MrMind comments on Solved Problems Repository - Less Wrong
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How do y'all have sex without asking at some point? Do you just kinda follow a script and try to guess the other person's script from their body language and hope that you get it right enough that they don't have to stop and correct you, and that your default ideas of sex more or less match? And once sex is underway, do you switch to words, or have some other method for requesting things, or just have the same kind of sex every time?
Or am I mistaken about what "asking" covers? I'm counting both asking after a makeout session and commencing sex five seconds later, and asking "Wanna meet up five days from now and do these sexual things?" and then initiating those things on the assumption you're working from the same script.
I usually just go forward and if a girl is uncomfortable she will stop me. Apparently this is much less awkward than asking directly.
I'm aware that I'm going in quite a bit more detail than you might be willing to give, but I'm confused.
Say you want to receive oral sex. (I don't think that's an uncommon preference.) Do you go through elaborate acrobatics so you can "just go forward" without her actively helping, or is there some nonverbal way to signal you want that (pushing her head down? smoooooth), or once you have tacitly agreed that sex is going to occur can you use words to decide what kind?
Say you want something unusual, either for society at large or relative to what you've done before. Do you also just go forward? That seems like it would cause quite a few "Whoa, not that" moments, and a lot of "Um, I may or may not be into what you want to do, but I can't tell what it is" awkwardness.
Is she also just going forward with her own script, or only correcting yours when needed? If the former, doesn't that cause confusion and bumping noses? (Maybe being good at reading body language and not so clumsy avoids that.) If the latter, isn't that a lot of corrections (or maybe a full switch back to using words) for her to get what she wants? Or do you do a sort of Designated Control Freak thing where the last person to object becomes in charge?
I imagine most of the course corrections will be minor, along the lines of "Slow down, tiger" or "My ears aren't really all that sensitive, kiss my neck instead", but it seems like major ones would tend to be mood-killers. If she asks for X, you can say "Sorry, not into that, but how about Y or Z?" or "Hmm, not sure but I'd like to try"; if she starts doing X when you didn't really expect it, you're more likely (or so I'd guess) to go "Whoa ew no stop" or "Ouch" or "WTF are you doing?", all of which seem hard to recover from. I assume the idea is to notice that she's going for X, and nonverbally redirect her toward Y or Z?
This. Once sex is a given, words usually can be reintroduced without mood-killing, away from the bedroom.
I can't speak for MrMind, but typically if I want to introduce novel things into my sex life, I talk about them with my partner when we aren't having sex to see whether there's mutual interest. If there is, I start introducing them. I rarely talk much while having sex, relying primarily on non-verbal communication (which is quite adequate for "is this OK? more of this? less of this? something altogether different?" kinds of negotiations). He's more inclined to negotiate verbally during sex, which is also fine, but not really my thing.
I always wonder if it was neurological: if I talk or someone talks too much during sex I lose all the excitement.