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What Do You Want?
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What Do You Want? |
GET IN TOUCH WITH YOURSELF
IF YOU’RE GOING TO COMMUNICATE WHAT YOU do and don’t want to a partner, you have to know what you do and don’t want. And that isn’t as easy as it sounds, because so much of our programming is about pleasing other people and fitting in that we’ve often forgotten how to listen to our bodies. From being told to finish all the food on our plates to being forced to receive kisses or pinches on the cheek from that aunt or uncle who creeped us out, we often spend our formative years being forced to ignore the things our body is telling us, and then at some magical point (maybe our eighteenth birthday?), bodily autonomy is apparently bestowed upon us. Well, by then we’ve learned some bad habits.
Maybe this sounds silly, but we need to relearn what our yeses and noes feel like. You can start doing that work right now, just by listening to your body.
When I’m teaching classes on consent and boundaries, I encourage people to get up out of their seats and move around to try a few things. One of my favorite exercises is one where you can find the outline of your personal bubble. It’s going to be different for different people and in different situations. For example, it might be a much smaller bubble with intimate partners and close friends and a much bigger bubble with complete strangers.
In classes I encourage people to divide into two groups. The As get to be the first ones calling the shots. The Bs stand across the room from them and begin approaching slowly. As they approach, the As need to decide how close they want to let the other person get before asking them to stop. Most As stop the Bs anywhere from one to three feet away from them.
The point of the exercise is to feel what it’s like in your body as someone is getting close. At what point does it start to feel awkward or uncomfortable? At what point do you start to feel the urge to take a step back? And where do you feel that discomfort? Is it a tightness in your chest, butterflies in your stomach, or something else? When you start learning to identify that feeling, you can look out for it all the time, and then you can do a better job of setting the best boundaries for you.
While you can certainly recruit people to do this exercise with you, you can also do it on your own in everyday life. Next time you’re standing in line at the grocery store or at the bank, think about how closely you’re standing to the next person in line. Why did you choose that distance? What if you go to a bar and need to squeeze between two people to order a drink? How much space does there need to be for you to go for it and wedge yourself in, and when would you just stand back and wait?
Your answers to all of these questions will be influenced by a number of factors, and gender is probably a big one. How close we’re willing to be to other people is often influenced by whether or not we think they’re a threat. So you can think about that as well while you’re doing your personal sociological experiments in your daily life.
You can pay attention to your yeses and noes in other parts of your life, too. What about when someone offers you something to eat or drink? Aside from accepting out of politeness, what happens when you’re being offered something that you love versus something you’re not crazy about?
The point is to develop a really solid understanding of how our bodies respond so we can check in with ourselves as we’re doing the following exercises and talking to partners about sex. Because we only want to say yes to things we’re genuinely excited about, things that we are as into as being offered our favorite dessert. If you’re not excited about the thing you’re being offered, there’s always something else to try instead.
EXPLORING YOUR OPTIONS
One common question that comes up in sex-ed classes and with sex coaching clients is how to ask for what you want when you don’t know what you want. For a variety of reasons, people don’t always know what their options are. Many people come of age absent any useful information about sex and have only locker-room whispers to guide them. In fact, it’s not uncommon for someone to get to midlife, or older, and realize they aren’t really enjoying their sex life. It’s easy for that to be pushed aside in favor of career, family, or any other ways we’ve prioritized our time.
Maybe there’s a big life change that encourages people to start prioritizing sex and sexuality. Maybe it’s after a breakup that people start wondering what else is out there. Or they’ve just started a new relationship that’s more sexually open than they’re used to, and now that exploring is possible, they need help knowing where to start.
Whether you’re in a long-term relationship and you want to change things up a little or you’re young or new to dating and just want to get off on the right foot, it’s never too early—or too late—to prioritize your sexual expression and enjoyment. And you’ve come to the right place. There are many tools at your disposal to help you figure out what kinds of sex, sexuality, and intimacy you might enjoy.
Through the following exercises, you’ll start to discover what you might like to learn about and explore, and what’s a hard limit for you.
