Reader KL writes:
Can I get some advice? I’m a in my early-twenties and engaged to be married soon to my girlfriend. I’m beyond excited, obviously, but to be be honest I’m also insanely nervous about our first time together in bed that night. Neither of us have had intercourse before, and I’m not really sure what to do. I was just wondering about your thoughts on the best way to “start a marriage”, if that makes sense? What position is best? Should I groom and all that before hand? Am I too big or too small? What do we do for our first time? Where do most guys finish the first time? Does it really matter? Your blog seems like a safe spot to get some of these answers. Thanks for any advice or help you can give!
(Update: don’t miss the follow-up after KL and his bride’s wedding night.)
First of all, congratulations to you and your bride! Your decision to be obedient to God and abstain from intercourse before marriage will pay dividends for many years to come. Hopefully the two of you have had a candid and explicit talk about sex already to set expectations for your future together. (See: “How to talk about sex before you get married”.)
Second, let’s talk about some preparation for your wedding night. (This post will be written for the groom-to-be, since that’s who asked the question, but much of the advice is applicable for the bride as well.)
- Grooming. Yes, you should shave your man-parts before your wedding night! If a lady were asking, we’d also recommend that she groom her lady-bits. It’s certainly not necessary, but we find that it enhances hygiene and intimacy.
- Lube. Bring some water-based lube — you can buy it for $3 at Wal-Mart. No need for anything expensive or fancy. If you’re planning to have sex in the water you’ll want some silicone-based lube… but sex in the water is overrated.
- Towels. Put some hand towels near the bed. Sex is messy, and lube makes it even more messy. You’ll have more fun snuggling if you don’t have to constantly get up to wipe your hands.
- Research. Read these: How to Rub a Clitoris and How To Help Your Wife Orgasm. You may also enjoy the book “Sheet Music” by Kevin Leman — it has a chapter about making your first time great.
- Prayer. When you’re all naked and in bed with your bride, pray together! Ask God to bless your sex life, and thank him for your marriage. God wants you to have an awesome sex life, so don’t be embarrassed to pray for it!
Third, here’s a step-by-step plan for what to do when you’re having sex for the first time. This plan isn’t written in stone — be sure to adapt to what your wife says and does.
(Update: Several commenters have shared that they didn’t have sex at all on their wedding nights (for various reasons) — so don’t put too much pressure on yourselves!)
- Lay down with your wife. Hold her, hug her, kiss her, and tell her how much you love her. Touch her all over her body.
- Lay your wife on her back, and lay yourself next to her on your side so that your dominant arm can reach between her legs (your other arm can go behind her head). Apply a pea-sized dab of lube to your wife’s vagina. Rub the lube around her vulva and up onto her clitoris, making the whole area slick. Your wife may or may not produce much natural lubrication — every woman is different, and she might be nervous.
- Rub her clitoris and vulva a lot, as described in the research links above. Continue holding her and kissing her. How will you know that you’ve touched enough? She’ll get flushed, breathe harder, and beg you to penetrate her. It might take a while for her to get really aroused, but there’s no rush — it’ll happen.
- Ideally you will be able to bring your wife to orgasm now with your hand or your mouth. (She probably won’t have an orgasm when you penetrate her, so this time is for her!) Ask your wife to look into your eyes while you touch her, and maintain eye contact. Use tiny, fast, gentle circular motions on her clitoris until she climaxes in your arms. Watch her face! Absorb the experience. This will be one of your most precious sexual memories.
- After she climaxes, keep her on her back and move yourself on top of her, laying between her legs. Missionary position is easy and intimate for your first time. Rub the head of your penis up and down over her vulva and between her lips. This motion should drive her crazy, and it also gets some lube on you to ease penetration. If the lube has dried, apply more lube! You may need to use your fingers to spread her lips and position your head directly against her opening.
- Look into her eyes and tell her how much you love her. Ask her to maintain eye contact again while you penetrate her. Wait for her to invite you in. While you’re looking into each others’ eyes, slowly slide your penis into her. Go slow and be gentle — it might hurt her a little, but if she’s lubed and warmed up it shouldn’t be too bad. If it hurts a lot, slow down and work on enhancing her arousal. Follow the cues her body gives you.
