A lot of people confuse sex with intimacy. Sex can be wild and sweaty without any intimacy at all. It can also be loving and gentle and intimate. This guide is going to show you how to have passionate, loving, gentle, intimate sex. In total, you’ll learn 17 intimate sex techniques, 7 positions and a lot more.
If you’re busy, sex might have become routine and you might not feel as though you’re achieving the closeness that you desire. This happens inside as well as outside of the bedroom, but it doesn’t have to stay that way!
Let’s start with the ingredients to intimate sex.
What Makes Sex Intimate?
You might think it would be easy to define intimate sex, but the truth is that the details vary from person to person or couple to couple. For many people, an emotional component is a must for sex to have intimacy. However, others can experience a type of intimacy even with more casual sex.
Some people might argue that all sex is intimate. After all, you’re stripping down your clothes and sharing pleasure with someone. The sights, sounds, touch, and even smell you share during sex can be quite intimate. Yet others cannot manage to be fully vulnerable during more casual encounters, so the sex doesn’t feel as intimate. You may even struggle to have truly intimate sex with a long-term partner if there’s strife in your relationship.
This is all a way of saying that there’s no way to paint a picture of what intimate sex is for every person or couple, but if we were to describe it more generally, we might say that intimate sex happens when you share not just pleasure but a connection with another person because you allow yourselves some level of vulnerability.
If you can experience intimacy without being emotionally invested, more power to you…Just make sure you’re on the same page with your partner.
Now that you understand what intimate sex is, here are some things that can make sex feel more intimate
(Remember, these factors aren’t necessarily required, but they may explain why you struggle to experience intimate sex or why sometimes sex doesn’t feel as intimate as you’d like).
17 Intimate Sexual Activities
What makes sex intimate varies from person to person or even couple to couple. Here are some of the most common elements of intimate sex, however.
- Vulnerability: To be vulnerable, you must be open and honest, whether that’s about what you like sexually or how you feel about your partner. Indeed, things such as talking with your partner, making eye contact, and telling them you love them are vulnerable. But so is taking off all your clothes, leaving the lights on, not covering your stomach, and allowing your body to look or sound however it will during sex. Being vulnerable means letting down your guard and showing your partner that you’re human, too, imperfections and all.
- Eye contact: Gazing deeply into your lover’s eyes just makes you feel a sense of connection and increases intimacy. Without it, you might feel a bit objectified. This is why a lot of people prefer Missionary style and other sex positions where they’re facing their partners. Check out our most popular sex positions with demonstrations here.
- Kissing: Some people even have a rule that they won’t kiss people who are no-strings-attached partners. The counterpart is that kissing is a must if you want sex to feel intimate. If you’re avoiding it during morning sex, keep some mints and a glass of water on hand. Read this post on how to kiss to brush up on your skills.
- Oral sex: Similar to kissing, oral sex is an activity that many couples reserve only for romantic partners and not just one-night stands.
- Sensate focus: If you want sex to feel more intimate, a practice known as sensate focus might help. Originally designed as a treatment for sexual concerns at the Masters & Johnson Institute in the 80s [1], this practice offers a judgment-free way for partners to get to know one another’s bodies through touch.
- Full body contact: You can have sex without looking one another in the eye, without kissing and without touching anywhere other than your genitals, but that’s not very intimate! Full-body contact facilitates connection. Press your breasts to his chest, wrap your arms around his neck, run your nails across his back or arms, rub his legs with your leg and foot, so on and so forth. Make sure that you’re touching in at least two places at any given time, and you’ll definitely feel like you’re having intimate sex.
- Sensual massage: To build on the last point, sensual massage is a form of intimacy where you’re having some serious skin-to-skin contact with your man. It works excellently as foreplay, and it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to sex if you don’t want it to! However, when it does, you can be sure it’ll be good sex. After your man has rubbed his hands down every inch of your body, oiling your skin with a high-quality massage product, you’ll feel more relaxed and ready for sex than ever!
- Caring for your partner’s desire: A key difference between casual and relationship sex for some people, especially men, is how much they care about their partner’s pleasure and orgasm. Unfortunately, the default is often that men have an orgasm, and women don’t; they often don’t even have enough foreplay to get in the mood. While it’s expected that women will perform oral sex, men often don’t, and foreplay can be practically nonexistent. This can even carry into relationships if your partner is selfish or inexperienced. So simply having mutual care can make sex much more intimate (and enjoyable!)
- Saying “I love you”: For many people, this is the ultimate way to make sex feel intimate. Express your adoration for your partner. Let him know if you’ve missed him and how good it is to be this close to him. Compliment his skills in bed or just for being your man. It’ll make both of you feel great.
- Condomless sex and ejaculation: For some people, nothing is more intimate than sex without a condom. It’s what you do when you’re committed or actively trying for a baby. Moreso than sex, feeling a partner cum inside you (also known as a creampie) can be the epitome of intimate lovemaking.
