I used to say I am easy and mean I had no data. A man would ask what I liked and I would smile as if the question were a compliment. It was a vacancy. The first useful answer I ever had was a private list on the back of a receipt, written after nights alone, in a handwriting I did not show anyone.

How to know what you like in bed starts there: something specific enough to ask for, gathered when nobody is watching. Easy is a costume. It comes off the first time you want a thing you cannot name.

How to know what you like in bed when easy has been the whole personality

Easy is not a preference. Easy is a way of not being a fuss. I said it in my mid-twenties the way some people say they do not mind where we eat. Then I ate whatever arrived and wondered why I was still hungry.

What I actually meant: I will not slow you down. I will not risk a no by having a yes. I will treat your map as the official one. That is generous in the way that leaves you with no evening of your own.

A preference is smaller and ruder. Slower at the start. A mouth, not a hand, on the first go. The light lower but not off. Being on top so I can stop pretending the angle is fine. A sentence I have only said in my head. None of that is high maintenance. It is a list.

If you have only ever done what they like, you do not have mysterious tastes. You have a gap. The gap is ordinary. I lived in it for a long relationship and called it being good in bed, which is a phrase that should make anyone suspicious. Good at what. For whom.

Feeling more confident helped later. Data helped first. Confidence without a list is just better posture while you guess.

Solo as research

Nights alone are how I got the list. Not as a consolation, and not as a rehearsal I then performed. As research. What happens if I stay here. What happens if I take the hood out of the story. What happens if I think about being watched and then decide I do not want to be watched.

How to masturbate if you were never given a map is the practical version. Here I only need you to treat the hour as a lab you do not have to publish. Lock the door. No goal of a spectacular finish. Notice the bit that makes you go still, and the bit that makes you polite with yourself. Polite is often a no you have not said yet.

I used to skip the noticing. I would finish, or not, and then immediately get on with being a person who had not just done that. The useful nights were the ones where I stayed two minutes afterwards and asked, like an idiot, what that was. A grind. A thought. The fact that my own fingers were kinder than the last person who had borrowed them.

Write it down if you are a person who writes things down. I am, sometimes. A word is enough. Left. Slower. Mouth. I do not need an essay. I need a breadcrumb I will still understand when someone is looking at me and waiting for an answer.

If you do not want to touch yourself, you can still collect data. What you liked last time, even if you did not say. What you replay. What you skip when you are choosing. A film you close. A sentence you would like to hear. That is research too. Solo sex is one method. It is a good one. It is not a moral requirement.

The bit I got wrong was waiting to be surprised by a genius. Geniuses are rare. Lists are not.

A private list

Mine lived on the back of a sandwich-shop receipt for a month because I would not put it in my phone. The phone felt like evidence. The receipt felt like rubbish, which was the point. I wrote four things, two of them dull.

  1. Hand, stay, do not tour.
  2. From behind, slower than he thinks.
  3. Talk that is specific, not borrowed.
  4. I do not want to be flipped over as a surprise.

Dull is useful. Dull is what you can say out loud without a drumroll. The fourth one was the one I had been calling easy around: I would laugh and go with the flip and then spend the next minute finding the plot again. Writing "do not flip me" felt rude. It was the rudest true thing I had.

You do not have to show anyone the paper. The list is for you. When you are ready, you take one item off it and turn it into a sentence. Asking for what you want is that sentence, not the whole notebook.

If you are someone who likes telling a partner a fantasy, one item can be a thought rather than a move. I have a few of those. They stay on the list until I trust the room. Trust is part of the data. A preference that needs more safety is still a preference.

Keep the list somewhere boring. I moved mine to the notes app eventually, under a title that would not light up on a train. Do not perform the list. Do not make it a personality. Revise it when a thing stops working. I have crossed out items I was very sure about at 29.

Trying one new thing with a partner

One. Not a menu. I once offered three upgrades in a single evening and watched him nod like a man at a buffet who would later remember none of the salads.

Pick the dullest true item. Say it before the clothes are a problem, or in the middle if the middle is where it belongs. "Stay there." "I want your mouth first." "Don't flip me tonight." Then shut up and let them succeed.

If they succeed, say so. A small yes teaches faster than a speech. If they miss, correct once, kindly, the way you would correct a window. Not a mood. A fact.

I tried the from-behind-slower item with a man who had always treated from behind as a chance to prove he had been to the gym. I said slower, and I put a hand on his hip to mean it. He laughed, which I nearly took as a no. It was surprise. The night got quieter and much more mine. I should have spent that hand years earlier.

If they bristle, that is also data. Some people want you easy because easy is convenient. I have stayed with convenient people and called it chemistry. It was not chemistry. It was me doing two jobs.

You can try the new thing on a night that is already friendly, not on a night you are using to save a week. I have used sex as a repair kit. The repair kit cannot also be a product launch.

If you do not have a partner, the list still earns its keep. You will have one eventually, or you will not, and either way you will know what your own hour is for.

Preferences change

I liked being held down, a little, at 26, and then I did not, and then I did again with someone whose weight I trusted. The preference was not the hold. It was the trust. I had to learn that the boring way, by saying yes to a version that made me go polite.

I liked dirty talk that was meaner than I am, then I wanted looking and praise, then I wanted less talk altogether. None of those cancellations were a betrayal of an earlier self. They were weather.

Bodies change. Hormones change. A new person changes the map because their hands are not the old hands. I have had to re-research after a breakup as if I were a beginner, which was irritating and also accurate. The list is a draft.

If you like different things with different people, that is not indecision. That is context. I am not the same with someone who listens as I am with someone I am still auditioning for. The audition version of me likes less, because she is busy. The listened-to version has opinions. I prefer her, which is not the same as being able to summon her on a first night.

You are allowed to retire a favourite without a funeral. You are allowed to want last year's thing again in October. You do not need a brand.

What I kept from the receipt was not the paper. It was the habit of writing one true dull line when I noticed it, so that the next time someone asked I did not have to smile.

FAQ

How do I figure out what I like?

Spend time alone with the question, not only with a partner who is waiting for an answer. Touch yourself, or think, or remember, and write down the specific bit, not the vibe. Then try one specific bit with a person, if you have a person. Repeat. It is slower than a quiz and much less embarrassing than another year of easy.

What if I have only ever done what they like?

Then you have been paying attention to the wrong research subject. That is common, not a character flaw. Start a list from memory: what you replay, what you endure, what you would skip if you could. The endure column is still data. I built half my first list from things I wanted to stop.

Should I masturbate to find out?

It is the fastest lab I have. You do not have to. Some people learn more from kissing, or from saying no, or from a book they will not leave on the table. If you do use solo time, treat it as research, not as a rehearsal you then owe someone as a show.

What if I like different things with different people?

Believe it. A body is not a restaurant with one menu. Different hands, different safety, different jokes. Tell the person you are with the version that is true tonight, not the version that was true in another flat. I still get this wrong when I am trying to be consistent. Consistent is just easy in a smarter coat.

I still change my mind in October. Last year's favourite is allowed to retire without a speech.