FUTURE PERFECT
In coaching, one of the tools we’re trained to use with clients is the “future perfect” exercise. You think about where you’d like to be in five or ten years and you do a writing exercise where you explore exactly what this looks like. For some people, it’s very general. But coaches are trained to help people dig down into specifics. Imagine a day in that perfect life. What’s the first thing you hear when you wake up? What do you have for breakfast? In exacting detail, move through your whole day. In this way details about your home, your family, your job, and more will come to light. It can help our brains figure out the bigger-picture stuff when we’re focusing on the details.
You can do this exercise for your sex life, too. Think about what your ideal sex life would be. If you want, you can do the more general version. Think about how often you’d like to be having sex, what sex acts you’d like to engage in, and how you’d like to feel. But it’s most valuable if you really dig into details. Imagine a whole scenario from beginning to end. Consider as many details as you can:
What are you wearing?
Who are you with?
Where are you?
Is there a bed? What is it like?
Describe your setting.
What do you smell?
What do you hear?
What kind of lighting is there?
How do you feel in your body?
In detail, what do you do? How does each thing make you feel?
You can get as detailed and creative as you’d like. It doesn’t matter if some (or all) of it seems unrealistic. We’ll address that later. For now, you’re in pure fantasy mode. We just want to get as many of your desires as possible out of your subconscious and onto the paper. This is the more difficult part. Once you know what you want, you can make a plan to get there.
Don’t let fears about your writing get in your way. The finished product doesn’t have to read like erotica. If it helps you to get words on the page, you can simply use a list format, or do this exercise like a mind map.
You never need to show anyone what you’ve written, so give yourself permission to write badly. And I’ll let you in on a secret—that’s the same tactic professional authors use. First drafts are supposed to be terrible—it’s just about getting the thoughts and ideas on the page. And that’s what you’re doing here. You’re using the process of writing to mine your subconscious for ideas about what you’d like to experience. That’s where the value is. It doesn’t matter if what you write makes sense. Spelling, grammar, narrative—not the point. As long as you understand what you’re getting at, that’s all that matters.
WHAT ARE YOUR HIGHLIGHTS?
You can have a fulfilling sex life and still have room for exploration and even improvement. There’s always something new to try. And calling on your past positive experiences can be one of the best ways to figure out what to do going forward. Another coaching tool I’ve adapted for sex is that of figuring out what’s working so you can do more of that.
If you know that when you’re well rested and well fed you do your best work, you’ll strive to be well rested and well fed on a regular basis. Sure, it can be tricky with our busy lives and busy schedules to always take the best care of ourselves, but if you know that’s optimal for you, it’s a goal you work toward.
In that example, you know what works well for you and try to do more of that.
So in your sex life, what’s already working that you’d like more of? This exercise doesn’t have to be limited to your current sex life or partners. For this, you can think about all the sexual experiences you’ve ever had. What felt the best? What was the most satisfying? The most fulfilling? Like our last exercise, it helps to think in as much detail as possible.
When you think of your best sexual encounters, what were the factors? What stood out as amazing? Was it the setting? The person or people you were with? The physical acts you were engaging in? How you felt, emotionally or physically?
See if you can notice the patterns among your favorite encounters. Were they all when you were on vacation? Or when you had lots of time to explore and indulge? Maybe they were all public bathroom quickies. Whatever it is for you, notice the patterns so you can start to replicate them.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get you started:
If you have orgasms, what was the best/strongest orgasm you remember having? What was going on when it happened?
When do you remember feeling the most safe?
When do you remember feeling the most comfortable?
When do you remember feeling the most turned on?
When was the last time you felt butterflies in your stomach, or were so excited to try something you could hardly wait?
What experience(s) have you had that you couldn’t wait to tell a friend about?
What have you done with a partner or partners that you looked back on fondly with them?
When did you feel like something was naughty/exciting/taboo?
What was the longest you ever spent having sex/intimacy?
What was your quickest sexual encounter?
Have you had an encounter after being separated from a partner for a while? What was that like?
These questions are simply to help you start thinking about the sex you’ve had, to help you remember high points. Keep in mind that a whole encounter doesn’t have to be amazing for one feature of it to be worth repeating, so keep an open mind as you sort through your memories.
