Girl on the Net

I often joke that I’m ‘lazy in bed’, but I’ve never really considered what I mean by that. Someone asked me recently to explain it, so I thought I’d have a go. And like many of the assumptions we make about sex, sometimes examining the belief reveals a truth that’s far more interesting.

This all came about after I tweeted the following:

Him: that was a VERY good suck job.
Me: thanks. It has to be, doesn’t it?
Him: why?
Me: so I can get away with being so lazy in bed.
Him: n… N… No honey that is NOT how it works.

— Girl on the Net (@girlonthenet) April 24, 2018

Then my lovely pal Charlie (who’s an exceptional sex writer, you should check out her blog) said:

“I’d be really interested in a post where you expand on (read: over-analyse) what it means to be lazy in bed”

FUCK YEAH! Someone has sounded the ‘over-analysis’ klaxon and I am more than happy to respond to its call! I love nitpicking over sexual thoughts and ideas, and it’s rare for me to find something that I haven’t already looked at in depth. So with massive thanks to Charlie, let’s do this!

What does ‘lazy in bed’ mean?

Let’s start by defining our terms. On the surface, ‘lazy in bed’ sounds broadly like I’m claiming to be lazy when it comes to sex i.e. I don’t put any effort in when it comes to sexual things.

But if that’s how we define it, it’s worth noting that this laziness doesn’t cover all aspects of sex. Firstly, and most obviously, I’m not ‘lazy’ when it comes to ideas and inspiration: lots of the cool sex stuff that my partner and I do comes out of an idea or a fantasy I had, or a conversation I started where I asked him explicit and detailed questions about every sexual sensation he could possibly ever have had. I also ask detailed questions after the event, like a kind of sexy post-match analysis, and the conversations we have in the afterglow often provide inspiration for next time. On top of that, of course, the fact that I blog about sex here means I spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about sex in the course of my everyday life.

My laziness clearly doesn’t extend to sexual theory because when it comes to fucking, I do my fucking homework.

Do I mean ‘lazy’ purely in terms of physical acts? Possibly. But that doesn’t apply to all physical acts: as the giver of pretty awesome suck jobs, it’d be weird of me to try and claim that I’m lazy when it comes to sex as a whole. There are sex things – like blow jobs – that I work hard at, because I enjoy the reaction I get when I nail them. I suspect I also do this to try and avoid repeating past mistakes – when I didn’t listen to the guy or ask him for guidance, so I delivered an ‘off the shelf’ suck job matched not to his tastes, but the tastes of the guy who came before him. But that’s by the by.

When I tweeted about this originally, @Girly_Juice (whose brilliant blog you should check out too btw) pointed out that by saying I was ‘lazy in bed’ but good at blow jobs, I was essentially implying blow jobs weren’t part and parcel of sex itself. That’s definitely not what I meant, but it’s a point well worth highlighting: sex isn’t just about train-in-tunnel fucking, and although that’s my favourite part, focusing purely on it is deeply unhelpful for a lot of reasons (there’s a great guest blog here that covers why we need to stop thinking of purely PIV/reproductive sex when we talk about shagging generally). So GJ was right to pick me up on it, and her tweet led me to my first possible answer to what I mean when I call myself lazy: I didn’t mean ‘I’m lazy at sex’, but the much more literal ‘I am lazy in bed.’

Lazy in bed – the bed itself

Back when I was dating, a bed was still primarily for sleeping, but when I had a guy in it with me suddenly the bed itself was transformed into this magical fuckpalace. It was there for sex, and so getting into bed made me feel like shagging. I’d tumble into it partially clothed with a hot dude, we’d fumble at each other, fuck for a bit, and I could crack out some of my more energetic sex moves without yawning halfway through.

Now, though, my bed represents something different. Perhaps because I’m in a long term monogamous (ish) relationship, and I’m used to the fact that we sleep there every night. We still fuck there too, of course, it’s just that sleep and relaxation is the first thing that comes to mind when I think ‘bed.’ It doesn’t help that we have a terrible bed at the moment, with a memory foam mattress. I’ve ranted about this before but honestly memory foam renders all sex far too comfy and dreamy for my tastes: it’s like trying to shag on a bed of marshmallows while someone strokes your hair and spoonfeeds you warm milk. Fuck memory foam. Fuck it to hell.

ANYWAY. Largely as a result of these things I much prefer to fuck in the lounge. But when we are shagging in bed, I don’t move much, because the softness of the bed and the lateness of the hour means I’m usually partway between ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’. So I lie on my back or my front, or with my arse sticking up in the air, and my physical contribution to the act of sex itself primarily means shoving myself back onto his dick, squeezing my cunt muscles, and making the right noises every now and then.

