“Talk to me,” your lover whispers in your ear. “Talk dirty to me.”
I use the phrase “talk dirty” not because I think explicit sexual language is dirty or bad in any way, but because for most people the phrase conjures up blue talk, all those delightful four-and-more-letter words you may get a thrill out of exploring. I alternate the expressions “dirty words” or “talking dirty” with less charged phrasing like “erotic talk” or “hot talk” to blur any barriers the phrase “dirty talk” might provoke. If Anglo-Saxonisms turn you off, look for alternate language that turns you on – the turn-on, and the communication it facilitates, is the whole point.
While I’m on the topic of four-letter words: you’ve probably noticed that I occasionally use them as I write. I feel casual and comfortable about words like “fuck” and “pussy,” so please be assured I’m not using them for shock value. If sexual slang is not part of your everyday speech, these may jump out of the text at you. Try to read them as simply descriptive. You can be a terrific erotic talker and never use them.
Auto-Erotic Talk
Let’s get back to your lover’s request. You open your mouth – but no sound comes out. You’re tongue-tied. What can you do?
You can start by practicing alone. Do you worry that explicit words will sound shocking, silly, trite or embarrassing coming out of your mouth? Begin by desensitizing yourself enough that you can actually speak them out loud. If there are specific words you routinely choke on that you want to include in your pillow talk, pick a time when you’re undisturbed, maybe involved in something else – washing dishes, say, or driving the car – and just say them! Don’t bother, yet, to string them into sentences. It may not seem highly sexy to chant “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck” while you’re unloading the dishwasher, but don’t worry. The erotic drama and punch will return when someone is listening.
In fact, it will probably return earlier than that. When the words no longer stick in your craw, take them into masturbation. As you get turned on, say them. Make them into short sentences (or long ones, if you’re feeling really talkative). Try to talk right up to and through orgasm. If you’ve never done this before you may find it highly exciting, and it will accustom you to hearing yourself talk dirty in an eroticized situation.
I have a friend who discovered a whole new territory when she began to do phone sex for a living. She liked talking so much that she taped herself talking dirty while masturbating (not forgetting the juicy sex sounds
– punctuating hot talk with moans and sighs heats it up for the talker as well as the listener), then played it back and used it as a sound track the next time she masturbated. Getting really creative, she got another tape recorder and recorded herself listening to (and talking along with) the first tape, creating a tapestry of auto-erotic sound. Wouldn’t that help jolt you out of your shyness? The tape would make a great surprise to leave under a special someone’s pillow, too.
What should you say? Anything you want. Especially as an addition to self-pleasuring, you can talk as blue a streak as you wish, and you need concern yourself neither with what your partner might find a turn-on nor what would drive your mother to wash your mouth out with soap. Masturbation is your own erotic time, and devoting it to your most intense turn-ons will not only loosen you up for sharing with a partner, it will be its own reward.
Listen to yourself talk while you masturbate – or even at other times when you have the privacy to talk to yourself. This is not a great exercise to do on a crowded bus, but if you can make solitary time, use it to get accustomed to hearing deliciously naughty things coming out of your mouth. As you get more comfortable you’ll likely find that your arousal increases, since for many people the freedom to become emotionally as well as physically turned on depends on how comfortable they feel.
Next go back to the mirror and watch yourself say those words. Watch yourself masturbating and talking. If you’re comfortable doing so, aim a digital movie camera at yourself as you talk. Watch it later and talk back while you watch. Tape yourself talking while you masturbate. If you find you don’t enjoy this or can’t feel comfortable, don’t worry. You don’t have to keep it up – you gave it a shot. Unlike the sorts of exhibitionism displayed by people who want to be watched, your preferred form of exhibitionism, talking erotically, doesn’t require you or your partners to be visually oriented. This kind of showing off can be done in the dark!
In Search of Words
Perhaps you simply don’t know which words you find erotic in the first place. You may feel you haven’t really discovered your own sexual interests, much less the words and phrases you associate with arousal. At least some of what you will find erotic on a fantasy level will also sound sexy when you talk about it, so as a next step, explore the realm of erotic fantasy, searching for your hot spots. This means, among other things, trying not to censor yourself when sexual thoughts flit into your head. Instead, note which erotic ideas or images grab your attention. If you’re sexual with other people, what sorts of play do you like best? Dwell on this and see where your mind takes you. If you find yourself responding to anything with physical signs of arousal, that will also be a clue.
Porn movies are one place to start. Images of explicit sex are extremely arousing for some people, not so inspiring for others. Try watching a few to see whether one or several engage your erotic imagination. Some porn videos feature talkative characters; if you can find these, you have the advantage of hearing sexy words spoken. With others you’ll need to come up with more of the language yourself. You’d think porn actors would talk a blue streak, but often they don’t... one picture being worth a thousand words, and all that. Once you get a bit more comfortable with speaking up, porn videos make a great prop for talking, because you can describe what’s happening on-screen.
