Do you only make out with first dates? Do you long for the days of making out with your long-term partner? Do you want to bring making out back into your dating repertoire?
What Is Making Out?
Making out involves intimate physical contact between two people who often have sexual interest in one another, although making out technically does not usually involve penetration.
Making out usually occurs in private, although some couples will engage in public, and more than two people can make out, for instance at a sex club or in an orgy.
“Making out” is a standard expression but other terms are often used to describe “making out” or “to make out” such as canoodling, necking, heavy petting, cuddling, foreplay, getting busy, action, fondling, copping a feel, or getting to first, second or third base. What you use to refer to “making out” can depend on physical age, generation, and culture.
Making out happens at all levels of dating and in all kinds of relationships—first dates, short-term dating, blind dates, hookups, date nights between long-term lovers and married couples, friends with benefits, metamours, throuples, primary and secondary partners.
How two or more people make out is up to them. Compatibility is a huge part of making out and sometimes discovered through the process of making out, which often reveals kissing and cuddling preferences.
Read: How to Cuddle: Best Cuddling Positions and Places
How to Make Out: 13 Steps
1. Consent is Key
Making out, along with any physical contact, requires consent. You’re not just going to start making out with a random stranger you sit beside on the train just because you find them attractive. You can ask your date before you make a move or be sure of implied consent.
Read: When NOT to Make Your Move
2. Get Comfortable
Making out is more than just a goodnight kiss on a woman’s doorstep. You want to be comfortable in your surroundings, be able to take your time and be open to where things may go. The traditional make out setting is the couch, and where parents, kids, or roommates are not going to interrupt.
Read: Get Your Home Ready for a Date or Hookup
3. Make Eye Contact
When you want to make out, you want to make eye contact. Looking into each other’s eyes is an easy way to set the scene, creating instant intimacy. You don’t have to get into a staring contest, just lock in here and there. Eye contact can also signal that you want more than just sex.
Read: How to Know if She Wants more than Casual Sex
4. Take Your Time
Making out is more than a quickie. It’s the prelude to things to come. There can be times when making out is all that is going to happen because of time constraints or a mood shift, so make the most of it. Enjoy the person before you—all of them.
Read: Foreplay to get Her in the Mood
5. Vary Your Kisses
Necking, or kissing intensely, is a big part of making out. There’s nothing better than those heady early days of making out before ever having sex. And kissing can be a make-it or break-it deal for many people.
You want to vary how you kiss—open and closed mouth, dry and wet, tongue and no tongue, long and slow, short and sweet. There’s nothing like kissing real compatibility.
Read: Rediscover Kissing in Your Poly Relationships
6. Go for the Neck
Kiss on the lips, but don’t forget to move south to pepper your lover’s neck with kisses during a make-out session. The neck is an erogenous zone on both men and women, with sensations sending shivers down the spine. Some women enjoy licking as well as kissing, but I would reserve this until you know someone’s tastes or kinks.
Read: 8 Erogenous Zones to Explore
7. Nibble or Give Hickeys
While making out often has a sensual, romantic air about it, you can vary up your approaches, especially as you get to know your lover. Some partners will enjoy a gentle nibble of the ear lobe or neck in between kisses. Leaving a hickey, or mark through suction, may be too much for some while others will invite it.
Read: How to Give Hickeys and Love Bites
8. Touch Their Hair
Gently caress long locks or run your hands through tufts, gently pulling hair between your fingers. Some people don’t like their hair touched (ruined) but others will find it a real turn on to have their hair stroked or even pulled. You can literally feel out a partner’s preference while making out.
9. Press Your Bodies Together
Find a position that is comfortable, whether on a couch or bed or blanket on the beach, and get real close with your bodies touching. When you create this close contact you will have the added bonus of body heat. You can squeeze each other’s butts or massage backs or intertwine legs and feet.
10. Explore with Your Hands
While making out, explore the map of your partner’s body. What do their biceps and forearms feel like as you run your palms along? Where is their skin the softest? Do they have a hidden mole? Are they ticklish? Do they like their buttocks touched? They’re breasts squeezed? Let your fingers do the walking.
Read: 4 Tips for Breaking the Touch Barrier
11. Talk
How much people talk while making out varies, similar to how much they like to talk during sex. Some lovers will want to ooh and aah over their attraction and express how excited they are while others will be more than happy to get swallowed up in the moment, expressing themselves through action alone.
Even if you are on the quieter side, it’s nice to say a few things to let your partner know how you’re feeling, if you’re enjoying a particular move. You can talk dirty too if that’s how you roll.
12. Tease Each Other
Making out as foreplay is all about the tease and seduction. One way to up the ante with teasing is to keep your clothes on as long as possible, until you can’t stand it any longer. Making out doesn’t usually involve penetration, and that’s what makes it special—engaging in everything but!
Maybe you agree that making out is all that’s going to happen before you go out on a date, that you will wait until after you come home from your night out to finish what you started.
Read: What Is Orgasm Denial and Edging?
13. Get Feedback
Everyone has a different make-out style. Some of us like to go slow and long, others faster on their way to the grand finale. This is where a bit of casual conversation while making out or after the fact can really put you in sync.
Maybe you want to recapture make-out sessions from days gone by because sex has become routine or stale. Whatever the reason, feedback can always help when it comes to intimacy and sex. Keep it real and respectful for best results.
Read: Honesty in Polyamorous Relationships: Why It’s So Important
Do you make out with your polyamorous lovers? What makes it special?
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