It’s a Sunday. For the past four days we’ve been on a different drug every night, laying in a trance-like state on the beautifully plastic astro turf situated at the Primavera Sound festival, staring at the stars whilst our favourite artists perform live sets. Today, with the main crux of the festival over, we went to the beach and swam in the sea.
Now, sitting round the large table in the front garden of our villa, we’re pleasantly tipsy from homemade margaritas. After much reluctance, I finally get everyone on side to talk about good sex, bad sex, and everything in between. I press ‘record’ on my phone voice memos.
Anna: Bad sex is when it feels unclear. Sex can be so full of miscommunication.
Anna: Yeah like sometimes you come away from sex and you could’ve hated it, and they’re like ‘that’s the best sex I ever had’.
Ruby: I feel like it’s men so much more than women that don’t realise when it’s bad.
Hats: I think it’s not that they necessarily don’t realise you’re not into it. They don’t want to acknowledge it, so they try and ignore it.
Ruby: If I saw that a man wasn’t into it when we were fucking, I would feel so uncomfortable.
Hats: This sounds dark but I think for men so often sex is just them masturbating in you, so they view it so differently. It doesn’t feel like an exchange as much for them, they’re kind of using you. But I don’t know whether that’s true or if I’ve just decided that.
Ruby: Yeah! For me bad sex is engaging in selfish sex or selfless sex. Selfish sex is normally the guy- he wants it and he kind of doesn’t really care whether you’re that into it, but carries on anyway, because they want to get off.
-And selfless sex is when someone (normally the woman) goes along with sex even though they’re not into it and tries to do it to appease their partner. I think when sex starts on this basis it’s just a recipe for disaster. You try and convince yourself it will get better or be over soon, but after it you feel so empty.
Ellis: Good sex for me is like you’re both reading the same book, and you read it together. You’re both on a journey, telepathically. Lol- that’s sounds so cringe, but I feel like it’s such a shared energy and mood and the more you both understand the same mood in that moment, the better it is.
Lu: Yes. Everyone says dirty talk is what makes it good, and it’s not like I dispute that, but I don’t speak that much during sex because I love the unspoken communication even more.
Hats: Sometimes I feel like the more I say the more it feels performative. It’s like I’m following a script- I know exactly what to say so that they feel good enough about themselves to come. Like they need the ego to be able to come.
Anna: And you’re just catering to their ego.
Ruby: Yeah like I love when a guy’s dominant, however 9/10 times dominance in bed is very much centred around themselves and not you- like they want to feel like a big man, like ‘oh you want this massive dick’ like it’s so funny.
Hope: Literally! If you don’t say it to them, they’ll start saying it themselves, like talking about their own dick.
*everyone laughs*
Lu: (embarrassed) I do that.
Ruby: Really?
Lu: Yeah! It turns me on to talk about myself.
Ruby: Actually..same. Like I moan more because it helps me feel sexy and therefore horny.
Hope: I feel like men don’t moan because they actually find it emasculating. Like, they get off more from feeling like they are fucking you and like moaning shows a lack of self control and consequently weakness.
Anna: I feel like sex is so much more visual for men. Like I can’t just be looking at the guy fucking me and get off from that, I have to be sort of half consciously thinking- not necessarily about someone/something else, but I have to have like a stream of thoughts going in my head that helps me get more and more turned on.
Hats: It’s like the way men can just get off to a picture of a woman and nothing else. I could never just get off to a picture of a man.
Ellis: It’s almost like you’re not a person if it’s purely visual.
Joy: The worst sex I ever had was when the whole time, the guy was just fixating on my pussy, like intently staring at it the whole time and talking about his dick and how big it was. It was so tapped.
Anna: Yeah, I’ve had a guy fuck me and be like staring at himself in the mirror doing it. We were in doggy and he was just like pounding me and staring at himself…like wtf are you doing, you’re not a bull.
Ruby: Once I was giving a guy a handjob and he was like, ‘wait turn so you’re facing the same way as me, so your hand feels like mine when I jerk myself off’ I was like…great! This is so romantic x
Hope: If I know a guy is using me, I have to be using them too. When we’re both there purely to shag, for me then it’s fine. Actually, that’s really good sex for me. But since I started fucking girls…I don’t think I could actually go back to men.
*everyone laughs* Hope’s gf, Ellis gives her a cute grin.
Joy: The best sex I ever had was with *Alex, my ex. We’d hooked up again after breaking up, and he took me away for my birthday to this tiny, kind of crappy caravan literally in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch black when we arrived, and we went into the little bedroom and had the slowest sex…we were lay side my side, both holding each other’s faces, it was so intense.
Lu: Slow sex wins.
