Building Anticipation
Anticipating sex feeds the furnace of your sexual desire–which translates into more pleasure when you do have sex. Desire is wanting what you don’t yet have. Pleasure is having what you’ve been wanting. My advice is generally to focus more on pleasure than on desire, but the truth is that sex is often more pleasurable when desire has been stoked by anticipating what’s to come.
How do you build anticipation leading up to sex?
Leading up to a sexual encounter, what do you do to build anticipation? Do you fantasize about what you and your partner will do together? Perhaps recall something that you loved during a previous encounter? Do you tell your partner what you’re looking forward to, or what you’re hoping will happen, or what you intend to do when you’re together in bed? These things can be whispered to your partner several hours or a day or two before you plan to be intimate.
A saucy text message can help build the heat too. I know of one couple who use a separate private messaging app exclusively for their romantic and erotic texting. No logistics, groceries, or family talk in that app… only sexy stuff. Even hearing the alert for that app gives a jolt of anticipation.
Little sips of physical intimacy can also help to build anticipation. An affectionate brush on your partner’s arm can carry a jolt of energy. A little nibble on a neck or ear, maybe even some kissing or making out when you know there’s not time to really get into it… these can all set the stage for hotter sex hours or days later.
Looking forward to sex, and getting excited about it, is almost as much fun as the sex itself (ok, that’s overstating it, but the anticipation really can be delicious!). This kind of anticipation happens naturally in the early days of a relationship, when your particular way of relating sexually is new and therefore less predictable. You spend time preparing yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally for the possibility of intimate connection with your partner. Fantasy about what might transpire between you is top of mind in a new relationship.
Anticipation in long-term relationships
Sometimes in long-term relationships, particularly when partners live together, rituals of preparation and anticipation fall away. Your roles in work and home life can override your sexuality, so that you don't think much about sex until you're actually having it. It's easy to skip over anticipation altogether. But paying attention to how much you like sex and what you're looking forward to can be so yummy in itself, and it can make the sex that you have hotter and more fulfilling. One of the benefits of scheduling time for intimacy in a long-term relationship is the opportunity to anticipate your sex session and to work together to build desire. You both have something to look forward to!
What about the ultimate long-term relationship–the one with yourself? Building anticipation for solo sex can be just as powerful in terms of stoking your own desire for sexual stimulation, fantasy, pleasure, and perhaps ultimately release. Making yourself wait, setting the stage, and pleasuring yourself when you have time to go slow and savor the experience can really heighten your sensations of sexual pleasure when you’re solo.
When anticipating sex does not feel good
What if anticipating sex just feels like anxiety? This is very important to pay attention to! Some people don’t actually enjoy the sex that they’re having, or they have mixed feelings about it. Is sex something you do for your partner but that you don’t actually enjoy for yourself? Do you feel pressure to perform sexually? When you notice that thinking about sex turns you off more than on, it’s time to look more closely at the sex you’re having and why you’re having it.
It may be helpful to redefine sex, and to make sure that both partners are enjoying the experience and feeling pleasure. It may be helpful to examine your associations with sex and intimacy, and how current as well as past sexual encounters are coloring your experience. Sometimes I talk about sex worth wanting… and not all sex meets that bar for all people. If you’re having sex you don’t want, and thinking about it makes you close down rather than open up, it’s time to reassess and make some shifts for yourself.
Some people feel anxiety and avoidance around sex–and then they actually do enjoy sex while they’re having it. If this is you, it’s worth interrogating your habit of avoidance and where it’s coming from. It can be helpful to bring conscious awareness to the feeling of pleasure that you want to return to. Can you recall the sensations in your body that felt so good in the past? Are you possibly focusing more on performance expectations or anxiety about body image rather than on the embodied feeling of pleasure that you actually do enjoy once you get past all those layers of cultural shame and expectation? Bringing conscious attention to your pleasure can help to disarm your anxious feelings about the path to that pleasure, so that your overall experience is more about feeling good.
The art of the tease
So far, I’ve been talking about building anticipation leading up to a sexual encounter. How about building anticipation within a sex session? This is often done through teasing behaviors, like doing something that your partner really loves and then intentionally stopping, so they are left wanting more of that particular sensation. You might then switch to something different but also very pleasurable… until they’re totally wrapped up in this new sensation. Then stop again, perhaps returning to the first thing that felt so good.
This kind of teasing during sex can be frustrating, but in a very exciting way, particularly if you eventually give them what they’re wanting. Teasing is an art of giving a little, withholding, and eventually giving more. This builds anticipation, creates longing or wanting, so that when the pleasure is allowed, it feels all the more intense and delicious.
When desire feels low and/or sex is lack-lustre, sometimes intentionally building anticipation both before and during sex can bring more heat to your intimate encounters. Wait for it… and then go all in for maximum sexual pleasure.
©️2026 Sarah Goodrich, Goodrich Sexuality Education, LLC. All rights reserved.
