Sex Labs: learn how to learn about sex
Recently, I talked about doing a "sex lab" to learn sex and kink things in a fun and low pressure way and immediately I received a ton of requests to write about just what the hell a sex lab is. I'm pretty sure there was more interest in people wanting to know what a sex lab was than people interested in the experiment I did on the actual post. I was not expecting that, but I'm always glad to help people learn more. Let's give the people what they want.
This is a long post but I've taken a lot of time and care to craft this to be approachable for everyone. I promise it is worth the read regardless of your experience.
So first things first, I am not claiming to have created this concept. I originally heard the term used on a podcast called Sex Nerd Sandra. It's a great show with great presenters, and I highly recommend it if you're in the market for a podcast on sexuality and kink education, though the show itself has long since ended.
Throughout the show's run the host, Sandra, workshops a concept she calls sex labs. That's where the name comes from, and that's where I was inspired to try it from. Since then, I've been trying to develop the idea further for myself because I found it useful.
I find it difficult to nail down what a sex lab is in a short sentence, but you know it when you see it. Fundamentally, it's a type of process. In order to best understand what a sex lab is, I think it's necessary to talk about what problems that a sex lab is trying to solve. Looking at the ways it can assist with common bedroom issues is helpful so you can best understand how a sex lab can be useful for you and your situation. I'll go through each issue then summarize. Those problems are:
How do you remove shame, stigma, and pressure to please and perform from sex so you can learn sex and kink in the first place?
How do you learn to listen to someone's body? How do you listen to your own?
How do you give sexual partners respectful feedback without hurting their feelings?
How do you implement something new in your sex life safely?
How do you practice sex? How do you plan a more elaborate scene?
1. Creating a safe environment for learning
The hallmark of a sex lab in my opinion, is the presence of a neutral learning environment for everyone involved. The idea is tensions run high when people try to perform for their partner or have shame associated with sex, so let's tone down what's going on and take a step back. Most importantly, you go into a sex lab with the mindset "I'm here to learn, I'm allowed to get aroused but I am primarily observing and learning." Start the lab by talking to your partner about creating this environment and doing any necessary research together beforehand.
When the primary objective becomes an experiment held at a slower pace, there's less opportunity for shame and stigma to overwhelm someone. They can absolutely still be something people struggle with during a sex lab, but navigating it should be easier because there's no pressure to perform. And if either person feels pressure, they should bring it up and talk it through until they start to feel less pressure. Turn your bedroom into a casual lab environment for 30 minutes and focus on having fun, sharing information with your partner, and collecting data from them. Don't focus on pleasure or performing. This may take some practice to get down, but is well worth it.
2. and 3. Applying that environment to people
Learning to read body language during sex can be confusing sometimes. What someone reads as "scratching from the pleasure and playing hard to get while eating her out" could be the receiver trying to flail and squirm away from a sensation they don't like. But now that we've established a safe lab environment for each other, surely you'll just tell your partner when that happens. Right? Right!!??
This is probably the most difficult step of a sex lab and the longest to explain, so I'm grouping 2 and 3 together. Depending on your level of comfort around talking about sex, someone may or may not speak up to communicate how something makes them feel. Some folks even feel that going into detail removes the magic from having sex, that the right partner will just know. Well, what if the right partner for you just had a hard time picking up on those nonverbal cues? Should you really cast aside a whole person because they need a one time assist in the bedroom? That hardly seems rational.
There's a lot of shame and stigma around sex and a lot of pressure to perform. But nothing is more influential than the stories and rules we tell ourselves over and over. The reason this is the hardest step in a sex lab is because sometimes people just need to work through the fact that something they believe was true about sex is actually a roadblock preventing them from being present in the moment for their partner.
The common idea that the right partner will just "know" your body and know how to read your body language is a false idea and unfortunately the only way to address it is to accept when an idea or fantasy you had, however well-intentioned, is unhealthy or places unfair expectations on your partner. It will ruin entire experiences if you let ideas like that run your sex life. Your partner talked to you and got to know your mind before they were invited to your bedroom, sex deserves the same level of care and that means challenging assumptions.
