The 5 Senses of Sex: A Touch of Lust
Our new blog series “The 5 Senses of Sex” explores the ways that intentionally focusing on each of our senses can deepen intimacy, passion, and sensuality and heighten sexual pleasure.
If sex is a feast for the senses, then touch is the buffet table. Of the 5 traditional senses, it’s the one that receives throughout our entire body, inside and out, instead of through one localized organ. As if that wasn’t enough, the variety of sensations we can perceive through our sense of touch is wide and wonderful—and different areas of the body experience them in varying degrees, intensities, and personal preferences. You could (and perhaps will!) spend weeks exploring the ways that you and your lover’s senses of touch interact, and still keep making new discoveries about each other.
Skin Hunger, Touch Starvation, and Culture
Perhaps more than ever, touch is a sensitive (so to speak) subject. With an information-driven economy in a modern world where so much social interaction relies on gadgets and machines, many of us are literally out of touch with our bodies, living inside our heads with very little physical contact. Living in crowded urban areas leads us to be extra-protective of our bubble of personal space. Too many of us have been on the receiving end of unwanted and uninvited touch wherever we go, leaving us feeling guarded and defensive towards touch in general. To top it all off, those of us living in the U.S. have been raised in a culture where affectionate touch is simply less common than it is in many other parts of the world (with the exception of sub-communities where physical closeness and touch is more regular and normal).
Adding sex into the mix just makes it even more complicated. On the one hand, sexual touch is sometimes the only regular affectionate touch many people ever receive—and because sexual/romantic pairings are centered, elevated, and prioritized so much above other kinds of relationships in American culture, it’s often considered the only “acceptable” context for adults to be touched. As a result, every affectionate touch is sexualized to a greater or lesser degree, making it hard to figure out what’s appropriate in every other context.
On the other hand, even our sexual touch is often very limited. Sure, our hands might roam wildly over our lover’s body, but we’re focused mostly on lips and genitals and possibly nipples. There are entire areas of our bodies that can experience all kinds of pleasurable touch that we may never have explored at all. The silver lining there, of course, is that trying out some of the suggestions in this post could open up a whole new world of delight for you and every partner you have from now on!
The very real down side of all this, however, is that many of us are starved for touch—yet may have a difficult time accepting it and feeling comfortable with it. Touch is, perhaps more than any of the other senses, literally good for us; it’s necessary for babies’ healthy development, it relieves stress, it increases pleasure hormones like oxytocin, it boosts immunity, and it’s important to a sense of well-being, happiness, and trust. When we experience too little affectionate touch, we can feel something called skin hunger, a term used to describe the craving for physical human contact; experiencing it has been studied as a factor in poorer overall mental and physical health.
That all sounds pretty grim, doesn’t it? The good news is, taking the time to integrate more, and more kinds of, touch in your intimate relationships has immediate benefits. Get ready to feel invigorated, cherished, delighted, aroused, and downright blissful!
The types of touch
For the purposes of this post, we’re mixing together a range of sensations that science types would separate out and classify as different things—for example, perceiving temperature is a different kind of sensation than what would be considered “touch”. I’m including many different kinds of sensation that your body can perceive, because the point of this article is just to open up your imagination to as many ways of enjoying skin-or-within stimulation as possible.
So, that said, here are some types of sensation you could explore on your own or with your lover(s):
- Pressure is often deeply soothing and comforting, especially over a wide area—think deep massage strokes, the weight of your partner on top of you, or even the “thuddiness” of some kinds of impact play;
- Friction is usually stimulating and arousing, when something is rubbed against you or moving inside you (though some friction requires lube to be enjoyable and other friction is only pleasant when it’s light or gentle);
- Tickling or light touch;
- Vibration, which I’m separating here specifically for sex toys, which tend to have a sensation spectrum of “buzzy” which is lighter, “shallower”, and more of an itchy/tickly feeling, to “rumbly” which is heavier, deeper, and experienced below the surface of the skin as well as on the skin;
- Texture, which is more a quality than a sensation, but in this case refers to experiencing something as soft, silky, rough, smooth, fuzzy, etc;
- Temperature as when you heat or chill something, or use an oil that’s warming or cooling;
- Suction, which is really similar to pressure, but in this case I’m thinking of pressure as more of a pushing sensation and suction as more of a pulling one;
- Erotic pain, which ranges from sharp/piercing to stinging to thuddy.
