When I think of sex and Scotland, I’m put in mind of a recurring dream. A regiment of wild-eyed harridans, bare-breasted (but for the straps holding their tambours) as in Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, drum their way down the city’s main street preceded by an equally fearsome group of viragos, blazing torches held aloft to illuminate their path to a bleak hilltop where stands a vast pile of pornographic books and magazines. To a crescendo of frenzied drumming, the leaders fling their torches onto the bonfire of porn and watch with satisfaction as the flames leap high into the dark winter skies. Then these harpies rush off into the night in search of a few pornographers, like me, to add to the pyre… truly, a Burns’ night.

My first inkling of the Calvinist spirit came when, one summer’s eve, aged fifteen, I went too far with Big Morag. The occasion was a whisky-fuelled, Loch Fyne love-in (a sort of Haig et lumière) and I suffered a humiliating and public reprimand. “That’s disgusting!” she exploded, much to the delight of the half dozen other teenagers present. “Well, that’s how grownup people kiss,” I countered lamely. “I don’t care. No one’s sticking their tongue in my mouth.” Ah, Morag, I miss you.

More embarrassing still was when, as a 60s art student, I went to my edinburgh doctor to seek his considered opinion on whether or not I might have contracted a ‘social’ disease. “Get out of my surgery!” the old boy thundered, as if I’d already infected his entire waiting room with a strain of incurable syphilis. And just in case the occupants of this crowded antechamber were left in any doubt about the nature of my enquiry, he hurled after my retreating form, “They have a clinic for that sort of thing.” Indeed they did.

Surely it’s not like this forty years on, I persuade myself. Sex and the Scots isn’t really such a ‘difficult’ issue, is it? I mean, there’s no lack of sexual sophistication north of the border, is there?

Well, to tell the truth, I just don’t know. When an expatriate like me mentions sex in a Scottish context, the English feel bound to answer by cracking jokes like, “Sexy Scots? ha! the Mother of all Oxymorons.”

“Sexy Scots? ha! the Mother of all Oxymorons.”

Then they relent, citing strong, silent, kilted men tossing cabers and getting in a Munro or two before a breakfast of porridge; or bonnie, dancing, hielan’ lassies showing off fancy footwork and frilly knickers in a performance perhaps more revelatory than intended. Or Burns’ raunchier verses. They talk of Gordon Jackson in Whisky Galore, too shy and repressed to woo his girl until he knocks back a few drams, but then doing so dramatically, magnificently.

You can’t altogether blame them. The signals we receive down south about Scottish sexual mores are just a tad confusing. Take 1999. The last year of the millennium was a curiously defining one for Sex and Scotland. In June, controversy exploded, with US evangelist Pat Robertson’s take on the land of my ancestors: a dark land, full of strong, homosexual men, he trumpeted. Worse still, my own bank, the Bank of Scotland, was proposing a joint business deal with the old bible thumper and erstwhile presidential hopeful. Bank of Scotland notes were defaced, accounts terminated and Scotland’s dudgeon ran perilously high. Was this because our heterosexuality was being impugned or because we were defending gay rights? Impossible to tell.

Then six months later, on a dark December night, accompanied by women drummers and at the expense of the Edinburgh ratepayer, Scottish Women Against Pornography marched to hold ‘Pornfire’ on Calton hill (why do I get a strong sense of déja vu here?). In a last-minute concession to those who could not help making the appalling parallel with the nazi Sturmabteilung’s book-burning rallies of 1933, they apparently burned neither books nor magazines, but A4 sheets of obscenities they had printed themselves. Curiouser and curiouser.

