Compromise and Sex: Is there a better way?

I think a lot of people think that they have to compromise about sex. For example, if one person is really into a thing then we should do it to please them. We might think that it’s good to compromise, that life is about compromises, but I’m not sure I agree. Certainly when it comes to sex. There’s a way of approaching sex that not about compromise, but is all about ‘win wins’.

Think about sex as being lots of different activities that you may or may not like (on a scale). Then ask the questions ‘how do we make it safer, how do we make it more consensual, and how do we make it more pleasurable?’ Then pay attention to all of this when you have sex, seeing what you’re pleased to notice as you do. Once you do this you might find yourself moving from compromise to ‘win wins’.

If you’re new to sex you might want to start with my how to have sex article.

List of things

Instead of compromising you might find it helpful to go through a list of all the different sexual activities you can think of and give each one a rating on how much you want to do them. Like from 10 to 0, or from +10 ———- 0 ———- -10. That will give you both an idea of how much you are into or not into various things. To help you do that here are a list of sexual things that I randomly came up with.

Rule out all of the things that you don’t want, everything at the -10 end of the scale, at least for now. Cross off anything they don’t want to do too. If the other person is at a +10 for something we are a -10 about, rule it out, cross it off. Even if you were to find ways of nudging yourself up a couple of points on the scale (which is what we’re going to do next) it still won’t be enough for you to enjoy it.

Compromise and sex: thumbs down to thumbs up scale

You might think that taking something off the list that you really want to do is a compromise. It’s not. It’s very difficult to enjoy something if the other person involved is not enjoying it. [philosophy] pleasure doesn’t just exist in one person or the other, it emerges between you [/p] You’ll know from each other’s facial expressions, noises, breathing, how their body moves, and how their body is responding if they are not enjoying it.

Make it safer

Let’s say that there is something on your list that you’re not completely against doing, but your concerns are about how safe it is. How could you make it safer? For each sexual activity you could think about this question. Safety isn’t just about using contraception, condoms, or preventing yourself getting a sex infection, but lots of things. Privacy risks, what happens to the relationship, trust, emotional harm, physical harm.

If you make sex safer it not only prevents harm from happening, but it also prevents you from being worried about harm from happening. As I say in my article about how to worry, worrying is the emotion that is asking for care and attention. If you can talk about how you reduce the risks, you reduce worry, and you relax a bit more. Being relaxed helps you to feel hornier (being stressed does the opposite). That relaxation might make you a little bit more keen to do something. Where are you on the scale now?

How you might do it

Back to the sexual activities (knee stroking, ear lobe nibbling etc). For each one you could have a discussion about how you could do them differently to make them more pleasurable. For example: “for kissing, that would be even more pleasurable for me if …..” “When dry humping I’d really like ……” “When we masturbate I think I would enjoy it even more if we try ….”

For instance, if you are touching each other you could figure out: how hard, how long, how quickly, exactly where, with what? “When we’re taking our clothes off I would like to do it in this order and do it this way …..” “I like to be tickled in this area, but more firmly held in this area.” There are also different dynamics you could think about. “I’d like it if you touched me like this, and at the same time made this noise, and looked at me like this …..”

The Touch Matrix from my Teach Yourself Sex Ed module

You may also want to think about other things you might need to be ‘into it’ a little bit more. For example: lubricant, a towel, some water, a feather, a sex toy of some kind etc etc. See how this isn’t about compromising, but instead adding options to increase your capacity to enjoy it?

The sexual combination

You might also find that you want to try a combination of different activities. Sexual activities can change the state of your bodies: more relaxed or more aroused for example. This is where the whole idea of ‘foreplay‘ came from. If you kiss, stroke or lick each other, then your bodies might be more aroused, which means that you can enjoy entry sex more. Some sexual activities are more fun when you do a different kind of sexual activity just beforehand. (It’s not foreplay, it’s just different kinds of sex that change what our bodies do).

Once you’ve chatted about different kinds of sex, how you would do them, and in what order you would like to do them, you can go back to your scales. Are you more keen to do any particular activities than you were before? Is there anything else you might need to be more keen to do it?

Learn more about what sex is and how to do them more safely and consensually

The vibe

Thinking about the vibe is to think about all of the little things that might happen during that might increase (or decrease) your capacity to enjoy it. If you get worried about being overheard, do you want some nice music on in the background (this Brian Eno album that I’m listening to now for instance). How will your bodies be affected by the lights being bright, or dimmed? What are you going to have sex on and how will you make this more comfy?

As I say in this resource about how to be good at sex, the key is to be able to pay attention all the time. As you pay attention to the things that you are pleased to notice (and how you can allow more and more pleasure to emerge between you) you might notice that you are both creating a pleasurable time. This means finding ways to keep making it safer, more consensual, and more pleasurable all the way through and also after sex.

Better than a compromise

You see, good sexual relationships are not about compromise, they’re about what you can both do to create as much enjoyment as possible between you. Sexual pleasure happens between people, not ‘in’ people.

Like I say in this article about making conversations about sex and relationships easier, it’s joint project to see how much pleasure you can both create. When someone else is enjoying something we feel that enjoyment too. Just like we might get pleasure from touching someone as they get pleasure from being touched. All pleasure emerges from us creating the right context in the first place. So it’s not compromise, it’s teamwork. It’s ‘win wins’ all the way.

BISH is run by me, Justin Hancock. I’ve been a trained sex and relationships educator since 1999. I’m a member of the World Association for Sexual Health. As well as BISH I also have resources, a podcast, and a coaching service for over 18s, as well as some of the best RSE teaching resources around. Find out out about my other work at justinhancock.co.uk. My work has featured (positively) in the media, like the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Sky One, and Novara Media.

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