How Can You Have the Best Sex on Your Current Mattress?
Soft, horizontal and hidden away in your bedroom, the mattress typically sees more action than any other piece of household furniture. As a reoccurring presence in your lovemaking, your bed can either enhance or hinder sexual activities based on factors like bounce, sagginess, squeakiness and type.
There are effectively five major types of mattresses and, full disclosure, I've only had sex on two and a half of them. So to authoritatively explain various sexual acts on the remaining options, I did the next best thing to seducing new mattress owners outside of a furniture store: I went in to test them for myself—albeit partnerless and fully clothed (in soothing pastel tones that I hoped said, "Please don't arrest me for pretending to have sex in your mattress store").
But the experience of apologetically pretending to fornicate with an invisible person beneath the bright fluorescent lights of a mattress store isn't quite the same as the real thing, I realized after several minutes of self-conscious bouncing, kneeling, thrusting and rolling. (To their credit, the fine salespeople of Denver Mattress in North Austin, Texas, were polite and unfazed.) And so to supplement my unorthodox research, I sought advice from sex and sleep industry veterans. Here's how to have the best sex on five major mattress types—memory foam, innerspring, latex, waterbed and inflatable air—according to the experts.
Memory foam: Best for lazy, one-position sex
Developed by NASA as a way to cushion aircraft pilot and passenger seats during a crash, memory foam—aka Tempur foam or visco-elastic foam—is a super-soft synthetic material that molds to (or "remembers") the shape of your body when compressed by heat and pressure.
If you are a memory foam mattress owner, the good news is that you'll get pressure relief around your joints and will be safely cushioned during emergency spaceship landings. The bad news is that your movement will be limited when it comes to sex.
Use a wedge pillow to 'elevate the pelvis when lying on your back to create a better angle of penetration and thrusting.'
"When you're sleeping on an all-foam bed, you sink down and you can get sort of stuck," said Keith Cushner, founder of Tuck, a sleep health website. "It's harder to move around, both when you're sleeping and when you're doing…other activities." (Read: sex.)
Positions to try: Missionary position. Missionary and its variations make sense on a memory foam mattress—the sinkage helps grip whoever is on the bottom in place, so the person on top can grind more zealously. This works best if the top person is pushing against the floor and not kneeling on the bed, as it can be hard to get sufficient leverage on softer, saggier mattresses, said Patti Britton, Ph.D., co-founder of Sex Coach U.
Positions to avoid: Doggy-style. In this classic position where one person is on all fours, hands and knees can sink deep into the mattress, and wrists, lacking support, can be twisted. Seated positions, including oral sex, can be frustrating too, as a memory foam bed's droopy edges can send a couple slip-sliding right off the edge.
Additional thoughts: One problem with memory foam beds is that your hips tend to sink into the mattress. To combat this problem, Britton recommends using a wedge pillow to "elevate the pelvis when lying on your back to create a better angle of penetration and thrusting."
Innerspring or hybrid mattress: Best for bouncy, multi-position sex
The innerspring was introduced in the 1870s, making it the oldest of the modern mattresses. Innerspring beds have a foundation of supportive, springy coils topped with one or more comfort layers of memory foam, latex or polyfoam (memory foam's cheaper, less dense cousin).
Meanwhile, a hybrid mattress is essentially an evolved innerspring mattress. It features a thicker comfort layer or multiple comfort layers of latex or foam, and the coils that make up the base are typically encased in foam.
The coil base delivers above-average bounce and responsiveness, letting you move and switch positions easily.
If you own a spring-based bed, you're in luck: These can be among the best mattresses for sexual congress, explained Anya Laeta, a somatic sex and relationship coach and founder of SF Sex Coaching. She listed "bounce," "ease of movement" and "temperature neutrality" as the most coveted qualities in a sexy-time bed. With an innerspring or hybrid mattress, the coil base delivers above-average bounce and responsiveness, letting you move and switch positions easily. Plus, the spring-based design makes the mattress breathable.
One drawback? Especially on older innerspring beds, the coils can be quite squeaky and lead to mean, passive-aggressive notes from your jealous downstairs neighbor Frank.
