Our new blog series “The 5 Senses of Sex” explores the ways that intentionally focusing on each of our senses can deepen intimacy, passion, and sensuality and heighten sexual pleasure. Check out our entries for sight, smell, and touch, and come back next week for our final entry about taste.
Whispers, moans, gasps, dirty talk, mood music, phone sex, squeaking beds—we don’t always give it a lot of thought, but the soundscapes of sex are a visceral and very personal part of how we experience intimacy and arousal. For hearing people, it’s almost a sure bet that at some point you’ve probably overheard some sexy sounds coming through a door or wall and felt an immediate and powerful physical reaction to it. Tuning into our sense of hearing—and making some noise of our own—is something that can turn pretty good sex into a mind-blowing experience.
Of course, not everyone is able to hear at all, and partial hearing loss happens for any number of reasons from age to illness to simple genetics. The National Institutes of Health report that about 15% of adult Americans have some degree of hearing loss. Being able to hear isn’t a requirement for great sex, and sex that doesn’t involve sound or hearing is still “normal” sex—because what’s normal for your body is normal sex.
Some people may really want to enjoy the aural aspects of sex more than they do, but as with every part of sexuality, lots of us have struggles with shame, self-consciousness, or anxiety over what a partner will think of the sounds we make or the things we want to hear. It’s totally okay if you simply hate dirty talk, or feel like making noise during sex is forced and artificial. As with all our other posts about the senses, everything here is just offering ideas for ways to focus on each sense and explore what it does for you, so keep what works and let go of what doesn’t!
Why some sounds are sexy
Hearing music or sounds that we like triggers the release of dopamine, one of the brain chemicals that’s also released during sex and gives us that delicious “high”. A McGill University study of sex and music even found that the reaction starts 10-15 seconds before we hear those sounds if we’re expecting them to start, so we’re getting excited by the anticipation of them as well as the experience.
A study of sound and touch in Germany found that listening to music we perceive as sexy actually makes pleasurable touch more arousing. They observed an overlap between areas of the brain that process sound, and those that deal with touch and movement.
Hearing a partner moan, groan, grunt, gasp, sigh, or make “yummy” noises, when they sound authentic and spontaneous, is pleasurable because it tells us that they’re getting pleasure from whatever we’re doing, which relieves anxiety about whether they’re enjoying it and gives us the same kind of delight that we’d get hearing the sounds they’d make if they unwrapped a gift they loved, or tasted something delicious that we offered them. (Let me take a moment here to say that I’m firmly of the opinion that no one should ever feel like they have to make noise just to boost their partner’s ego.)
And of course, let’s not overlook the power of simple association—some things sound sexy because we heard them in a sexy context, or while having sex, and hearing them brings those memories and feelings rushing back.
Listening is an act of intimacy
There’s one specific aspect of hearing that happens outside of actual sex but makes sex so much better, and that’s simply having sincere, honest conversations about your desires, preferences, fantasies, boundaries, fears, and everything else that swirls around and informs your sexuality. (Of course, this is not something that requires hearing, but I bring it up because for hearing people, it’s an aspect of this sense that really may not get enough exploration.)
Hearing is not the same thing as listening, but when we’re speaking to each other, we can often pick up on emotional cues or subtext that affect the way we receive the words our partner is saying. We might hear a tremble in their voice as they become vulnerable, notice their pitch rising if they’re getting nervous or upset, hear relief in their sigh, or feel tension broken when they laugh. We might sense that something is hard for them to say because their voice is tightening or getting soft, or they’re hesitating. We might realize something has been building up for a long time because we hear their words pouring out in a rambling rush. When we’re negotiating consent, “yes” sounds very different when it’s infused with happy enthusiasm than when it’s delivered flat or after a long pause.
Next time you and your lover talk about sex, don’t stop at listening to their words—focus on what you hear in their tone of voice, their breath, their rhythms and pitch. Tell them about what you’re perceiving (“it sounds like this is a hard thing for you to bring up, am I right about that?”) and encourage them to give you the same feedback. It’s a way to go deeper than just your words, and to learn more about how they sound in different emotional states.
Ways to explore hearing during sex
If you’re used to having silent sex—whether out of self-consciousness or circumstances like not wanting to disturb a roommate or a sleeping child—it might take some time to really feel comfortable with any kind of erotic noise. Don’t be afraid to take it slow and build up to it, or to start with the things that feel the least awkward or forced to you. It can also help to take turns, with one of you being able to focus more on hearing without also trying to get comfortable making noise, and the other one being focused on experimenting with talking or making sounds.
Make them a mix tape. Putting together a playlist of songs you both find sexy can not only amp up your arousal during sex, but can create delicious anticipation for you as you prepare it and listen to each piece. Organize it so that slower, sultrier songs are at the beginning and end, and there’s a buildup to the fastest and most intense songs in the middle towards the end.
Vibe to the beat. Try a couple’s vibrator like the We-Vibe Sync, which not only lets you remote-control the toy through a phone app, but actually lets you customize vibration patterns to the music of your choice. Take that playlist to a whole new level of sexy!
Breathe through it. When you’re on the receiving end of pleasure—for example, when your lover is going down on you—let yourself inhale deeply and then exhale with whatever sound happens naturally. Lots of us unconsciously hold our breath or breathe very shallowly during sex, so this has the dual benefit of giving us the breath to actually make a really audible sound, while also allowing us to relax more completely and to more deeply enjoy what we’re experiencing. Switch and have your lover do the same, so you can enjoy the sounds they make as well.
