what happened to fingering?

Think about the formative sexual encounters you had as a teenager. The ones just after the ones where you just you kissed someone. When things, went... further. Go on, this is a safe space. The nostalgia, the nervousness, the horrible Topshop outfits, the even worse Topman ones. The skinny jeans that made your skin red and your knees cold. The nervous, cheap, clumsy zips holding them up. A button being undone. A cold finger on the waistband of your underwear. A cold finger on the waistband of their underwear.

And then, fingering.

Formative experiences often went like this, and took place at a houseparty with summer on the horizon and the smell of spilled VKs nearby, when parents were away; or simply where we had a moment without intrusion. In these moments where clothes stayed on in case of intrusion, but there was a sexual tension that you both wanted to satisfy, fingering is what happened.

Until one day, it didn’t. You got old enough to start having sex (or simply had your own space in some form: student accommodation, a flat, a car, whatever), and for some reason, in hetronormative cis-gendered relationships, this ‘progression’ into a sex life involving actual sex meant that fingering got left behind. But why?

Anecdotally, this appears to come down to two things. Men not seeing the importance of foreplay, and probably due to that, men not being great at fingering – especially outside of relationships. A couple of people, both single at the time, have some observations on what it’s like to get fingered by a guy when having casual sex:

“If they're playing with your clit, they'll treat it like the crossfader on a turntable. And if they're actually fingering you, it's like just shoving in and out like you see in porn, which is just not good.” Says Sarah, 25.

“It felt like they were a wooden spoon and I was a large mixing bowl, and they were just like beating air into the cake mixture that was my sexual organs. Also I don’t know why the fuck it’s always one finger, like a gynaecology exam.” Says Maddie, 26.

Vivid analogies for bad experiences.

“Common porn can play a role in a man’s performance in the bedroom by providing him with unrealistic expectations of sex.” Says Melissa Stone, a sex and relationship expert, adding “it can lead them to focusing on techniques and activities seen in porn rather than focusing on his partner and their needs. Porn also leads to men overperforming,” by which Stone means men will generally be overly physical: too hard, too fast, because they want to show physicality.

Alex, a 24-year-old guy, who has sex with women says that “Honestly, I’ve just noticed I’ve had better results in bed from going down on people than fingering, so I tend to be keen to do that as foreplay instead. I also worry about accidentally hurting them with my nails, because that happened once.” Nobody has necessarily mentioned he is bad at fingering, he just… doesn’t really do it. Of course, within the context of one-night stands or more causal sex, calling out the other person for not performing a sexual act in a way that felt good could leave people in a vulnerable position – whether that’s for merely killing the vibe, or actively offending the guy.

While Stone says “it's great that Alex is aware of his partner's needs and is actively trying to make sure his partner is comfortable and enjoys their sexual experience,” she stresses that “Ultimately, sexual experimenting and ways of doing this simply comes down to personal preference.” Figuring out preference involves communication, being able to be vulnerable with each other, and time.

Either way, if practice makes perfect, the quality dropping when people finger less also makes sense. The two points together might well be why there’s such an acceleration in not fingering within heteronormative relationships. Either way, the women we spoke to who have sex with men agree that it’s fading out. “I'd say it's a very rare occurrence. I think looking at the last 15 or 20 sexual partners I've had, two of them have actually put the effort in and made me come from fingering alone.” Says Kate, 24.

When Alex is probed on what he meant by “better results” he said “well generally [my partners] sound more into it when I go down on them, but also an orgasm.” As this suggests, the framing around orgasms as the pinnacle of sex are very much still present within cis-gendered heteronormative men. In part, this is likely because men generally associate their climaxes with pleasure, the most pleasurable moment of sex. But also, likely, porn. Porn loves to make a point of orgasms, climaxes, and squirting. They’re the happy endings.

Porn often intersects with issues in modern sex and dating. From penis shaming through to men a having warped sense of what is pleasurable for people. Sarah says “when you watch men fingering women in porn is genuinely so aggressive, right? And there's no like, technique to it, it's just rough.” And in her experience, this has been emulated by people she is intimate with.

There’s also the fact that many men see giving an orgasm to a woman as a goal of sorts. Of course, there’s nuance, and this isn’t always the case, but generally, it is. Again, this is likely brought on by porn and media portrayals of what ‘good sex’ is. Orgasm shouldn’t always be the point of sex – nor should efficiency. Some people would like to be fingered if it was good, and they do when it is good. Sex can be good without an orgasm, especially for people with vaginas.

So how can fingering return? Guys can learn to get better at (and more confident in) doing it, ultimately. There is actually porn out there that teaches people how to finger, tutorials, if you will. Outside of pornography, there’s a lot of content on TikTok. This TikTok from a male content creator on “advanced fingering technique” gained almost two million views within two days. There’s videos making fun of the idea of men just using one finger, too (we can learn lessons from things that are bad, too). Interestingly, in the comments on one of them, interestingly, is “why use fingers when you can use your tongue”. The comment has over 22,000 likes.

Of course, educating yourself should merely be a basic foundation, the real lessons in how to be good at any form of intimacy come from the person you’re being intimate with. Ideally, you’ll both be comfortable enough to tell each other (nicely) what you like or prefer, and you’ll listen and remember what they like. Paying attention to body language is also a good shout.

“It's important that men and people with male genitalia learn about the female anatomy. Learn why it’s so important to do foreplay. Not only important, but kind of crucial, because it can be quite painful if you’re not wet, essentially, and you're having sex.” Says Charlotte, 24.

As a point of reassurance, Charlotte adds that the “worst sex that I have had, has never had anything to do with how big someone's penis is. It is those that just do not communicate and expect me to know what they want and assume they know what I want.”

Stone says “It is important for both partners to openly communicate their needs and wants in order to ensure mutual satisfaction.” And while this means communicating your own needs, it also means allowing yourself to ask the other person if what you’re doing feels good. Ideally, they’ll then be able to open up and tell you how to make it even better. Because, ultimately, that’s the point isn’t it? Feeling good.

*Names have been changed