Tag Archives: spicing things up

Lights, Camera, and… Action?

I don’t know about you, but January’s traditionally a month I stay home a lot in an effort to get my bankbook back in black after the excesses of the festive season. So, I was thinking, hmm, what little project can I propose for my readers?
In the last posting, I suggested doing performance report cards with each other, checking in with your partner to see how well each of you are doing in the pleasing department. This time, I want to suggest getting into visuals — taping your lovemaking — but with a twist.
We’ve all seen sex videos gone awry, whether it’s Paris Hilton’s tapes getting released to the world at large, or some couple down the street who accidentally turned their video into the rental store instead of the copy of Forrest Gump the family had been renting. Yes, these things can happen, and that’s why you need to be careful.
But you can get hit by a vehicle crossing a street, yet you do that daily. Take the chance, explore it. Be a star, in your own way.
Naturally, a lot of us don’t like seeing ourselves on tape, but it’s an important thing to get over. A sex video isn’t jalways smut, it can be an erotic record of how you feel about your lover, and evidence of how you display it. When incorporated back into the relationship as visual foreplay or a romantic night in, it can help spice your sex life like nothing else, provided you’re willing to embrace it.
Imagine you’re a woman with insecurities, and you’re sitting there, watching a DVD of some sexcapades with your lover, and he starts getting aroused just watching you. This time, it’s not some blonde bimbette with triple-D boobs getting him rigid, it’s you, in all your simple, real, attainable beauty. For once, you’ll feel like the bombshell you deserve to be. Take the chance.
If you have insecurities, then there are some approaches to lessen ‘em. Spend a quiet night planning the activities with your partner. Script it, as it were. Decide some of the things you’d like to do to each other, but don’t worry about order, just go with the flow. If planning it to the T will help you lessen even more of your inhibitions, then go for it, but don’t feel restrained by it.
When you’re getting down to the nitty-gritty, you need to keep a couple things in mind. Technology’s important. What is your camera capable of doing? What kind of lighting will it need? You want to ensure you’ve got a camera that can perform in low-light situations, especially if insecurities are present. The control of the lighting is what differentiates the romantic from the pornographic. Camera angles are important. If it gets you hot, explore your lover’s body with a handicam. If your lover’s going down on you, you can hold the camera and capture it from your perspective. If you like, get your lover masturbating on film. Whatever occurs to you, you can do.
Nowadays, the home sex video can be done better than ever. Home editing technology is more sophisticated, yet more user-friendly than it has ever been. My Mac, for instance, comes with iMovie and iDVD. The first allows you to take different tracks from different digital videos and edit them together for a digital film. Then, you can mosey over to iDVD and lay in an audio track. You can speed things up, slow them down, stretch ‘em, lay in colour filters, whatever turns you on, whatever makes the mood better. I don’t know what Windows programs exist, but I’m sure they’re every bit as simple.
So, here’s the twist, which comes after you’ve done the playing around on camera.

You get together with your lover, put all your different sexy video tracks on your computer, crack a bottle of wine, and as a couple, watch the clips and make decisions about what segments are the hottest, and then you create your own DVD with montages of your lovemaking sessions. Find music that sets the pace for your visuals — if it’s down’n’dirty, something like INXS or Nine Inch Nails might hit the spot. For something romantic, pick any cheesy diva you like. It really doesn’t matter. (Personally, I’d be wanting to find a little classic bassy porn soundtracks from the ‘70s, just for the fun/humour factor.) You can even intellectually elevate the moment by recording poetry or erotic writing and dub that over the tracks, too.

The great thing about doing something like this together is that the creation of it (via the editing) becomes as much a part of the experience as the action performance is. And if you’ve taken the time to talk and “script” what sort of activities you’d like done, then the entire thing, from start to finish, becomes an experience that you’ll always be able to enjoy.
There’s another bonus, too. Like I suggested last time, the performance reviews, they become so much more tangible if you’re sitting there and analyzing your clips and cutting/pasting them together. You can talk about why that move got you so hot, what you’re feeling when your face is screwed up in agonizing pleasure, and how it could have felt just a little better if done slightly different.
As a society, we’ve so many hang-ups about seeing ourselves on video, sexually, as if it’s pornographic and crass. It’s not. It’s a record of how two people express their love for each other. And while it’s easier for something like that to escape out into the world than ever before, it’s also easier to turn it into a beautiful work of art that you can enjoy time and time again as the years pass — just be careful with it, that’s all, and make sure you trust your lover on every level.
Speaking of years passing, every relationship has its phases where the sex might dwindle. If that’s the case, something like this can serve as a tangible reminder for just how good it was, and provide inspiration for getting back to that kind of feeling once again.

