I’ve slept with 900 men – so what?

As Victoria Betteridge takes a final drag of her cigarette, she stretches in bed and rolls over to examine the man lying next to her. He's not really her type, but she doesn't care - the sex was worth it.

The sheets are twisted around him from their energetic session the night before and their clothes lie strewn over the carpet. Victoria climbs out of bed and prods him with her finger. It's time for him to leave. When he offers to take her number, she shrugs and tells him there's no need. Last night was no-strings sex. She doesn't want to see him again.

He's just another one-night stand to join the hundreds of others. Victoria, a 28-year-old Oxford graduate, confesses she's slept with 900 men in nine years... Yes, really.

"People presume I've been promiscuous from day one, but that couldn't be further from the truth," says Victoria defiantly.

In fact, the PA from Hertfordshire had a very sheltered upbringing. Her parents are devout Catholics. An only child, she was sent to a private girls' boarding school.

She grew up with lots of rules - one of them being that boys were banned.

"While all my friends were going to the cinema with boys or flirting at discos, I was playing Scrabble with my parents, riding my horse or going to church," she says.

"My father made it very clear when I turned 13 that boys were not to be a part of my life. He was worried my schoolwork would suffer. He'd sent me to a £7,000 a term all-girls school and wanted to make sure I spent my time studying rather than giggling over guys."

Victoria doesn't regret her actions

But Victoria says this just made her a figure of fun.

"The girls in my year all knew I'd never had a boyfriend or even kissed a guy, so they used to tease me all the time, calling me a lesbian or frigid. The fact I was a tomboy who loved sport and didn't bother with make-up or girlie clothes didn't help," she says.

"The bullying made me disappear into my shell and I became shy and timid."

When Victoria turned 18, she headed to Oxford University to study English. To say she came out of her shell would be something of an understatement.

"I went into halls and I felt such a sense of freedom," she says. "It was strange being surrounded by men all the time!"

Victoria was determined to break away from being the shy girl. So on her first night at university, she downed several shots of tequila with her fellow students before heading off to the Freshers' Ball.

Within hours, she'd had her first ever kiss with Tom, who lived in her halls. A week later, they were dating.

"I didn't feel like the geeky girl at school any more, and without my father watching me all the time, I knew I could finally do whatever I liked," she recalls.

Tom agreed to wait until Victoria was ready to have sex. Six months later, she lost her virginity to him, in her cramped single bed in halls.

"I know most girls say their first time isn't great, but I couldn't get over how incredible it felt!" she admits. "I'd never had anyone touch my bare flesh before - it was amazing. I just wanted to do it over and over again."

So often, in fact, that Tom just couldn't keep up with her.

"If we didn't have sex at least three times a day, I felt moody and irritable," Victoria recalls. "But Tom didn't want to spend all day in bed. He wanted to meet his mates or study for his course. In the end, we broke up by mutual agreement - I think Tom wanted a relationship that was more than just sex."

It didn't take Victoria long to get over her heartbreak. Just a week after splitting up with Tom, she met a guy - whose name she can't remember - in a local bar and took him back to her room for a night of passion.

"I didn't care who he was or what he did," she says. "All I was thinking about was having sex and feeling good."

It was the start of a pattern that would repeat itself over the years.

"I'd go to student bars and clubs, dance provocatively in front of a man I fancied, then ask him to buy me a drink - it was that easy," Victoria shrugs.

"Most of the blokes thought I was a 'cool bird' and liked the fact I took control and only wanted sex. I regularly slept with at least two guys a week - sometimes more. But I didn't feel slutty. I was making up for lost time! Men do it all the time, so why shouldn't women?" she adds defiantly.

Victoria would pick up men at parties...

Moving into a flat with five girls in her second year did nothing to calm her down.

"We'd recommend men to each other," she giggles. "We'd tell each other whether they were good in bed or not. None of us ever got possessive over one boy - we just made sure we all had fun and enjoyed ourselves.

"Our flat was known as the 'fun flat'. There were always half-naked blokes wandering around, and most of us didn't even know their names!"

Unsurprisingly, some men couldn't handle Victoria's non-committal attitude.

"This one guy called Stewart* used to hide outside the house to see if I was dating anyone else," she laughs. "It became a running joke. If we heard a noise outside, we'd say: 'That's just crazy Stewie with his binoculars.'"

In her final year, Victoria's sexual encounters went up a notch when she was introduced to swinging by a friend.

"We all went to London for the weekend and visited an elite swingers club," she says. "It was amazing. Everyone was up for having sex with everyone else. The fact that we all knew that's what we were there for made it feel both hedonistic and exciting. That night, I had two threesomes and even tried group sex. I can't tell you how many people I had sex with in total, but it was the most thrilling, satisfying, fulfilling thing I've ever done."

After graduating from Oxford with a 2:2 and an insatiable appetite for sex, Victoria took a job as a PA and moved to London.

Once there, she continued to pick up men several times a week in clubs such as Boujis and Chinawhite.

...and take them home for sex

"I don't have a particular type, but I do tend to end up with cocky, arrogant bankers in their 20s," says Victoria, who admits she's a sex addict and says the longest she's gone without sex is three weeks.

"I love to see their faces when I kick them out of bed in the morning. I try to make sure they're single, but if they lie, that's their lookout!"

Unfortunately, Victoria's relaxed attitude to sex has caused a rift with her parents.

"They heard on the rumour mill that I was sleeping around and my dad confronted me about it. He was disgusted.

I told him it was none of his business and he hasn't spoken to me since," she explains.

Victoria says she knows other people will also judge her, but she doesn't care.

She shrugs off suggestions that she might be putting herself in danger, saying she always uses protection, is regularly tested for STIs, and never goes to an empty flat with a stranger.

"Sex is a very normal thing for people to do! Some go out for dinner, some play sport - I have sex," says Victoria.

"I'm not hurting anyone. Lots of women are so worried about what other people will think if they have lots of partners, but I say everyone is entitled to live their life the way they want. If that means sleeping with lots of men for enjoyment, what's wrong with that?"

However, Victoria admits that in the last three months, she's started to curb her behaviour, and has even joined a gym in a bid to dampen her voracious sexual appetite.

"I've been on a few dates with one guy. There's something different about him - he played hard to get and was a real challenge," she admits. "He's also a match for me in the bedroom - and out of it. I don't know what will happen with him, but it has made me realise that I do want marriage and babies in the future."

And after nine years as a sexual predator, Victoria has begun to evaluate her behaviour.

"I think that, because my childhood was so strict, I've been making up for lost time," she says.

"I don't intend to live my whole life like this, but I don't regret my past. I've had fun. For now, I'm dating just the one guy, but so far, so casual. We'll see what happens.

"I just need to find someone with as big a sexual appetite as me to keep me satisfied."

PHOTOGRAPHY: AMIT LENNON HAIR & MAKE-UP: SHERRIE WARWICK STYLING: LUCIE CLIFFORD MODELS FROM RAGE MODELS VICTORIA WEARS (TOP): TOP, LIMITED EDITION AT NEW LOOK; JEANS, OASIS; CUFF, FREEDOM AT TOPSHOP; SHOES, DUNE VICTORIA WEARS (SECOND FROM TOP): DRESS, MONSOON *NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED

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