Sex can be a minefield of anxieties and assumptions. Heck, don’t get us wrong, it’s fun too, but it definitely gets easier as more experience is developed. It can sometimes only take a slight deviation from your concentration en flagrante to take you out of the mood. Maybe you start worrying about your appearance, your noises, your smell, whether your housemates can hear you, whether you feel comfortable asking for exactly what you want.. eventually you’re fretting about tomorrow’s deadlines and the asbestos in the roof and the sexy bubble bursts. Here’s a few ideas to keep things rolling merrily along.
Talk, Talk, Talk
Have that discussion. It can feel weird sometimes to verbalise things that might have previously only lived in your head, but open and honest communication makes things endlessly easier in the long run. Discuss with your partner what you like and don’t like; your boundaries, your kinks, what you ideally want from them. Being transparent allows for greater trust, and better intimacy.
Be Honest
Extending on the above point, honesty (to a point, more in a moment on that) works wonders in the bedroom. Letting your partner know in clear terms how you’re feeling is better than hoping they’ll somehow cotton on, intuit based on your noises alone. Of course, I don’t mean honesty in the unfettered Liar Liar way; knowing how to use tact works a charm too. Saying things in a kind and helpful way, and offering up alternatives (if your partner, say, isn’t terribly well-endowed, you can adjust your positioning accordingly to make it stimulating for both of you) means you can both get what you want more easily, without having to bottle in your complaints or queries.
Combine Your Efforts
Sex is so often considered something one person does to another (or multiples of people, but let’s go with your traditional twosome for now), rather than something people do together. Men, often taught by pornography and our larger sexual culture, learn young that their ejaculation is sex’s end goal; that the whole sexual foray ends when they come. It’s, generally, with age, experience and a good talking to, that they learn to include their partner in the whole activity, as a participant rather than a tool. It’s good to make sure you’re both engaging with each other, and giving some pleasure, as well as getting your own.
Stop
If you’re feeling uncomfortable, weird, unsafe or just not getting what you want from what your partner is laying out, feel free to tell them to quit it. Going along with things merely for the sake of satisfying the other person will only make you feel bad, and possibly leave you with negative long-term effects. Hopefully you’ve shacked up with someone that you feel comfortable saying, “Can we stop for a bit?” to; a good partner will respect your wishes and only do what you’re comfortable with. It might seem like basic sexual logic to want your partner to be happy and comfortable with what you’re doing, but you’d be surprised how many people screw this up.
Don’t Fake It
Faking it helps no-one. You may think it’s making your partner feel good, making them think they’re giving you a great time, but it’s disingenuous and, frankly, a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Worst of all, your partner won’t learn anything; if they think they’ve given you this mind-blowing orgasm, they’ll just do the same thing next time (“I’m onto a good technique!”) and, like someone calling you the wrong name in the office, the longer you leave it, the harder it’ll be to correct.