SENSATIONS EXERCISE
Whether because you don’t have a lot of existing experiences to pull from, or they simply haven’t been optimal, sometimes the best way to start exploring is simply to close your eyes and fantasize. Think about what sensations you want to experience and how you want to feel. Do you like the idea of soft and sensual, or rough and hard? Once you have an idea of how you want to feel, it can be easier to think of the ways you might be able to achieve those feelings.
Here’s an incomplete list of feelings and sensations for you to ponder. As you read through the list, there are a few things you can do. First, it can be helpful to close your eyes and think about each one in turn. Give yourself enough time with each word to really feel it and think about your physical or emotional responses. As you start to figure out which ones appeal to you the most, you can star them in the list (maybe with pencil) or make your own separate list of what’s most appealing to you right now. Because in another day, week, month, or year, your list might be completely different.
Tender
Sensitive
Tight
Restricted
Held
Soft
Cool
Warm
Sharp
Intense
Bitten
Penetrated
Hot
Plush
Disheveled
Eager
Shameless
Breathless
Squirmy
Tingly
Electric
Dark
Bright
Teased
Massaged
Loud
Silky
Quiet
Aching
Sweaty
Calm
Captured
Supported
Afterglow
Safe
Exhilarated
Secure
Aroused
Lingering
Naughty
Curious
Ticklish
Shy
Acute
Add your own words as you think of them either during the exercise or throughout your day. You can also come back to the list after you’ve had a sexual experience and try to add any feelings or sensations you just experienced so that you’ll remember what’s possible. Then you can also decide which of those sensations you’d like more of in the future, and which ones you’d like to modify.
When you’ve got a list of three to five things you’d like to experience, then you can do the creative work of building a scene around them. For each sensation you’d like to experience, think of the ways you can get there.
If the word soft appeals to you, that could mean lying on soft sheets while you play, or having soft fabrics or furs gliding along your skin. It could mean soft touches from a partner, or even music playing softly in the background. As you think of ways to bring these sensations to life, you may also find ways to more closely pinpoint what you’re looking for.
Whatever words you choose, play with building a scene around them. I’m not going to do the math, but I think you’d be busy for the rest of your life if you tried every possible combination of three to five of these sensations.
YES/NO/MAYBE
One of the most straightforward ways to start thinking about what you might like to try is with a yes/no/maybe list. Perhaps you’ve heard of them before. Sometimes they’re called sexual inventory checklists. They’re especially common in the kink scene, but there are versions for all kinds of sexual and connective activities.
Just like going to a restaurant or bar and looking through the menu, you can read about each option and decide whether it sounds good to you right now. And like perusing a dessert menu after a filling meal, you can also decide there are things you want to come back and try another time.
These lists provide a starting point where you can think about all the ways people can express sexuality or kink, alone or with a partner or partners, and decide what you’d like to try. The lists aren’t a substitute for talking with your partner, but they are a fantastic tool for brainstorming and negotiating. And when you come upon items you’ve never heard of or never considered, it gives you a starting point for researching some of your options.
When you’re using these lists with a partner, you can each fill out your list and then compare notes. The mutual yeses are an easy place to start, but it’s valuable to talk about the maybe and no answers, too. It’s not about trying to change someone’s mind. But it can be valuable to know why someone feels the way they do about various activities.
For one thing, it’s a great time to see if you both have the same definitions for the terms. Even for mutual yeses, you should talk about what you mean, to make sure everyone is on the same page.
When it comes to items on the no list, those can be valuable conversations, too. Maybe someone has put an item in the no list because of a bad experience they had. For example, I often hear people say they aren’t interested in anal play or anal sex because of one bad experience. When you get more information about that, it’s often a youthful exploration that wasn’t done with much preparation, let alone lube. If that’s what they’re thinking of when you bring up anal play, of course it won’t sound appealing. But a gentle exploration with a mouth or well-lubed finger, just focusing on external stimulation, might be another story altogether.
If you want, you can just read through the lists below to get an idea of what’s possible—things you might want to research or talk about. Or you can use this as a worksheet and circle or star your yeses (maybe in pencil, because things do change). Or write your own yes, no, and maybe columns in a notebook and add these items to the appropriate columns.
