Good Sex

Early to Bed has an interesting article about hot sex without a hard-on which led me to think about what “good sex” means.

Our culture has some fucked-up ideas about what good sex is like. The woman is young and thin and looks like she carries a Photoshop filter in front of her; the man has a huge cock. After a little foreplay, featuring playing with breasts, some fingering, and probably some oral on both sides, the man has a hard erection; he penetrates the woman. She comes wildly and after no fewer than ten minutes or more than fifteen he comes. Cue cuddling.

But the thing is that most women do not look like the women in magazines, and most men don’t have Magic Cocks capable of getting hard and orgasming on command. No matter how many elite skills you have, you cannot “make” many women squirt or come through intercourse or even come at all. (The pressure for women’s orgasms goes two ways, I think: a man isn’t a real man unless he can make ‘his’ woman come, and a woman isn’t in touch with her sexuality unless she comes regularly and besides she has to deal with all of the dudely insecurity.)

Fortunately, none of that is necessary for good sex! Because good sex doesn’t mean “sex that fits the arbitrary ideas of what sex ‘ought’ to look like,” good sex means sex that everyone involved enjoys. Some of the best sex in my life has involved guys that come quickly or small penises or no orgasms on my part; nearly all of the worst sex in my life has fit the archetypical “good sex” to a tee. (And of course all of the best sex of my life has involved my hairy-ass nonbinary makeup-free self, so the ‘lady who looks like a model’ bit’s just lost forever.)

What does real good sex need? There are three things! They all begin with C so it is easy to remember.

Communication. This is the most important bit! On the most basic level, communication is what separates sex from rape, and rape is never good sex. (Play-rape might be, but real rape never is.) But it goes beyond just not raping people. Would it feel soooo gooood if your partner would just move their hand just a little bit to the left? Would you prefer more indirect stimulation, or faster, or a break from genital stimulation at all? Are your nipples very sensitive, or your ass, or the backs of your knees? Then you should fucking say that.

For those of us who are kinky: it is certainly possible for many kinky people to have vanilla sex that is still good sex. However, if your personal good sex involves wearing a dog collar and being spanked, then you should probably say that. Because how the hell is your partner supposed to know unless you tell them?

Creativity. So you lost your erection. It happens! But that doesn’t mean that sex doesn’t have to be unfun for you or your partner. You can experiment with how blowjobs or handjobs feel with a soft penis. You can try anal play, or sensation play, or some other non-genital-related thing you always wanted to try. You can concentrate on your partner’s pleasure. You can get a little sex toy help: you know they make strap-on harnesses just for men? Not to mention cock rings or prosthetic penis attachments! And of course you can take Viagra. None of these choices are going to be right for everyone, and you may have to experiment with a couple before you find one that’s right for you.

This also applies when nothing has gone “wrong” (although really that is a bullshit phrasing, because nothing has gone wrong in sex as long as everyone involved is still having fun). My girlfriend was playing with a partner of hers once and discovered that licking his arm drove him to absolute distraction. Is having their arms licked a thing that most people are going to like? Probably not! (Ten people now go down to the comments to explain how much they love having their arms licked.) But if you don’t have the “hey, I wonder if…” perspective, you could be missing out on a lot of fun shit.

Care. Look, if you don’t care about the pleasure of your partner(s), sex is strictly worse than masturbation. You can masturbate whenever you want to, you can stop after you come, and your fantasies do not have to be confined by your partner’s desires or the laws of physics. Now, if you just want to masturbate, more power to you and good on you for not having sex with other people that won’t be good for you or them. But I’m going to assume that most people want to have sex, and in that case, it is important to care.

Want your partner to have a good time! For many people that will mean “have an orgasm”; for some people it won’t, and in that case you should listen to them instead of having a whole “but but but I AM A FAILURE AS A SEX PARTNER” breakdown over it. Be generous and kind. Give compliments. Don’t make a fuss if they tell you how to do something better; they’re just trying to help, and you want them to enjoy themselves, right? Try to fall into that lovely kind of feedback loop where they’re enjoying it, and you’re enjoying that they’re enjoying it, and they’re enjoying that you’re enjoying it.