Positions to try: Cowgirl. Laeta recommends this girl-on-top position because the bed's extra bounce allows for deeper penetration with minimal effort. And this actually makes it much easier to stimulate the G-spot and A-spot, she said.
In addition to classic cowgirl, Laeta recommends reverse cowgirl, doggy-style and flatiron (bottom person lies facedown on the bed and elevates their hips as the top person enters from behind) because "the extra bounce of innerspring mattresses makes these positions more fun, and the mattresses' breathability means you won't get hot and sweaty."
Because these mattresses typically have sturdy edges that keep you from sliding off, they're also ideal for seated positions and oral sex, too.
Positions to avoid: None! Go for them all in squeaky, rapid succession. Screw you, Frank!
Additional thoughts: But seriously, if you want to give your neighbors a break, consider getting a headboard—particularly a tufted or upholstered one—which can help absorb sound and prevent you from bonking your head against the wall mid-bounce.
Latex mattress: Best for vigorous, sweaty sex, and plenty of it
Latex is a natural material made from the milk-like sappy extract harvested from rubber trees. When processed into mattress layers, latex foam provides buoyant support, conforming to the shape of your body like memory foam. But, unlike memory foam, latex beds are springy and responsive, and the open-cell structure of latex makes them naturally cooling.
"[Latex] is a mattress type that you either love or hate," Cushner said. "It does bounce in the sense that a lot of it is rubber. It's a bouncy relative to a foam mattress, but it's not bouncy like a traditional, jump-up-and-down coil bed."
Positions to try: Rough, noisy ones. Because latex mattresses are the most durable and sturdiest of the mattresses on this list, you can have sex often and vigorously on a latex bed without leaving behind the body impressions that plague memory foam. Plus, their virtual silence means you avoid making that racket that upsets Frank.
Positions to avoid: Seated positions and oral sex. Like memory foam beds, latex beds tend to have less-than-great edge support, meaning you can slip right off while in a seated sex position or while receiving oral sex.
Additional thoughts: Because of their above-average responsiveness, latex beds can generate motion transfer that disturbs your co-sleepers. This is fine when two or more people are involved, but, in theory, it could wake your partner if you are trying to sneakily jack off.
Waterbeds: Best for rocking, grinding, sweaty, squirty sex
Gone the way of shoulder pads and Polaroid cameras, waterbeds—essentially a vinyl, liquid-filled sack—have all but disappeared since their heyday in the 1970s and '80s. Back then, waterbeds needed to be filled up in one go with a garden hose. These days, waterbeds—if you can find them—typically feature multiple tubes, or "bladders," that are filled up individually.
Positions to try: Flatiron, spooning or missionary. The "motion of the ocean" offered by the waterbed lends itself to less in-and-out thrusting and more rocking and grinding. So rocky, grindy sex positions that involve more skin-to-skin contact are solid options.
Positions to avoid: Doggy-style. Positions that require you and your partner to sync up in motion can be trickier since the wavey, unstable surface can throw off your rhythm.
The 'motion of the ocean' offered by the waterbed lends itself to less in-and-out thrusting and more rocking and grinding.
Additional thoughts: Waterbed sex tends to be less energy-intensive, as you can thrust a few times and then kind of coast the rest of the way. And because these mattresses are typically made of vinyl (one notable exception was Hugh Hefner's legendary waterbed, which was reportedly covered in Tasmanian possum), you can easily wipe, spray or hose off any residual body fluids and lube. The sloshing noise can be kind of unsexy, though.
Air mattresses: Best for quickies
Can you have sex on an air mattress? Oh yes, you can. The scourge of holiday hookups, air mattresses can be uncomfortable to sleep on and even more uncomfortable to have sex on. "There's a lot of motion transfer, so you can kind of trampoline your partner off," Cushner warned.
Positions to try: Whatever position makes you climax most quickly, since your mattress is likely deflating by the second.
Positions to avoid: Doggy-style. On air mattresses, also, you may want to avoid doggy-style, since it's easy for the mattress to slip out from under you and go skidding across the floor. You'll also want to avoid incorporating heels or anything sharp that could puncture the mattress.
Additional thoughts: If you thought the sloshing of a waterbed was unsexy, wait until you hear the air mattress' rubbery, boner-killing fart noise.