Sexual Q & A: How Can I Spice Things Up?

ANONYMOUS ASKS: What’s a girl to do when her new boyfriend is VERY conservative and she wants to shake things up? Suggestions? This guy is NOT experienced but he’s really adorable.
STEFF ANSWERS: Keeping in mind that conservative attitudes about sex are usually resulting from ignorance or fear, I think you gotta proceed slowly.
If this were me, I’d probably proceed in any one of a few different ways. In fact, I’d recommend trying them all. Education shouldn’t happen in one fell swoop, neither should sexual expansion. Slow, graduated learning will make it more meaningful for both of you, if that’s what you’re after.
1) I might write him a very naughty, explicit letter detailing a few things I’d like to do to him. When he’s leaving one morning/night, put it in his wallet or something like that, so he finds it at an unexpected time and place. When it’s out of the blue and he’s alone with time to process things, and not in front of you, it may leave him more open to suggestion. Plus, if you’re arousing enough on the page, he might just find himself in a situation where he wishes you were around to aid with relief. (This could possibly backfire, too, so you need to be careful how far you go on the page. Subtly alluding to things could be as big a turn-on as being explicit, depending on your man.)
2) I suggest just taking him by surprise in bed. If he’s never done bondage, for example, maybe don’t talk to him about it in advance if you believe he’ll cringe. While you’re on top, simply playfully pin his arms over his head and loosely put a pair of nylons or something else that you’ve got conspicuously handy around his wrists, so he can get out if he likes, and proceed as you like. So, make it the illusion of bondage instead of the real thing, to take the fear out of the experience. (I wouldn’t recommend blindfolding with bondage at the same time if he’s nervous. It can be pretty overwhelming when you’re knew to it, speaking from experience here. ‘course, I fell in love with the feeling, but still, a lot to process.)
3) Another way to proceed is to just introduce one small new thing per session. Bring in food one time. Start off with a massage and oral another time. Try nailing him publically in a forest or something sometime. Vary the experience one teensy way each time until you’ve acquired a kaleidoscope of shared experiences. Then you’ll get to pick and choose.
4) Something else to try might be something like 101 Romantic Nights (a sex game where you roll the dice and refer to a book to see what your tasks for the evening are) or something similar, where you’re told what to do next through a book or something. There are other books, like 101 Grreat Nights of Romance, that come with sealed pages and just a tease as to what might lie ahead. You break the seal on the page to get the instructions for the evening, and you do what you’re told. They’re pretty tame, by and large, but they’re definitely an introduction to thinking outside the box when you’re a conservative lover, plus the creativity included might be pleasantly surprising for him, but the instructions and tips might take some pressure of of him when it comes to performing. But there are also a lot of inventive little role-playing antics and such, with a list of what you might require for the evening — and some of these may be new to experienced lovers, too.
5) It may well be that he’s intimidated by your experience. Bring the issue up casually, in a non-threatening way, when you’re having a quiet night on the sofa, watching a movie. Discuss the intimidation and tell him you can understand it if he feels that way, but you don’t want him feeling it anymore, and ask what you can do to help make it go away. You can ask him to design a night that will be comfortable for him, but he may feel pressured as a result, so I don’t really recommend that.
I think a lot of chicks tend to forget that, when it comes to sex, a lot of pressure, most of it (if not all), is on the guy. Their plumbing needs to be working, their size needs to be adequate, their skills are the ones that dominate the experience… an inexperienced guy with an experienced chick probably has a whole lot of issues to deal with, and being relatively gentle yet provocative is the only way to proceed if he’s timid.
6) Finally, maybe you can just watch a movie with a great sex scene in it, like the infamous refrigerator scene in 9 1/2 Weeks, and teasingly suggest you should do that, or any other sex scene you’ve enjoyed cinematically. I’m talking films, not porn. I don’t think porn’s the way to go when you’re easing someone in, since the expectations could seem unrealistic. But after you’ve said, “hey, that looks like fun, could we try that?” take him by surprise and go down on him.
Personally, all of my sexual experimentation came as a result of conversations that got the ball rolling. But I’m an imaginative and visual gal, so maybe it impacted me more that way.
In short? Again, be provocative but gentle. If he seems to be getting intimidated, then address it in a non-judgmental way. Let him know you want to teach him, that it’s important to you to show him just how good you can make him feel in every single way. You can bring dominance into the equation after you’re both on level ground. Have fun getting there. 😉
Do my male readers have any suggestions for Miss Anonymous, or feedback on mine?