Especially if erotic talk is your aim, you might find more inspiration in hot talk CDs – and on the printed page. After all, you can watch sexual scenarios for hours and be as incapable of stringing a sexy sentence together at the end as you were when you began, but erotic stories are composed of the building blocks you want to play with – words. Besides, you’ll be providing the mental images you find hot, and you may find your creative fantasies flow especially easily because of this.
You can get fantasy as well as vocabulary ideas from lurid romance novels and trashy porn books alike – the latter are a particularly rich trove of those words your mother would consider really filthy, hence a delightfully nasty source of inspiration if you want to go for hard-hitting dirty talk. However, your erotic talk need not be peppered with four-letter words to weave a very powerful spell around you and your partner. Some talkers never utter an explicit word; sexuality and subtlety can certainly go hand in hand.
Sexy scenarios from Nancy Friday’s fantasy compilations (feel free to skip the armchair psychology), erotic anthologies, Victorian bawdy novels, cutting-edge ’zines, and the “good parts” from mainstream novels all might get you going. If you have a kinky bent you might like what I used to read in college – old psychiatric case study collections. (Heavy on moralistic judgment, but oh, those perversions! Until you’ve masturbated to Patterns of Psychosexual Infantilism you haven’t lived). A classic source for scenarios and lingo is the “Letters” genre; Penthouse publishes a magazine with mostly heterosexual vignettes (these have been collected into books as well), and there are similar publications that cater to other erotic interests. If you prefer your erotica on the literary side, you might appreciate Yellow Silk, Libido (online at www.libidomag.com), any of the many collections of upscale, more highly literary erotic writing, or the seduction scene from a well-crafted novel.
For some people, hot writing is by definition trashy and poorly written, with lots of four-letter words and characters screaming “NnnnghAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!” at the moment of climax. Other readers find this a turn-off. (Of course, it makes a great difference to some of us if we read this while we’re masturbating! If you think you don’t like the trashy stuff, give that a try.) Some readers and porn viewers want their one-handed reading or fantasy-inspiring material to be as kinky or sleazy as possible, while others are fans of romantic or sensual work.
The bottom line? Everybody’s different; if you haven’t sampled other peoples’ favorite genres of sex writing, how can you know for sure it won’t get you hot? Arousal is unpredictable. Check out a variety of written porn and see what floats your boat. The more you explore, the wider your potential for arousal may become.
Talking With Your Partner
This point has special relevance if you and your partner like different things. Both of you can give each other’s favorite material more than a cursory try; if either of you doesn’t share the other’s turn-on, it’s time to negotiate. Maybe you can take turns picking out a bedtime story; maybe you’ll agree not to share this material with each other at all, although you can still use it as inspiration for erotic talk.
What if you still feel reticent with your partner? Perhaps you’re not sure what sort of language or scenario will go over well with her or him; if you’re new to exchanging fantasies and talking explicitly, you may worry about what your partner will think of your new language skills. You may have stage fright at the thought of getting started. I used to fear I’d sound silly, not sexy.
There’s a step you can take in learning to talk erotically that can happen either in or out of bed. Before you start in on the scary four-letter words, begin to talk about sex more often, and more explicitly, with your partner and your friends, using non-“dirty” words. This way you separate two possibly challenging aspects – talking about sex, and taboo words – and tackle them one at a time.
If you and your partner don’t talk about sex much or aren’t in the habit of trying new things, the fact that you’re going to suggest learning to talk erotically might make some waves. Don’t be too worried: they might be very good waves. In general, introducing such changes goes more smoothly if you put things positively: “I find the idea of talking while we make love really sexy,” rather than “I just think we need something to spice things up.” It is very possible that your opening up the topic of new ways to share sex will inspire your partner to tell you what s/he has been secretly craving; with luck, you’ll have all kinds of new activities to enjoy!
If you are both novices, neither of you will know ahead of time exactly how the changes will feel, so it’s not surprising if you’re both a little nervous. You can let your partner know you feel nervous about bringing the new idea up: “I’d like us to experiment sexually, and I’m not sure how you’ll react to my ideas – can I ask you to listen to my suggestions without responding to them right now? Just listen, and we’ll have a conversation later.” This way you can get your ideas out on the table without worrying s/he’s about to say something to reject them. Ask yourself before you begin: How can I broach this subject in a way that will feel safe for me? How can I encourage my partner to suspend his/her judgment and hear me out? How can I try to make it feel safe for her or him?
Share this book with your partner. Tell him or her the ideas you like. When you begin to experiment, agree that you won’t criticize each other’s performance, but that afterwards you’ll have a conversation to check in about how it felt. Encourage your partner to talk back to you so you feel it’s a mutual experiment. Ask how s/he would like to receive feedback from you and state how you’d like to receive feedback yourself.
Erotic experimentation can feel emotionally risky for both of you. Be especially attentive to each other’s need for support. Ask for support yourself, if you need it. Remember, you’re learning something that can be erotic and fun. That should be a strong incentive, even if you feel nervous at first!
