To me, the word ‘spectacular’ could be used to describe a fireworks display, a West End show or a view across the Swiss Alps.

Indeed my trusty Oxford English dictionary translates it as: ‘of or like a public show, striking, lavish’.

It is certainly not a word I would ever use to describe sex.

Maybe I move in the wrong circles, but ‘spectacular’ sex hasn’t been part of my daily routine.

This has got me worried, because according to the Church, it should be.

I’m married, and, according to a report on the Church of England website, married couples have better sex – in fact, they go so far as to promise ‘spectacular’ sexual rewards for those tying the knot in church. Maybe that’s where we went wrong.

We opted for a low-key affair at a register office, which sadly didn’t include such rewards in the £40-or-so package.

I know the Church is trying to entice more people through its doors, but this is a bit much.

Anyone living in the real world knows that marriage is one of the many things that puts the brakes on things like passion and sex.

Maybe not on the wedding night itself, and possibly not the honeymoon, but certainly within weeks of arriving home, especially when the bills for the Big Day – weddings cost on average £11,000 – start to arrive and the bailiffs come for your brand new 89-inch wall-mounted plasma TV.

Marriage is not a passport to no sex, but it definitely doesn’t bring with it spectacular romps worthy of a steamy novel. In fact, romantic novelist Joanna Trollope is one of many who admit that the emotional and financial confines of marriage and children – which tend to follow later – put a dampener on sex.

Of course, couples have to have sex to have children. But, as the majority of people will admit, sex for procreation isn’t bodice-ripping. Rather, it is added to a woman’s ‘must-do’ list along with washing her hair and cleaning the bath.

It becomes mechanical, performed at certain times of the month when the moon is 14 degrees west of Jupiter.

If this is bad enough, when children arrive, sex becomes a once-a year-if-you’re-lucky affair. Most nights, you are so exhausted you struggle to pull back the duvet before collapsing into bed. The notion of thrashing about spectacularly for three hours is about as appealing as an overnight hike across a melting ice sheet.

Young children rise at the crack of dawn, older children won’t go to bed.

Throw work into the equation and sex becomes a distant memory.

Marriage offers a great deal – security and companionship above all else – but spectacular sex? Pull the other one.