- Once you’re in, continue kissing her. Move slowly in and out until you have an orgasm. Unless you have some reason not to, the best place to ejaculate is inside her vagina.
- Has she had an orgasm yet? Ask her if she wants one. Use your hands or mouth to satisfy her. If she doesn’t want one, that’s fine also.
- Continue holding each other and snuggling for as long as you want.
I hope that plan is helpful! If any readers want to share a tip for newlyweds please leave a comment!
Please use the contact pages for Sexy Corte and El Fury to send us your questions. We will only share your question if you give us permission, and we’ll never reveal your name or any other identifying information. You can ask questions anonymously, or use a free anonymous email server like Mailinator.
I’d like to add one more thing because I have heard the story from more than person also experienced it first hand. Be okay with not having sex the first night. If you are having anything but a simple courthouse ceremony, weddings are complicated and stressful things. You have so much to plan, so much to put in order, and still the whole day to go through. Your bride may not yet be ready to separate from all that. In my case, we were exhausted. We took a bath together and spent quality time, but we didn’t have sex until the next day. The world didn’t end and I lived through having waited one extra day no worse for wear :). Just wanted to put my two cents out there, especially if in all the hoopla, you haven’t sat down and really talked about it.
Hmmm… if you say so ;)
I will concur with SPL. Our wedding day ended up falling at the wrong time of the month for my wife, so we actually ended up waiting a couple of days, and it didn’t ruin our wedding nor our marriage. I mean, it’s ok that you want to experience this the night of your wedding, but you also should have perspective: Your wedding is a life-long commitment. You’re not going to care about having waited 24 hours extra when you celebrate your second anniversary, let alone your tenth or twentieth.
You’re right, of course :)
I agree with SPL, and would add that she might not climax.
It seems that they have to wait until after her orgasm (# 5) for him to enter her.
Because of following you for a while, I don’t think that is your idea?
Another tip might be to undress each other slowly and enjoy the differences in each other’s body and garments.
I commend this young man for wanting to make his wedding night special. However, a true marriage can last for 60 – 70 years which means 1,000’s of sexual sessions. 42 years and counting for us. Sex is still fun and filled with stages of boredom and euphoria.
Another book I would recommend, since I wrote it for husbands is Cracking The Marriage Code, https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Jerry-Stumpf/e/B00QXSM2PO
Shameless plug I know!
Jerry Stumpf recently posted…3 Intimate, Enchanting Components to Gently Nurture Your Marriage Bond
Generally good advice, but I would strongly advise against shaving down there, unless you want to keep on doing it all the time. God designed your body with hair, and it works with hair. Shaving might be fun if that spins your wheels (and it might be something El Fury personally likes to do), but your skin down there isn’t exactly smooth so you’ve got a strong risk of either cutting yourself or doing a poor job of it, and it will rapidly grow back to stubble, and that’s not fun, so you’ll have to either keep shaving or go through a frustrating period of discomfort while waiting for it to regrow… This is one of those things I’d class in the “experimental” category, to play around with later on. It has the potential to be a complete disaster the first time you do it, which you don’t want on your wedding night.
For the wedding night, just take some lube (you’ll probably want that). Just take time learning about each other’s bodies together. It will be fun. Stuff will go wrong. You’ll laugh about it and end up with private jokes you giggle about for the rest of your marriage. Don’t stress about trying to make it perfect – it won’t be perfect. Don’t stress if she doesn’t climax – just make sure she’s having fun. You’ll get better and better at this all your lives, sex just gets better and better, and it can only do that if it’s not perfect the first time.
Congratulations, and have fun!
Great tips! Relax and have fun.
Good point about shaving: you can possibly cut yourself, and yes, hair does grow back.
We were not successful our first night together. It was painful for me, and he was not ever able to get in on our wedding night. We were also told that it may not happen on our wedding night, and honestly, that was really helpful information. It put us both at ease that it didn’t happen. I know this was a huge worry for my husband, because we had waited to have sex. As much as we worked to make it happen- it just didn’t. You know what? It was ok. We had experimented together and did something new. It was hard, we weren’t successful, but we were very happy to be married. The next day, we tried again, and it did happen. It took having sex a few times that week before I orgasmed. I think that the best thing for a couple is to realize that sex can and will be great. They will get better. Don’t get frustrated. Just keep working together and trying.
