E247: Our Recent Foreplay Discoveries (and how to explore more)

Everyone always asks us, how do we try new things without it feeling awkward? Or even just like, how do we have sex without it feeling awkward? And we're really big believers that awkwardness is just part of the price of admission of having a great sex life. Awkwardness is sexy. You would go that far? I think it can be. Say more. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with over 20 years of experience. And I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours. Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. So today's episode was inspired by a recent DM that we got. Somebody messaged us when we were doing our Ask Us Anything on Instagram, and they asked, how do you keep foreplay from getting boring in your relationship? Do you just like cycle through your own foreplay techniques? Isn't that awkward? And I think so many people have this question. Like we've all heard the advice to keep it spicy and try new things in the bedroom. But for most of us, like we feel very awkward with the implementation. And I think so many people also think like that intentionality around sex can feel really awkward too. Like, yeah, are you like planning this? Are you cycling through it? I love talking about this stuff, like the nitty gritty of how do we actually do these things in the bedroom? So today we're gonna be talking about how to bring that element of exploration into the bedroom in a non-awkward way. Spoiler alert, there's gonna be some awkwardness. She put that in quotes if you're not watching on YouTube. because there is no there is no non-awkward way non-awkward as possible with awkward maybe maybe you know maybe there being some like fun way to sexualize a little bit of awkwardness too and we're also going to be pulling back the curtains a little bit and talking about some recent exploration that we've been doing in our own relationship but before we jump into today's episode we have to give you a quick heads up because we have a very fun celebration happening this week it's double v day it's double v day okay so valentine's day is obviously coming up we all know that but what you might not know is that my birthday is the day before valentine's day should we call it w w day because it's two v's no because it's two days w days no double Two day W days. No. Yeah, I was supposed to be born on Valentine's Day. I probably would have been called Valentina had that happened. But went into some fetal distress and my mom had to have an emergency C-section on the night of the 13th. I'm not sure. Oh, Valentina. Yeah, no, I don't like it. It doesn't work. My dad said he forbid that name because everybody would have called me Val, which is true. Okay, so my birthday. I'm sorry to all the Vals out there. We love you too. I'm just not a Val. um okay so my birthday is the day before valentine's day and if you've been in our universe for about six months or so you may remember that when xander turned 40 in july i just like psyched myself out there i was like oh my god his birthday is july right yeah keep going okay when xander's birthday turned 40 in july we did this really special offer on our most popular best-selling best reviewed guides, our ultimate foreplay guides. And you guys went absolutely nuts for it. Like it was just so many people grabbed them. We got so many incredible messages of couples having a lot of fun and so much more passion, connection, excitement, exploration, all the things. Everyone was so inspired by my birthday and me turning 40. It was just, it was so cool. People were like, I want to get more blowjobs because it's Xander's birthday. Okay. Just kidding. That's not what people were saying they were like damn you guys are offering way too good of a deal i'm gonna scoop this up okay so i am a little bit of a birthday diva and i wanted to one-up xander it's like we did something for his birthday we've never done something for my birthday i i can't believe we've never done something because we always focus on valentine's day why we never focus on your birthday. It's so much better to focus on you than, than like love the love holiday. I don't know about that. Okay. So here's what we decided to do. Same guides, our ultimate foreplay guides. It's what Vanessa decided to do because she wanted to one up me. You were on board with it. Okay. So our ultimate foreplay guides are normally $69. Yes, that's on purpose, but they're also worth every single penny. They're a steal at 69. But for a limited time, just through February 16th, you can get them for 40 bucks. 40 bucks. Tell me it is not worth 40 bucks to give your partner and to receive from your partner the best sexual experience you have ever had. And I'm also just going to say, if you get this offer, there might also be some surprises too. Yeah. I'm not going to say, just maybe. Yeah. Well, because that's the one-upping part, right, Vanessa? Because on my birthday, we also offered them for $40. dollars however if you take the if you take it at 40 you might see a couple other things for other amazing deals that we cannot publicize because they're too good yep and the only way for you to know is to grab them is to try for 40 bucks that's it Are we are we whispering? That's fun. Just get it. Subliminal marketing. So the foreplay guy, it's like it's my favorite of all the things that we offer because I just think they're so fun. Everybody wants to be good in bed, but we never learn how like we never learn any actual technique. I mean, I read a million Cosmo magazines growing up. I got a bunch of dumb ideas, but I never learned any actual technique. Like, how am I supposed to do this thing? So the guides. You learned like schticks. Yeah, the guides teach you step by step exactly what to do. And it covers everything from, you know, we have people who have bought them who are like, I've never given my partner a blowjob or I've just given a couple or, you know, I've done it a few times, but I really don't feel confident in my technique. All the way up to people who like we've had people say, I thought I was really good at this. I've never had any