Lights out: Using darkness to enhance your foreplay

Published by Rebecca Sinclair on August 6th, 2010

dark, darkness, dynamic, enhance, foreplay, games, index of psychology articles, lighting, lights, music, sex life, strip, tags, using, window treatments - By Rebecca Sinclair on Friday, August 6, 2010 - 16:19

Looking for an easy way to add some playfulness to your sex life? How about a game of strip tag in the dark? I don’t mean “after dark,” I mean hands-on, feel-your-way-around, kinky dark! Here’s how.

  1. Blanket the windows. If your bedroom windows allow light in despite your current window treatment, cover them with blankets temporarily. You want the room as dark as possible.
  2. Clean the floor. You don’t want any tripping hazards to end your game early!
  3. Put on something sexy. Taking off the clothes is half the fun. Make your partner work a little by wearing clothes with buttons, zippers, and snaps.
  4. Be a kid again. Enjoy playing a touch and feel game. Take your time caressing your partner’s body as you slip off each piece of clothing. Use your hands, mouth and tongue to explore each new piece. You would be amazed how heightened your sense are when you eliminate sight!
  5. Add some kink. To make this a more advanced in-the-dark session, darken several rooms of the house or start in different areas of the house and work towards each other. Add some flashlights that you can only momentarily shine on your own face to help your mate find you, or carry a vibrating sex toy and let the sound give away your hiding spot. You can even start your adventures with a dark and steamy shower for a truly slippery and wild adventure!

                The idea of sex in the dark can be extremely erotic if you let loose and enjoy the thrill of the chase. Before you know it you will both be reaping the sweet rewards of victory.What about you?                Have you ever enjoyed a prolonged game of foreplay in the dark? Tell us about it. Comment below.

Happy_Camper's picture
Opposites attract
Submitted by Happy_Camper on Tue, 2010-09-07 13:12.

My wife and I also have differing opinions re "let there be light" or nearly pitch darkness. I am a visual person and love seeing my wife's naked body. So, lights are good. My wife, on the other hand, is more comfortable with there being a cave-like darkness in the bedroom. I constantly reassure her about how perfect I think she is and how much I enjoy seeing and watching her as we make love. It only now seems to have finally taken root in her mind. We've also bought numerous outfits for her which are very visually stimulating. However, I often have to remind her that the outfits work best if I can see them.

We have found a happy middle ground by using a single candle. The light is just enough for me to get my visual thrill while she doesn't feel like she's performing on a stage (even if it's just for me!).

The Pres. and Mrs. Bush's picture
Darkness: Requirement & Innovation
Submitted by The Pres. and M... on Mon, 2010-09-06 14:05.

The First Lady and I are at the absolute extremes of position on the issue of darkness and light during sex. I am an extremely visual person and my arousal and enjoyment in sex is maximized through visual stimulation. I also have a wife who has been frequently described, by those who have only ever seen her clothed, as an exotic blend of Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Naked, I see her more as a blend of Carmen Hart and Alexis Texas. At 5’4” and 34C-26-38, her body is truly a work of art. So if you combine my essential need for visual stimulation with my wife's exotic beauty and magnificent body, surely you can understand why I like the lights on.

Yet despite my obvious and almost continual adoration of the First Lady's body, since her early teens she has struggled with overwhelming negative-body-image issues. Clothed she is fine—even openly proud of her body, but when naked she can think of nothing other than hiding what her subconscious mind dreadfully and frustratingly deceives her into believing is hideous and grotesque. When the lights are on and she is naked, it is impossible for her to relax and enjoy the experience. Her mind immediately shifts uncontrollably into thoughts of how "visibly distasteful her naked body is" and every thought is driven by what she has termed her “naked panic” state, or her irrepressible compulsion to cover up.

Completely darken the room, however, and she is a vixen, extraordinarily sexual, willing to try nearly anything, and enthusiastic to share and play out the erotic machinations of her vividly deviant imagination. Total darkness often results in some wildly sensational sex, so I am certainly not complaining. Yet in the end, I am frequently left feeling that I have missed out on the pleasures of the wonderful visual feast that took just took place right in front of my eyes and yet invisibly. I am left craving the site of her fabulous body.

To meet my needs as well as to avoid the First Lady's “naked panic,” about we have found that once she is in the deepest throes of passion, I can gradually turn the lights up just enough to give me the view I yearn for without shifting her thoughts into cover-up mode. I installed a dimmer on the lamp next to our bed for just that purpose. We have also found that playing an adult video during foreplay, while she is still in her nightgown, provides a subdued light that allows me to enjoy her visual delights. It seems that her thoughts are sufficiently preoccupied by the eroticism of the video so she never enters her "naked panic" state.

The other thing that we have tried recently is for her to wear a blindfold, actually a "total darkness” sleep mask. Consciously, she knows why she is wearing the mask, yet apparently since her brain cannot sense any light at all, even if the room’s lights are full on, her subconscious never triggers the "naked panic" state. She is free to be naked, enthusiastic, sexually expressive, and wildly imaginative. And I am treated to a fully-lighted view of my favorite work of art.

the playful couple's picture
We can't wait to ...not... see the light!
Submitted by the playful couple on Wed, 2010-08-11 10:42.

I've never thought of taking this approach. There truly is no limit to the imagination. The dark shower sounds to me like the most exciting of the bunch. Thank you for the ideas. We'll try some of these out and update you all on how things went. So simple, yet so innovative...