Your bag is empty.
I don’t even need to say it, but here it is anyway: Nobody is having enough sex.
There are a ton of reasons for that—complex issues like housing insecurity, financial instability and general existential uncertainty among them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s all true, but what if part of the problem is simply that people just aren’t horny enough these days?
In that case, there is a simple solution: We have got to be dry humping more.
This week, an older clip from comedian Nikki Glaser began circulating online, in which she asserts that more women would be interested in having sex if men pursued better foreplay, specifically dry humping. In the original conversation—from 2018 with Joe Rogan, of all people—she says, “We need to bring back dry humping. It is so hot.” She goes on to explain how making out and dry humping get her “revved up,” and that men are often too eager to get straight into penetration.
While the clip is several years old at this point, its resurgence is yet another development in a broader push toward underrated acts of intimacy. Over the summer, I argued that it would be a season of handjobs, as marked by a Subway Takes clip, in which an actor explained how they are underappreciated. Dry humping is similarly innocent in this way, an entry-level experience that most have discarded in favor of regular intercourse. But as Glaser explains, dry humping is uniquely powerful in turning people on. It’s a safe, almost nostalgic move that combines all the pleasure of two people rubbing up on one another and kissing with the novelty of being, well, fully clothed. That’s why it’s so great for winter: You get to stay nice and warm for as long as possible.
Glaser’s argument isn’t actually just that dry humping makes women hornier and therefore makes sex more pleasurable, which would be an entirely solid claim worth defending in itself. She says that dry humping will actually make a woman more likely to have sex with a man at all, and that she can essentially be “convinced” to have sex because of it. The idea that a woman can be convinced into having sex might sound like slippery territory, but there is plenty of other evidence to consensually support the idea.
For example, there is a wide body of research that shows that women’s horniness is generally considered to be “responsive,” or that her desire emerges through specific actions. Men, meanwhile, tend to have more of a “spontaneous” relationship with desire, in which they can be ready for sex essentially just by thinking about having sex. A woman might not immediately have intercourse on her brain, but after some making out and dry humping, she might be a lot more interested.
This is not to say that you should be trying to dry hump someone who isn’t interested in you, or assuming that dry humping will lead to sex. Don’t be stupid. But Glaser’s comments highlight the fact that a lot of women want to enjoy the buildup to sex more, and that foreplay could be conducive to future sex. Groundbreaking stuff, I know.
In times like these, though, it’s important that we get back to some of these basic ideas. Foreplay is good, our desires are something to negotiate with both ourselves and others, and that we should really all be slowing down and enjoying the process here. It’s a metaphor for life, really. Stop and enjoy the dry humping.
