Intercourse Makes Great Foreplay

You read that right: I said that intercourse makes great foreplay. We’ve all known for a long time that foreplay makes better intercourse, which is absolutely true. Hear me out, though. Let’s start with the definition of foreplay. It’s the play that comes before the main event. And what is that main event? Traditionally, it’s good old penis-in-vagina (PiV) intercourse. Did you grow up with a baseball analogy for sex? First base is kissing, second base touching breasts (“sloppy second” kissing them), third base touching genitals (“sloppy third” various forms of oral sex), fourth base or “going home” is PiV intercourse. This progression of events is pretty well ingrained in our shared cultural psyche when it comes to sexual encounters. By adulthood, most of us have left the baseball analogy behind, but the order of events persists. You know, one thing leads to another, and both people know what comes next in the cultural script for their sexual encounter.

Of course, this cultural script is totally heterocentric. When the people having sex both have vulvas or both have penises, PiV intercourse is obviously not the main event, not an event at all actually. For this reason, and to generally decenter PiV intercourse even in hetero sex, I often avoid the term foreplay altogether, most often opting for “sensual play” instead. Sensual play is the caressing, the kissing, the holding and breathing together. For couples playing with power dynamics it can include firm holding of a wrist or tugging on hair or various forms of bondage. For those particularly attuned to olfactory experience, it may include the scent of flowers, cologne, or a finger dipped in your vagina and held up to your partner’s nose. Sensual play can include so many different things. It’s all the ways we engage one another’s senses that heighten sexual arousal on our way to more intense pleasure and sometimes orgasm.

For heterosexual couples, what’s the problem with centering PiV intercourse or making it the main event or the culminating act of your sexual encounter? After all, intercourse is extremely intimate, with part of one person’s body entering part of their partner’s body. And to a certain degree intercourse is mutually pleasurable because the sensitive genitals of both people are rubbing against one another. PiV intercourse can feel amazing! Here’s the rub though: Intercourse is an extremely effective way to sexually stimulate a penis, even to orgasm. It is a much less effective way to stimulate a clitoris, which is the primary pleasure organ for people with vulvas. Most women and other people with vulvas are either rarely or never able to orgasm from intercourse alone. 

I know, pornography would have you believe otherwise. There are so many women cumming during intercourse in porn! So many mutual orgasms! And there’s a grain of truth in this… some people with vulvas can orgasm from intercourse, and some couples are able to time their orgasms during intercourse to coincide, at least some of the time. This is not the norm, though, and lots of people end up feeling inadequate, trying to achieve this experience depicted in porn and mutually held in the cultural psyche, when their particular anatomy is just not conducive to sexual stimulation and release in this way. There are so many ways that women are made to feel inadequate in our culture, and this is one of them. If you can’t orgasm during intercourse, you are NORMAL. And you are just as entitled to sexual pleasure and gratification in the ways that work for you and your body.

The truth is that centering PiV intercourse is centering male pleasure. So just as an exercise, let’s imagine for a moment that the centerpiece of a heterosexual encounter is the woman’s experience of pleasure and orgasm. When female orgasm is centered as the main event, PiV intercourse can be a very effective component of foreplay. It’s still true that plenty of touching, kissing, warming up, and lubrication are needed before intercourse happens. It’s not the first bit of foreplay. But once the clitoris becomes engorged (akin to an erection), which can take 20-40 minutes of various forms of stimulation, intercourse can feel really good for the person with the vulva. This is because the bulbs of the internal clitoris wrap around the sides of the vagina, and the wings of the internal clitoris are puffed up enough that they can be stimulated behind and beside the inner labia. At this level of arousal, the urethral sponge is likely also engorged, and this sponge sits just under the juncture of the clitoral bulbs, wings, and shaft, making stimulation on the top wall of the vagina (the so-called G-spot) feel particularly pleasurable. 

The pressure and lubricated friction of the penis moving in and out of the vagina can help to stimulate and arouse the entire internal clitoris, which builds toward the possibility of orgasm. Orgasm most often happens with stimulation of the clitoral glans, which is the nub on the belly side of the vagina, the one part of the clitoris that is external to the rest of the body, and the part that has by far the most nerve endings (the part that most people call the “clit” even though truth is it’s the very sensitive tip of the iceberg that is the entire clitoris). Most people with vulvas need the clitoral glans to be stimulated in order to reach orgasm. Depending on anatomy, some people’s clitoral glans is close enough to the vaginal opening that it gets enough stimulation during intercourse to reach orgasm. Some people can stimulate it enough through grinding with their partner. However, most folks with a clit need it to be directly stimulated with fingers, tongue/lips, and/or a toy.   

In this clit-centered version of the sexual story, PiV intercourse can happen before, during, and/or after the person with the vulva orgasms. It can feel great to reach orgasm through stimulating the clitoral glans alone, or with the addition of finger or toy penetration, and then follow that with PiV penetration. Sometimes the vulva even craves the pressure and stimulation of penetration after an orgasm. This penetration then stimulates the deeper parts of the clitoris and may serve as foreplay for another even more intense orgasm when the glans is ready for more direct stimulation, either during or after intercourse. Sometimes when a person with a vulva is aroused and well lubricated but orgasm is elusive, some PiV intercourse can help to stimulate the full extent of the clitoris. When you crave more direct clitoral stimulation, you can either add it to the intercourse or disengage from intercourse to focus on your clitoral glans alone–whichever feels best to you! Follow your pleasure.

When sex is about following your pleasure rather than following the cultural script, it tends to be more pleasurable (go figure!). Since the script we’ve all been handed is built around male pleasure, it can be a revolution in your own sex life to center female pleasure. In heterosexual sex, when the person with the vulva experiences more pleasure, the whole experience is more satisfying for both partners. I’m not just saying that because I’m a woman. In my experience, most heterosexual men will attest to this: when his sexual partner is having a good time while having sex with him, he’s having a good time too. Sex is definitely not a zero sum game. More pleasure begets more pleasure. 

I’m always interested to hear about how folks experience your unique sex and sexuality. Does this blog post resonate with you? Is your experience different than what I’ve described here? Drop me a line! We can also go deeper into discussing and improving your particular sexual experiences in a 1-on-1 or couples session.