Five blissful, controversy-free years followed, but then, to the accompaniment of a raunchy bump ’n’ grind number, the Bank of Scotland burst onto the international sex stage once more. BoS had facilitated a sale by porn-and-Daily-Express magnate Richard Desmond of 45 of his less-than-politically-correct titles such as Asian Babes, Readers’ Wives, Mothers in Law and 60 Plus to the – some would argue aptly-named – Remnant Media. This earned the BoS some choice epithets from the great and good such as British Chambers of Commerce president Isabella Moore and Christine Cook, president of the Association of Scottish Businesswomen; the latter even talked of a ‘horrifying’ industry (that was pornography, not banking, by the way). And that’s about it. Apart from the odd 3-in-a-bed political sex scandal – and here really isn’t the place to rake over those dying members – there’s been little newsworthy since.

Three years ago, the magazine I founded, The Erotic Review, was acquired by denizens of the top shelf magazine world linked to BoS’s erstwhile bedmate, Remnant. I’m not sure why they bought it - it really wasn’t their style. We repurchased it this year and will give it a full re-launch towards Christmas. Occasionally, the Review likes to comment on the vagaries of Scottish sexuality; this may be because, with a predominantly Scottish staff, we’re sensitive to the theme.

But when I asked around the office what they thought was sexy about the Scots, I was met by blank looks. Some suggested the accent, so much loved by call-centre recruiting staff and American tourists. Obviously, I had to dig deeper. If Scotland isn’t sexy, then which nationalities are considered the most ‘oh-la-la!’? This time, I tried Google. Predictably, the results suggested search-engine stereotyping: of course, the French came tops, followed by the Spanish and the Italians.

So let’s start with stereotypes, I thought. how are the qualities Scottish masculinity commonly defined? Romantic; brave; principled; loyal; honest; rugged and dogged (one day we’ll get used to Gordon Brown being premier). All well and good in a Mills and Boon bodice-ripper, but not much in the way of badboy qualities that might appeal to younger women. Conversely, there isn’t much that’s erotic about the archetypal Scottish lass apart from the aforementioned fleetness of foot and carelessly exposed underpinnings. Kirsty Wark and Carol Smillie are great. And Lorraine Kelly’s embonpoint is becoming legendary. But I don’t think they ever got prizes for being thinking man’s crumpet in the way that former Erotic Review editor Rowan Pelling, or Joan Bakewell, or Anna Ford, ever did. I was beginning to despair.

The problem with trying to assess the degree of Scottish sexiness, whether in terms of allure or concupiscence, is that because of the cultural and political differences that we strive so hard to create in a bland culture, nothing ever rings very true. Yes, there are stereotypes, screen heroes and so on, but if you want to see a Scots lassie weep with lust over a great Scots hero, it will more likely be an Irish- American raised in Australia (Mel Gibson) or a Ballymena boy transplanted to new York (Liam Neeson).

Even the quintessence of sexy Scottish heroism, Connor MacLeod of Highlander, is played by Christopher Lambert, a Frenchman. And what of Sir Sean? Well, in Highlander, Connery plays Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, a 17th-century Spaniard who obviously thinks that he’s a 20th-century Brazilian composer. Oh dear. Perhaps that’s got something to do with his passion for golf. And what role is our greatest Scottish actor best known for? That of an archetypal smooth englishman - James Bond. That’s the common perception, except that as any Bondealogist will tell you, James’ lineage isn’t english: it’s half Scottish, half Swiss. A bit like Sir Sean, who’s half Scottish (and a Maclean, too, so that’s all right) and half Irish. Well, at least he’s all Celt.

And who epitomises Scottish sexiness on the small screen? There’s Dougray Scott, who was pipped to the post by Daniel Craig to play the latest incarnation of Bond. he may have caused wisteria hysteria from Little Rock to Mobile, but over this side of the pond, with that strangulated-vicar-played-by-Cary-Grant accent, he inspires more mirth than lust. We’ll never know why the producers of Desperate Housewives cast a good Scottish actor in the role of an English tycoon. Why not a Scottish one? It has to be some sort of Anglo-US conspiracy. So are the Scots sexy? no, I don’t think so. At least, no more or less than any other nation. Well, maybe a bit sexier than the Bulgarians. But not noticeably less than the French.

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