Many of these overlap, and many types of touch sensation play can cross over from one of these to another—for example, long fingernails might offer gentle friction or tickling as well as a sharper or more stinging sense of pain. This list is just to suggest a range of sensations that you can experiment with.
The forgotten regions
There are lots of places on the body that are very sensitive and where affectionate or erotic touch can feel absolutely incredible, that are also very rarely touched. If you tend to focus all your attention on breasts, genitals, mouths, and hands during sex, try wandering farther and finding out whether your partner(s) get aroused from one or more types of touch in any of these areas:
- The back of their neck
- The hollow just behind their earlobe
- Their upper back
- The inside of their elbows
- Their nipples, for cismen in particular (ciswomen’s breasts and nipples are more likely to already be part of their sexual play, and trans men and women may have strong emotions about their breasts and nipples and/or may not want to be touched there, so talk about that outside the bedroom first)
- The inside of their upper thighs
- The cushiony spot where their butt meets their thighs
- The backs of their knees
- The tops or soles/arches of their feet, and their toes (kind of a love it or hate it spot, so approach with care)
- The palms of their hands (hands are often used only for giving touch and not receiving it)
Sensory sexplorations with touch
As with all the sense-related suggestions for connecting more deeply with your lover(s) in these posts, it’s best to take your time when trying these out and discovering more about each other through touch. Really pay attention to what you’re feeling in your skin and mouth and body, whether you’re giving the sensation or receiving it. Let go of everything else and let your attention go fully to each spot that gets explored, each touch that you deliver.
How does it make you feel? What feels wonderful—and what feels uncomfortable or unpleasant? What happens if you go deeper or lighter, faster or slower, if you add lube or massage oil? Describe the sensations to each other, and don’t be afraid to ask your partner to change their speed or intensity or the type of sensation until you find what’s most pleasurable. Ask your partner to tell you how to “calibrate” your touch to their arousal, too. Every body is different, and everyone has their own “pleasure map” across the wilderness of their skin. Even with the same person, something that feels wonderful one day might be too much for them another day. It’s just more to explore!
You scratch my back… Running your fingernails lightly up and down your partner’s back can either be deeply soothing, or deliciously arousing. It’s great for a slow-burn start as well as a way to prolong pleasure when you’re in a post-orgasmic glow.
Try out some hair play. Lots of people find it incredibly erotic to have their hair pulled during sex—or all on its own! If your partner loves it, make sure you’re burying your hands deep in their hair and grasping at the roots over a wide area, not pulling on the ends, which is more likely to pull hair out or damage it. If they’re not that extreme, sliding your fingers into their hair and lightly rubbing their scalp can feel absolutely wonderful for them, while you enjoy the feel of their hair or scalp. It’s also very pleasurable and intimate for a lot of people to have someone gently brush their hair. Caveat: People of color often have to deal with unwanted hair-touching from strangers, as do some white people with curly or bright-colored hair, so this could be a hard limit. Don’t try hair play without talking about it first!
Take a massage class for lovers. This one is pretty obvious, and yet how many of us have never made time for something like this? Trading full-body massages is probably one of the top ways to both enjoy sexy, sensuous contact and also relax each other enough to relieve the stress of the day and get really focused on each other. (FUN FACT: We offer workshops in massage and sensual touch at the store!)
Learn their face with your fingers or lips. When you’re lying close together, very lightly trace the bone structure of their face with your fingertips—their brow bones, cheeks, jaw, down the length of their nose (sneak in a beep at the tip!), their chin. Follow the shape of their lips and feel their breath on your skin. Pet their facial hair if they have any. Wander a little farther to trace the shape of their ears. Or, run trails of tiny kisses along all these spots. Kiss their eyelids, their foreheads, the little spot beneath their lower lip. Don’t be surprised if this makes them feel vulnerable—it’s a very loving, caretaking way to touch someone.
Flip the hair play script. Use your head or facial hair to give them a “hair massage”, whisking or gently rubbing your hair all over their body. If you have very long, thick hair, the weight and softness of trailing it over their back and arms or across their belly and chest can feel incredibly sexy!
