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Underground > Radio & Music >

Sex and Music

01:15 / 03.06.03

What I really want is for everybody to post a short essay based on the theme 'sex and music', but failing that here are some key questions: what do you like to listen to during sex? Are there particular songs you would play if you were having sex for the first time? Would you or your partner (casual shag etc.) pick the music most times? Do you ever worry when you've picked someone up that they will hate your taste in music and this will make the sex bad?

I will answer when I don't have the flu.

at the scarwash

03:38 / 03.06.03

Off of the top of my head I'd say that the most important quality in intercourse playlists is that of enveloping production. Dub reggae. Phil Spector. Massive Attack. A wash of sound that encloses me and my snuggle-bunny of choice in our own carnal world. I'm prettty sure I did it to Rich Man's 8-Track by Big Black at least once. The hugeness of the guitars and the fullness of Steve Albini's microphone techniques totally made me forget how weird it was to have sex to "Jordan, Minnesota." I don't think a beat is necessary. I can totally deal with discord. I wore out John Frusciante's Smile From the Streets that You Hold a few years ago. I don't think that disc left the stereo for about two months.

I'm a complete music fascist. Whether I'm at work or getting the snog on, I have a compulsion to be in control of my aural environment.

Loud is good. It's been a long time since I didn't have roomates. I'm self conscious about you know, those noises. So yeah, loud

05:36 / 03.06.03

I don't listen to music while having sex right now. My girlfriend and I do not agree musically that much (I think the only common interests we have are the Undertones, Velvet Underground, The Violent Femmes, the Makers and Danzig; which really isn't that much, and that's only the stuff that she started liking after a while [except for the Violent Femmes, whom she already liked, and I liked them a whole hell of a lot too]), she likes her corporate punk and ska and pop stuff and I like metal and pre through post punk and sixties garage. I don't think that we'd listen to music while having sex even if we did agree, however, she's not that musically orientated and thinks it can ruin the mood and stuff like that. I like having sex with music on, though. My favorite thing to listen to during sex is Black Sabbath, for some reason that I never knew, it just made sense, so I never really bothered with figuring out why.

10:02 / 03.06.03

Hmmm. For me music's been mostly cicumstantial with regards to saucy frollics. Last time I sauced with music it was Autechre Album 5. Cold and mechanical music that took on a new meaning. Very enjoyable. It was only on because it was in my CD player at the time and I didn't want to douse any fire by putting on my dressing gown, going downstairs, saying hello to my housemates in the living room, looking for a suitable CD and popping upstairs again with perhaps a wide selection for the lady to choose from. For me, music is more valuable to the experience if you don't know each other that well. It distracts from all the noises that serve to remind me that, "We were just talking in a pub/club a few hours ago with no intention of this happening. Now we're all naked and sauced up. WEIRD."

Boards of Canada was really nice once, particularly with the post coital lazyness. I think I prefer sex with music on the whole. I've never heared anything that has put me off, although corporate punk might just do it.

As for that special tune for first time sex, well it would have to be that Robin Beck song that was a hit in the late eighties, the one from the Coke commercial. That or Saint Elmo's Fire by John Parr.

11:15 / 03.06.03

testpattern, surely the Big Black album that would be most appropriate might be, I dunno, Songs About Fucking. Though it probably loses a few points over the subtlety factor.

12:12 / 03.06.03

This question gave me pause because my immediate thought was that I knew exactly what music I find sexy and what music I want to have sex to. However, I then realised how long it has been since sex and music went together in my life.....

Since I moved to my tiny room I've been out and about a lot more and hence have less control over what I listen to. Being a bit of a muscial snob/I know best type of person, I worry more about what my partner might play. One awful memory I have is of 'Medusa' by Annie Lennox being my partners disc of choice. Urrghh. (Shudders at memory). I just can't understand how this record is sexy, or indeed has any musically redeeming features. I digress. The sex was still good though - I think I just moved us out of earshot, like, upstairs.

