The 411 On Foreplay

Here’s how to really get ready for the main event.

- Chandra Pepino

Have you ever been at the cinema and found yourself looking forward to the trailers more than the actual movie? There’s something about hearing those sound effects, seeing actors’ names written in big block letters, and anticipating a tantalizing new release date. You can’t put your finger on it, but you find yourself wanting. Whether we’re referring to the latest Marvel movie or a bedroom romp, why is a little teasing light years more effective than the actual climax?

For women, at least, a plethora of factors comes to mind. To start, the female orgasm is the furthest thing from straightforward; a study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy cites that only 18 percent of women are capable of climaxing through intercourse (compared to a whopping 75 percent of men). It can be difficult to come to terms with this—especially when porn and popular media portray women enjoying penetrative orgasms like they’re something anyone with a functional vagina should be able to achieve. And for the longest time, our threshold for a woman’s ‘official’ loss of virginity has been a penis poking into a vagina. We’ve put penetration on a pedestal, and this ideal continues to screw every sex-having being over, whether it’s the unsatisfied female or the bewildered, suddenly-insecure of-his-sexual-prowess male. And the solution is by no means a novel one—everybody knows foreplay is the key to a mutually satisfying sexual experience, but how exactly do you go about it?

THE SECRET COURSE