complaints, tons of compliments. But like I learned new tricks and techniques. There are over 100 different techniques in there. So there's really like something for everybody. Yeah, because I think so many people think like they figure out, oh, yeah, here's how you do. You know, they land on a technique of here's how you do it. And that's what you always do. But the reality is, like Vanessa said, there are so, so, so, so, so many different techniques. And the thing is, is that each person, each partner receiving, whether that's, you know, like a blowjob that a guy is receiving or oral sex that a woman is receiving, each person is going to prefer different techniques. So what you think is amazing from like someone that you gave blowjobs to in the past, like that might not be that. That might be perfectly fine to your current partner, but it might not be like next level amazing. And you won't know until you get to try out all these different techniques and figure out what are the right combination of things for this person. That's that's the real key is I think we talk about technique a lot. We think that there's one way there's like 20, 30, 40 different ways. And it's about finding which specific way is working for your person right now. Your person. So, yeah, it's they're very direct. You will not see like just play around. Like, just try it out. Like, it's like, it's very clear. Do exactly this. Then do exactly that. So we have step-by-step instructions. They're also tastefully illustrated. We got like custom illustrations and GIFs made for them. So you can see exactly what's happening. Yeah, because sometimes it's hard to translate. Like you're reading and you're like, wait, where am I supposed to put like my mouth? How am I supposed to move my hands? Yeah, everything's very tastefully illustrated. And there are even audio versions. so you can just like we know everybody's really busy and we've been getting so much feedback from you guys that you love like let me just pop in a little earbud i'll listen you know while i'm driving to be clear it's audio versions of us telling you what to do it's yeah not audio versions of us just want to be clear just want to be clear you know what this is and what it isn't it's like this podcast it's like a podcast version of us going through the foreplay guides so you can sorry i just got like a bad image in my head of someone being like i was expecting something really different. I mean, we do get a lot of people telling us like, when are you going to make your OnlyFans not happening? This is the closest you'll get. Um, okay. But it's not that close. We walk you through it. It's also super sexy. Like you could put in one earbud and your partner could put one in, or you could listen in the car on a road trip. Like it's very fun. Or each listen while you're at work or whatever, and then circle back later in the day and be like, Hey, these are the ones that sounded interesting to me. Oh, those are the ones that sound interesting to you. All right, let's go. Exactly. So 40 bucks, plus some little stuff that you'll see on the back end. Plus, there's also going to be, we'll tell you more in a little bit when we get to like the explorations that we've been trying out. But there's also probably some other stuff too. If you want to check those out, you can go straight to vmtherapy.com slash foreplay. And we will also put the link directly in the show notes for you. Okay, let's get into today's episode. So let's first talk about bringing more exploration into the bedroom. And I think we should start with defining what we even mean by exploration. Because most people get this wrong. Yeah, most people, you know, they hear the advice, spice things up, keep it spicy. And most people's brains go to something that feels to them very extreme or very far out of their comfort zone. Like we feel like we have to dive into the deep end of doing something. And we take a totally different approach to exploration. So if there's something way out of your comfort zone that you're curious about trying, that's awesome. We want you to eventually get there. And we are in no way like whatever people want to whatever consenting excited adults want to do in their own bedroom, We are good with that. But I think that it helps to think of exploration in a different way of just trying something slightly different than usual. Yeah, it's not going out of your comfort zone. It's not like needing to kind of like ratchet things up. Because I feel like this is what happened to me early, you know, maybe with my first girlfriend or two where I was having regular sex where it's like, you know, they're sort of the standard stereotypical things, I think, that you start to suggest of like trying something, oh, like, okay, like, let's blindfold each other. Okay, let's tie each other up. And then it's like, it's like each one is kind of like ratcheting up the intensity. And I was like, okay, well, so what do you want to try next? And I feel like I got it in my head that, oh, to be exploratory in the bedroom means I have to pick something crazier or more intense than what she just suggested or brand new and i very like and and that caused me to polarize like i would oh well like it's kind of it's been it's been fun doing this but like i don't i don't feel comfortable with anything beyond this i'm putting beyond in quotes but something that feels more extreme where i'm like oh wait i have to suggest something to like seem like cooler or sexier than her almost it's like like a competition almost and so then it was like oh well i don't like the the idea of trying new things is scary. Yeah, it's scary. It makes me feel bad about myself. And it like if I had had this idea from the beginning where it like oh yeah we there so many things that we can try of just like oh different positions or slightly different techniques or or whatever versus versus like oh it has to be this like bondage or like, you know, something that seems more in the, you know, kink direction where it's like, I'm not I don't feel up for that. I don't feel ready for that right now. That would have changed things so much for me. And, you