Now’s the time to share your collection of erotic writing with your partner. You can do this in a variety of ways: leave a stack of books and magazines with a note saying, “Please mark your favorites;” liven up a car trip by telling each other what stories and fantasies you each liked best; or pull out all the stops, design a fantasy weekend in bed, and start reading to each other. Obviously, this technique requires that you both be at least willing, if not avid, readers.
Sharing your favorite erotic material will do more than just begin to clue you in to your own and your partner’s favorite dirty words and phrases. It will also help you both get more familiar with the other’s erotic hot spots. You may discover erotic desires you want to explore together; you may uncover fantasies only one of you prefers and that you decide to restrict to a verbal role in your lovemaking – if you share them at all. Any one of many reasons may dictate that you decide to talk about something rather than try it – safe sex or monogamy considerations, fear, wanting to keep it hot in fantasy (some people fear that trying out a fantasy will ruin it, and once in a while they’re right), even the small matter of physical impossibility! This is all perfectly okay. Some of our most potent fantasy scenarios never get closer than words whispered in our ears, but they are no less powerful sexual experiences for that.
Do It On the Phone
Another useful trick when beginning to talk with a partner is to do it live, but over the phone. You will have a cloak of privacy that respects your shyness yet doesn’t shore it up. Arrange a time you can feel comfortable exploring telephone play. If your partner has requested phone sex or dirty talk, great – but you might still want to talk about it before you start dialing, if only to reassure yourself that the timing is right and that your lover’s response will be positive. Otherwise, you run the risk of putting your partner on the spot, perhaps rendering him or her as tongue-tied as you’re trying to learn not to be!
Phone sex can be very smutty, highly romantic, or anything in between. Nasty and starry-eyed, naughty and nice, aren’t either/or options – they exist on a continuum. In fact, who says you can’t be naughty and romantic at the same time?
Even if you and your partner have never masturbated in each other’s presence, you might want to try it over the phone. Touch yourself and describe what you’re doing; ask him or her to direct you; direct him or her. You can pretend you’re together making love, or you can pretend you’re strangers. You can ask for things you’re shy about when face-to-face; you can describe your ideal lovemaking to each other.
Of course, you can do all this in person, too. Picking up the phone first, before the face-to-face encounter, is optional – but it often helps if you find that in person you get too easily distracted by all your wonderful options for non-verbal communication. As fabulous as kissing is, it’s hard to make yourself understood when your lips are pressed against your lover’s. Phone sex forces you to talk – or at least moan and sigh – because you can’t touch or see each other’s expressions. Besides, phone sex is a hot alternative whether you’re shy or bold.
You can also practice your phone skills with an actual stranger – via either paid-for phone sex or a chat line. In the first case you’ll be conversing with a professional who talks for a living; in the second, with an enthusiastic amateur. In either case, you’ll have a more satisfying experience if you approach your phone pal with courtesy. If you’ve never called a professional line before, ’fess up and tell your phone fantasy facilitator that you want to learn new talking-dirty skills, either by example or by direction. This will distinguish you from the other callers somewhat, and you’ll be more likely to get useful material from the call. Of course, if this situation is a turn-on for you, go for it and put your hands in your pants – everyone else does.
A hint – most phone sex workers find it very annoying when a caller grills them about their state of arousal, their personal lives, etc. Remember, it may be just a job to the woman or man on the other end of the line, but at least you’re talking to a pro! And some phone professionals do love to talk dirty; although these people will likely prove the most inspirational, don’t underestimate the usefulness of learning tips from people who didn’t start out as “naturals” – who had to learn specific skills so they could be good at this specialized job.
While talking dirty is the focus of this chapter, I should also mention another possibility you may find you enjoy – writing dirty. I don’t mean becoming an erotic writer for publication, although once you get started, you may want to do just that. I mean writing explicit notes to your lover, or penning vignettes or journal entries to turn yourself on (maybe in preparation for narrating them to someone later), describing a sexy scene from a dream, exchanging written fantasies with your partner (which you can read aloud to each other), or – most interactive of all – sitting at a keyboard and exploring the cyberworld of computer sex. If you can summon forth purple prose from your fingertips while another person waits with bated breath for your words, can increased comfort talking voice-to-voice be far behind? You should be aware that your fellow erotic adventurers in the world of cybersex may not always be who they say they are. But then, you too may find you enjoy trying on an entirely new sexual persona that does not match your physical self or everyday personality.
Hot Talk – Fun, and Good For You, Too
Explicit talk can be a fabulous sex toy. But if you need extra encouragement to take the plunge, remember that both your sexual self-esteem and your sex life are liable to get a boost from learning to talk in bed and wherever else you share sexual time with partners. For one thing, you can use hot talk to convey very specific information about who you are – what you want, how you like to be touched, how you feel in the erotic moment – in a way that feels sexy and accessible to your partner. Conveying information erotically – not just explicitly – increases the likelihood that your partner will respond positively to your feedback or request.
As an example, let’s look at that hot potato, safe sex. We receive many more exhortations to have safe sex than instructions to help us negotiate it; most of us know it’s good for us, but lots of us still complain it isn’t any fun. Mary Poppins isn’t usually quoted as an authority about safe sex, but remember what she said about a spoonful of sugar – it “helps the medicine go down in a most delightful way!”
