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Key points
- It’s not uncommon for people to feel that they no longer know what touch feels good, especially couples who have been together for a while.
- You need touch to get sexually excited, but if you aren’t sexually excited, touch won’t feel good.
- Negative self-judgments and shame lead to anxiety between the sheets, which only intensifies confusion.
I used to enjoy when my partner went down on me. Now, I prefer when he avoids it.
My partner asks me how I want to be touched, but, really, I have no idea!
I prefer when we skip foreplay altogether. It feels like a waste of time.
It may surprise you to know that I hear statements like this regularly in my therapy room. People are often ashamed to admit that nothing turns them on anymore, and they mistakenly assume they are alone with this concern. This is not the case, particularly when couples have been together for a while. Touch that used to be innately exciting has somehow lost its luster.
Why Foreplay Is Important
However, foreplay is an important part of sex for several reasons. First, it gives your body an opportunity to arouse and become ready for more. Without arousal, sex is likely to feel less comfortable—or even uncomfortable. Second, foreplay gives you and your partner time to connect emotionally. It helps you find a groove together so that you create a more powerful shared sexual experience. But when foreplay doesn’t feel good, the opposite can happen—you and your partner feel less connected. Not a great start for what’s to come.
Oftentimes, the first thing people try is experimenting with different types of touch. Popular magazines encourage people to masturbate and learn more about what feels good to their bodies. That’s a great first step, but it’s often not enough. People then get into arguments “I told you to touch me this way, not like that!” or “You said you wanted a massage first but when I do that, you fall asleep!”
What many of these individuals and couples seem to lack is sexual excitement. Sexual touch feels intrusive if your body isn’t turned on enough to receive it. It’s kind of a double-edged sword. You need touch to get sexually excited, but if you aren’t sexually excited, touch won’t feel good. Now what?
Solving this riddle is easier when you understand why it happens. If you are in a long-term relationship, touch can feel less good over time simply because you are less excited. The more time you’ve spent with your sex partner, the more habituated you are to them. They aren’t the novel sexual stimulus they used to be. That means that if you change nothing about your foreplay, it’s going to become less exciting with time. Sexual touch that was once thrilling—such as oral sex—can, thus, feel intrusive or unwanted.
In addition, when your partner and your sex become more predictable, you concentrate less on your sensual experience. Instead, your mind wanders and you can become critical of yourself or your partner: “Why doesn’t this feel good?” and “Why are they touching me that way?” etc. The more you escape to your mind, the less present you are in your body, and the worse your foreplay will feel. You’ll get more irritated at your partner and start to dread sex. You’ll expect that foreplay won’t feel good. These negative emotions and expectations will soon ensure that you’ll never enjoy foreplay again. Is your sex life doomed?
Not at all!
Foreplay for Your Foreplay
The solution is to take matters into your own hands, meaning, you have to take responsibility for your own excitement. It’s time for what I call “Foreplay for your foreplay.” Rather than expect that foreplay should be enough to excite you, your goal now is to excite yourself first, so that foreplay will feel good. Think of it this way: When you were first together, just thinking about your partner may have been enough to turn you on. So, before foreplay ever began, you were already excited. As a result, sexual touch felt great! Now though, just thinking about your partner probably isn’t enough to get your body revved up. Instead, you need to consciously make that happen. Before you meet up with your partner, watch some porn or read some erotica, masturbate but don’t orgasm, dance in a way that makes you feel sensual and alive, take a bath, or watch your favorite romantic movie. Your goal is to remind your body that you are a sexual being, get your focus out of your head and into your body, and amp up some self-generated sexual energy.
It's also a great idea for you and your partner to purposefully make your relationship and your interactions outside the bedroom sexier. Life is serious and challenging. As a result, adult play like flirting and teasing tend to fade into a backdrop of responsibilities and stress. Do your best to consciously shift this—it’s difficult to experience your partner as a sexual being inside the bedroom when you aren’t interacting that way outside the bedroom.
Finally, as you engage in foreplay, actively maintain your focus on your body. Tune into your breathing or keep your attention on sensations in your pelvis. If you let your thoughts take over, your body may close in response. (If this is difficult for you, you may find a regular practice of mindfulness meditation or yoga to be helpful.) It will probably also help to slow foreplay down. For example, rather than rushing to oral sex, start more slowly with an inner-thigh massage.
In sum, foreplay can become less exciting over time. But stopping foreplay will likely result in less enjoyable sex. You and your partner can successfully counteract this typical trend with a little effort.