know, it took me a long time in our relationship even to like rewire my brain of like, oh, this is totally different than what I thought. Yeah. And I want to like really hone in on the new aspect of it, too, because like trying being exploratory in the bedroom does not need to mean trying something new. You can bring back and this is honestly what I recommend for people who haven't done much exploration or feel very shy or nervous about it. Just bring back something that you used to do, but you haven't done in a while. Or maybe even something that like you just kind of happen to do one time in passing. Yeah. And you have that confidence of knowing like I've already done this. It's not a brand new thing. I've already done it. But you still get the benefits of, you know, switching things up a little bit in the bedroom. I mean, I think also one thing that we have found is that, you know, we've been together a long time. We've obviously been having sex for a very long time. We are much more comfortable having sex with each other now than we were 10 years ago, 15, 18 years ago, which is wild to say. And so what I have found is that when we bring back something that we have done a very long time ago, that maybe didn't go swimmingly, or was kind of weird, or like, we didn't really talk about it afterwards. It's like, it goes so much better now, because we're so much more comfortable with each other. We are so much better equipped to deal with things going a little wonky or us being able to laugh and not feeling like the stakes are so high. So I think that's another reason to bring things, to like not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like, oh yeah, we did that once or twice 10 years ago and it was a little weird. Yeah. Well, give it a try now. You guys have been having sex for the last 10 years. Like you're way more comfortable with stuff. It's probably going to go a lot better. So I got to tell you guys a quick story. I just had a gum grafting procedure. I'm going to have to have another one in a couple of months to fix the damage that I caused to my gums in my 20s when I was clenching and grinding my teeth and not believing my dentist when they were trying to warn me that I needed to be wearing a night guard. It was really painful. I'm going to have to do it again. I'm not looking forward to it. And I don't want this to happen to anybody else. Which brings us to our next sponsor, Remy. Their custom night guards are clinically tested and FDA cleared to prevent teeth grinding, reduce jaw tension and facial muscle strain and improve sleep quality. You can get the same professional quality and comfort as a night guard from the dentist, but Remy costs you 80% less and is so much more convenient. They literally just mail you an impression kit straight to your door. You follow their instructions, ship it back, and you will get your night guard in the mail. Start the new year right and use code PILLOW to get 50% off your purchase of a new night card. That's 50% off at shopremi.com slash PILLOW with code PILLOW. Thank you, Remy, for sponsoring this episode. I am so excited to be partnering with Quince again because they are one of my personal favorite brands that I have bought so many things from with our own money. If you've never heard of Quince before, they make everyday essentials with quality that lasts. They make incredible clothing, but they've really branched out with a lot of other products too now. They have home goods, they even have furniture, skincare items, but everything is really built to hold up to daily wear. But they only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. Which we love. I actually just bought a maternity set from Quince for my sister. She just gave birth and I wanted to find her some clothes that were like cute and cozy, but she still felt kind of pulled together. And I immediately was just like, Quince, I'm sure Quince will have something. And sure enough, there were like a couple of really cute sets. The prices are incredible. I mean, this is one of the best things about Quince. So I was able to get her a couple of really cute things. So I seriously cannot highly recommend checking out quince enough. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com slash pillow for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com slash pillow for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash pillow. okay second tip is to talk about exploring outside of the bedroom first yeah rather than you're in the middle and you're like you're like all right now get on your back and do the blah blah blah well I think a lot of times what people do is they feel too nervous bringing something up so they they throw it onto their partner and they're like want to try something new what do you want to do. And then your partner's like, I don't ever want to try anything new. Never ask me that question again. Well, it's a really stressful question to get asked in the moment. You're like, oh my God, it feels like a pop quiz. You don't know. Like, I don't even know the options. My brain goes blank. I can't think of anything. Or you're really like, you're really anxious about bringing it up. And so you think I have an idea. Once we get started and I'm feeling real, you know, once I have like the hormones raging, they're like horny hormones raging in me, all of a sudden, I'm going to feel confident to be like, Oh, let's do whatever. But then, you know, you're like, bring it up right in the moment. And you're putting your partner on the spot. I think that so many people do that. Cause I'm like, yeah, in the moment I'm like, Oh fuck. Yeah. Let's do whatever. But it's not, it's not a great time to bring something up because it feels like the stakes are higher in the middle of it. Your partner doesn't want to like mess things up, but also like who you don't want to have a curveball thrown at you like right in the middle of things so my favorite ways of bringing it up are to say i had a dream about it because that's just like a really it's a very low pressure way of like man i had this dream that we were doing you know xyz and i can't get it out of my head thinking