To illustrate: which invitation would you rather respond to? “You’re going to have to put a condom on that thing before we go any further” – or “Let me get a rubber on that hot cock of yours so you can slide it deep into my hungry cunt” (or whichever orifice is appropriate). How about “I’m going to drip some lube into the tip of this condom so when I slide it over your cock and roll it down with my mouth you can feel every little move I make”? Or “Look at me while I slip this slick latex glove on my hand. You’re very lucky to be playing doctor with someone this experienced.”
To feel in control sexually most of us have to feel that our partner hears us and is willing to respond to our limits and preferences. While limits and individual needs must be honored with or without the icing of sexy talk, the truth is that many of us get defensive and may not respond to direct feedback in a very open way. Conveying direction and preference erotically significantly increases our chances of getting not only a positive response, but a passionate one. In turn, successful sexual communication can substantially improve our self-esteem, especially if we’ve been feeling frustrated and silent about any aspect of our sex lives. It can also help minimize partners’ defensiveness and resentment; the idea is to make sexual communication win-win, not only positive but positively pleasurable.
Most sex therapists teach a version of this strategy when a couple has become mired in resentful, difficult communication. Results improve when we communicate respectfully and positively. Instead of “You never spend any time caressing me!” wouldn’t most partners respond better to “I love feeling your hands running all over my body, my breasts, my belly, stroking my back, getting me so hot”? In addition to being sexier, the second example is phrased in positive, not negative, terms. Too, when I add an extra note of eroticism to a request, I’m already in a more receptive mood when my request is met. Erotic talk is not just for heating up your partner, but for you too.
I don’t recommend using hot talk just to get your partner to respond more positively to your sexual requests, needs, and limits. Here’s why. Unless it’s also erotic for you to make these requests erotically, you will probably resent having to present yourself this way to get your needs met. If it feels more like jumping through hoops than bringing both passion and easier communication to bed, take another look at your situation. Does it seem as though your partner doesn’t respond respectfully to you and must be manipulated? Or, do you object to giving your partner direct feedback about sex, erotic or otherwise, and really wish that the sex would be better without your having to speak up?
If it’s the former, you and your partner have a problem, and you may need to ask yourself whether there is the possibility of change. Your options range from confronting your partner and establishing new expectations together, to finding a counselor who can help both of you with your communications skills, to terminating the relationship.
If it’s the latter, your problem may be with your expectations about sex itself. Read those romances and porn novels for the steamy scenarios, dear
– but don’t take them for the last word in sex education! Most of us have to be directive with our partners at least some of the time, and if they respond to the feedback our sex lives nearly always improve.
When you make your sexual desires known by talking erotically, you’ll find not only that it gives you better results and makes the conversation easier to have – you’ll find it fun and sexy, enhancing the encounter for you as well as for your partner. Remember that the main reason to be exhibitionistic is still that it enhances your own sexuality, turns you on, increases your pleasure. Learning to do something pleasurable involves taking greater control of your own sexuality, thus helping you feel better about yourself. The better, more empowered, more sophisticated you feel about sex, the better it can be.
Erotic talk can help put you in the mood as well as set the mood. Whether you talk or listen or have a lusty conversation, talking dirty helps you acknowledge the eroticism you feel with your partner, lets you signal that you’re attracted to or interested in particular kinds of sex, and contributes greatly to an erotic atmosphere. It lets you put your toe into the water of an unfamiliar sexual practice to learn whether it feels warm and inviting. It also serves as great proof that you aren’t as shy as you used to be!
Ideas and Exercises
Here are more ideas to help you become more comfortable talking dirty with your lover.
Take turns with your partner doing this exercise. While your partner makes love to you, describe what s/he’s doing and how it feels. This might sound more descriptive than erotic at first, but give it a try. If it helps to give it some context, start each statement with “You’re...” “You’re touching my face gently, you’re kissing my neck, you’re nibbling the inside of my wrist, you’re tugging on my nipples, you’re spreading my legs...” and so forth. By the time the sexual encounter has heated all the way up, what you describe will sound like talking dirty, I assure you! For a nice variation on this exercise, tell your lover what to do to you. “Kiss me hard. Suck on my nipples. Stroke your hands up my thighs, but stop right before...” Besides being an exercise in erotic talk, this one can easily turn into an exercise in expressing what you like sexually.
Of course, you and your partner can do this simultaneously during lovemaking. If you still feel a little performance anxiety, try doing the descriptive exercise together, talking at the same time. Your words will filter through to your partner, but s/he will be talking over them, and vice versa; that way you may feel you have more freedom to speak out. The erotic cacophony can also be very exciting. Audiotape this, if you’re both willing!