When I write it down like that it certainly does seem quite lazy on my part. Not lazy for everyone, of course: our bodies all work differently and what might be a walk in the park to me could be an Everest climb to you. I don’t have any significant physical issues, apart from being generally unfit thanks to years of smoking and drinking. I only mention this because naturally when we’re talking about physical activity I don’t want anyone to think ‘lazy in bed’ is something that can be universally quantified or – God forbid – measured with a clipboard and stopwatch like the Bleep Test.

I mean mainly that when I’m in bed, ready (ish) for sleep, I tend to take a more physically passive role.

Except then as I thought on this more I realised that the passive role isn’t just down to sleepiness – I take that role because I actively prefer it. It’s not a ‘lazy’ thing I’ve fallen into: it’s actually a deliberate choice.

Lazy in bed versus Submissive in bed

Maybe what I mean by ‘lazy in bed’ would actually be better translated as ‘passive in bed’ or even just ‘submissive’. My partner tells me I’m lazy in bed, quite often. Usually after we’ve had a fuck that leaves him sweating and knackered and me spreadeagled and smug and calm. I’ve recounted this conversation before, I’m sure:

Him: you’re really lazy in bed, you know?

Me: I’m not lazy, I’m submissive!

Him: that’s just an excuse so you can be lazy in character.

To a certain extent he’s right, it’s just that he’s got it the wrong way round. I’m not submissive because I’m lazy, I’m lazy because the kind of submission that turns me on is usually the kind where I don’t move. Ideally I want to either be thrown around like a pliant ragdoll or used as a convenient fuck toy. Neither of these things involves much input from me, and that’s not because I can’t be arsed – it’s because that’s how I get off.

Which brings me to the proper epiphany that Charlie’s question led me to. I think what I mean by ‘I’m lazy in bed’ is that if I want to get off, I need to hold still.

Not lazy but focused

A few days ago, shortly after I initially started pondering the ‘lazy in bed’ question, I was sucking my partner off while he lay down on the sofa. Part way through he ordered me to shift position and pull down my knickers so he could finger me while I was at work. This was lovely, of course – I’m a big fan of getting fingered – but it detracted quite a lot from the blow job I was giving. His hands probing and rubbing at me was pretty hot, but I knew for a fact that I was never going to come. Why? Because all of my attention was focused on his dick.

I don’t just mean ‘I ignored what he was doing’ either – I mean that I actively couldn’t feel much of it. There were occasional moments when a vigorous rub or a finger at the wrong angle led me to yelp a bit and direct him, and I did feel the odd thrill if he got things completely perfect, but most of the time I didn’t feel anything at all. I might as well have been numb from the waist down.

This isn’t particularly weird: it happens a lot when we’re doing sex stuff. My brain picks one thing to concentrate on and shuts out any other stimulus. It’s why normally I don’t enjoy the 69 position (except for that one time I did) and why I’m constantly baffled by my partner’s ability (and desire) to suck on my nipples mid-fuck. I love getting my nipples sucked, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t work out how he can concentrate on his lovely dick-based sensations while he’s concentrating on doing stuff with his tongue and lips.

Lazy in bed? Maybe not. I think what I am is focused. Not deliberately focused, just accidentally. I do have some extremely physically active fucks – awesome suck jobs, pegging, grinding away on top like I’m riding a good pony, and all that jizz-splattered jazz – but primarily I’ll be doing those things because the performance and activity is fun in and of itself. Those activities rarely make me come.

What makes me come, perhaps rather boringly, is being able to lie or sit still in a really comfortable position, clamp my legs and cunt around someone, close my eyes and just… fucking… concentrate. I need to be able to make infinitesimally small shifts in my position to maximise contact with the right spots, not be distracted by whether this or that bounce is going to make his dick slide out, and above all I need to be able to mentally picture the waves of orgasm starting to wash up my body from my crotch through my stomach. It’s not a thing I want, it’s a thing I need.

So when I call myself ‘lazy’ I don’t really mean that I’m idle or uncaring when it comes to fucking: fucking is my favourite thing! It would be weird if I proudly waved my sex-loving flag, tempted hot guys into bed with me, then shrugged and gave up as soon as I got there.

What’s actually going on is far more interesting – and probably unworthy of tags like ‘lazy’. So I’m delighted that Charlie asked me this question, because now I get to do something I don’t do that often: realise I am wrong. It turns out I’m not actually ‘lazy in bed’ – just averse to shagging on memory foam, with a tendency towards being passive, and a strong desire to stay still while I’m coming. I can whip out all the energetic moves in the world if my goal is to impress or perform, but when things build to the point where I really want to come, I need all my energy to focus on doing that.

I don’t fuck this way because I’m ‘lazy’, I fuck like this because it’s what gets me off.