The very saucy remark about two young men Jilly Cooper whispered in my ear – and how the era of the bodice-ripping bonkbuster is back (and I’m to blame!)

About thirty years ago, novelist Jilly Cooper and I sat together in a BBC Radio studio. As two young techs struggled with the equipment, Jilly leaned conspiratorially into my ear and asked in her beautiful deep, plummy voice, “Which of these guys do you think was the most f***able?”

I was shocked. Back then, the f-word wasn’t being thrown around like it is now. It was a different era, an era that I think of as BC (Before Clarkson). But I was equally enraptured by her irresistible boldness.

Jilly was recently made a Dame and described receiving the honor from King Charles as ‘orgasmic’ – proving her age can’t wither her, Jilly is still a very naughty girl.

Of course, Jilly is known as the Queen of the Bonkbuster, with her shamelessly ambiguous book titles – Tackle! Assemble! Score!

They are stories of rich, horsey people living in Rutshire – Jilly’s wonderfully unsubtle, fictionalized county of whip-riding and bed-hopping, but in fact so obviously her beloved Cotswolds.

Later this year, Disney+ will show an eight-part series based on Jilly’s book Rivals. The appeal of her novels spans generations – even Rishi Sunak is a big fan, having said: ‘You need escapism in your life.’

For anyone who takes offense to the word “bonkbuster,” I’m afraid I’m the one to blame. A few decades ago I wrote a column in The Guardian under a pseudonym as a writer of sexy historical blockbusters, which I described as “bonkbusters.”

To be honest, I hate the word ‘bonk’; it sounds like a bookcase falling off the floor. Still, it caught on and is now in the dictionary.

Nowadays the genre seems to be getting a second wind. But in the age of the #MeToo movement, can the bonkbuster really revive its giddy 1980s heyday?

One of the earliest examples is Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber, published in 1944. Set during the reign of Charles II, it is a bodice ripper that follows a beautiful country girl to London, where her bodice is relentlessly ripped. But Amber is a survivor, an anti-heroine, smart and immoral. Fourteen US states banned the book as pornography and of course American soldiers away from home during the war were eager to read it.

In Valley Of The Dolls (1966) by Jacqueline Susann, three New York girls are determined to make it in show business and fall in love – but the book ends in a downward spiral of drugs and despair.

A few decades ago, Sue Limb wrote a column in The Guardian under a pseudonym as a writer of sexy historical blockbusters, which she described as “bonkbusters.”

Jilly Cooper was recently made a Dame and described receiving the honor from King Charles as ‘orgasmic’

It was published in a peacetime world where the sexual revolution was underway, but still provoked moral outrage among small-town prudes who saw it as a “dirty book.” Today’s young people would never believe in the deep puritanism in which we Boomers grew up.

In 1963, the year that, according to poet Philip Larkin, “sexual intercourse began,” I was a nerdy schoolgirl writing essays about Shakespeare. Homosexuality was illegal and illegitimacy a shameful secret. When my mother came to my room and said a relative “had to get married,” her opening gambit was, “Turn off the lights, I have something to tell you.”

Divorce was also a shame. Shirley Conran, bonkbuster author and legendary creator of the Daily Mail’s Femail pages, who died last month aged 91, had to put up with her parents’ imagined views. Her mother told her:

Cecile Paoli in Jilly Cooper’s Riders – a story about rich, horsey people living in Rutshire, her wonderfully unsubtle fictional county full of whip-riding and bed-hopping

Later this year, Disney+ will show an eight-part series based on Jilly’s book Rivals. Alex Hassell and Bella Maclean are photographed filming in Tetbury, Gloucestershire

“Maybe it’s a good thing your father is dead, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to get a divorce.”

Perhaps the increasing success of bonkbusters in the 1970s and 1980s was the Boomers’ celebration of true sexual liberation. As society became more open, tolerant and seedy, with the f-word being used routinely, even on cooking shows, the bonkbuster became more explicit, fearlessly delving into the characters’ underwear.

As a child, my generation had devoured Lady Chatterley’s Lover by torchlight under the bedclothes. Now we could boldly read Jackie Collins’s Hollywood Wives on the train and no one would bat an eyelid. In fact, many other passengers would probably read it too.

Hollywood Wives gives us a glimpse into the glitzy and often seedy world of the film industry: casting agents, rock stars and the glorious Jason Swankle who runs a male escort agency. One female character says, “I think I’m going to have an orgasm from your knee.”

Billy Orsini, the main character in Judith Krantz’s book Scruples, starts out modestly as a secretary in New York, then sleeps with the CEO, marries him, moves to Bel Air and becomes the fashion queen of LA.

Scruples is the name of her luxury boutique and the fashion detail is dazzling. A woman walks into a party “with the glitter of a matador, wearing a vintage, shocking pink and black satin Schiaparelli, thickly inlaid with gold braid.”

For regular women who wear jeans and sneakers most of the time, reading this stuff is like secretly sipping a hot chocolate with whipped cream.

Bonkbusters are bankbusters, with film and TV rights as the icing on the cake. Jilly Cooper has sold more than 11 million books in Britain alone. Jackie Collins has sold 500 million copies worldwide. The writers became glamorous celebrities – it was fizz and snacks for these enlightened girls, not starving in an attic room.

But who reads these books?

Presumably cool people do this because they see their own lives portrayed – in the case of Jilly Cooper, with verve and humor.

Her most infamous heartthrob, Rupert Campbell-Black, is said to be partly based on Andrew Parker Bowles, Queen Camilla’s ex. (The fact that our new queen has an ex-husband is a symptom of the revolution our society has witnessed.)

Bonkbusters are bankbusters. Jilly has sold more than 11 million books in Britain alone

However, we plebs are attracted to the gilded scenarios of the rich and privileged because it is an escape from our mundane lives, as our Prime Minister says. We’re like Peeping Toms.

Of course it’s not great literature. But while radical feminists have deplored the “trashy” genre, they should applaud the success of energetic go-getters. It is also significant that Shirley Conran’s novel Lace celebrates the value of female friendship.

In recent years, cultural vigilantes looking to ferret out sexism, racism, and issues of sexual consent have found plenty to infuriate them in literature. But that doesn’t mean the bonkbuster is dead.

Fifty Shades Of Gray seems to have carried the torch into the 21st century. I’ve only recently delved into EL James’ hugely successful sadomasochistic series, loved by millions of women, but an innocent girl abused by a sadistic, powerful man? No thanks.

Perhaps the atmosphere of dark obsession belongs to the blood-sucking Twilight sagas, rather than the sunlit worlds of Jackie Collins’ Belair or Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire.

As Disney+ clearly believes, our appetite for challenging escapism remains as strong as ever. In a world where many of us can’t even bear to watch the news anymore, we may need the bonkbuster more than ever.

● Sue Limb is an author and comedy writer whose work includes Radio 4 sitcom Gloomsbury.