Another way to explore talking and fantasy with your lover can happen during sex, as foreplay, or during non-explicitly sexual, playful time. Simply narrate fantasies to each other. You can get them from your erotic reading, from videos you’ve liked, from your own fantasy life – wherever. If you need a place to start, imagine you’ve just peeped through a keyhole and witnessed someone masturbating, or a couple having sex, or some other erotic vision. Be as descriptive as you can, not just of the people you see, but of the kind of sex they’re having.
Alternatively, you and your partner can do this exercise in the form of questions and answers. You might find this draws details out you wouldn’t ordinarily have narrated. “What was he wearing?” “Where did she have her hands?”
Another really fun way to do this sort of exercise involves the two of you telling the story together. Start out by setting the stage, then let your partner embellish it. Then you take over again. Then give the narrative thread back to your partner. And so on. If you have a number of uninhibited friends who like to talk about sexual topics, this exercise is great fun when done in a group – it livens up any party!
Especially when done with your partner, this will help you flesh out your fantasy world, but it can also help you tune in to erotic detail – which can have real ramifications on your ability to take in sensually and visually exciting details of your environment in real life, not just in fantasy.
Here’s a slightly more structured one. Have your partner describe the environment where the fantasy takes place (is it in a castle in Spain? On a beach in Tahiti? In a whorehouse in 17th century London?) and the characters (the fantasy could be about the two of you, about Napoleon and Josephine, about your two favorite movie stars). Now make up the fantasy. What will you have Napoleon do to Josephine in Tahiti? What are you and your lover doing in that whorehouse?
If you do these kinds of exercises when you’re having sex, you may notice a curious side effect. The physical pleasure you experience from sexual stimulation may help you get over your self-consciousness about talking. But you might also feel an opposite effect. Talking during sex can distract you slightly from the physical, so some people who have difficulty achieving orgasm actually find that climax sneaks up and surprises them when they’re focusing less on whether their body will work and more on erotic images. You’ll find this especially true if you really eroticize talking, because then talking itself will be part of your arousal. Listening to your lover talk can be positively orgasm-inducing. In an erotic conversation with your lover, talking and listening meld into a very interactive pleasure, and you’re less likely to feel on stage and on the spot.
For the especially self-conscious, all these partner exercises can be done with your eyes closed, in darkness, even blindfolded. Sometimes this helps free you up to talk because you then focus less on being listened to or observed. Alternatively, you can do them sitting back to back. I once observed a phone sex conversation roleplayed by two women who were sitting this way, and the position seemed to add an exciting element for them – it seemed that they put more into the words because they couldn’t see each other, the way phone sex tends to distill the whole encounter into talking and listening. Yet they were right next to each other, not alone. Doing this exercise gives you your partner’s presence, but pares away some of the distraction and hopefully some of your shyness.
Erotic talk need not be narratively-oriented, though telling stories is fun and story-telling can provide helpful structure and context for the shy person or the neophyte. You can also give directions, as I suggested in the exercise above. You can focus on describing and embellishing – “your hot, sweet, dripping pussy” or “his hard, straining, rampant cock.” But one of the most effective sexy talkers I’ve ever met was an absolute minimalist, and the only complete sentence he ever used in bed was, “Ohhh, I’m gonna come!” This phrase punctuated the sighs, moans, and heavy breathing of our sexual encounters to devastating effect, for I always had the impression he was so overcome by the power of his impending orgasm that he simply had to announce it. I found this habit of his extremely exciting.
Robert talks all the way through his sexual encounters, spinning a web with his voice and his words that carries his partner in its escalating passion. He pays as much careful attention to his tone of voice as to his choice of words; his inflection weaves the erotic spell. The other crucial element in his hot talk repertoire deserves special mention: he pays close attention to his partners’ hot spots, fantasies, and desires, sometimes asking direct questions to get more in-depth information, and he stores up every tiny fact to use later. This is a very effective tactic. I like hearing sexy talk even when I suspect the person says the same thing every time, but when Robert talks I know he’s talking to me because he’s bringing in elements meant to turn me on.
So when you do partnered explorations of erotic talk, pay attention to your lover’s language and to her or his fantasies; look for recurring themes, favorite words, and heightened arousal. These are fine points that will help guarantee you get the response you want when you begin talking to your lover. After all, hearing yourself talk is all well and good – but most hot talkers I know feed off the passionate energy of an aroused and appreciative audience. For best effect, talk about something you both find highly erotic. When you do this, you’ll find that the words, the sounds of your voices, and all your physical movements and sensations blend together into a powerfully hot experience.
After doing any of these partnered exercises, talk together about how it was for you. What felt especially exciting and what was disappointing? What was easier/harder for you than you expected? Would you like to modify it next time for greater effect? How? Be sure both of you get a chance to express your feelings and that you clarify whose turn-ons – and difficulties
– are whose.
In fact, you can do this to check in about your feelings regarding any erotic experiment. It’s a great way to prevent the syndrome where one of you is thrilled with a new activity but the other is less than enchanted. Remember, better communication usually paves the way for better sex.
Dirty Talkers Speak Up
Before we move on to look at other elements of talking dirty, roleplay and choosing your preferred language, here are more suggestions for getting comfortable and practicing. I asked several people who find talking dirty an important part of their sexuality to get together and share their secrets. Here’s what they said.
