Whatever kind of sex-education you had when you were growing up, odds are it didn’t do much to prepare you for the reality of sex.

Most of us rely on ‘on the job’ training – through a fair bit of trial and error we figure out what feels good and how to make other guys feel good.

But how do we know if we’re actually any good at the whole sex business? Reviews and feedback are difficult to come by and often not very reliable. It doesn’t take much for our anxiety to kick in – is the reason he doesn’t seem keen to meet up again because I’m a lousy fuck?

Adding to the complex landscape of our sexual anxieties is the subliminal – and sometimes overt – pressure to emulate the kind of sexual encounters that we see in porn. If I don’t leave him flooded and gaping, is that underwhelming? If I can’t handle being aggressively pounded by a huge cock, will guys still want to fuck me?

In this article, we’re going to take a look at some simple steps you can take if you’re thinking that you’d like to raise your game in the bedroom.

How to build your confidence in the bedroom and ease sexual performance anxiety

There’s obviously more to a sexual encounter than just getting naked, getting hard, and getting off. As well as being physically aroused, you also need to have an emotional engagement.

Emotional engagement doesn’t mean that you have to have ‘feelings’ for the guy. You probably don’t want to date him, you may not even want to know his name, but you need to be in the right headspace that gives you the confidence to connect with your hook-up and gives your body the green-light that it’s go-time.

Practice with Toys

If your psychological weak-spot is bottoming – that you feel like you’d like to be able to comfortably take bigger cocks, or be fucked harder, or you just want to ensure that you’re clean and confident and ready for anything, then practising with sex toys is an easy way to build your confidence.

Warming up with some toys is a useful way to test how effective your douching technique is. Toys can also help you safely test your limits and train your body to take bigger and harder.

Plan a gay meet-up at a local bar

Try delaying the sexual encounter. We seem to be living in an age of instant gratification – some of our sexual anxiety may stem from feeling rushed into getting naked and getting off. Some of us like to take it a bit slower.

If you’re negotiating a hook-up with a guy, instead of jumping straight to “my place or yours”, why not arrange to meet him somewhere neutral first. You can be clear that sex is still on the table, but having a quick conversation with him first might help ensure that the chemistry is right and that you’re feeling the emotional engagement that you need in order to bring your A-game to the encounter.

Gay Chat Websites

Sometimes our anxiety around sex can stem from not having the confidence or vocabulary to talk about sex with guys – particularly when the conversation starts with a dick pic.

Put the technology to work and get some practice in how to navigate those conversations.

Using gay chat and apps can help you to just talk to guys – it could be as simple as sharing experiences or it might be a way for you to connect with guys that share the same kinks and fetishes as you.

Using a gay cruising website or gay dating app to chat with guys and articulate what turns you on and what you’d like to do when you get together can help reduce the anxiety when the hook-up actually happens – you know what he’s expecting because you’ve talked about it beforehand.

Get more in touch with your body

Anxiety about sexual performance can stem from not being in tune with how your body responds to pleasure or not being able to relax sufficiently to just immerse yourself in the experience and trust your body to do its thing.

Kegel exercises are a simple starting point to help to train yourself to be a bit more in tune with your body. Another option is to explore some of the classes and courses that fall under the broad umbrella of Tantra. There’s online courses, in-person workshops, or you can book 1-on-1 sessions with a practitioner.

Tantra can include things such as meditation, breathing exercises, lingam massage, edging techniques, and orgasm control – any of which might help you overcome any sexual hang-ups that might subconsciously be holding you back.

We all know the importance of practising safe sex in the gay community. However, with the development of PrEP and TasP and the proven effectiveness in minimising the risk of the transmission of HIV, more men than ever are experiencing the unbridled joy of bareback sex. That being said, you may not be able to access PrEP and you may not want to have a status conversation with your hook-up, so how do you bring up the conversation of condoms?

If you’re looking for ways to get a potential hook-up to use a condom, this blog will help you start the conversation about condoms and safer sex, so you can better protect yourself and your partner.

Do Gay Men Need Condoms?

The answer to this isn’t as straightforward as it used to be.

Many of us learnt about sex when HIV was wreaking havoc on our community. Back then, condoms – or abstinence – were the only weapons we had against the transmission of the virus.

Today, things are different. The development of PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and TasP (Treatment as Prevention) has delivered us medication that – if adhered to – effectively eliminates the risk of HIV transmission. If you are HIV-negative, taking PrEP will protect you against the virus being transmitted to you. If you are HIV-positive, your medication will reduce your viral-load to “untransmittable” – this means that you won’t transmit the virus to anyone else, this is Treatment as Prevention.

