Dear Dr. Jane,
My wife and I are having trouble with intimacy. I use foreplay, but she’s still distant and even rejecting. What am I doing wrong? I thought that this stuff was supposed to work.
– Foreplay Failure
Dear Foreplay Failure,
Everywhere you look there’s another article or TikTok post about how foreplay is the most important thing a man can do to warm up his wife.
I totally disagree with this idea.
One reason is that foreplay assumes that the real thing is doing “it” and that foreplay is what you do to get your wife to want that.
The problem with this is that “it” isn’t that great for a lot of women
Many women don’t actually want the “it” they’re being offered. They feel like they are being used, not loved. If your wife has ever mentioned that you don’t seem present, this is what she means.
Many women dissociate during sex for lots of reasons. If this is your wife, even if you try to be sensitive, she might be triggered by things that happened in the past.
Even if she doesn’t have a specific history of sexual assault, she might feel traumatized by the stories she’s heard from friends, sisters and cousins. We women are permeable beings. We get the message that men just want to use us.
Even if your wife is one of the women who really enjoys penetrative sex, “it” may not do it for her. She might feel like you’re getting yours while she waits for hers to happen.
So what’s the answer? What “works”?
I ask clients this question pretty much every day in my practice. I wonder what they’ve been doing with their partner to “get turned on” so that intercourse is “possible”.
Lots of times women will tell me that foreplay includes kissing, hugging, touching over the clothes and or maybe oral sex on him or her. It might include groping or cuddling while watching a movie. It might last for a long time — or it could be pretty brief.
So what’s the matter with the things I mentioned above? Aren’t those respectful and even enjoyable ways to connect before sex?
The answer is yes — these are good things to do to get warmed up and to connect. The problem isn’t with the things you’re doing — the problem is that these things are being defined through the male sexual lens — they’re the things you do before you get to “the good stuff.” Doing it. Getting it on.
What’s better than foreplay?
Something better than foreplay is just playing together. Being present without focusing on intercourse. Not defining satisfying sex as when you get off. Instead, great sex includes everything I’ve written about here but it doesn’t stop there. Great sex can be something incredibly simple like giving her a sexy but not sexual massage with zero expectations. It can look like long walks with makeout sessions at the side of the road. Maybe not that, but you get the idea.
The point is that you don’t have to act out a porn scene to have satisfying sex. You can take the idea of foreplay completely off the table and still create a menu of all sorts of things that could be enjoyable for both of you.
Try different positions — not like a porn version of the kama sutra but rather as a way to explore each other and what you’d both enjoy easily and with a playful spirit. The key point here is that focusing on pleasure and connection without expectations is the answer to your intimacy challenge.
You’re not alone if foreplay isn’t working. The problem isn’t the activity or series of activities that you’re offering – the problem is that the whole thing is designed around intercourse. Intercourse isn’t that important. Sorry. Unless you’re trying for a pregnancy right now, you don’t actually need it. Take an intercourse-centric view off the table and see how much pleasure you can create in the privacy of your own home.
You got this.
– Dr. Jane
Dr. Jane Guyn is a nationally recognized relationship coach based in Oregon. Her column appears online monthly.
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