Date: 28 May 2020
Sensation play, also known as sensory sex play, is the exploration of the five human senses as a part of sex. It can be sensuous or stimulating, vanilla or kinky, funny and messy or soothing and nurturing; with five senses to explore you’re bound to find a way to play that stimulates your sexual appetite.
Although it is often known as sensory deprivation play, this type of sex play can also involve ways to stimulate, tease and arouse the senses. Some types of sensory play might include more adventurous kinkiness such as flogging or spanking, although much of it can be gentle and sensuous in approach.
It’s a great way to get to know your body, your partner’s body, expand your understanding of each other and find new ways to turn each other on.
Exploring the five senses
1) Sight
While we can’t be sure if love at first sight is real, we do know that eye contact is one of the ways we create flirtation
and can be a powerful way to build intimacy. 
Maintaining eye contact while pleasuring your partner is a simple way to increase the intensity and intimacy of the experience.
Playing with clothing and dressing up can be wonderfully playful and simple; from unexpected nudity to tease your sweetheart to dressing up or dressing down for each other. Playing dress up for your partner doesn’t have to be confined to sexy lingerie. Use clothes and costumes to explore different fantasies and visual stimulations.
Mirrors to watch or be watched in are an easy way to stimulate through sight. Another way is to watch porn together.
We love the Make Love Not Porn platform for its real life sex stories.
Having your sight taken away is another way to explore sensory play. Blindfolds, whether DIY or store-bought, can be a wonderful way to surrender control and allow your partner to tease and seduce you. Without our sight, feelings of vulnerability and awareness of other sensations are heightened.
What to try
- Eye contact while pleasuring your partner
- A scarf blindfold to plunge them into darkness
- Watch yourself in the mirror or play with mirroring your phone screen to the TV as you film yourselves
What to buy
- Gorgeous underwear to seduce your sweetheart
- Blindfolds designed to keep you, or them, in the dark
2) Sound
Whispering sweet nothings or filthy dirty fantasies is another free and easy way to excite your lover.
If talking dirty doesn’t come naturally to you, start with descriptions - how your partner’s body feels, how turned on you are, what you’re doing to them and what you’re going to do next. Too shy to say it yourself? Try reading erotica and using someone else’s words to excite.
If you have your lover blindfolded, using sound to tease them as to what might be happening can heighten anticipation and arousal. The unzipping of zips, the opening of champagne bottles, the lighting of a candle; choose sounds that clearly suggest what might happen next to ignite your partner’s imagination.
Music is also a powerful scene-setting tool - whether it’s a romantic song that reminds you of your first dance or a favourite soundtrack for your bedroom play.
As with eyesight, depriving your partner’s power of hearing can increase their sensitivity to other stimulations. Try using noise-cancelling headphones to cocoon them in silence, use them with a blindfold for an even more intense sensory experience.
What to try
- Your favourite seduction soundtrack on Spotify
What to buy
- Noise-cancelling headphones
- Erotica books
3) Taste
Everyone has a different sense of taste, some of us are saltier and some sweeter.
If you’re of a certain age you may remember the food scene in the film 9 and a Half Weeks, where Mickey Rourke feeds Kim Basinger different foods from the fridge.
You may even have imitated it yourself and discovered that some things are sexier when edited into a montage where you don’t have to do the clearing up yourself!
Handfeeding your lover different foods that stimulate their sense of taste can be either nurturing or erotic, depending on if it’s chicken soup or oysters.
Using food that can be spread and slurped off each other’s bodies can be intimate and stimulating - but clean up can be messy so be prepared! (And no-one wants a sugar-induced case of thrush from a ‘squirty cream in the vagina’ incident!)
What to try
- Feeding each other food with different textures and tastes
What to buy
- Flavoured lubes and body paints
- Easy to launder fluid-proof bed sheets designed for messy play
4) Touch
Being touched is one of the most fundamental ways to show that we love and are loved, from a fierce hug to a gentle caress, touch is essential to our sense of wellbeing.
Massage, erotic or not, involves different types of strokes and levels of pressure which can be relaxing or stimulating.
Oral sex is an intimate and fun way to play with different touch sensations; experiment with different pressures, pace and moves - sucking, biting, licking, slurping and blowing to find out what makes your lover squirm and squeal with delight.
Gentle teasing with soft textures such as feathers, silks or lace can heighten sensitivity in the skin; some people even find tickling erotic!
Temperature is a much-overlooked way to explore the sense of touch. Many metal and glass sex toys can be cooled with ice or warmed with hot water to give a new way to experience a familiar toy.
If you’re tempted to try something a bit kinkier, why not try impact play? Spanking is a simple way to start to explore this side of your sensual play, and if you both enjoy it and want to try more you can explore different impact toys such as floggers, whips and paddles which all deliver different sensations.
What to try
- Tickling with different fabrics and textures
- Spanking with your hand
- Caressing
What to buy
- Massage oil for sensual massages
- Vibrators with multiple pulse and vibration settings to tease and stimulate
- Whips, paddles and floggers to explore impact play
- Glass dildos for temperature play
5) Smell
Closely linked to our sense of taste, smell is the sense that can be the most evocative.
With just one single scent, we can be transported to a different time or place.
Wearing your favourite perfume can be a simple way to signal to your partner that you’re in the mood for intimacy. Or the comforting aroma of fresh coffee might be your way of telling them that it’s time for a lazy morning of lovemaking.
Scent can be used to set the scene and can be integrated into other sensual experiences. Scented candles or aromatics can be used to create a mood and scented massage oils can help stimulate, relax or seduce.
What to try
- Herbs, spices and other aromatics
What to buy
In sensory sexual play, as with all other ways to play, communication is the key to trust and safety. Discuss with your partner what you want to do before you begin. Plan the scene together and take an active role in choosing what will and won't happen, which toys and accessories to use. Maintain communication throughout your play and if something doesn’t feel good or stops being fun speak up; after all, it is supposed to be an enjoyable experience.
Not just for couples!
A lovely thing about sensory play is that you don’t have to have a partner on hand to indulge yourself. It’s easy to find ways to stimulate and arouse your senses when we’re alone.
Scented candles, glass toys and vibrators with different pulse settings are all ways to explore your personal desire and find out what turns you on.