From "Is Sex Better When It’s Spontaneous or Planned? Exploring beliefs and actual experiences in romantic couples" (Psychology Today).
How spontaneous can it be if you know you're part of a study and you're going to be filling out a survey?
The most interesting thing in this article is that the notion that — in an established relationship — spontaneous sex isn't spontaneous:
They groom themselves in expectation, they flirt with each other, and they make the time for sex to happen. This also suggests a reason why spontaneous sex is perceived as more exciting than planned sex....
The article-writer is deliberately complicating the meaning of "planning." Maybe the question shouldn't be what's better — spontaneous or planned — but how to plan better.
ADDED: Just by chance — unplanned! — I just ran into this NYT article — "What Wedding Night Sex? If you fell asleep on the big night, don’t worry. So did many other (still) happily married couples" — and this line, quoting a psychotherapist: "Couples tend to not plan their wedding night sex... but have the most expectation around its success."
Again, the concept of planning gets complicated! The Psychology Today article expanded what counts as planning, and this NYT article radically contracted it.
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28 comments:
All this talk...I've lost the moment. What's on TV?
When there are children in the house, you take what you can get and the fact that it could be interrupted at any moment means you have to be goal oriented--the result is what some people call maintenance sex. This has been going on for so long that when we are presented with the luxury of open-ended sex, when we can relax and take our time, we've kind of forgotten how.
It's spontaneous for the guy because it's controlled by the woman.
Twentieth century social science: pretend to be gathering objective facts, while overlooking the massive objective fact that the process of observing changes what is observed.
You know what really puts a damper on spontaneous sex? Kids. Having young children doesn't end spontaneous sex, but it sure limits the opportunities for it to occur. It's like chess, you end up having to look farther ahead, several "moves" ahead, to fortify the chances and the environment where you will both be relaxed enough and in the mood at the same time. Creating those opportunities and environment is infinitely more important to setting her mood than it is the man's.
I guess if they want to call that planning, then so be it.
"And planning for sex is half the battle kids. The other half is alcohol." - GI Joe
Sex. What is that?
3:17 AM.
What's the problem here? Just have your people Zoom her people and make the arrangements. Once it's in both of your Outlook calendars with a 15-minute reminder, you're golden.
It seems like the concept of "affirmative consent" would turn any spontaneous sex into rape.
Ride space mountain, we call it the baby birth control patrol.
"I must have thought that there was nothing more
Absurd than that love is just a four letter word"
My empty nest syndrome was extremely satisfying ;). But the empty house, came on in stages, because the kids still in high school were involved in lots of stuff, and often doing their own thing, as we enjoyed our freedom, from parenting.(by that time, we had instilled in them all we could, it was to them to deal with mistakes, and problems.)
Maybe because I did not live vicariously through our children. We had the same goal. Raise independent children. And when they were independent, we stayed connected, and satisfied.
nap'
Nothing like looking forward to that afternoon 'nap'.
She does all the planning then she springs it on me. It's more like a scheme than a plan. Like one time she unscrewed the light bulb in the hall, snuck up behind me and hit me with a brick. When I woke up she told me it was the best sex we'd had in a long time.
Spontaneous human combustion and other myths?
When you're sitting down with your calendars and scheduling times in advance, i.e. "planning," you're doing it wrong.
So far my only experience with planned sex:
My wife: "I'm ovulating."
"Okay."
It was usually pretty satisfying and sexy.
Planned Parenth.... Conjugation (PC).
Having kids and having to plan to have sex gives a whole new meaning to planned parenthood. I really wish kids had a temporary off switch. Just 30 minutes is all I need dammit. I'll even skip the foreplay if it means I get 5 extra minutes for the afterglow.
The dance is wings; it concerns birds and takeoffs into the ever-after, along with returns as vibrant as an arrow ... One of the lovers shows them to the other; then shows himself, an initial language, comparison. Little by little the couple's demeanor turns, under the dovecote's influence, to a series of little pecks or leaps, swoons, until an invasion of aerial lasciviousness slips over them, with breathless resemblances. Once children, here they are birds, or the opposite, from birds they have become children, according to how one wishes to view the exchange in which forever after, he and she, would have to express the double game: perhaps the whole adventure of sexual difference! ... with the intercalition of a celebration toward which everything will turn under a sudden storm, and then the anguishing lovers, one ready to flee and the other to forgive, will unite! ... You can imagine the hymn of the triumphal dance in which the space put between the fiances by the necessity of their journey diminishes down to the source of their joyful exhilaration!
Mallarme trans Barbara Johnson
Both
"Omaha1 said...
It seems like the concept of "affirmative consent" would turn any spontaneous sex into rape."
I tip my hat to you.
Planned by WHOM is the more interesting question.
There is a time for both. But especially remember to start romance and intimacy at least 24 hours or more before. That is what causes spontaneous sex to happen.
As expressed by an old cigar-smoking engineer to us young guys, on being married - you can't just tap her on the ass and she rolls over with her legs spread.
"She does all the planning then she springs it on me. It's more like a scheme than a plan. Like one time she unscrewed the light bulb in the hall, snuck up behind me and hit me with a brick. When I woke up she told me it was the best sex we'd had in a long time."
HOT!
Planned in advance?
"I really wish kids had a temporary off switch. Just 30 minutes is all I need dammit."
My dad used to give me a five dollar bill and say "Get your brother and your sister and go to the movies."
Redneck foreplay:
Git nekkid, bitch!
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