about this yeah you could say something like that i found myself thinking about X, Y, Z, or, hey, how about next time we try ABC? And again, like, these can be really small things. Like, it could be, you know, you know what, I just realized, like, we haven't done doggy in forever. Like, can we do that next time? So it doesn't have to be this big, long speech or anything like that. But I think just bringing it up outside of the bedroom first can feel way less intimidating. You can also text it to your partner if you're feeling really shy and nervous about saying it face to face like hey you know what i was just thinking about us doing you know doggy style why are you gonna say it like that just send uh snoop snoop dog doggy style the song to them like question mark no don't do that okay next tip is to remove the pressure to perform. So the purpose of exploration is simply to explore. It's not to knock it out of the park. It's not to knock it out of the park. Not to be a porn star. Not to be porn star. It's not to have the best orgasm of your entire life. The benefit of exploration lies simply in the exploration itself. Like research shows that when we do new things with our partner, regardless of how that new thing goes, our brains light up. We love that sense of novelty. It's what keeps us feeling the spark, keeps us feeling excited. And it's really even that like element of mystery and unknown of like, how is this going to go? Remember, like, that's what the spark was at the beginning of your relationship. This like, oh my God, are we, are we going to be in a relationship? Are we not? Are we falling in love? Does he feel the same way that I do? So we want to bring back some of that uncertainty. Yeah. And if you have any doubts about that, or you don't believe me, believe us that trying new things together, like supercharges connection, all you have to do is look at reality shows, dating reality shows. Like The Bachelor is a great example. Do you ever wonder how is it that people seem to form these really intense connections with each other so quickly. They're together for like a couple of hours at most and they're like falling in love with each other. The reason why that happens so quickly is it is formulaic. Every single date is putting someone into a new situation. If you ever notice, I was always like the person that's scared of skydiving that they may go on the skydiving date or scared to be in a helicopter and all of a sudden they're in the helicopter like the producers of those shows they know like the actual science of how to forge almost like forge artificial connection and they play that up they literally that's why you don't see the same date happen twice like on the season they're literally putting the same person into different new situations and it's always things that they've almost never done before because they know it has to be a new thing a new thing you two do together and all of a sudden you have so much more connection than if you just sat together at dinner for two hours. Exactly. Okay. So yeah, what you want to do is like when you're trying new things together, you're not expecting that it's going to be wildly better. It's going to be the best ever experience. Like your goal is simply to try. Yeah. Think of it in the same way as like trying new food. You're going to go out to a new restaurant or try a new cuisine that you've never tried. Like you don't have this expectation that like, this is going to be better than anything I've ever eaten. Like you might walk away thinking you know i don't think i want to try ethiopian again it wasn't really my jam so yeah the expectation is not for this to be a best ever experience yeah even on the bachelor for example like a lot of these days don't they don't go that well objectively like the activity is a bust it's weird somebody hates it but that is not correlated with how well the date goes overall right like it's often those ones like they always have those like a couple really like wacky crunchy type of dates where it's like you know they're doing something to do like doing some weird like staring into each other's eyes or like i don't know some weird ceremony type thing and it's like neither of them are having fun but then they have something to laugh about afterwards they you know they make the most of it and it's that vulnerability and that that try experiencing something new that creates the connection. So just another, I think that's another great reminder that it's like, yeah, if that show was like, oh, the winner is about like, the date's going perfect. And like, that never happens. Yeah. And honestly, some of the most bonding, connecting, intimate experiences that we have had with each other in the bedroom have been when we've been trying something and it didn't go well. Like for we did that, you know, the whole series here of like smash or pass of trying different sex tips. And like we've never laughed harder, never felt closer to each other, like when things go wrong. So, again, you're really trying to lower the bar, lower expectations. And one of the specific ways to do that is one of our next tips, which is to really like create this container around exploration. So one thing that you can do is have specific sexploration dates with each other. And you can even set a certain cadence that you want to do these with, like, hey, once a month or twice a year or whatever it is. Like, we're going to do these little sessions. And we've done this in our own relationship, too, where the expectation is set from the very beginning of we're just trying some new things here. We have no idea how this is going to go. So we're bringing the pressure down. We have no expectations. the goal is just to try new things. So you can even come up with your own little name for it. Like I've always used sexploration for like years and years because obviously it combines nicely. But you could call it like a curiosity night or maybe it's like you're taking turns one person being the leader and one person being the receiver of trying out the new things. So just kind of setting that intention right from the beginning can be really powerful. Our next tip is to normalize awkwardness And this is my little spoiler alert that I tried to give you earlier Everyone always asks us how do we try new things without it feeling awkward Or even just like how do we have sex without it feeling awkward And we're really big believers that awkwardness is just part of the price of admission of having a great sex life. Awkwardness is sexy. You would go that far? I think it can be. Say more. I don't know if I would say it's sexy, but I would say it can feel very intimate. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that it's sexy because if we are doing something and it gets a little awkward, like that's we're trying like it means like we're trying something new. It means we're like pushing our comfort zone. It means we're having sex. Like, I don't know. I associate all those with positive things. and I know time after time that we are able to approach sexual awkwardness in a fun way and like you know and have a good time so it's like I I feel like I've associated those two things together interesting I like I like that like I've sexualized awkwardness not like all awkwardness but banner has an awkwardness kink actually you really don't awkwardness in real life you get like very uncomfortable. You feel it too much. But you know, sexualize awkwardness in bed. Should we put that on church like bumper stickers? It's a little too mouthy. Yeah. But I like that take. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't think I've ever thought of awkwardness necessarily as sexy before, but I have thought of it as being very intimate because when you are being awkward with your partner, it's because you're being vulnerable. And like, that's the whole fucking point of intimacy like yeah is to be our full selves in front of each other and to show all the different elements of our personality and who we are to each other if i'm just presenting some perfect version of me that's always sexy and put together and confident that's not me and i'm acting in front of like the one person in my life that i shouldn't be acting around Like awkwardness is taking our masks off. Yes. So I just thought of something as you're saying that. When we hear from people saying, how do I make sex less awkward? It's 99% of the time, it is not ever men saying that. It is women saying that. and so many men write in or say you know hey like it doesn't like it doesn't seem like my partner really wants to have sex with me or i can't doesn't really seem like they really like it or i like it's like something that they let me do but i can't really tell what type of connection they have with it. And I think this is so tied together with like, with we're like wearing the mask, having sex, so to speak of like, oh, it needs to be this certain way. And I'd kind of do this whole performance. And I think the thing is, I don't think most men, unfortunately, are quite able to see that, like, oh, their partner, like my partner's having performative sex with me. But what they do see is, it seems like this is more for my sake than for my partner's sake. And I think That sort of a huge deep fear of men of that long term that this thing that they got into a relationship to share with their partner is not actually something that is for sharing. That it's really just something that they that they need or they want and their partner gives some scraps of. And I think that this being allowing yourself to be awkward or be real is actually will show your male partner who is fearful that like that this isn't really something for you that actually it is. I think that could be a great that could be a really great first step to like healing a lot of a lot of the misunderstandings that we have around sex because yeah I I mean how many men have you heard from that are like I'm so scared of being awkward with sex I can't I can't think of any yeah you're that's a good point another way that we make space for the awkwardness in our own relationship is we came up with what we call the first pancake rule which is based on like you know when you're making pancakes the first one just like it always turns out a little weird no matter what and then once you get the second one going it's fine so we brought that same idea into our sex life and we so we have this little rule that whenever we're trying something new for the first time we kind of just say first pancake and like it's allowed to be weird bad awkward we're allowed to fumble around and like not know what we're doing because that's the first pancake we're like expecting it to be that way hey i mean you could from the last tip like you You could even call your exploration night pancake night. Yeah. If it's, you know, something sort of like, oh, we're going to give it the first time a pancake shot. And, you know, it's probably not going to remind you it's not necessarily going to go swimmingly. Oh, maybe it's actually worth trying something twice because the second pancake often turns out good. No one's like, oh, pancakes suck because the first one sucks. We also, for what it's worth, like we do recommend when you're trying something new, we usually recommend the third time's the charm rule. Oh. So unless, okay, let's say you try something and it feels painful, unsafe, triggering, just straight up bad. Like if you really don't ever want to do that thing again, don't ever do it again. But if it was just awkward, I think it's worth giving it a few tries because of the first pancake roll. Very rarely is going to go great the first time. So like at least try it a second time. But I've often found that three is the magic number of like, you're like, oh, now this clicks. Now I get it. Now I'm having fun. Okay, our next tip is to celebrate the small discoveries. So again, this is all about like resizing our expectations for exploration, that it doesn't have to be some seismic huge shift. It doesn't have to be that this has completely changed the way you're going to have sex forever going forward. It could just be that you got some new information. So maybe it's like, oh, that was fun. Maybe it's, I didn't really like that thing. But now I feel more