Pay attention to your reactions as you’re going through the lists. Do some ideas turn you on? Do others scare you? Are there things you feel like you “should” want for a partner, but you’re not into them? All of these feelings are valuable to know about and will help you when you’re talking to partners.
Keep in mind, some of these things might sound hot to you—and you still might not want to do them. And that’s totally fine. Lots of people have fantasies that are just that, fantasies. We all have some turn-ons, some things we like to think about, that we don’t necessarily ever want to do in real life. Some of these things become topics we want to fantasize about with a partner, maybe work them into dirty talk, or erotica or porn selection, and some of them just stay fantasies for ourselves.
You can also use these lists to negotiate for each encounter. It can be helpful to know what kinds of play you’ll want to do on each date, as these lists are almost sure to change from day to day and week to week. The things we’re in the mood for, and the things our bodies are up for, can vary a lot. So it’s never safe to assume that just because someone liked a certain activity last time you saw them, they’ll be up for the same thing this time.
Ready to get started? This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a good starting point for deciding what to explore.
Kissing
Necking
Public displays of affection
Sexual touch in public or semipublic
Being seen naked by a partner/seeing a partner naked
Touching yourself in front of a partner
Watching your partner touch themselves
Tickling/being tickled
Giving or receiving massage
Dirty talk
Sharing fantasies
Frottage
Hand sex, external
Hand sex, penetrative
Hand sex, anal
Ejaculation on your body/on your partner’s body
Ejaculation in your body/in your partner’s body
Analingus/rimming/oral-anal contact
Using sex toys alone
Using sex toys with a partner
Performing oral sex
Receiving oral sex
Penetrative vaginal intercourse, giving or receiving
Penetrative anal intercourse, giving or receiving
Playing with food
Cross-dressing
Biting/being bitten
Scratching
Leaving marks/bruises
Bondage
Blindfolds
Strap-on play
Pegging
Playing with ice cubes
Face slapping
Role-playing
Phone sex
Sexting
Cybersex
Video sex
Watching porn alone or with a partner
Reading erotica alone or with a partner
Spanking
Paddles
Floggers
Canes
Whips
Riding crops
Clothespins
Playing with power, domination, and submission
Nipple play or nipple clamps
Orgasm control, tease and denial, asking for permission to orgasm
Threesomes
Group sex
Sex parties
BDSM parties
Gags
Hair pulling
Playing with hot wax
Electrical play
Water sports/urine play
Wearing a collar
Taking photos
Taking videos
Sex or play outdoors
Exhibitionism
Voyeurism
Remember, having a mutual yes isn’t the end of negotiation, it’s the beginning. Does spanking mean a gentle tap or a hard swat? If you’re having penetrative sex, are you using barriers? If you’re having hand sex, are you using gloves?
You also need to discuss when and where the various activities are happening, and be explicit about whether they’re always a yes, even without a check-in, or if you’d like to be asked first. For example, maybe it’s always okay for your partner to kiss you without asking, but you want a heads-up before doing butt stuff.
Use this as a starting point, but don’t forget to drill into details. And be mindful of when and where you have these conversations. It can be helpful to have them well in advance of when sex or play might happen, and maybe to have them in a public place, too, so there’s no pressure to try anything right away.
PULLING FANTASIES OUT OF MEDIA EXERCISE
As you’re exploring your sexual fantasies and the things you might want to try, you may be surprised by how many fantasies are already lurking in your subconscious. We’ve all had things catch our eye during our lives, even if we didn’t interpret them as sexual at the time.
Think about the images from magazines that you cut out and pinned to your wall in your teen years. For me, it was fashion spreads that invoked BDSM imagery. Or the page in a book that you dog-eared to read again and again, or to show to friends for the naughty thrill. Or the scene in a movie that you rewound to watch again and again. I remember being fascinated by things that I didn’t completely understand, or being drawn to things that I might not have understood as sexual but that caught my attention all the same. Whether these items are overtly sexual for you, or simply scenes or images that invoke feelings you’d like to explore—all of those things are clues to what gets your juices flowing.