“It’s erotic for me to talk dirty when I’m by myself,” says erotic writer and playwright Blake C. Aarens. “I have this whole repertoire that I can play with in private. But I also love reading to people. It doesn’t matter what. It isn’t so much what I’m saying as using my voice.” Blake, herself a performer, does have a wonderful voice. So does Jamie, who says she gave conscious attention to developing her voice so her erotic talk would be more effective. “I worked on my speaking voice – it’s literally different now than it used to be.
“It wouldn’t occur to me talk dirty by myself,” she adds. “But I love making up stories with another person. I like sex improv! It’s like getting a grab bag in acting class, where you have to make up a story with what you have.” Performer Julia Trahan agrees: “It’s just like improvisational theater. You have your action – sometimes you go onstage and that’s all you have. You act ‘as if,’ and then this whole world is created.”
Blake adds a suggestion for beginners (or anyone else) to try. “To do the grab bag exercise, get a bunch of different things that may seem totally unrelated. Put ‘em in a bag and pull three out at a time. Then make up a story.” You can use actual objects in the grab bag – sex toys, articles of clothing, even things that have no obvious relationship to sex. Or you and your partner can write things on slips of paper – objects, scenarios, types of sexual activity, erotic roles, places – and, randomly drawing three, use them to concoct a story to talk about.
Jackie Strano and Shar Rednour are lovers who delight in hot talk. Until they met, they hadn’t always found partners with whom they could openly talk dirty and fantasize. “I love fantasy play and reading erotica,” Jackie says. “We read aloud to each other while we’re masturbating. I love kinky little stories – throw in all the taboos. We can have five imaginary people in the room, gang-banging away. With other lovers I’ve only been able to allude to fantasies like that. I always internalized it and thought I was too kinky. I’ve tried talking dirty with unresponsive partners, but I might as well just watch TV.”
Besides liking blue language, Shar tells erotic stories. “I’ve eased into it by telling people that I like to do it. Sometimes I actually start with children’s fantasies, where everything’s always sparkly. I see how receptive they are to that. Or I read erotica. I have a book beside the bed, and say, ‘Do you mind if I read you a story?’ See how they respond to that. Then you can segue into your own stories.”
Shar thinks one reason she and Jackie enjoy story-telling and fantasy so completely is that they’re still in touch with the childlike fun of make-believe – they just indulge in a grown-up version of it now. “A lot of people get far removed from the power of imagination. They forget that all you have to do is say, ‘Here’s a cup of pretend tea. Here’s cake. And now we have cake and tea.’”
Were you an imaginative child? If so, think back to those days when cake and tea materialized out of thin air, you transformed into Superman, or you had an invisible best friend. You’ll use the same capacity as an adult–only you’ll imagine more adult and sexual things. “We’ll literally start something sexual by saying ‘Let’s pretend,’” says Shar, “which I hadn’t said since I was a child.” Even if you missed out on games of “let’s pretend” when you were a little girl or boy, it’s not too late to start now! This sort of play, besides leading you right into erotic talk, can also lead you into roleplaying games.
“Before getting into raunchy talking dirty,” Shar continues, “which is so worthwhile, I recommend it for everyone – do ‘let’s pretend’ in scenarios that you feel totally safe in. Let’s pretend you’re the stereotypical repairman. We fuck just the way that we normally fuck, but we talk according to the characters’ roles – you’d say, ‘Well, Miss, got a bedroom around here?’”
Talking can serve as a technique to make fantasy seem real; but you can also talk to make the present seem even more vivid. Blake explains, “Talking dirty for me is a way to express sensation. To let my lover know explicitly what the sensations are like in my body. Because they can’t know unless I tell them. I describe how it feels. What I’m smelling, the sound, how the timbre of a voice affects me, bringing in sight and taste and touch. I love listening, too. I remember having sex with this boy in college. I was on top of him, moving very slowly. And he grabbed my shoulders, and just started saying the word ‘slow.’ ‘Slow, slow,’ over and over again.”
“Part of getting somebody captivated is believing in yourself,” Blake continues. “I get my partner engaged with their own ears – lowering the volume of my speech so they have to lean forward to hear me, drawing them in, making them focus. That gives them a role to play too – that of listener. That totally pulls the other person in.”
More hints from my talkative friends: Try talking for short periods of time. Whisper. Turn the lights out. If either you or your partner fumbles for words, you can ask each other to be more specific or ask each other questions to draw out detail, which can help you get more involved in your narrative.
Robert recommends describing “what I did to you. What I’m doing to you. What I’m going to do to you.” “What I thought about doing to you yesterday when you weren’t here,” adds Blake.
Use the mirror to practice. “If you can get to a point where you can say it in the mirror without cracking up, you can take anybody with you,” says Blake. Shar agrees. “Practice in the shower. Talk to yourself when your partner isn’t home.” “Talk out loud in the car,” suggests Jackie. “Do it wherever you feel safe.”