excited about exploring more stuff with you. Or, oh, yeah, like we let ourselves be a little awkward and have the first pancake roll with each other. So like just having those that acknowledgement of the small wins can be really beneficial. And it's also a great way to keep the conversation going about sex. I keep talking about sex openly when you're celebrating these little small wins. And then our final tip here is to treat exploration as an ongoing thing, not as a one-time fix. So exploration is not just a one-and-done thing. Like, it's something that should be a part of your sex life for the rest of your sex life. And again, it doesn't need to be every single time. I think a nice cadence for it could be like once a month. You try something slightly different. Or every other month. Yeah, sure. I mean, you don't have to be like super rigid about it, but just to give like a rough ball, ballpark, ballpark. Um, and by the way, again, like trying something new could be, oh, we like moved our legs in slightly different positions in missionary, or we had sex at the foot of the bed instead of the head of the bed. You know, they can be small things. Yeah. Different room. Yeah. Different room, something different time of day. It'd be simple. But yeah, if you get into the idea, and this will take pressure off of exploration if it's like this is an ongoing thing, not a make it or break it one time event. Okay, so now that we've gone over some tips about how to bring more exploration into your sex life, let's tell you a little bit about some explorations that we have been trying out in our sex life. Some pancakes we've been making. We've been making some pancakes. Um, okay. And so here's another part of, that goes into the surprise that we talked to you about earlier in this episode. So with all of our guides, but especially with our foreplay guides and our, our ultimate foreplay guides and ultimate sex guides, we are constantly trying to try out new things. We use ourselves as the guinea pigs, try out new tips. Someone's got to do it. It's such a hard job. of try new things out because we want these guides to be the best, the most comprehensive guides ever. So we're always trying to explore and experiment with each other. And so we can add to them, we add to the guides. So we are always adding to these guides, new techniques, new features, like they're always being refreshed. So we have been on a little refreshing kick lately, trying some new things out. And we are going to be adding some stuff to the foreplay guide soon. So we decided for our pillow talks family, you know, we're always trying to make sure that these episodes feel really valuable. So, you know, even if you never buy the foreplay guides from us, we want you to feel like you're still like getting good tips. So we're going to share some stuff with you that might eventually end up only will eventually in the paid guides. Okay, so one thing that we have been experimenting with is having king and queen knights. And this is something that we've done before, but for some reason just like hasn't really like fully made it into the guides before. Yeah, I know. We've just really gotten into like medieval cosplay. Yeah, we have duke and duchess or knight. King and queen. Okay, so the whole idea behind this is that we have been taking turns with having one partner get to be totally spoiled and pampered in one given sexual interaction. One person is the boss. And you don't have like, yeah, king and queen. Some people don't like using that language. So it could be, you know, the center of attention or the special lady night. What was that show? Wasn't there a show that was like elegant lady days or something? Oh, it was special lady day. It's from the league. The league, yeah, special lady days. Special lady nights. Or wonderful lady day or something. Yeah, what was it? I can't remember. I feel like it was elegant or something. I don't think it was elegant. Yeah, something like that. Anyways, so you can use different name for it if you'd like. But this has been really fun for trying like different techniques with each other and just being able to like really focus on each other. there's just something very nice about being able to focus on only receiving or only giving yeah because i i think that often there might be something that we would love to experience or love to have our partner do for us but then in the when you're thinking about it in the context of like a normal kind of give and take or two-sided sexual experience you're like oh well maybe like that's going to take up a little too much time or I'm asking too much or, you know, oh, well, we usually do like, you know, she focused on me for a minute and I focus on her for a minute or like we're doing it to each other at the same time so that we get ready for intercourse. And it's like it doesn't it just feels like a little too much to ask for something that's like a hard right turn from what you usually do. I mean, I think I would love to convince you that very little is as hard of a right turn as you think it is. But, but I think that this helps you kind of break that down of like, oh, okay, well, if it's just about me, and I'm not concerned with like, oh, are they going to get bored with this? Or like, they're gonna, or they're gonna want some attention focused on them. And like, how can I do that? While I'm getting, how can I give a when I'm getting Y or whatever? And so you can make this as elaborate or as not elaborate as you want it to be. I mean, sometimes we've done it where it's just like, okay, we're just going to focus on Xander tonight, I'm going to try, you know, some stuff out on him. It can be for exploration or not. You can just do like the things that, you know, I already know what he likes. So I'm just going to give him all his favorite things in one night. You could also extend it to be like an entire date night too. Like it can be sex only or it could be like, oh, like, you know, the king for the night chooses what's going to be for dinner and the partner makes that meal for them. And then, you know, and then there's the whole sexy time too. and then the next