That means don't choke them without asking just because you're the top and you heard that's something they like. That means dropping all preconceived assumptions like that at the door. This is a new environment where safety and comfort and having fun are prioritized, not performance and dominance. That doesn't mean to abandon everything, and anyone trying to coerce you to do so because of this step is being manipulative whether they realize it or not. Follow consent and safety standards and focus on being communicative and keeping things light at first, and go into heavier discussion if and when it's needed.
Remember: if you're having trouble talking about something, that's probably because you need to practice talking about it to learn how to talk about it safely. And when you're ready and are in a safe environment with a person acting safely, talking about it becomes much easier.
Remember that example at the beginning? Her squirming away while her partner ate her out and how easily it could be interpreted two separate ways? Nobody can tell your partner but you how you feel when they touch you a certain way. And this goes both ways. Nobody but your partner can ask you how that touch felt. In order for this to work, both people need to show curiosity and interest in how physical and mental sensations (like dirty talk) affect the other person.
Instead of assuming you were eating it out like a champ, focus on licking one spot, ask your partner to rate the pleasure on a scale on 1 to 10. Then switch it up. Try a different spot or try flattening your tongue. Ask them to rate it again. Any time that number is different, show genuine interest as to why and do not pass judgement on your partner. You're a scientist on the verge of a sexual breakthrough conducting a cutting edge experiment.
Ask questions like "What does it mean when you grab at my hair like you just did?" "Can you kiss there so I can rate it?" "Can you do that a few seconds longer so I can see how the sensation changes over time?" "Why are you squirming right now?" "Are there different types of squirms?" Assume you know nothing and want to know everything and your partner is key to unlocking this experiment. If you are both in this inquisitive and non-judgemental mindset, you are truly sex labbing now. You are learning your partner's body and what they do and do not respond to on a very detailed and personal level. You are receiving non-judgemental feedback and critique in real time. This will give you an incredibly sturdy and in-depth foundation for every time you do the same sex act after this and a lot of information carries over to other activities in sex. It's invaluable information and you want that.
Ask everything you can think of. Bottoms this goes for you too. There is never a wrong question, only not enough questions. You can also just do this solo on your own to answer your own questions about what your body likes.
4. And 5. Do a walkthrough in slow motion with low energy and learn how to storyboard
This is pretty self-explanatory. If you want to try something new and have no relevant experience, how do you go about it? Do a walkthrough. Your sub has a fantasy they're tied to the bed and flogged but neither of you have ever done it? Okay, have them get into the position and mimic like they were tied down and practice the motion of using the flogger but not at full speed. Maybe you'll realize that you need to stand on a certain side of the bed so your elbow doesn't knock over a lamp on your wind up.
You will find out all sorts of small details you wouldn't have thought of if you had just started doing the fantasy. Doing a walk-through at low speed and low energy allows you to find all the things that would make something unsafe or unpleasant and figure out solutions. So that way when you are in the moment, you can fully focus on having fun because you have already mitigated all of the risk and rooted out all of the non-fun elements.
This takes like 5 minutes at most and the return on investment is so high, especially if you have a bottom who worries a lot. This can eliminate most of, if not all, concerns they may have and allows them to fully focus on being present later. Having fun and doing this right before the activity can also be a great warm-up to relax to and be a great source of foreplay beforehand. It is something I highly recommend everyone try.
If you are a dom doing such a scene for your partner but are planning it out ahead of time as a surprise for your partner this also works really well. The other piece of advice I would give is to do something called 'storyboarding.' This is what professional doms do (I use 'dom' as a gender neutral term here) and is inspired from the entertainment industry where movies will draw what they want certain scenes to look like ahead of time as well as plot points they want to have written out and accompanying the drawings. This gives everyone working on the project an outline of what the piece of entertainment will be about and the overall aesthetic. Everyone knows what they're working towards now once you have storyboards. So will you.
Basically, when a pro dom starts a business relationship with a new client, they will gather a bunch of information from that client and then use that information to create a scene that will fit the client's wants and needs. Now, you already have that information because you know the person and you've done all the steps above (and if you haven't, do those first).