Many times we dismiss these things as unrealistic, unattainable, logistically impossible, or simply unsafe. And often, that’s true. But these turn-ons can still become a great starting point for exploration. With a little thinking and creativity, you can find the essential features of a scenario that make it hot for you and work those elements into your real life.
When I’m teaching classes about finding your fantasy, I make myself vulnerable first, by sharing my own turnons, and then take volunteers from the audience. So here’s how this exercise works for me:
When I was young, Labyrinth was one of my favorite movies. I watched it so many times I nearly wore out the VHS tape. And while David Bowie isn’t going to whisk me away to a fantasy kingdom, I can still unlock a lot of clues to my sexuality thanks to him.
In case you’re not familiar with the story, it goes something like this: Teenager Sarah is stuck babysitting her infant brother, Toby, and makes a wish to the goblin king that her brother will be taken away. But as soon as the goblins come, Sarah realizes her mistake and asks to have her brother back. This is when David Bowie, playing the goblin king, appears and where my own preteen fantasies began.
Bowie’s character sets up a quest for Sarah, where she must find her way to his castle at the center of a labyrinth to retrieve her brother. This movie features power dynamics that are far from subtle. Each scene between Sarah and the goblin king is bristling with (unintentional?) tensions, and although I didn’t have words for any of it at the time, I was clearly picking up on something. Bowie even carries a riding crop in at least one scene.
Sure, the details of a fantasy film might be challenging to replicate, but playing with power dynamics is easy. You don’t need any toys or tools, just a little confidence, imagination, and a willingness to suspend disbelief.
Want to do some actual Labyrinth role play? Knock yourself out.
Just want to try giving or receiving orders? Simple to do!
The first step might simply be one person calling the shots. Or physically looming over the other person. Just putting one person on their knees sets up an immediate power imbalance that can be hot to explore. Add a little “do as I say” (with or without an attempt at Bowie’s accent) and you’ve got my knees quaking.
What gets you going like that?
When I presented this class at a kink conference, my first volunteer decided to stick with the Labyrinth theme and brought up the scene where Sarah falls down a hole full of “helping hands.” These hands grab at her and say they can guide her either up or down the passage. Does this scene get your attention, too? Think about the elements going on there.
The hands are anonymous.
There’s pain, or at least discomfort.
There are multiple hands.
Sarah is out of control of the situation.
So, yes. The actual scene is difficult to replicate. But here’s where we get creative. Think about how you could get the elements that are essential to this scene’s hotness into your real life.
If you go to play parties, here’s one way that could go:
You’re tied down to a massage table (loss of control). You’re blindfolded, making the people who touch you anonymous. Multiple people put their hands on your body. Some of them pinch or grab you.
Now that’s a fairly literal interpretation, but that’s because it’s important to see that even seemingly outlandish fantasies might not be that hard to replicate.
What if you wanted to replicate it at home with only one partner? How about this:
You’re blindfolded to help with the fantasy of anonymity. You could add bondage if you want to feel more vulnerable. Then, your partner touches you all over your body, pausing between touches so you don’t know where you’ll feel a hand next. Maybe your partner swaps out different kinds of gloves—latex, leather, fur—to provide various sensations. Maybe they use a few household objects to keep you off balance.
Depending on what pieces are essential to your turn-on, it’s often a lot easier than you might think to work those elements into your sex life. I’ve interviewed dozens and dozens of people about their kinks and fetishes, asking them why they do the things they do. Regardless of the fetish, just about everyone had power, vulnerability, and trust on the list somewhere. And you don’t need any special surroundings or equipment to play with those elements yourself.
Want to try the exercise on your own? Think about what caught your eye or turned you on at any time in your life. It could be from your childhood, like my example, or it could be a movie you saw last week. Write down what it is in the center of a piece of paper and draw a circle around it. Just a couple words so you know what you’re talking about is fine. Then surround that circle with the elements of the scene or media that you find alluring. You can just jumble them all around the center circle or you can put the most essential elements closest to the middle and the bonus elements further out. Brainstorm for as long as it takes to figure out everything about it that turns you on or gets your attention.