Go primal. If you’re not comfortable talking during sex but want to get that raw, intense experience of sound, agree to go totally non-verbal together and try growling, purring, grunting, and snarling as you ramp it up with wrestling, biting, licking, digging in nails, and other erotic roughhousing.
Read each other bedtime stories. If you’re exploring dirty talk and finding it hard to figure out what to say, look for erotica or porn stories you both find sexy, and take turns reading aloud to each other while you’re naked in bed, or relaxing in a bath. Can’t manage eye contact? The listener can snuggle up and lay their head on the reader’s chest, which also lets them enjoy the sound of the reader’s heartbeat and the resonance of their breath and voice in their lungs—a very intimate experience.
Words of affirmation. Lavish each other with loving or lustful words of praise and appreciation, both in and out of bed. Especially in long-term relationships, it’s easy to forget that all the wonderful things you think about your lover don’t always get said out loud. As you’re undressing each other, describe how erotic and desirable you find each other’s faces, features, and bodies. Tell them how their hair feels in your hands or on your skin, say how good it makes you feel when they do that thing you love, share how you feel when they walk into the room. Make a game or a challenge out of it, like “Name your top 10 favorite spots on my body.”
Make each other’s commutes much hotter. Use your phone’s audio apps to make recordings of yourself reading something sexy, or narrating a fantasy, or even to record yourself masturbating if you’re comfortable making noise or talking while doing it. Send them to your lover to listen to when they’re on the bus or train or sitting in traffic on their way to you—just make sure they know what it is, and that they have earbuds that won’t leak sound!
Play with privacy. If you’re holding back because you have kids or roommates, look for a getaway spot where you can truly give voice to your passion, and let it rip! The sheer feeling of freedom will likely make for intense sex. On the flip side, embrace taboo by having sex somewhere that you could be overheard, and position yourselves with mouths close to each other’s ears so that only you can hear the barely-suppressed gasps and sighs, and you’re able to whisper hot nothings to each other.
Phone it in. Most of us these days avoid the phone like the plague, but if you and your lover are physically apart for any length of time, hearing each other’s voices becomes an intensely sexy connection. Go old-school with classic phone sex and describe to each other what you’re wearing, doing, thinking, how you look, how you’re feeling. Masturbate together and enjoy the sounds of pleasure and orgasm even at a distance.
Talk about your dirty talk. If you haven’t really explored dirty talk but you both want to, make sure you talk about it beforehand and get clear on what each of you thinks is erotically dirty, and what’s a turnoff or potentially offensive or upsetting. Some people are really turned on by swearing, being chastised or humiliated, or being called names that are often considered obscene, while others have very hard limits about what’s okay to say. Ask each other about any specific words you might say, and never surprise your partner with non-negotiated language. It’s totally okay to enjoy hearing things during sex that people consider shocking or crude, as long as everyone involved is enthusiastically consenting.
Use your words. One of the hardest things for many of us to do is to verbally give direction to our partners during sex—it may just feel embarrassing to say pussy or penis aloud, or it may feel like we’re being critical or picky. But you deserve to ask for the pleasure you want, and sometimes that’s easiest by being direct. Trust me, the more you do it, the easier it gets to say things like, “A little more to the left of my clit,” or “Push your finger deeper into my ass.”
Let yourself laugh. Sometimes, especially when you’re trying something new, sex just gets silly. Maybe your dirty talk takes a turn for the absurd. Maybe one of you just made a really weird noise out of nowhere. Maybe you tried out a sexy voice and it sounded much better in your head than out loud. Go ahead and crack up together! Laughing together relieves tension and creates bonding, and what’s more delightful than the sound of your lover’s laughter?
Enjoy some spicy sound effects. If you’ve been interested in exploring some kinky play, delight in some of the uniquely sexy sounds that can come out of spanking, flogging, using toys that buzz and crackle, or doing bondage with cuffs that have rattling chains or locks. Intrigued, but not yet ready to dive in? Look for some kinky porn to play while you’re having non-kinky sex, so you can still get the turn-on of slaps, cracks, and other sexy sounds.
Take it public. When you’re out together in public, somewhere with enough ambient noise to let you speak quietly to each other without being overheard, cuddle up and take turns whispering or murmuring close to each other’s ears what you plan to do to them later, what you wish you were doing right now, what they’ve done that still turns you on to remember it, or simply describing the things about them that turn you on. Warning: you might end up cutting a lot of dates short to get home sooner!
Add some atmosphere. If there are environment sounds you find especially erotic, seek out date places where you can enjoy them—beachfront hotel rooms for the rush of waves, or leave a window open to the sounds of a thunderstorm. When you can’t do that, search YouTube for soundscapes. Sound designers have posted still-image videos with long, lush audio tracks of anything from the night sounds of forests, to crowded carnivals, to completely fantastic soundscapes of places that don’t exist in real life. Enhance your fantasies with your very own version of sexy cinema foley, especially for places where you couldn’t really have sex without breaking the law.
Hopefully, you’ve been having a wonderful and playful time exploring all the ways you can use each of your senses to have more intimate and exciting sex with your lover. What have you thought about this series? Are there other series topics you’d love for us to write about? Drop your thoughts in the comments, and we’ll see you next week with our final post about the sense of taste!
