The author flew in to Canberra to talk about her book What Men Want In Bed. As it turns out, it’s sex, but her 342-page book outlines the numerous obstacles to getting it in the modern day.

Pornography was more accessible and a greater encumbrance to lovemaking. ‘‘[Pornography] has become the bogey man, the red under the bed,’’ the writer said.

‘‘The need for men to look at pornography can become compulsive.’’

Twenty-five pages were dedicated to the subject in her book and the social commentator said she had found many women who were not against erotica.

They saw it as different from pornography, which they disdained. The writer, who also wrote The Sex Diaries, believed the reason could be found in a quote from Chilean writer Isabel Allende who said, ‘‘Erotica is using a feather, pornography the whole chicken.’’

Most chapters in her book, published by Melbourne University Press, are dedicated to men unable to achieve an erection, particularly because of prostate cancer.

Arndt said that the message doctors gave men recovering from prostate cancer was, ‘‘Use it or lose it.’’

She said the Federal Government must fund erectile dysfunction treatments, which cost about $10 an erection, for men recovering from the disease.

For more on this story, including details from the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia on the number of Australian men who die of prostate cancer each year, see the print edition of today’s Canberra Times.