Once you’re satisfied with your list, start focusing on the elements independently of the original context. For example, if one of the elements is that a character is vulnerable, think about ways to create vulnerability in your own play. Here are a few ideas:
Bondage
Blindfolds
Sensory deprivation (noise-canceling headphones, etc.)
Being in unfamiliar surroundings. (This can be achieved at home by being blindfolded in one room and then led around so you don’t know where you are anymore.)
Verbally doing something scary, like sharing a fear or a secret.
Letting someone take care of you in a personal or intimate way. (Being bathed, etc.)
Relying on someone for something essential. (Being fed, etc.)
And these are just the ideas you can implement at home, with things you already have. When you start involving more people, or specialty locations, or props and toys, I’m sure you can think of many more.
PORN AND EROTICA
The idea of watching porn can be intimidating. You might not have any idea where to start, or if you’ve googled a few things, the top results might have been overwhelming or not to your taste. And it’s true, porn isn’t for everyone. But you might be surprised by what’s actually available, and there could be something that’s right up your alley. The resources section of this book lists several porn sites and producers you can start with. As much as possible, they’ve been screened for porn that’s ethically produced—meaning the performers are paid well and treated well. Some people object to porn because they think it’s exploitative, but that isn’t always the case. You can even follow the results from the feminist porn awards if you want to keep up-to-date with new porn that’s coming out.
If you want to go the slightly more old-fashioned way (or you’re concerned about your internet browsing history) you can still get plenty of good porn on DVD. In fact, many sex-positive, all-gender-friendly sex toy stores have porn sections that you can browse. And the employees can likely point you in the right direction if you give them some idea of what you might be interested in.
Once you’ve decided what to start with, you’ll have to decide if you want to watch alone or with a partner. Both options have their benefits—and you might decide to do both. If you’re watching alone, sometimes that’s a way to avoid self-consciousness. You can get an idea if you’re into something before you choose to share it. When watching with a partner, the experience can be a turn-on if you’re both into what you’re watching. And watching together can also be a bonding experience, if doing so feels a little naughty or taboo.
Whether alone or together, pay attention to what you find arousing. What elements of the scenes do you like? Are there particular sex acts or positions you’d like to try? Does seeing one performer in a vulnerable, or powerful, stance appeal to you?
The caveat with porn is that it is fantasy entertainment.
Don’t use porn as sex ed. You usually won’t see the performers negotiating with each other, you won’t always see them using lube, and you’ll rarely see any kind of warm-up. The point of this exercise is not to duplicate what you see on the screen, but to see what catches your eye and then further research whatever that might be.
Maybe you see strap-on play or pegging in a porn scene and that gets your juices flowing. Great! Now, ignore how easily that toy likely slid inside the other performer, ignore the size of the toy, and ignore how vigorously they’re probably thrusting.
Instead, armed with the knowledge that you’re excited about strap-on play, grab a sex-ed book on the topic or a how-to video that’s meant to be educational and head to your local sex-positive sex-toy store for advice and supplies. And when you try it yourself, start incredibly slow. Just remember, porn is for mining ideas and getting turned on, not for learning how to do new things.
For some people, porn is distracting. No matter how well made, they can’t get past the settings, or the dialogue, or maybe they’re just not attracted to the performers. Never fear! That’s where written erotica comes in.
The great thing about erotic literature is that your mind can fill in lots of details such that it fits your taste more than sex on film might. Sure, the author likely describes the characters to you somewhat, but there’s still lots of room for interpretation. The resources section also has suggestions for where to start if you want to read erotica. (And shameless self-promotion time—I’ve written some you can find, too.)
With erotica, I suggest starting with anthologies. A book of short stories gives you lots of chances to find something you like rather than trying to slog through a whole novel that isn’t to your taste. Some anthologies will be centered on a theme, like bondage, and some run the gamut of topics.
There are even anthologies of short shorts, where stories are only five hundred or a thousand words. How simple is that? In less than five minutes, you can read a whole story and see if the topic, or acts involved, appeal to you. And because they’re so short, you can give several a try. Leave room for a particular author’s voice not being to your style, rather than immediately assuming you’re not into the things they’re describing.
But like the exercises above where you write things down from your own fantasies or memories, erotic stories give you concrete examples of ways people can have sex or kink play that you can take for a test-drive in the fantasy realm before you try the real thing.