month or whatever next week, you swap roles. So yeah, you can extend it as much. If it feels fun, you can make an entire day out of it if you really want to. It's just like, what feels fun? Do you want it to be limited to the bedroom? Do you want it to be like a date night? Do you want it to be like a whole day And yeah I think did I forget to mention that these are all four experiments that we been trying Like I think the king and queen night works especially well for foreplay Yeah, because often what you are wanting is like, yeah, I like I just like want to just get a blowjob where I just get to lay back and relax or whatever. And that's what I was kind of getting at when I was like, you know, I think a lot of us are worried that like what I might ask for doesn't seem to fit in with the normal give and take. that we have. Yeah, I think one of the big issues in male female relationships is like, I mean, literally look at the wording, we have the word foreplay, which we by the way, in the foreplay guide say, like on the first page, why we hate that word, but we use it, because that's the word everybody uses. But the word is foreplay, the things that you do before you get to the main event. So in male female relationships, foreplay tends to be like 60 seconds of kind of groping at each other and then you move along. So it's very rare for male female couples to bring each other to orgasm from just just foreplay. I'm putting that in little air quotes. So a king and queen night is a really great way to say like, yeah, we're not having intercourse. I'm just gonna, you know, give you a blowjob or you're just gonna go down on me or use your hands on me or toy on me, whatever it is. So that's been a fun one. Okay, next exploration that we have been trying is using our favorite pillow. The pillow. The pillow. We'll have to put a link to the pillow in the show notes. But this is a pillow that was actually made specifically for intercourse, and we love it for that reason. But we've also been experimenting with using it for oral. Yes. In our Ultimate Foreplay Guides, we have different positions that are like the most comfortable positions for giving oral because unfortunately most people tend to default to the giver being on their stomach like lying on their stomach on the bed and that is the worst position if you're going down on a vulva specifically yeah like you're just gonna get your neck's gonna hurt you're you know you're at such a weird angle it's just really exhausting so it's not a good position but we thought oh what if we brought in the pillow because the pillow changes the angle on your hips and angles you up it's subtle but it makes all the difference in the world oh yeah yeah it's it's it's the right angle and it also gives you the full view that you may be having to kind of crane your neck for if you're just lying down on the bed with your partner's butt on the bed as well so yeah it's really uh brings takes things up a notch it increases my enjoyment how was your neck oh my neck love my neck's like let's go so yeah that pillow is worth every penny it definitely you'll get more usage out of it for intercourse positions but it was nice to know that it also works and makes a surprisingly big difference for yeah really really increases the the enjoyment of the experience. Okay, the next thing that we have been playing around with is more stimulation of the outer labia. And I think we actually discovered this, I do think, thanks to the pillow and some of the positions that it allows you to get into and the way that it kind of like raised your pelvis relative to me, where it kind of like gave me the ability to do more with my hands while I was doing you know, more with everything. So yeah, like in the ultimate foreplay, guys, we talk about playing with the outer labia more as like a warm up. You know, one of the big mistakes that men make when it comes to doing foreplay on a woman is men have the tendency to go way too fast. Or just go straight for the vagina, like with the fingers. or the clitoris. Yeah. Yeah. Like you guys get excited. And I think men tend to prefer more direct, like get right to it. I'm excited. Let's go. Whereas women will tell us a lot of women will actually say my favorite part of foreplay is being teased. Like, I want you to get me to the point where I'm begging for you to go further. The and the number one things move faster once you actually get to more more of the main event yeah so like women love the tease we love it to be drawn out we love the slow sensual touching obviously everybody's different and like you need to talk to your unique partner but in general many women the vast majority of women like want men to slow down and pay more attention so we do spend a lot of the foreplay guides talking about like different ways to get her to that point where she's like begging you to go further that was my that was mind boggling just to the quick aside that's it was so mind-boggling to me the first time we had a real honest conversation about what each of our individual experiences with teasing felt like and i could not wrap my head around the idea until you really described what it was like for you that it could be like enjoyable in and of itself and i could not understand how you could not it's only enjoyable once the tease ends like the tease it's like it's not the tease is not unenjoyable but it is literally a tease and it's like and it's like i'm not feeling like relief until you actually move on to touching me directly or intercourse or whatever and it's like oh wait like you actually enjoy this like this is something that's worth doing just for doing it yeah mind boggling mind boggling that's a conversation that is worth having with your partner especially if you are a woman and he is a man because i almost guarantee you the vast majority of men do not have the same relationship with what teasing is like for them as it is for you yes so have that conversation but yeah so like we like i was saying with the foreplay guides we talk about you know stroking the labia and different like techniques of stimulating them to like warm her up and get her excited