« Previous 1 2 View All Next »
Maybe it’s your third date with the cute girl from the bookstore. Maybe it’s late into your first date with the woman you’ve been flirting with on OKCupid for a week. Maybe it’s a spontaneous thing – you met her at your friend’s party and there was just an instant spark. Maybe you met at a coffeehouse and hit it off and she invited you back to her place to watch videos.
However you got there, the important detail is that there’s a girl. In your pad. On your couch. Surely at this point it’s all over bar the squishy noises and passionate moaning, right?
Nope.
Just because you’re within reach of home plate doesn’t mean that you still can’t be tagged out if you make the wrong move. It doesn’t take terribly much to turn a sure thing into nothing and you’re left at home with the remote and a raging sense of frustration.
It doesn’t have to be that way. You’ve worked this hard just to get her to this point, it seems like a shame to fuck it up now. If you want to make sure that tonight’s the night, you have to know how to play your cards right. You have to know how to make her want you just as much as you want her.
You have to know how to seduce her.
Prepare Your Pad
The first step starts long before she ever came anywhere near your front door. In fact, the first step starts long before you even meet her that night.
Your first step is to make sure your place is ready. The last thing you need is to get cockblocked by your own apartment. You want your places to be as girl-friendly as possible. Scrub that sucker from top to bottom, take out the trash, air out the rooms, change your sheets, collect the laundry and for fuck’s sake get anything resembling porn out of sight. This includes lad mags like Maxim and FHM. If you have any questions, just subtract; less will always be more in this case.
Pro Tip: You may want to put a few drops of vanilla extract on the bulbs on the lamps in your bedroom and living room. As the lamps heat up, they will evaporate the extract, leaving the subtle scent of vanilla in the air. There’s a reason why perfumers have been adding vanilla notes to perfumes and colognes.
Next, you want to make sure that you’re stocked for all contingencies. Condoms are an obvious necessity; keep a supply in the night stand right next to your bed so you can reach for them without looking. You also want to make sure that you have a supply of fresh towels and wash cloths in the bathroom.
Stock the fridge and the liquor cabinet in advance. Strawberries are almost always welcome, as are chocolate. If at all possible, you want a good red wine, a good white wine and some basic alcohol and mixers. In addition, you want some basic breakfast possibilities; eggs, cereal, coffee. If she’s going to be staying the night then you’re going to want to be able to provide breakfast in the morning as well.
Preparation includes the feng-shui of the rooms too, by the way. You want your living room to be set up so that she’ll be sitting on the couch next to you, rather than in the chair across the room from you. Move the chairs and ottomans to the edges and far corners; sitting there will feel awkward and exclusionary rather than a natural place to sit. You want to have some things that you can do together set up within easy reach as well; photo books, coffee table collections of famous art, puzzles, something. DVDs should be available as well.
Pace Yourself
You need to realize that just by coming back to your house with you is a huge step for women. She knows that she’s put her self at risk by being there; you don’t want to force her to make the decision as to whether she’s sleeping with you that night just because she came over. If it’s already a foregone conclusion that you’re going to have sex, if you’re mauling each other before you even get through the front door, then by all means, just pick her up and carry her straight to your bedroom.
If it isn’t, however, you need to be willing to take your time; nobody ended up missing out on sex because they were patient. You need to make her comfortable, not just with your presence but also with the possibility of sex. You need to be willing to take small steps. The more comfortable she is with you and with the idea that sex may happen, the less likely you are to have things come to a screeching halt. So take it slow.
Start off in the living room; sitting together on the couch will be far less intimidating than by taking her straight back to your bedroom. Bring her a drink, look through some photographs together or put on a movie. Let her become more at ease before you make the first move.
Set The Mood
Atmosphere counts when it comes to seduction, so make sure you’re sending the right signals. Subtle is the rule of the game here; you don’t want to come off as a player, but some confidence and assurance will make all the difference in the world. To start with, as nervous as you might be on the inside, you need to project an air of calmness. Whether this is your first time ever or your fortieth, you will be setting the tone for the evening. If you’re jittery and uncomfortable,she’ll feel jittery and uncomfortable and then you’ll be lucky to have a handshake goodnight. Instead, you need to convey that having a girl over to your place is the most natural thing in the world. She will already be nervous; it’s your job to be the her rock.
It is hard to go wrong with a little romance. Dim the lights when you sit down. Have a playlist prepared in advance and ready to play over the speakers. You don’t necessarily want Barry White or Al Green, but you do want music that works at a low volume. You want to keep distractions to a minimum; they will only serve to break the mood, and you want to avoid that wherever possible.
Let It Build
I can’t emphasize this enough: take your time.
Too many men will try to rush straight for sex, and it will end up being their downfall. If you push too hard too quickly, even with a woman who was planning to have sex, you will end up breaking the mood and she’ll be out the door before you realize what’s happening.
