What makes sex flaming hot? Your curiosity about your own sexuality and your willingness to explore it with your partner.
According to the concept of "sexploration", introduced by Dylan Selterman in 2019, feeling securely attached to a partner creates a fertile ground for delving into sexual fantasies, embracing new sexual experiences, and even exploring diverse aspects of one's sexual identity.
By embracing the concept of sexploration, we can unlock a pathway to deeper intimacy, self-discovery, and sexual fulfilment. Importantly, it celebrates the transformative power of a nurturing relationship, where trust, intimacy and acceptance create an environment conducive to uninhibited exploration.
Map your sexual repertoire
Developing an intimate connection and getting accustomed to each other is incredible for building your sexual repertoire: a unique range of sexual activities, behaviours, and preferences that you engage in with your partner. Your sexual repertoire is based on your unique experience and knowledge of your partner’s sensuality and their pleasure pathways.
Your sexual repertoire is limited by the things you are afraid to try.
Sexual repertoire gives you bespoke, pleasurable and satisfying sex, but it can become predictable over time.
Exercise: “Sex Repertoire Map”
Map out your sexual repertoire: your favourite sexual activities, behaviours and positions, your personal turn-ons and turn-offs and your preferences. Share and discuss your sex repertoire map with your partner.
This is where sexploration becomes fundamental, as it injects novelty into our sexual repertoire, keeping desire and passion alive. Although sexploration is connected to bodily sensations, it isn't just about physical gratification — it's an essential journey of personal growth, intimacy enhancement and relationship enrichment.
Set your sexual intention
Sex therapist David Schnarch refers to our sexual repertoire as “leftover sex” — the sex that exists in the narrow range of sexual behaviours we are accustomed to.
You decide what sexual behaviours you don't want to do, your partner does this too, and together you do whatever is left. David Schnarch
But wouldn’t you prefer to have gourmet sex? Try new dishes, learn new cooking techniques and maybe buy new utensils and tools.
So how can we “try new dishes” and expand our sexual repertoire? Start by setting an intention for the sexual life you would like to have, and then embed step-by-step changes and experiments. The key is for your intention to spring from an authentic loving desire to get to know yourself and your partner better and bring more pleasure in your loving relationship.
Prioritise intimacy
If your life behind the bedroom door is overwhelmingly fulfilling and regular, you are among the lucky ones who has prioritised their intimacy and kept the desire aflame. Most of us find it all too easy to let life get in the way of love. Family, kids, career and everyday life all conspire to push intimacy to the bottom of our priority list. If we make any private time at all for each other, then it’s with the same old moves, the same old positions, and after a while sex gets… boring.
Start by prioritising the intimate time with your partner: dedicated time when you talk, play, explore, experiment and connect with each other.
Related: Scheduling Sex Is The New Sexy
Engage in simmering
Simmering is taking a quick moment to feel excited with your partner — without the intention of having sex — for no reason at all, except that it feels good.
Simmering is arousal without sex.
Simmering will help you exercise your “erotic muscles”, increase intimacy and build the tension and anticipation that are so key for a passionate love life.
Take a few moments to pull your partner in closely, feeling the warmth of their body against you, and breathing in the scent of their skin and hair. Then leave them with a gentle but lingering kiss.
When you’re out in public or at an event, engage in the odd flirtatious glance or meaningful graze against each other’s body, as if you were teenagers caught up in a yet-to-be-consummated romance.
Start with Small Changes
Looking to break free from the monotony of a repetitive sex routine? Hoping to inject some vitality, thrill, unpredictability and eroticism into your sexual repertoire? The most effective approach is to initiate small modifications and gradual steps — these are changes that won't push you or your partner beyond your comfort zones but will undoubtedly enhance intimacy, leaving a lasting impression and an exhilarating experience.
Change the Timing
Consider shaking up your routine by exploring new timings for your intimate moments. Why not start with invigorating morning sex? Awaken your senses and set the tone for a positive and uplifting mood throughout the entire day.
Alternatively, you can venture into the realm of a pre-lunch sexual interlude — a tantalising break that adds an extra layer of relaxation and reward to your lunchtime routine. Imagine the anticipation building throughout the morning, knowing that a blissful rendezvous awaits you and your partner.
Exploring Intimacy Beyond the Bedroom
For this idea, you're invited on a journey to rekindle your sensuality in the uncharted territories of your own home.
A kitchen isn't just for culinary experiments. With its blend of hard counters and cosy corners, it offers a recipe for an intimate rendezvous. Similarly, bathrooms — our private sanctuaries of relaxation — can transform into enticing arenas for adventurous intimacy.
A change of terrain can awaken new sensations. Be it the plush comfort of a different bed, the snug embrace of a sofa, the raw appeal of a floor or fun in front of a mirror, varying your playground instigates fresh sparks of romance.
