The British are a flop when it comes to acting sexy

It's time for the Bad Sex award again. This is when The Literary Review looks down from its lofty position and gets ready to name and shame the author responsible for the worst sex scene of the year. But who are we really to judge? With our puritanical past and warped Victorian values, just how hot are the British at doing "sexy"? On stage, it seems, not really.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Burlesque at the Jermyn Street theatre in London. Burlesque is funny and entertaining, if a little old-fashioned, but it is in no way sexy. The women may have shaken their shiny stuff in a way that Christina Aguilera would envy, but their polished smiles and harsh thrusts belied any idea of sensuality.

It could be argued that this is the point of a show based in the seedy world of vaudevillian dance. But in the second act, as our performers formed a sexually predatory Greek chorus, they were meant to be alluring, sirens even. While the cast were undoubtedly attractive, they couldn't pull it off; the come-on was too brazen, too forced.

Sexiness is most real on stage when it's unaffected, even if it involves a corset and heels. But with sex, the famously phlegmatic British become extreme; we can handle it smutty, bawdy or even (as the Royal Shakespeare Company's awkwardly S&M Measure for Measure shows) dangerous – we just can't take it straight down the line. The idea of the erotic on stage makes us either titter, strap on enough leather to hide behind, or distract ourselves with knowing winks and nudges. Michael Grandage's production of Madame de Sade fell into this trap, feeling dry and tired as each actor played their lines for giggles; it would have been more dynamic, as well as authentic, for these sexually aware women to simply say each provocation straight.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. Nicole Kidman famously had critics drooling over her performance in British play The Blue Room, David Hare's 1998 adaptation of La Ronde (no one needs to hear yet again what Charles Spencer thought of it). Men and women were in raptures as she slowly put her underwear on. Kidman herself has spoken of it as a "very sweet moment", and perhaps this is the key to its success. Mendes encouraged Kidman and Iain Glen to take their time over the act, to highlight the tenderness as well as the lust, and it was, if the salivating critics are to be believed, all the sexier for it. More recently, Mike Bartlett's Cock (oh come on) included a real moment of sexual frisson between two characters who were fully clothed.

Sexy doesn't always have to mean prurient, but for the British it often does. Why do we seem stuck in this prolonged adolescence? It's time we had faith in the idea that a woman dressing can be one of the sexiest theatrical events of a decade. Maybe you'll just think I'm being prudish, but ask yourself: when was the last time you saw something truly sexy on stage?