Instead, you need to let the sexual tension grow. Let each little progression of intimacy build on the next. A woman is more than lips, nipples and a vagina, so don’t aim straight for them. If you’re kissing, then don’t just reach under her shirt for her breasts; kiss her neck instead, trace your fingers along the side of her face as you kiss her, run your hands down her back or thighs. Once you get the tension started, it will start to grow and feed upon itself, until it snowballs into the point of no return. There’s absolutely nothing to gain from rushing and everything to lose. Arousing her now means that you are less likely to be refused when you decide to move her from the couch to the bedroom.
Stop And Go
One of the most important parts of seduction is understanding when to stop.
In the heat of the moment, it can be hard to want to tap the breaks, especially when you’re hearing “we should probably stop” rather than “let’s stop”. In fact, there was a point where to me, “We should probably stop” sounded an awful lot like “convince me I don’t want to stop”. And to be fair: sometimes that’s exactly what she was saying. However, there were more times when that “probably” meant “I want to stop but I don’t want to upset you by being direct”; women are often socialized to be indirect and less assertive than men and will at times frame a refusal or a request to stop or slow down as something other than a direct “no”… and you need to be willing to listen.
If you reach a point that she objects to, up to and including being inside her, then you stop and take a step back to something she was ok with… and you are completely cool with this. I cannot emphasize this enough: you are always absolutely fine with pulling back or coming to a full halt. You can try again a little later. She will let you know through her words and actions when a little persistance is ok and when it isn’t… so assume that it isn’t unless otherwise stated.
If she wants to stop, you are absolutely ok with it. You don’t argue, whine, wheedle or ask why. Nobody has ever argued or debated their way into a woman’s pants, and trying to do so just makes you look pathetic. The only acceptable response is “I understand,” and you immediately move on to something non-sexual. Turn up the lights, pull up your pants and do something else… without removing intimacy. You aren’t trying to shame or pressure her into sex by freezing her out, you’re trying to make her more comfortable. Pulling away – refusing to talk to her or otherwise shunning her is a supreme dick move; it’s coercive, it’s manipulative and it’s an attempt to play upon her the social contract and her insecurities in order to get what you want. It should be completely clear that you aren’t frustrated; you want to keep spending time with her, you want to have sex with her, but more importantly, you want her to be comfortable with you. So you’re dialing things back so that she’s more comfortable. When she’s ready, either she will re-establish the mood, or she’ll indicate that she wants you to start again. When she does, then progress slowly to where she wanted you to stop before. If she wants you to stop again, you stop again.
Yes, it can be difficult, especially when it feels like the finish line1 is within reach. Yeah, blue-balls can hurt. If you’re so horny that you can’t think straight, slip off to the bathroom and rub one out so you can calm the hell down.
There is no reason to feel frustrated; if things have gotten to this point, then she will sleep with you eventually. You can only hurt yourself when you’re in a hurry.
Take The Lead
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: leadership is sexy. You are going to be expected to be in charge – to the limits that she allows – so you need to be willing to take responsibility. When making out on the couch has reached the point that it’s time to take things to your bed, you don’t ask or verbalize; take her by the hand and lead her to your room. Once there, make yourself clear: you want to have sex… but only if you get an explicit and enthusiastic “yes” from her. If she’s less than enthusiastic, if she’s saying “…I guess” or is half-heartedly agreeing, then you’re not having sex.
Also: remember that you are not restricted or required to the upper limits of the level of intimacy that she will allow; just as she isn’t obligated to have sex with you, you aren’t obligated to build yourself up to a level of frustration. You can pull back to just making out, to just cuddling or even pass on doing anything that evening… just so long as you’re not pushing her away as a means of punishing her or trying to guilt her into sex. Once again, you don’t want to imply or infer that you’re angry, annoyed or frustrated; you should explain that just doing X with her will leave you frustrated and you’d really rather wait until she feels more comfortable with you. It’s not all or nothing; you do not try to manipulate her or guilt her into sex and you certainly don’t act as though you are somehow owed penetration, a blow job or some other form of release. You just don’t want to rush her and you are patient enough to wait.
Don’t Forget To Stick The Landing
Just because you’ve slept together, it doesn’t mean that your job is done with handing her a towel when the afterglow fades. The last thing you want to do is just kick her out of your place like some jerk; all you’ll do is guarantee that you’ll never see her again. Instead, you are going to follow her lead; letting her stay the night should be implicit, but if she indicates that she isn’t sure if she’s allowed, then you make the offer. She may decide to stay. She may decide she’d rather sleep in her own bed. Either way, you are cool with it.
Whether she stays the night or goes home, you call the next day. Not a text. Not an e-mail. Not a voice mail. You call her and tell her that you had a great time. You’ve shared body fluids, you owe a phone call.
It’s the little things that make the differences between a night to remember and a missed opportunity. Once you understand the art of seduction, you’ll have the confidence and the knowledge to make the right moves.
(Doctor’s Note 03/27/13: In retrospect I’ve come to recognize that some of the advice I gave was a little sketchy. I’ve since updated the article to fix this.)
Related Posts
- i.e. cumming [↩]
« Previous 1 2 View All Next »