Foreplay routine feeling a little stale? I got you.
If you’ve been doing the same things over and over again for foreplay, your arousal just won’t be as strong. As a prelude to sex, our brains crave novelty and surprise. So if you’re feeling bored with your current foreplay, don’t worry – you’re normal.
The best sex happens when you’re fully, radically present with your partner. So here are 7 new ideas to try for foreplay, practically guaranteed to make you feel present and excited for sex.
1. Apply arousal gel
Most people think of arousal gel as something to put on right before sex. Apply to vulva, feel the tingles, and – go! Instead, try putting it on before foreplay: before you make out, before you start touching each other. This will give the gel time to work its magic, and encourage blood flow to the genitals while things heat up.
I can’t recommend Promescent’s Warming Arousing Gel enough for this – it’s super fast-acting and comes on strong. When you’re ready to have sex, just reapply: it intensifies orgasms, too.
2. Listen to audio erotica together
Porn may or may not be your thing, but you know what’s hot for just about everyone? Sex storytelling, aka audio erotica.
You can listen to it in the car or at home relaxing together, just pick out a story that sounds hot to both of you. I love Dipsea and TryQuinn, two great erotica apps that add new stories all the time.
3. Heighten your sensations
To feel sexually present, you need to drop into the body. Sensory stimulation is perfect for that: think delicious food, a scented candle, a sex playlist. And legal cannabis helps heighten all of those sensations. VIIA makes a High Love Gummy that I can’t stop recommending – it boosts blood flow throughout the body, and uses herbs like damiana and horny goat weed to amplify its erotic effects. The user reviews are very enthusiastic.
If you’re not a cannabis person, that’s OK*! I also enjoy box breathing to help me get out of my head and into my senses. If you’re alright with cannabis but new to it, start low and go slow. High Love takes 30 minutes to an hour to start taking effect, which is fairly typical for today’s hemp-derived legal gummies.
*VIIA also makes zero THC products tailored for sleep, relief, and focus, helping you enhance your everyday life and overall well being.
4. Play strip trivia
A spin on strip poker, but more hilarious (while still getting naked).
Each of you will come up with a handful of trivia questions for each other about anything – pop culture, music, sports, your own relationship – and go back and forth asking. Wrong answer = take something off. Sorry, rules are rules.
5. Do a sex challenge
“Challenges” are everywhere these days, and fortunately they’ve come for sex too. You can find a bunch of these in question card format, but the trending one I’ve seen couples love is The Adventure Challenge…In Bed book. It’s fun because the challenges are scratch-off, meaning you can’t peek beforehand! Open a page, pick one at random, do the challenge as foreplay. Helpful hints, time amounts (“takes 20 minutes”) and icons help you decide which one to try.
6. Take an online sex workshop
Get hands-on training.
Whether you want to learn how to stimulate the G-spot, give a prostate massage, or something kinky (like rope-tying or temperature play), there’s a whole world of online sex lessons out there. If one or both of you have a vulva, I love OMGYes.com: they’ve got tons of how-to tutorials and demonstration videos for you to explore together, all based on research and interviews with real women.
7. Give each other a massage
Create a relaxing environment with dim lighting and music, bust out your oils and bodysafe candles, and give each other a soothing rubdown.
I love massage as a form of foreplay: it helps everyone relax after a long day, it’s a kind thing to do for each other, and you can make it as ~erotic~ as you want. For those of us who are more slow burn types and need to really ease into the sexual moment, it’s absolutely perfect.
Which of these ideas are you going to try for foreplay? Have you experimented with any creative foreplay ideas lately? Come find me on Instagram @sexwithemily and let’s share inspo!
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