Good vibrations. Using a vibrator together is both a wonderful way to introduce sex toys into your lovemaking if you haven’t before, and to use sensation to explore sexual pleasure. Use our guide to vibrators to help pick out one or more to try on each other’s genitals—but also play with them on other areas of your bodies. There’s a reason why vibes are often marketed in mainstream settings as “personal massagers”. They can feel great anywhere on the skin, and the more “rumbly” ones can make your muscles feel the vibe as well.
Feel them with your face. It can be a delightfully pleasurable and rather primal feeling for you to rub your cheeks against broad areas of their bodies. Tickle them with your eyelashes while you nestle your face against them! This is also a great combination when exploring with smell, as you experience both the texture and scent of their skin all over.
Run hot and cold. Playing with temperature can create all kinds of erotic delight! Steel or aluminum toys like an Njoy wand tend to feel chilly on first contact (and can be lightly chilled for more extreme sensation) but quickly become hot when inserted, and the extremes wake up the nerve endings in wonderful ways. Warming oils or ice cubes also let you play with heat and cold on different body areas. And the classic dripping-candle-wax fantasy? When you use low-burn candles intended for use on skin, the shock of each drop of melted wax is extremely erotic—and quickly turns to a deliciously warm feeling.
Go full-on primitive. Especially if one or both of you also likes hair-pulling, experiment with gentle biting and scratching in various areas of each other’s bodies. Check out an erotic wrestling class or demo to learn how to safely grapple and pin each other—then combine them and go full-on jungle cat with each other, and enjoy the hot combination of pressure, erotic pain, and tugging.
Get your RDA of PDA. Go out on a date night and try to stay in as constant contact as you can, in as many ways as you can. This is a perfect time to go to a movie on an off-night and find an empty row where you can let your hands wander over each other’s clothes in the dark. This one might seem obvious, but especially for long-time lovers who are feeling less than connected, you might be surprised to realize that it’s taking conscious effort even just to remember to hold hands.
Make it luxurious. Create an absolutely decadent space for your sexytimes—it could be as simple as putting your softest sheets on the bed, or throwing down a plush, waterproof blanket made for sex like the Liberator blanket. Or, you could go all the way with featherbeds, satin sheets, and piles of pillows. Feeling frisky? Super-soft furry Boundaids make light bondage downright cuddly!
Play mad scientist. If you’re ready for something a little more exotic, check out a violet wand. It’s a very mild, skin-surface form of erotic electroplay—the sensation is crackly and buzzy, like static electricity. The different electrode shapes and the controls on the device let you adjust the sensation from a light, sort of ticklish feeling to a fairly intense sharp or stinging one. Best of all? With a conduction pad, you can pass the current through yourself or your partner and experience an electrified kiss or caress.
Pain as pleasure. You don’t have to think of yourself as a kinky person, or get heavily into BDSM, to find some kinds of pain very erotic. It’s extremely common, for example, to enjoy being spanked during sex—the spot where your butt meets your thighs is called “the sweet spot” for a reason! If you and your partner have fantasized about spicier toys, know that it’s totally normal—most people report being curious about erotic pain. Just take the time to learn to use it right, look for good-quality toys, and enjoy!
Be your own best lover. Touch is perhaps the best of all the senses when it comes to learning and loving yourself, so if you don’t currently have a partner, or you just want to expand your own pleasure when you masturbate, you can apply lots of these things to solo play. Take the time to touch your own body everywhere you can reach, to try out different sensations and temperatures and textures, to give yourself a cozy and plush space, to explore the way different toys arouse you. You get to enjoy your own sexuality at your own pace for as long as you want—and the next time you’re with a partner, you’ll know what you like and will be able to tell them.
If you’re feeling like the flames of your relationship(s) have been burning low, start paying attention to how often you touch each other, in and out of bed. Busy lives, exhaustion, and distraction often get in the way of loving connection, and it’s easy to fall into a habit of staying locked in your own space. Making sure to connect physically every day through touch is one of the quickest and easiest ways to revive your playfulness, intimacy, and desire for each other—and with so much variety, there’s bound to be something that works perfectly for you.
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