Joy: But also I think I had an sti- (I obviously didn’t know at the time) and I swear it made me tighter.
*laughs all round*
Hope: No I think that’s actually a thing you know!
Hats: All my sex has been shite.
Anna: The best sex for me is when you feel like equals, like you both feel so young somehow, it feels so pure and precious. And then you fall asleep and it feels like you’re having the same dream as them because you’re so connected.
Hope: when you’re suddenly detached from each other after the sex i feel like it ruins it so much. Like how can we be so connected one second and it be so distanced the next? It makes you feel so used. Or you feel like you did something wrong.
Lu: the lengths men will go to to make you feel comfortable enough to have sex with them.
Anna: It’s massive manipulation.
Ruby: I hate rough sex when you’ve fallen out. Like when you’re in a relationship and then you have rough sex.
Hats: yeah like a hate fuck. Like it feels like they’re punishing you and passing it off as rough sex. And because you’re normally fine to have rough sex you feel like you can’t really say anything.
Ruby: I think the worst sex Is definitely when you feel coerced. But apart from that I’d say it’s when I’m too much in my head, so I just can’t get horny and end up being really performative and I don’t really believe in it.
Lu: yeah like when you’re overthinking everything and how you look and you’re too focused on that to be in the moment.
Hope: I’d love to hear men have this conversation.
Ruby: haha ye I read an article that said men describe bad sex as boring or just weird, whereas women describe bad sex and uncomfortable and traumatic.
Ellis: I feel like men will just have sex with anyone even if they don’t fancy them.
Anna: it’s really common for women to cry after sex.
Ruby: Apparently one of the main reasons why men use escorts is cos they want the porn star experience and to do things their wife won’t do with them.
Joy: yeah like they want to use a certain toy or something.
Ruby: that’s so weird to me because doing all those things like anal and blowjobs etc isn’t what necessarily constitutes to good sex. Like you can do all those things and it can still be boring af. Whereas you can literally be in missionary and have the best sex you’ve ever had. It’s more about the subtle things.
Anna: is same sex sex different to with a guy?
Joy: definitely. It can still be bad but not because you feel coerced it’s more that there’s a connection that’s off and you can work out together what’s off. There’s more communication and womens egos don’t get bruised when you feel like it’s not right, whereas I think you’re more scared to say with men cos you know they are going to feel pissed.
Joy: but my last two boyfriends have been bi and it’s been like it is with women with them. I feel like in straight sex there’s more of a formula to follow. I’m queer sex you explore. I feel like you can stop and take breaks..which I feel never happens in straight sex!
Hope: I feel like taking breaks and chilling and then starting again is a marker of good sex because you’re both comfortable and don’t feel pressured.
Lu: yeah so often sex feels like a linear line with a destination and for me good sex is full of spontaneity like a big squiggly line going in all directions with no set destination.
Ellis: in queer sex the roles of sub and dom are so much more fluid. It’s not just women who have to play a role in straight sex the men also feel they need to fulfill a certain role.
Ruby: I think the best relationships or the healthiest are when the power shifts constantly because you both are kept eager to please the other. In those relationships the sex is really good.
Hats: all my sex has been shite.
*she raises a toast*
Joy: someone once told me that raw mushooms taste that dick and I’ve never been able to eat them since.
*everyone laughs*
Ellis: anyone want a cig?
*the cigs are passed round and sparked*
Anna: Favourite positions?
Hope: I hate doggy cos it feels good but it could be anyone.
Hope: Actually you know what, that’s it! For me good sex is when it’s unmistakably the person you are having sex with.
Anna: yeh like you could close your eyes and you know it’s them.
Lu: when you feel like the relationships doesn’t change when you’re having sex. Cos sometimes people change when they’re having sex and you can’t associate it with the person they were ten minutes ago.
Ellis: yeah like if you feel like you can laugh if something goes wrong. If you feel like you can’t laugh then it feels performative.
Hope: oh my god. this guy I used to sleep with used to like giggle, but like a child- like ‘hehehe’ whenever he finished…it was so uncomfortable.
Ellis: immediate ick.
Anna: once my boyfriend went straight onto linked in straight after sex.
Hats: noooooo
Joy: surely not.
Hope: I feel like the neighbours have literally come out of their house to listen.
*a door slams from the house near us*
Ruby: okay… interview concluded. Cheers ladiez.
Iso
Iso is a writer and filmmaker based in East London. She is passionate about all things erotic and leads a sexy, shame-free life in hope that she can inspire others to do the same. Originally from a Northern seaside town, she is naturally drawn to the best things in life: candyfloss, trashy karaoke bars and heart-shaped sunglasses.
