Postcard from... Turin

Italian stallions are finding it hard becoming – and staying – aroused because they spend too much time getting their kicks on the internet when they should be learning their bedroom skills from more mature ladies, one of Italy's leading sex experts has warned.

The comments follow a survey of young people in Italy and around Europe, which has revealed how nearly one in five men between the ages of 18 and 30 has problems with impotence.

Professor Furio Pirozzi, of Sassari University in Sardinia, told experts in Turin that to boost their sexual prowess, young men didn't need Viagra but lessons in love from more experience partners.

"With older men who have impotence it's usually to do with a physical illness. But for young men it's different. The problem is that these days all the young men want to do is get drunk and drugged," said the 66-year-old sex expert.

"If you put a beautiful girl in front of a young bloke, all he'll want to do is snort a line of coke. When I was young we learnt how to make love from older ladies. As a 20-year-old, I learnt how to make love with women who were 40 or 45.

"Virtual sex is particularly bad, because men are able to create this image of any kind of woman they like, which bears no resemblance to reality."

The study of over 500 young men in Italy, Britain, France, Spain and Germany was presented at the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Andrology, of which Professor Pirozzi is the president.