During the carnal act, I like big sounds to get lost in. I think that music that moves me too much, or provokes too much of an intimate response in me, which is usually my music of choice, can prove to be too distracting to play during sex. Or anything French. Serge Gainsborough, The April March, Oh la la!

13:25 / 03.06.03

From the choirgirl hotel. Yes yes yes!

13:28 / 03.06.03

Also Cholister, I really like your point about silence and flexibility.
It made me think that sometimes sex is all about touch, or its about what I can see. Music can be irrelevant then.

13:36 / 03.06.03

i've been meaning to start a fuckmusic thread, so yay.

my. bloody. valentine. oh, yes. completely.
portishead, tricky, massive attack. (i find "mezzanine" just fine for vanilla sex, chol.

)
slowdive's "souvlaki."
the afghan whigs!!! and thus, the twilite singers.
mogwai.
sigur ros' "()" isn't bad (good for stoned sex), and boards of canada's pretty good too.

i have to be forgetting something...

i have roommates, one of whom is my sister, who has threatened violence if she hears any, er, noises coming from my room. so music is good and neccessary!

The Knights Templar Boogie Machine

14:36 / 03.06.03

mmmmmmmmm, a nice bit of nurse with wound to get things going,

merzbow for the maincourse,

and some merzbow for the afterglow....

at the scarwash

20:18 / 03.06.03

Yes, Mezzanine! Whooshmeeooww!!!

And of course, songs about fucking would be the obvious choice, but 8 Track is the better record.

Pirate Ven Will Teach You To Lambada (The Forbidden Dance)

20:19 / 03.06.03

I'm with Mantis--post-rock and trip-hop (Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Massive Attack, and Air especially...) all the way. And occasional slowcore-kind (Low and MBV come to mind) of stuff. Anything quiet/gorgeous/sexy.

And, while I don't agree with it at all, I find the concept of sex to Merzbow....interesting.

23:09 / 03.06.03

Reminding us all of the 'funny music stories' thread or whatever it was...

I was interested in this question because I find music generally sexy - music I like, I should say. Dancing is basically foreplay, and I love the way a good dance can slide it's way into good sex - when you're grinding to the same songs in bed you were on the dancefloor. I get totally turned on by dancing anyway - even if it's around the house when no-one's home.

Generally, I'd want to listen to r&b and hip hop during sex - although lately, dancehall is working its way in there. Last night I had sex to Justin Timberlake's CD, and the lyrics kept being spookily apt, ie 'gonna have you naked by the end of this song' as we were getting undressed, something about 'positions' as we were working our way through them. This was a source of much amusement, as was the idea of having sex to boyband music.

Matthew Fluxington

02:31 / 04.06.03

Massive Attack's 'Mezzanine' is goodly SM music, IMHO.

That one seems to go for a LOT of people. If you go through the Nerve personals, it seems like one in four people will list that as their "sexy" album, and on a NYC area televised personals show, I've seen at least fifteen yuppie type people say that was their favorite record to have sex to.

Personally, I dislike the album and would really not want to hear it under most any circumstances.

07:41 / 04.06.03

And, while I don't agree with it at all, I find the concept of sex to Merzbow....interesting.

i'm with Ash Ra on this one. i've had Merzbow's Venereology on during BDSM-y sex. it worked wonders.

more often, though, i'm definitely with everyone else on the trip-hop bandwagon, Portishead's Dummy and Tricky's Maxinquaye being personal favorites (especially the former - "Glory Box" still sends shivers down my spine).

also, the album Passion by (~coughs, blushes~) Peter Gabriel is very good.

09:18 / 04.06.03

DPC (do you mind being abbreviated in this way?), I'm also thinking that some R&B is v sexy. Jill Scott jumps to mind. I feel like I really shouldn't be liking Justin Timberlake, so I'm not going to go there.

The Natural Way

11:51 / 04.06.03

If someone put on Trip-hop and started sexing me I'd soon realise I was in Brighton.

Yuck.

I agree with Fraely St Elmo's Fire is where it's at. On a mountain. With explosions going off all around. And a rocket. And the universe imploding. And racing along, hair streaming in the wind in a Magnum red Ferarri.