We often concentrate on touch while we’re intimate with our partners – but what about hearing, tasting, smelling, and seeing? Using these senses can greatly improve your sex life.
“We use our five senses primarily for purposes other than enjoyment,” Justin Sitron, a sexuality researcher at Widener University in the USA told Men’s Health. “Sex is a chance to use them to just experience your body.”
Here’s our guide to using all five senses to take the pleasure up a notch the next time you have sex.
Touch
This is the most common trigger to initiate sex. Desire can easily be sparked when the person you love, or to whom you are attracted, touches you.
With the other senses, you’re not necessarily engaged while your partner experiences it,” said Sitron. “But touch is reciprocal: You can feel me touching you while I experience touching you.”
Use beautifully scented oils or body lotions to give her a massage in bed. What’s more, it can help her unwind and she can return the favour.
If you ever buy her lingerie, buy fabrics that feel soft. If it feels good to your hand, she’ll love the feel of it on her body.
Hearing
When she moans in pleasure, it is a great cue to know you are doing the right thing.
You could even try talking dirty to her. But first, find out which words she’s comfortable using.
Even describing how she is making you feel will increase the pleasure of the moment.
Music can also really set the mood. Scroll through your playlist and see which songs you’ve always wanted to have sex to, and do it.
Taste
One of more mindful ways to explore taste during sex is – no, not oral sex – bringing in food as part of foreplay.
You know she loves chocolates, so try feeding her things like chocolate-dipped strawberries.
Use whipped cream on her sensitive body parts, such as the inner thigh or breasts, and lick it off.
Smelling
Sex therapist Simone Bienne recommends starting off by smelling an orange because it is strong in both scent and taste to get you in the mood. “Sounds bonkers, but arousing your senses before sex helps you be in the moment – clients swear by it,” she writes on Glamour magazine’s UK website.
Using scented candles can further enhance the ambience and create the right mood.
Good hygiene can also go a long way to make you feel comfortable in bed.
Seeing
This can take many forms, such as seeing your partner undress, her brightly coloured lingerie, or even watching porn.
Women do get aroused watching porn even though most aren’t even aware of it, researchers at Queen’s University, Canada, found. They measured blood flow to women’s genitals as they watched porn. “Our sexuality really is more complex than men’s – and it takes time to learn what turns you on,” writes Bienne.
So experiment together to take your sex life up a few levels. You’ll both reap the benefits.