Keelie Reason recently posted…Is Dirty Talk Ok In The Bedroom?
Well, I learned something new. I honestly had no idea that not having sex I on your wedding night was so common. Of course it’s ok! We humans put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform :)
Hahaha. Yeah, I am sure that there are plenty of people that make it on their wedding night, but plenty that don’t for whatever reason. We tried and tried. Eventually, we just couldn’t keep trying. Maybe I was exhausted and not relaxed enough, I don’t know. I did almost fall asleep in my pasta at dinner. :D And of course, no one tells the groom that he’s going to have pick 5,000 bobby pins out of his bride’s hair and figure out how on earth to get her out of her dress. I feel bad for grooms these days. My sister-in-laws dress was so complicated to belt her in, that it took 4 of us ladies trying to figure it out. There’s no telling how long it took them to get that dress off of her. :D
Keelie Reason recently posted…Embrace the Pain In Your Marriage So You Can Be Healed
With the right motivation men can become quite proficient at unhooking and unpinning!
Ha – the bobby pin thing is so true. I remeber the cup holder of our car was full of them as she was pulling them out on the way to the hotel at the airport.
As for shaving, I also dont recommend it…I recommend waxing. I’d wait until you’ve had plenty of exposure to eachother’s tiddily bits, but I personally much prefer being completely clean down there. I used to shave, but its a big hassle and the wax only takes about 15 minutes. It takes long to grow back as you go.
A wonderful article, very useful. You didn’t mention however, that the husband should be very patient the first time, as Christian couples who are both virgins have to face the fact that the penis will be breaking the hymen, and this may well cause bleeding.
So, a tip-How about more than one? I’d say for preparing/sex itself, take time to relax. I’ve learned to be patient in anything. I’d love to exemplify that here but I think I better stick to the topic: hmmm, communicate and thank each other/God !! Might start off by reading your Bible-, wise.
Then, if you see this in your mind as amazing,..one massages the other, oh, in a comfortable area (your idea, recliner, couch.) Try this: kiss your mate while massaging.
Lady could wear a dress with legwear-something easy to remove. Keep up the chat…laugh, maybe share stories. Lay down on a supportive exercise mat and kiss-may find it so comfy. If both are set, switch to woman-on-top, using undressing in this position as foreplay.
She may try using sexual motions while taking off the dress. With his dress shirt, she can undo it, making way to lick his bosom if desired. Next, the wife tries pulling her stockings down, making sex possible now-if desired. Admire the other’s Christian qualities and their eyes. She can continue yanking her stockings until off. Tip: she squeezes her breasts together to cue him to pleasure her choosing an act that is unexpected, yet agreed on. Her reaction, saying “Mmmmm”, “yes”, or his name. Also, wife squints her eyes, tilts head back and shuts her eyes.
To cap it off, just might want to carefully try: standing on an exercise mat with woman’s backside facing the man’s front side of body. This is for what I’d name “reverse” position: man’s genitals penetrate hers from behind, going between her legs. This could be quite a time. Optional: male grips her soft white hips and experiences a very different set-up.
It may seem strange at first or look hot in a mirror. I’ve heard that some video tape their kissing, laying/kissing, sex, whatever, obviously for just them two to try viewing later. I’d write that it depends on your psychology/pact making. God created our nice looks. Oh, you probably want to “express/make” love face to face as you end your time. I also think that some men find the hips to be amazing to see. Thanks.
I have a question, I’m a pure Christian woman, and I want to know the benefits of waiting til your wedding night to finally get it in.
Hi Manna, we’re planning to write a post on this topic pretty soon. Short version: the advantage is twofold. 1) You’re obeying God. 2) You’re setting yourself up for success in your sex life when you do get married.
Thank you
Great advice for the wedding night. Couple of thoughts based on my experience:
1. Don’t be afraid of “failure”. Things may not all go according to plan. You may not be able to have complete intercourse the first night, she may not be able to orgasm, she may be on her period, he might have trouble with premature ejaculation etc. It took 3 nights before I was able to get all the way inside DW and 3-4 months before she experienced an orgasm. I would recommend planning to go all the way but don’t get bummed if y’all don’t quite make it. Its a learning experience. Just have fun.