Besides giving attention to sexual language you like, start developing an ear for voices. Watching movies, particularly older movies where people used their voices especially effectively, can help you tune in to this quality. It’s easy to listen to your own voice – most of us own answering machines, and you can use the “outgoing message” function to practice. (If you say anything salacious, remember to erase it at the end of your practice session – you wouldn’t want to nonconsensually fire up a telephone solicitor or upset your mother!) Or leave yourself a voicemail message; think of it as practice for leaving a sexy message for someone else.
“Talk about sex where you can’t really do anything about it,” says Jackie. “Surrounded by people in a cafe the day after you’ve had great sex. On a bus.” “At a boring cocktail party,” suggests Shar. “It’s so great, when you’re sitting there with your fake little smiles on, to lean over and say, ‘You know, I bet you really wanna get up behind that woman and bend her over and shove your dick between her ass cheeks. I bet she has panty-hose on, and you’ll have to rip ‘em off. They probably smell like her pussy, since she’s been wearing them all day long.’”
Talk to each other while masturbating. Describe how you masturbate, or a past sexual encounter. Read books together, watch porn together, tell each other the scenarios you like best. “You don’t necessarily have to start out face to face,” says Jackie; “it can be over the phone, so it’s safer. To defuse the whole after-the-fact – or before-the-fact – conversation, write it down. One day we sat in a bar, just for fun, making a list of fantasies. One, having public sex downtown at lunch hour. Two, something else. We kept them, and sometimes we pull an idea out of the hat.”
“Asking to be fucked is very, very simple, and it works like a charm,” says Shar. “I always wanted to say, ‘Fuck my pussy!’ but it was this Hustler term. I was so shy to say it at first. So I started out with, ‘Oh, please.’ Or, ‘Yeah, do that! Uh-huh, uh-huh. More, more.’
“Just remember the simple things that you learn when you’re one and a half. ‘Yes. No. More. More.’ More means ‘food,’ it means ‘bottle,’ it means ‘kisses,’ it means ‘story,’ it means... everything.” (Not to mention “don’t stop”– another very hot but non-explicit phrase.) “Progress from breathing, to moaning, to words, phrases, and sentences.”
The flip side of this technique is for the other partner to take over and ask questions: “Yeah, you like that, baby, don’t you?” “What do you want me to do to you now?” “How does it feel when I...?” “You can tell from the way talking escalates,” adds Shar. “If they’re getting hotter from what you’re saying, you can say even more.” “That can come with time, too, and trust,” says Jackie. “Knowing that if you call somebody a ‘greedy little whore’ they’re not gonna get up and lock you out of their house.”
“Saying what you like is one way to start talking,” says Shar. “Tell what you used to imagine when you masturbated. You can tell what you masturbated to when you were fifteen. When you were nineteen. When you were twenty-five. When you had your first relationship, or what you think about when you’re in the car masturbating, or in the shower masturbating, in bed masturbating.”
What? You don’t masturbate in the car? You don’t have to be a dyed-in-the-wool show-off to find a place to begin. “There’s a lot to be said for just starting out by saying, ‘Oh...’ and your lover’s name,” says Jackie. “Just get your vocal chords going. Describe your partner. Say, ‘Oh, your clit’s getting so swollen,’ or, ‘Your pussy’s getting wet.’ Describe the situation, describe their responses.”
Blake had a lover with a deep, sultry voice. “When she would say my name... oh, god. It didn’t matter where we were. It didn’t matter what the context was. And she knew the effect it had on me. I would call that talking dirty!”
Hmmmm.... so would I.
And remember, there is no formula. Sometimes the most unexpected vocalizations are the most effective. Julia once had a girlfriend who was a gospel singer. “Whenever she was turned on, she wouldn’t use words, she would sing this melody into my ear.” I also met a woman who sang during sex. It was completely engaging. She made up a melody and sang little snatches of sexy nonsense.
Shar gives another example. “I had a roommate who would call up phone sex. One time he got a guy on the line who said, ‘These are the only words that you can say, no matter what: “fuck,” “daddy,” and “please.”’ So from the other room I heard, ‘Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, daddy, oh, daddy, oh, please. Ohh... please. Oh. FUCK. Oh, daddy! Oh, FUCK! Oh, please, please fuck daddy, please fuck daddy, please fuck daddy, please fuck daddy. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Oh, Daddy! Oh daddy, oh daddy, oh daddy, oh daddy. Please! Please daddy, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE!’
“I thought, ‘There’s an idea that’s going into my file!’”
A couple of my friends use erotic talk to give themselves nerve – or permission. Robert says he uses talking dirty because it lets him interest partners without having to cross any boundaries they might have about touch. “If I can use my voice to get somebody really turned on, they’re more likely to ask, ‘Would you touch me?’ Then I’m on it, right away.” Julia is shy with partners; “If I’m describing what I’m about to do to a person, I get myself turned on, but maybe I’m actually feeling a little hesitant,” she says. “But if I say, ‘this is what I’m gonna do,’ it means I’m going to do it! It gives me so much confidence.”
