"The best place to have sex is in a graveyard", says Alain de Botton.

Where are you having sex these days? In a bed? On the couch? Occasionally venturing onto the lounge-room floor or maybe the shower if you’re feeling slightly adventurous?

You’ve been doing it wrong.

You should live a little, and get down and dirty in a graveyard.

It’s a theory from philosopher Alain de Botton, who says the best sex is when you’re surrounded by the dead.

The author and speaker, whose TED talks have been viewed over six million times, is in the country promoting his new book, The Course Of Love, and has some pretty interesting ideas about the way we think about love, romance, marriage and sex.

Hear Alain de Botton talk about why the best sex is always in grave yards…(Post continues after audio.)

It’s not a ghost-hunting fetish, not even a “well, this place is quiet and there’s lots of flowers around” kind of romantic notion.

Rather, he says, it’s spiritual.

When humans are faced with their own mortality, suddenly we become desperate to cling to life and to the experiences that make us.

“Love is the opposite of death,” he told Meshel Laurie on the Nitty Gritty Committee podcast.

“It’s when death is vivid… when you are aware of the fragility of everything, you need someone to cling to.”

No cemetary nearby? You could try this theory too: (post continues after video)

The founder of The School of Life is intent on changing the way we view love.

He calls bullshit on the way we are sold the idea of perfect romance, calls bullshit on finding ‘the one‘, and says the sooner you admit that you’re slightly crazy, the better off your relationships will be.

Listening to him will change the way you think about love. And life. And possibly cemeteries.

And all this time we’ve just been burying the dead when we could have been burying something else entirely.

Hear Meshel’s entire interview by subscribing in itunes or listening to Alain below:

For more episodes of The Nitty Gritty Committee, subscribe in iTunes, or download the show via your podcast app of choice (we recommend The Mamamia Podcast App, of course.)