2. I think it is important to understand that most guys think as much about the wedding night as most girls do about the wedding (there are also many women who anticipate the wedding night just as much as the guy). Therefore the wedding night should be as thoroughly discussed as the ceremony.
Engaged couples should seek a private place (preferably without a bedroom or easy way to engage in sex) and have a rundown. How do they want the wedding night to go? Do they want to have him undress her or for her to do a strip tease. Does he want her to wear lingerie, the wedding dress, something else? Do they want to skip the undressing part all together and just meet up naked in the shower? What positions do they want to try? Do they just want to be spontaneous and have nothing planned? etc. etc.
3. Be slow and sensual. Hopefully this is the bride and grooms first sexual experience* and it can be a little overwhelming at first. My wife was a bit startled when she saw an erect penis in the flesh for the first time. I know the natural inclination for a guy after the door closes is to just rip her clothes off and get at it but that isn’t the way to go (unless that is what she wants).
Instead go slowly and spend time exploring each others bodies (a full length mirror is great for this). I would recommend that the husband undress the wife and trace, explore, and lovingly comment on each part he uncovers. Use the Song of Solomon chapters 4 & 7 as a guide.
A. Avoid the obvious sexual parts at first and comment on her other features, hair, eyes, lips, feet, etc. Slowly remove articles of clothing in turn (socks, pants, shirt, pieces of lingerie not covering sexy bits, etc.) Give a generous amount of kisses.
B. After this she should only have a bra and panties left on. Carefully unhook the bra and let her breasts come free. This is a very special moment. To me this is when my wife and I became sexually intimate. Do all the things you planned to do with them (but slowly); kiss them, squeeze them, suck on the them etc.
C. At this point the husband should put his hand into the underwear and start stimulating the clitoris. Hopefully she is already producing lubrication. Then after a little bit remove the underwear and take in the sight of her fully naked body while continuing stimulation.
D. At this point she should be very aroused and you can move to the list in the post above.
Note 1: It might be a good idea for the wife to give the husband a handjob for his first orgasm. Reasons include PE concerns, intercourse not quite working out on the first go, the wife wanting to see how her husband’s arousal cycle works, or helping the wife get over her shyness for things sexual. If this idea is pursued I would encourage the wife to let her husband ejaculate on her breasts, stomach, or some other part of her body. Its okay though if this is too big a step for the first time.
Note 2: The guy should tell her how is he is feeling emotionally as he is unwrapping her. Women are far more emotionally minded than men and sometimes don’t realize how emotional sex is for a man. Telling her how she makes you feel emotionally is a great way to connect with her, arouse her (the brain is the most important sex organ), and help her realize sex is more than just physical.
*Even if the wedding night isn’t their first sexual experience they shouldn’t think of themselves as “damaged goods.” Everybody has fallen short in some way and God still wants them to have a marriage bed filled with joy and pleasure.
SLS, great pointers! Thanks for sharing. I want to link this from the front page when I get a chance.
Umm.. There is nothing that’s not hygienic about pubic hair, it’s totally natural, and we have it for a reason. It decreases friction during sex and shaving it can cause a host of problems for some, like increase risk of infection etc… it’s also a “dry lubricant” so getting rid of it isn’t necessarily the best advice in my opinion…
My wife and I have done premarital counseling for 20 years. I love a whole lot about this site and the open and honest conversations about Christian marital sex. However, I have some concerns about the candid list of questions that you suggest for premarital couples. So much if the “what I want and what I like” questions are almost always going to be tainted by porn or at least, “back alley” conversations with friends that have no idea what they are talking about. If a couple is committed to the Lordship of Christ in their marriage, they will work out what God has for them sexually. God’s call to our mate completely supercedes what tainted views we have absorbed from this sex-soaked culture. Yes, we need our eyes wide open in the selection of our mate, but submission to one another (Ephesians 5) and to the Lord will overcome sexual disparities based on family of origin or previous experiences. This is one area where we truly need to “Let go and let God…”!
Thanks for the comment, and thanks for your many years of ministry.
We completely agree that each couple should follow the guidance of the Bible and the Holy Spirit for their sex life. Our view is that today’s culture is no more tainted or sex-soaked than average for human history.