Quickies can be awesome but slowing down allows sex to be mindful, increasing pleasure and connection with a partner. This allows for exploration and increased arousal. We often touch each other and forget to feel because we have so much going on in life. This isn’t only for women. Men get in the habit of “hit is and quit it” culture. Life is busy. Fast gets sex done, checks it off the list, able to move on to the next item on the agenda.
Increasing the duration of foreplay improves sensations, arousal, and female orgasm. A common sexual misconception is that the time needed for foreplay is the same for men and women. Men need about 2-3 minutes of foreplay. Women require an average of 22 minutes of foreplay to be properly lubricated for penetration and optimal orgasmic potential. Imagine going down a waterslide without water… naked… That is what it is like for many women to have vaginal penetration without foreplay (I will discuss the importance of anal foreplay in a future blog.)
What is foreplay? According to Planned Parenthood, “Foreplay can include a lot of different things, like kissing, sharing fantasies, or touching one another’s genitals. The purpose of foreplay is to add to sexual excitement, and, especially for women, to help prepare the body for intercourse by increasing vaginal lubrication. Outercourse is almost the same as foreplay.”
Wikipedia expands, “Foreplay is a set of emotionally and physically intimate acts between two or more people meant to create sexual arousal and desire for sexual activity. Although foreplay is typically understood as physical sexual activity, nonphysical activities, such as mental or verbal acts, may in some contexts be foreplay.”
Expert psychotherapist and author, Esther Perel, teaches (as I do) that foreplay begins when the last orgasm ends. Ideally foreplay is ongoing, erotic play and thoughts from sexual experience to sexual experience. My clients find when foreplay is continuous, they are continually turned on succinctly, and no longer go through being “turned on and off” or have to get in the mood, because they are already there.
Women, especially those in perimenopause or cancer treatment, often shy away from sex because it is painful and penetration is uncomfortable. This is especially true if their partners take longer to get to climax. Longer duration of actual intercourse isn’t what women want, contrary to what men believe. It is foreplay.
Stroking the penis result in quicker to climax, once penetration begins. Many women find foreplay to be even better than penetration because they can orgasm easier from clitoral stimulation than from penetrative sex. When a woman has one orgasm, it is easier for her to have a second orgasm. Which is why I highly suggest women engage in self-pleasure foreplay before having intercourse. Women, who know their bodies, can orgasm from self-pleasure more consistently than from partnered sex. Mutual self-pleasure is also be sexy as foreplay and it teaches partners how to touch each other.
Adding sensual bedroom toys also heat up foreplay and can close the pleasure gap, so make sure to visit our store to increase your sexual pleasure.