If you seek thrill outside the home, try an in-car escapade. The confined space and the world just beyond the window blend secrecy and exhibition in a tantalising mix.
Related: 20 New Things to Try in the Bedroom
Dive into a sensory experience
Engaging all your senses can magnify the intensity of your intimate moments. Your sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch are like a synchronised orchestra when aroused together.
Sight
Try dimming the lights or lighting a few candles — bask in the soft glow and see how it casts a romantic veil over your connection.
Wear nothing or wear something that excites you and your partner, bringing a new dimension to sight as well as touch.
Smell
Stimulate your olfactory senses with a sensual scent. Aromas like jasmine or sandalwood can amplify your sexual experience by evoking a mood of relaxation and arousal.
How about having a special fragrance for sex?
Hearing
Whispered words of desire, an intimate language that only you and your partner understand, can escalate the excitement.
Revel in the rhapsody of natural sounds — your shared breaths, the rhythm of your heartbeats, subtle moans and groans —these are the melodies that narrate your shared passion.
Consider orchestrating an auditory backdrop with carefully selected music. For Play has curated Spotify Playlists to create a setting that enhances your sensual mood and sparks your erotic adventures.
Taste
Food can be a delicious prelude to intimacy. It adds a dash of novelty, tickling the senses through a playful blend of taste and touch. Sweet strawberries, creamy chocolate, or zesty ice cream can be decadent additions to your amorous adventures. It's about the intimate gesture of sharing these morsels straight from your fingertips, the playful messiness and the sensuality of flavours on the tongue.
Touch
Try using tender strokes and trace the contours and landscape of your partner's body. Venture beyond the familiar, exploring less trodden paths — the inner wrists, nape of the neck, or small of the back. Each touch is a discovery, a thrilling expedition into the wilderness of desire.
Embrace the variety of touch: different tempos and different methods, such as using the entire hand or only the fingertips. Be it the delicate brush of fingertips or a firm, grounded grip, each touch adds a unique verse to your sensual sonnet.
Engage with different textures — silky bed linens, plush throws, sensual feathers or a massage candle to explore the interplay of warmth and touch.
Explore Never-ending Foreplay
Begin your foreplay sexploration by erasing the boundaries of time and space — allow your play to spill over from the bedroom into every corner of your day.
A suggestive text in the morning, a stolen kiss in the afternoon, a thoughtful gift or a lingering touch in the evening can all weave a captivating prelude to intimacy.
Break the routine and surprise your partner with an unexpected gesture.
Experiment with elements of power dynamics and playful restraint. Blindfolds and soft ties can heighten the senses, turning anticipation into an intoxicating stimulant.
"The crisis of desire is often a crisis of the imagination. " Esther Perel
Venture into the realm of sensual games — bathing together, reading erotica out loud or role playing. These playful exchanges can build exciting tension, adding whole chapters to your foreplay narrative.
Related: 15 Foreplay Tips For Better SexExperiment with novelty during sex
Incorporating novelty into your sexual life invites a sense of adventure and discovery.
Your partner’s favourites
The path to pleasure often starts with the familiar. Recollect and repeat the moments, movements and whispers that have previously set your partner’s desire aflame.
Toy play
Introduce new props to your lovemaking — explore the world of toys designed to heighten pleasure, or use everyday objects in novel ways. A silk scarf, for instance, can become a blindfold, intensifying the remaining senses.
Pace and intensity
Experiment with different rhythms, pressures, depth and techniques. Novelty isn't only about the new — it can also mean exploring familiar territories with a different perspective. Varying the speed or intensity of your movements can offer surprisingly fresh experiences.
New positions
New positions can offer a different angle, a fresh perspective and a new depth of intimacy to explore. Changing positions isn't just about physical pleasure — it's a testament to your shared curiosity, your willingness to explore and your adventurous spirit.
Clitoral play
With over 8,000 nerve endings, the clitoris is the epicentre of pleasure. Gentle strokes, circular motions or even a pulsating pressure can arouse its pleasure-inducing potential. Sync your rhythm with your partner's responses, tuning into their breath, movements and whispers of pleasure.
Oral delights
Oral sex, a tantalising dance of lips and tongue, offers a symphony of sensations for both partners. Explore your partner with your mouth to make the most of these arousing sensations.
A Word from For Play
Sexploration is crucial to deepening your intimacy with your partners and enhancing your erotic potential. Adventure into unknown territories helps in dispelling inhibitions, overcoming societal stigmas and trying new erotic behaviours, allowing you to access your authentic erotic self.
We invite you to let sexploration ignite your erotic adventures, revealing the hidden depths of pleasure and connection that await you.
Our chocolates provide one way to explore a new avenue in your sexual life. Why not explore the intimacy-enriching delights we have to offer?
