He reckons s£x is just like going to a supermarket – sometimes you fancy bacon and on other occasions, you hanker after steak. For me, s£x is an act of love. I’ve laid down ground rules. I’ve told him to lie to me if he’s going out to see his latest fling. He’s also banned from relationships with women from our town, I refuse to be publicly humiliated.
“Our bed and home are off-limits to his extra-curricular activities too. He insists he uses condoms. But how can I really know?
“Friends think I’m mad for putting up with his s£xual shenanigans.
“Although it makes me sad sometimes, I put up and shut up.”
Tim says: “I love Maria and I absolutely see us growing old together. But as I’ve always said to her,
‘If you love me, you’ll accept me as I am’.
“Maria can also come and go as she pleases. The fact she chooses not to is her choice – not mine.”
‘I never feel jealous. It’s just s£x and I totally trust him’
ANGHARAD JEFFERIES lets her partner sleep with other women as she feels it helps them create a healthy relationship.
Full-time mum-of-two Angharad says it means she and baker Tian Reece, 34, have no secrets.
Angharad, 26, said: “I’d rather Tian sleep with other women and I know about it than him do it behind my back. I never feel jealous as I know it’s just s£x and I totally trust him.
“To me it’s just like sending him off to see a friend then coming back and telling me about it.”
The couple, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, met on a night out in April 2013 and clicked. Tian was engaged to another woman. The pair began an affair and eventually he left his partner for Angharad.
But they feared their relationship could fall into a rut.
Angharad says: “We both agreed we could sleep with other people, as long as we told each other.”
But after a year Angharad decided she didn’t need to sleep with other men.
She says: “Tian was fine with it, but I knew he still wanted to. I was happy for him to still sleep with other women if it made him happy.
“He has to tell me everything about it, and he always does.
“I completely understand he feels the need to not just sleep with me. It doesn’t mean he loves me any less. We have a healthy s£x life so it doesn’t affect that either.
“A lot of people tell us they do the same.”
Tian says: “It is very nice that she lets me sleep with other women, it means there are no lies or doing things behind her back.
“It makes me respect her a lot more. For me, it’s just s£x.
“It’s happening all over the country – the difference is we are very open about it.”
IT takes a very brave woman to go on live television and say she can’t remember the last time she and her husband had s£x.
After all, admitting that your s£x drive has stalled is one of the ultimate taboos.
But Saira Khan has faced Sir Alan Sugar in The Apprentice boardroom, so it’s fair to say little fazes her.
Just as well, because her comments on ITV’s Loose Women provoked a massive response from those who were either appalled at her frankness or applauded her for it.
I was sitting next to her at the time and am very much in the latter camp.
In fact, it’s very much what Loose Women is all about – a show presented by women who talk about their own life experiences that reflects many of the daily issues faced by its legion of loyal viewers.
Each morning there’s a pre-show meeting, in which that day’s panellists chat through possible discussion points. But often a confession is swiftly followed up with the caveat: “I can’t possibly say this on the show, my husband/boyfriend/mother/kids would kill me.”
So when the usually forthright Saira quietly admitted she had gone off s£x with her husband, I fully expected it to be something she wasn’t prepared to actually discuss on air. But to her credit, she went right ahead and came out with it.
“We used to have fantastic s£x life. I still love my husband, we cuddle and it’s lovely. But I’m not interested [in s£x].”
She then made the remark that she had told him he could “go with someone else if you want” – an offer that she meant as a throwaway remark and he didn’t act on.
But there was an audible gasp from the audience as she said it and almost immediately the show’s social media sites exploded with viewer reaction.
During the next ad break, she leaned across to me and whispered: “Oh God, do you think I’ve gone too far? Steve is going to kill me. I just think it’s important to be honest about these things because if someone watching feels the same way as me, then it might help them come through it. My worry is that maybe I’m the only one who feels like this.”
Any misgivings Saira had about her honesty must surely have vanished after reading the online response. She had struck a chord with hundreds of women who have lost their s£x drive while juggling the exhausting demands of, among other things, young children and work.
“Women are so many things to so many people . . . one minute you’re at work, the next you’re cleaning, then next you’re Mummy or looking after your parents . . . it’s hard to get in the s£x zone and switch off,” said one.
Another commented: “I look at my husband every day and think how gorgeous he is. He’s loving, hard-working, 100 per cent loyal, an amazing dad . . . yet the whole S£X thing doesn’t happen.”
A 23-year-old said she had been with her boyfriend for five years but always found herself making excuses not to have s£x.
There were hundreds of similar responses and they can perhaps all be summed up by the viewer who told Saira: “What a great woman you are. You will be talking for many who have stayed silent for years. I included.
The experts say that stress and exhaustion are the enemies of a regular s£x life and who could be more worn out than someone with a demanding work schedule and energetic young children?
Going off s£x at such a time is a reality in all too many relationships and finding a way through it is the challenge – something I know Saira and Steve will manage.
On today’s show, Steve will join Saira and have his say on the matter – which I’m sure will resonate with the thousands of men who have seen their wives’ s£x drive plummet off a cliff and think it’s because they don’t fancy them anymore.
It isn’t, and it will pass.
And the more that people like Saira bring such issues out in the open, the greater the chance that more marriages will pull through the s£x wilderness years.