But, for many men, condoms can still play an important and useful role in our sex lives.

For example, if you’re HIV-negative and not able to access PrEP, a condom can help reduce the risks of acquiring the virus from a hook-up who may be HIV-positive and not untransmittable. Men-who-have sex with men but aren’t testing regularly for STIs may not know their HIV status. These guys may be looking for a quick anonymous encounter as a cruising spot.

Beyond HIV, condoms also provide some protection against some other STIs.

How To Ask Your Gay Hookup To Use A Condom?

If you’re not sure about how to broach the subject of condoms with your hook-up, here’s some tips:

Be direct.

An upfront conversation that is clear and direct is the ideal way to communicate that you want a condom on if there’s going to be fucking.

You shouldn’t feel that you have to justify why you want a condom worn, but you should probably anticipate some questions or a bit of push-back. Make sure that you’re clear in your own mind why a condom is important to you.

If possible, it’s helpful to have had this conversation before you meet up. Whether it’s in your hook-up app bio, or you’ve mentioned it to him when you’re chatting. It can be a bit of a boner-killer if you start talking condoms after he’s travelled to your place expecting a bareback fuck-down.

Use “I” statements.

An important part of open and honest conversation is to speak about the topic in the first-person. This isn’t something hypothetical or a government-mandated requirement, you need to be able to articulate why this is important to you.

Again, you don’t need to reveal personal information if you don’t want to, it could be as simple as saying “I feel more comfortable using condoms when we have sex.”

Ensure that you are communicating your needs and desires.

Talk about risk.

Hook-ups generally aren’t the best time for in-depth discussions about stuff, but if you request a condom you should probably be prepared for the guy you’re getting it on with to hit you with some facts about PrEP and TasP.

Your hook-up might have some compelling arguments but remember that this is about your risk. You know your status, you know if you’re taking PrEP or if you’re untransmittable, you know your testing history, and you know who else you’ve been having sex with. If you feel that a condom would help you to minimise the risks involved in all of that, then that’s your business and it’s totally reasonable to insist on a condom if there’s going to be fucking.

Be prepared to compromise.

If you want a condom on during anal sex but your hook-up doesn’t, what are your options? Obviously, there’s other ways to get off that don’t involve fucking. Maybe you could explore mutual masturbation, stick to oral, or grease up and get fisting?

Be prepared.

If you want condoms used, make sure that you are equipped with everything you need. Don’t assume that the guy that you’re hooking up with is going to produce the condoms if it’s you who wants them.

As well as having the condoms handy – remember, they often break, you’ll need a handful – you’ll also need to ensure that you’ve got the right lube. If you’re using a condom, you need water-based lube.

Should you disclose your HIV status?

The stigma surrounding HIV is still fucking with us all, and questions around disclosure can get a bit complicated.

In some countries, there are laws that make it a criminal offence if you don’t disclose to a sexual partner that you are HIV-positive. In other places, it may be an offence if you “recklessly” transmit HIV – for example, if you know that you have HIV and you are not on medication but you have sex with someone knowing that you are likely to transmit the virus to them.

Putting the law to one side, in an ideal world we would all just talk openly about our status.

• “I’m HIV-negative and I’m taking PrEP, so we’re good.”
• “I’m HIV-positive and I’m untransmittable, so we’re good.”

The stigma associated with the virus often prevents us from having these open conversations.

Today, the general advice from sexual health experts is that if you are HIV-positive and you are untransmittable then there’s no “health” reason for you to feel obliged to tell your sexual partners about your status. You can tell them if you want to, but you shouldn’t feel obliged to.

Use Your Fave Hookup Squirt.org to Make It Easy to have Bareback or Protected Sex

Your Squirt.org profile makes it easy to share not only your sexual preferences for bareback cock, but with our IM chat features; it’s easy to get a conversation going and let another user know what you’re into, such as kinks and fetishes. Plus, with our jerkoff at-home amenities, such as video chat rooms, and explicit member videos, you can stay in with yourself and your hand and have some no-risk, high-reward solo fun.

Check In With Yourself

You can get caught up in the moment and do things you later regret.

If you feel that you didn’t consent to fucking without a condom, you need to rethink how that happened and what you can do differently to ensure that you are clearly communicating your needs.

If you’ve had sex without a condom and that is worrying you, go get tested. You may also want to speak with a counsellor or a therapist about your sex-related anxiety.

We all deserve to have great sex. We all deserve to have the sex we want to have.

Written by Gareth Johnson