- Using names: There’s something super hot about hearing someone moan your name in bed, but it can also be very sweet and intimate too. It lets you know that your man is present with you in the moment.
- Holding hands: While holding hands can seem relatively PG, it’s a great way to feel closer during sex. Reach down to your partner when he’s going down on you or entwine your fingers in his as you ride him.
- Talking and laughing: There are a number of people who take sex a bit too seriously. They go at it like it’s a job. There’s no talking and maybe no appreciative moans at all. And for them, there certainly isn’t any room for laughter. But we think all those things are exactly what makes intimate sex so damned intimate! Talk with your man. Laugh with him (but not at him)! You’re still the same person when you’re undressed in the bedroom as you are outside of it. There’s no need to compartmentalize sex from the rest of your life. It helps keep you happy and healthy, and it’s important for many relationships!
- Sharing fantasies: If you think that sex talk and sharing your fantasies isn’t intimate, think again! What’s more intimate than telling someone your secret desires and the thoughts you have when masturbating? Sharing those fantasies with your man can certainly be thrilling, and knowing what he desires can make you feel closer to one another.
- Slow it down: Sure, quickies are great when you don’t have a lot of time or energy, but they’re not necessarily the best if you want sex and intimacy. So slow things down. Make out and dry hump plenty beforehand. Take your time taking off one another’s clothes. Plant kisses along every part of his body, paying attention to his erogenous zones. Don’t just jump into penetration. And when you do finally get there, make your movements slow and languid. Revel in the feeling of your man inside of you, on top of you. Memorize every detail of his face and body. Move your hips in a figure of 8 or circle rather than quick up-and-down movements. If one of you is too close to orgasm, pull back and slow down. Return to just kissing.
- Cuddle: There’s a stereotype about women who like to cuddle after sex, but many men like it, too. Cuddling and physical contact releases oxytocin, the “cuddle” hormone, which helps you to feel bonded. That’s definitely good for intimacy! You can lie your head on your man’s chest and listen to his heartbeat. Plus, there’s something nice about not having to jump out of bed and right back into the real world. Cuddling provides you with that buffer before you have to deal with kids, chores, and whatever other obligations that are waiting for you on the other side of the bedroom door! And some people find it to be an excellent method of BDSM aftercare.
- Pillow talk: Along with cuddling goes pillow talk, that satisfied and sometimes sleepy or silly talk that you do with someone when you’ve had truly intimate sex and don’t plan to grab your clothes and rush out the door.
You don’t need to do all these things to achieve sexual connection, and you don’t necessarily have to aim for intimate sex every time you strip down. For some people, intimate sex might mean the difference between “making love” and having sex or just fucking. For some people, the sort of slow and sensual sex that you see in the movies is the most intimate.
Intimate Sex Positions
Because everyone defines sex that is intimate differently, not everyone considers the same sex positions conducive to intimacy. However, many people do consider sex positions where you can make eye contact or kiss as sexually intimate.
Others find closeness in positions where they can make as much physical contact as possible. When you can achieve all three, such as in Missionary position, you might have hit the trifecta of intimate sex positions.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that sex positions need to be any of those things, as the following list of intimate sex positions indicates.
- Cowgirl -In Cowgirl, you can still make eye contact, kiss, hold hands, and press your body close to your partner’s. When your man is on the bottom, he can wrap his arms around you and hold you close as you lean forward.
- Spooning – While kissing and eye contact aren’t possible in this sex position, your bodies are pressed so closely together that you can practically feel each other’s hearts beat, and that’s a strong sign of connection!
- Lotus – In Lotus, you’re face-to-face with your partner and almost impossibly close to them. It is a tricky sex position that won’t work for every couple, but it’s worth a shot if you’re rather agile.
- Face to Face – Try sitting on the edge of a bed or sofa while your man should get on his knees in front of you to penetrate you. You’ll need furniture of the right height, but when you get it right, this position is so intimate!
- Slow Dance – If your heights line up, you can try penetration while standing face to face. This is a more difficult sex position that you may not be able to maintain for long, however.
- Back Seat Driver – Any time you’re in your man’s lap and can press your back against him or feel his breath and kisses on your neck and shoulders, you’re bound to feel close. This position does exactly that.
- Mastery – Finally, check out this position where you straddle your man’s lap while he sits.
And if any of these sex positions fail to strike your fancy, you can also check out this ultimate list of sex positions, which features over 100 positions!
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Intimate Sex
You might assume that the only people reading this article or who desire intimate lovemaking are women, but you’d be wrong. Plenty of men desire and enjoy intimate sex.
When Justin Lehmiller surveyed over 4,000 Americans about their sexual fantasies, romance and intimacy was one of the common themes. Most women and men reported having fantasies based on passion and romance [2 p 72]. Furthermore, Lehmiller writes that “the vast majority of both men and women (more than 70 percent) said that they rarely or never have fantasies about emotionless sex [2 p 87].” While fantasies and experiences aren’t identical, they do overlap, and this indicates that men want emotional and intimate sex as well.