Shar is indubitably outgoing and outrageous, but she gets mad when people think talking and showing off are easy for her because “she’s different.” “As an outspoken person and as an exhibitionist, I want to say that speaking up, whether it’s a sexual situation, or a classroom situation, or in public, whether you’re outspoken or shy, always takes courage. You muster up the courage, and you do it. People literally think it’s easier for me! But I still have to tell myself, ‘Your mom will still love you, you’ll still have a birthday cake if you say “Fuck me up the ass harder!”’
“It’s still scary each time with a new partner or a new situation, or with an old partner and a new situation. It’s not that I’m not scared. It’s not that I don’t turn red and swallow hard. It’s not that I’m not nervous or shaking inside. I’m still all those things.”
Her point – echoed by everyone I spoke to – is that if you want to do something, it’s worth it to give yourself the pep talk, promise yourself the birthday cake, take a deep breath and dive in, nervous or no. That Shar parallels talking in bed to talking in class is very apt; you’re in the process of learning, challenging yourself to stretch your abilities.
With a partner it’s very likely you’ll both be stretching. “In talking dirty it’s really important to take care of each other,” says Shar. “To make the other person feel comfortable. You can say, ‘Well, if we mess up, we’ll just laugh. If we totally mess up and we don’t have sex, we’ll have sex tomorrow!’” “When we first got together she was telling me a story,” says Jackie, “and suddenly she broke out of it and said, ‘Is it OK if I bring a man into it?’ Because she had asked, from then on she knew that was not a taboo.” While on one hand talking dirty might seem like a risk, in reality you’re giving each other a lot of information, getting clearer about what’s okay and not okay. It can make you much more proficient as a partner.
Everyone agreed erotic talk is a wonderful way to deepen the connection you have with your partner. Blake says, “When you’re talking back and forth, and not only are you saying what you want to say, and what the other person wants to hear, but they’re also speaking from their own turn-on, with an eye toward your response – it’s just incredible. Particularly if your ears and your mouths are connected at the same time your genitals are connected.”
“It’s something people can get better at,” says Jamie, “and that is absolutely worth practicing. You’ll probably have a really good time practicing. But partly it has to do with connection between people.” Blake agrees: “It has to do with how well you retain non-sexual information about the other person. The colors and food they like, and their history. Talk about specifics. That engages them and allows them to be drawn in and interact with you. When you bring that into your aural play, it will let you tailor what you say to that specific person in a way that nothing else will. Then they know that this is about what’s happening between the two of you.
“When you figure out what somebody responds to, that kind of stuff is sacred,” cautions Blake. “You have to be really respectful of it.” That’s a vital point – it means no bringing it up in arguments, no using it later in a recriminating fashion. To do so is to utterly breach trust with a partner.
“When you find a partner who loves to talk too, it’s like show-and-tell,” says Jackie. “Somebody is looking at you bright-eyed and egging you on. That doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You have to have appreciation. The call-and-response part of it brings you out of your shell.”
Shar adds, “One of the pleasures of talking dirty is re-living special moments. Jackie and I play the ‘how much we like each other game’ all the time. I think everybody does mutual appreciation when relationships are new. You can do the same physical thing five nights in a row, tell different stories, or talk differently to each other. Then you re-live it all later, in those cafes! It helps keep your relationship really electric because you have that much more to re-live. Now you can say, ‘And then when you said you were the UPS man, oh my god, I went through the roof!’ Or ‘How did you know that I like to be called “bitch?” It feels so nasty when you do that! Oh my god, you read my mind!’
“It really keeps communication up. You go to that very special intimate place; you’re sharing communication, and at the same time you’re going into this wonderful world together where nobody else can go with you.”
Besides loving hot talk for its arousing and intimate qualities, Blake has a deep and serious reason to appreciate it. She was sexually abused when she was growing up. “The abuse was always done in absolute silence. So as part of my healing, I want to make noise. I want to know where I am, who I’m with, what I’m doing. I want it out there loud and clear, at all times. Talking is a way for me to get out of that silence – to this day, sex and silence drives me nuts. It’s a prescription for a flashback.”
Blake and I talked about the usefulness of erotic talk as an emotional reading about how you feel about having sex: right here, right now, with this person. When I start talking, I know I want to be there. I can tell I want the kind of sex I’m having by what’s coming out of my mouth. “By the same token,” says Blake, “you know by listening to what comes out of your mouth when you don’t want to be there. You can physically do something you don’t really want to, but the minute you start giving voice to it, it totally wakes you up: ‘Time to put your clothes on, Blake, and go home.’”
Perhaps especially if you’ve felt the effects of silence in your sex life and intimate relationships, learning to talk can help you feel more powerful and more present. What shy person hasn’t felt the frustration and humiliation of being tongue-tied? I’ll bet you can instantly think of three times a sexual experience could have been more pleasurable if only you’d spoken up. When you learn to give voice to your erotic feelings, desires, and fantasies, you may find that your shyness melts away – but in any event, your sex life will be richer and better.