for you to touch her clitoris or go internal, you know, in the vagina. But it wasn't really something that we've experimented with that much, like outside of a warm up. Yeah, well, most of that, I think, is because when we are having intercourse, like there's not, I can't really easily reach the labia very well. like it's like if I'm on top of you I love you trying to access that I have to like I have to get scoop my hand in I don't even know how there's not a lot of space between your legs and my legs yeah um and then if you are on top of me again I can access the clit with my my thumb but I can't like but yeah again you're on me there's not there's not the level of access however with the pillow and certain positions with kind of like legs more up in the air. There are a lot of possibilities I did not know existed until a couple months ago. So yeah, that was a fun discovery for us to make during intercourse. And then we realized like, why don't we bring more of that into foreplay as well? So I'll share like the most effective technique on this is for my unique body, it can be different for, you know, other people's bodies. But on me, what's been most effective is like using your thumb, like one thumb on each and kind of doing this motion from the bottom up to the top. Yeah, with some lubrication. Yeah, with lube, and with a pretty like decent amount of pressure too. And I found that, yeah, it feels like, you know, we talk a lot about how the clitoris, most people think of it as just like that little nub of skin that you can typically see with your eye, but the clitoris actually extends up into the body. It splits off into two legs. It's a much bigger structure than most people realize. And so when you're stimulating the labia, you're indirectly can be stimulating the clitoris too. And I've felt a lot more sensation than I thought I would from that. Yeah. And so, yeah, you can do that on its own. You can do that during intercourse. You could do that while you're, you know, you are using your fingers, your thumbs on the labia. that takes up both of your hands, your partner could be touching their own clit while you're doing that. They could be using a toy internally on themselves. Like there's a whole lot of options for ratcheting up the stimulation on top of just the labia stimulation. Okay. And then the last thing that we have been playing around with is using a single finger stroke on me. So one thing that we talk about in the foreplay guides is that a lot of people have this tendency to get overly complicated with their technique. We like want it. We want to be doing something that like feels really fancy and like advanced and crazy. And then we like also are trying to mix it up constantly and like doing, you know, let me do this, this technique for a little bit and then I'm going to switch to this technique and then I'm going to switch to this one. Is this man trying to compete with vibrators are like, oh, so I got it. I got to be able to do like 10 different things real fucking fast. Definitely men are more guilty of this than women are. But yeah, there is this tendency to get overly complicated and to change things up too much. And so we've been experimenting with what if we really like strip things back and try to do the most basic, simple kind of stimulation. And I found this to be really interesting. Like, there's a way that when you're so simple, there is an interesting way that it helps you like focus on the sensation more, where it kind of it almost starts to feel a little bit meditative and like kind of gets you in the zone a little bit. And you pay attention to the subtleties of it so much more. So I found this to be really interesting to experiment with. Like it's not, you know, it's not something that I would necessarily do like start to finish or probably not something that I would do like every single time, but just to kind of try something a little bit different to, and especially in those times where I was wanting to just like slow down and be more present in the moment where it was not a like, Hey, we got 10 minutes. Do you want to get this done? Kind of vibe for the night. This felt really interesting. So yeah, just a really simple, I think what tends to be easiest is like using your thumb. So you kind of place your fingers on top of the vulva and then just use your thumb to stroke from now I'm acting it out, to stroke from the bottom of the clitoris up to the top. If you're somebody who likes direct clitoral stimulation, you can stroke straight over the clitoris itself. If you don't like direct stimulation, you can go to the side of the clitoris. And if you do that, I recommend alternating going from side to side. So you're really making more of like a you around it. You also definitely want to use lube for this one. But it's really interesting. Yeah. It just helps you like be a lot more present in the moment and tuned into those sensations. Yeah. I mean, that's a great suggestion for like, say, a queen night where you're like, yeah, I just, you know, I want you to, you know, I want both of us to just get comfortable and really, you know, and I want to just be able to lock in to this and like relax. and feel into it. Because I think most of us don't think of that or don't suggest that during partnered sex. Because we're like, oh, my partner's going to get bored or they're not going to be stimulated at all. They're just going to be sitting there for 10 minutes. And it's like, yeah, give yourself the permission to do that by having one of these nights where it is just all about you. And then, yeah, really enjoy it. All right. Well, those are just some of the things that we have been experimenting with. They will find their way into the ultimate foreplay guides eventually. But you have them now. You got them now. And you can get the foreplay guides now too. You can for 40 bucks. Come on, 40 bucks. If you want to check those out, you can go straight to vmtherapy.com slash foreplay. And we will also put the link directly in the show notes for you. And that is all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week. we release new episodes every Thursday.