So you know you want to make a memorable night for your partner and you have an idea of what they like and what they want to try. So let's say there's 1 thing you know for a fact you both want to try. There's also other things you both enjoy. Pick 1-2 of those things you already enjoy that feel like a leadup to the thing you both want to try. These three things, the two acts you already enjoy and the new one, are essentially your plot points. Now, the trick is to figure out how you get from plot point A to B to C. That's what storyboarding is for.
Make a storyboard by either quickly sketching down a series of drawings or notes of what you want to happen on a notepad or making a series of mental sketches in your head. Then, you do a walkthrough like described above by yourself and figure out how to get from point A to point B fluidly, all the hazards ahead of time, and set stuff up so that later when your sub gets home, everything is ready ahead of time and you have already accounted for everything. Here's an example of an actual storyboard I have done recently:
As you can see, this is just a couple of points written down in my notes app to get the flow of the scene started. I wanted it romantically kinky and open ended and I think I achieved that. It's really that easy and simple to storyboard. I also wrote down reminders like not to bite too hard because I wanted the scene to go well after trying to hold a rose stem in my mouth and realizing how fragile it was. I didn't want her to bite down and have flower guts in her mouth so I made sure to make a note of that. And yes I do just title these with random titles haha.
You will almost always have to revise your sketches/notes when you first start doing this. If something feels like it potentially is being forced during your walkthrough, that's because it is and you need to find an alternative. That desk you really really want to bend them over? Well it's showing signs of not holding up your weight, let alone theirs, so you need to revise that storyboard to something else. Even though you really want to do that. Keep doing walkthroughs until you have something you like that is also doable.
What will really make the scene memorable later on is how effortlessly you do it because you've practiced it ahead of time. That will really make it stick out positively in your partner's mind and this is a great way to do that.
Because this post clearly isn't long enough yet, let's put this all together in a real world example so we can see what it looks like in real life piece by piece. Names are completely random. Sort of.
Persephone wants to be thrown backwards onto the bed before having sex, it's what she's always wanted. However she's self-conscious about her weight as a plus size woman and even her partner Hades has expressed concern that he might re-injure his back doing that.
Now this couple could just try to play out the fantasy and it may or may not go well. Or they could create a sex lab.
They agree to do a lab together. The first thing they're going to do is just talk. They're staying clothed and they're going to talk about what their concerns and hopes are for the scene first. This doesn't need to be overly thorough or even a long talk, just so long as they express any concerns and go over the logistics.
They should also be exploring why they want to do something in this talk. Persephone reveals to Hades the reason why she likes it is because it makes her feel small and like he can just toss her around, which she finds hot. It also only appeals to her if she doesn't know when it's coming. This is important because now Hades knows the why and how behind the kink and if they need to make adjustments later to help her feel that way, Hades now knows how to approach the situation to get the results they want.
The next part of the process of a sex lab is research. You should be answering questions brought up during the talking stage of the process. How do you throw someone backwards safely? What is the safe way to fall? How to protect your back when lifting? What have other people done in their situation? What parts of the body are safe to grab when throwing/moving her? Is their bed safe to do it on?
After talking about it and doing research, they decide the next step they need to do is a walkthrough to answer any other questions and mitigate any risk. Because it involves throwing her, they want to make sure Hades knows where to grab her without injuring himself and Persephone wants to make sure she'll fall safely.
During their walkthrough they realize she can't be thrown from the foot of their bed like they wanted because of the bedframe and how it sticks up at the foot of their bed. So instead she needs to be thrown from the side of the bed. Hades realizes that he can actually do more pushing than throwing her to get the result they both want, which is a lot safer for his back while not compromising the sensation she wants to feel of being manhandled and falling backwards.
Now that they've done a walkthrough, Hades just waits until Persephone least expects it and when he finally does surprise her, she gets the thrill of a lifetime safely and effectively. Because they sex labbed they were able to create something really fun together in a safe and healthy environment where their needs were heard, respected, and satisfied. That is the beauty and power a sex lab has and why I recommend learning how to learn about sex and kinks with your partner. Like anything else, it's a skill, and improving that skill improves your sex life overall.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found this helpful and I hope sex labs help make sex and kink easier to talk about, more approachable, and simpler to learn for you like they did for me. If you have any positive experiences with sex labs reblog and share your story so more people can learn about them.
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