Layering
Indirect pleasure through surrounding skin
Avoiding the direct route
We know we don’t need to tell you this, but the clit is super sensitive. Often what feels best is to avoid touching the exposed part and move the layers of skin around it, instead.
The skin works sort of like a soft blanket—you move the blanket and the blanket nudges the clit and that feels pretty darn nice. There are lots of ways to do it - and they each feel very different.
Avoiding the direct route
We know we don’t need to tell you this, but the clit is super sensitive. Often what feels best is to avoid touching the exposed part and move the layers of skin around it, instead.
The skin works sort of like a soft blanket—you move the blanket and the blanket nudges the clit and that feels pretty darn nice. There are lots of ways to do it - and they each feel very different.
The Low-Down on Layering
Less Is More
Layering Variations
From Least to Most Direct:
Laying It On Thick
Through Fabric – The least direct way to touch the clit is to put lots of layers between you and it. We’ll get to the best ways to use skin in a minute, but you can also touch through soft fabric, like underwear...
Expand detailThrough Fabric
The least direct way to touch the clit is to put lots of layers between you and it. We’ll get to the best ways to use skin in a minute, but you can also touch through soft fabric, like underwear.
Way up Top
7.8% of women prefer pressure and massage up on the triangle where the pubic hair is (or was—hey, no judgment.) This area is on top of a nerve network that’s connected to the clit. Remember, the exposed part of the clit is the tip of an iceberg (but the good kind of iceberg) and there’s lots more going on below the surface all around it.
Through the Lips - The Clit Sandwich
Yes, this is a thing! 1 in 5 women prefer squeezing the outer lips together around the clit like a sandwich. The clit then gets soft, indirect pressure because it goes through the thin hood skin and the thick skin of the lips. Some move the sandwich up and down or pull it out and push it in, so the skin inside slides back and forth around the clit.
Laying It On Thin - Through the Hood
We know the one thing you want from a research study about women’s sexual pleasure is a great casual clothing metaphor for your lady bits. Well we’ve got one for you: The clit comes with a sort of...
Expand detailWe know the one thing you want from a research study about women’s sexual pleasure is a great casual clothing metaphor for your lady bits. Well we’ve got one for you: The clit comes with a sort of sweater with a hood and low collar (like your favorite warm, fuzzy one that you’ve had forever)
Gliding Over
The least intense way to touch through the hood is to glide over it when it’s wet. Use pressure so gentle that your finger, tongue, toy or penis aren’t actually moving the skin, just sliding. The feather-light touch is softened by the hood even more and the result is ultra-gentle touch for very sensitive clits.
Moving the Hood
A bit more intense than gliding is moving the skin of the hood around over the clit. Try moving the skin over a knuckle on your hand with your fingers outstretched—you feel the hard knuckle underneath and you can massage it through the skin. You can’t really hurt your knuckle when you do that because it’s got a nice blanket of soft skin between it and your finger.
Moving Under
Still on your knuckle—if you push harder, you can actually slightly move the knuckle back and forth. You can even feel the pop as the knuckle slides back into position as you push past it. On the clit, this pressure can feel really strong, but it’s still protected by the soft skin of the hood. (You can, uh, stop rubbing your knuckles now.)
Fine Tuning
When Layering Is Best
As always, what feels best varies between women, at different stages of arousal and can change from day to day, but generally, here’s where the research says layering plays the biggest roles:
Warmup
During warm up, direct touch is usually overwhelming but layering can soften the sensation and make it feel good.
Build-Up, Approach and Orgasm
During buildup, approach and orgasm: finding your perfect variation of layering allows you to stimulate more constantly and with the pressure that’s needed to build orgasm - without the oversensitivity.
Rebuild and Multiples
After the first orgasm: the clit is even more oversensitive and layering is a very common way to soften the sensation and rebuild to a second orgasm. (See Multiples)
Bringing it to the Bedroom
Helpful Guidelines
- Repetition. An indirect touch may have to be repeated for several minutes before it feels good.
- Fine-Tune. Because the difference between “yum” and “ouch” can be incredibly tiny, it’s great to play the “optometrist game” to fine-tune. “Is it better like this or better like this? A or B?”
- Ladder Up. When in doubt, start with the most gentle, least direct layering (above the clit, on the hood) and gradually throw in more intense variations to see what feels good.
Most Common Challenges
- Don’t get discouraged. Even a few millimeters, or a tiny difference in angle or pressure can feel entirely different - so it takes fine-tuning - when in doubt, touch through more layers first.
- Upward swipes. The hood is natural protection during moves from top to bottom. But on the bottom it’s often unprotected, so swiping motions that go upward from below make direct contact. That feels far more intense, even with little pressure and that can hurt. A lot. So be careful with the upward strokes unless you start very gentle and find that it feels good.
- Too fast. Too hard. Don’t go faster when it feels good. Don’t press harder when it feels good. If it feels good, you’re doing it right. Stick with it!