As you’re reading, pay close attention to what turns you on. Maybe it’s the acts people are engaging in or maybe it’s the power dynamics. Maybe the terms people are calling each other are getting your attention, or maybe there’s something about the setting that turns you on.
For your first read through, just mark the pages of the stories that turn you on. Then you can go back for a second, or third, more critical reading. What exactly was it that worked for you? You can keep a separate page of notes where you track the elements you like and how you’d like to incorporate them into your life.
You and your partner can also read erotica out loud to each other as a bedtime story, or as part of foreplay. You can do this for the same reasons as above, to get turned on and discover things you might like, or you can also use erotica to bring fantasies into the bedroom that you like in theory but prefer stay on the page. More on that later.
YOUR WANT LIST
It can be really useful to have a short list of things you know you like in mind at all times. Whether you’re having a one-night stand, an adventure at a play party, or even a night with your main squeeze, having a few things in mind keeps you from freezing up when you’re on the spot.
Some folks do this for food—they know what their two or three go-to recipes are, so when they’re tired, hungry, or have unexpected guests they don’t have to think too hard about what’s for dinner. And just because something is your easy fallback doesn’t mean it isn’t also a favorite. Pizza might be an easy dinner choice, but people are rarely disappointed when a pizza shows up.
So what is your pizza of sex?
If someone approached you at a play party, or your partner asked you what would feel good after a long day, what would you ask for without having to think about it too much?
For me, I’m pretty much always happy to receive a foot rub. A back rub is also acceptable. Snuggling and watching a movie or snuggling up while someone reads to me are also favorites. I know I’m going to enjoy these things without having to spend any time thinking about what I want.
Not every date is the right time for adventures that require supplies and setup. It helps to have a go-to routine that’s satisfying for everyone but doesn’t feel daunting to get ready for.
You can also have a favorite sex toy that’s your go-to choice for pizza-night sex. Maybe it’s something you use with a partner and maybe it’s something you use alone. Mutual masturbation is another option that can be an easy way to connect, relax, and even get off without feeling like you need to muster extra energy.
No matter how simple or involved your list of favorites is, try to keep the supplies you need for them on hand, the way you’d keep staples in the pantry, so that you’re always ready to go. Lube is one of those basic supplies that should always be handy. Maybe a favorite vibrator or sex toy is, too. Your safer-sex supplies of choice should also be within reach at all times. These aren’t things you want to go out of your way to think about—you want them handy right when you need them.
YOUR MAYBE-LATER LIST
On my adventures through sex and kink events, I’ve seen a lot of different kinds of play. One of the things I love about parties is all the ideas I get from them. And even when I see things I might not want to do right then, I love knowing that there will never be a shortage of new things to try. Similar to the yes/no/maybe list, you can keep a maybe-later list of things you might want to revisit in a few months, or even a few years.
You can add to this list whenever you see something in a book, a movie, or at an event. You can add to it whenever you stumble upon a new fantasy or have a sexy dream. The great thing about it being the maybe-later list is that there’s no rush or pressure to try these things. In fact, you might never get to them. And the list can be private if you’d like, or you can share it with a partner or partners. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable.
This list can be a great way to track things that have caught your eye, but for whatever reason don’t seem like a great idea right now. And not only can you use the list to get ideas for future play, or for things you might want to learn about, but over time you might notice trends on your list.
Like any of the other fantasy exploration exercises we’ve discussed, this list can be a place where you start to notice themes or patterns among the things that are catching your eye. Even if you never try any of the exact items on your list, you might gain some valuable insight about your desires and find ways to incorporate the same themes in different ways that feel safer or more comfortable right now.
NOW WHAT?
If you’ve been doing all the exercises in this chapter, you’ve probably made an impressive dent in your notebook. That’s great! Keep everything you’ve done handy, and be ready to keep adding to it. This will be a living document for you as your interests, desires, and partners change over time. The information you’ve uncovered about yourself will also serve you well as you dive into the hands-on exercises, and now that you’ve done this work to discover what you want, the next chapter will help you talk to your partner(s) about it.