Disclaimer: This post is based on the anonymous survey I posted last week about top mistakes people make in bed. Because the majority of the responses differed so much in their answers (even within both genders rather than just men vs women), I thought I would take those "mistakes" that were listed and turn them into quick, basic sex tips. Enjoy :)

So ladies and gents...

I have a terrible confession to make. During the majority of my first two years of college, I was a fraud. I faked how much I was enjoying anything remotely sexual. At times I even faked having actual feelings for some of the guys because I thought that maybe after a while I would convince myself that I wanted them badly enough that maybe I would enjoy what was going on. Now it's kinda tricky because at that point I had never engaged in penetrative or anal sex, but I had already done everything leading up to that, and most of those experiences were okay, but not nearly as good as any sexual encounter I've experienced from the end of sophomore year up until now. I could sit here, blame the guys, and say "well this one was a horrible kisser and that one had horrible techniques with his fingers", but the fact of the matter is that I never spoke up. Why not? Part of me didn't want to hurt their feelings. Another part of me wondered if it was just me or something wrong with my body. As it turns out, there are many people who have felt the same way that I did to some extent. Even though there were a wide range of responses to the survey I posted, the common denominator for everyone seemed to be that there were issues in the basics of their sexual experiences so I compiled a short list of tips based on those responses:

1.) More Foreplay

Even though most of the comments were completely different from one another, if there was one trend that was a bit more common than others, it would be this one. I cannot stress enough how much foreplay matters. I think one of the not so obvious reasons why guys tend to neglect this is because they may think that oral sex counts as foreplay without actually realizing that oral sex IS sex. There's still so much that must be done even before that in order to get your partner lubricated, especially women considering that on average it takes us about 20 minutes to become fully aroused for sex. Now 20 minutes may seem like a lot of time to kill, but we also need to keep in mind that women have more of an ability to respond to a wider variety of sexually stimulating cues.

2.) Better Understanding of Anatomy

This is another thing I cannot stress enough. Though this isn't as much of a common sense kind of tip as the others, there's still no excuse for anyone to not know where each body part is and the significance of the pleasure that comes with it's touch. For example, if you're going down on a girl you should know to focus on the clitoris as it is the center of pleasure for women and literally contains about 8,000 nerve endings. You should also know that it's protected by the clitoral hood (basically the equivalent of foreskin for males) so diving your tongue on it without initially making sure there's softer stimulation in order for the clitoris to fully bloom into its happiest form won't work. For another example, if you're going down on a guy you should know that the glans and the frenulum are the most sensitive spots on the penis. If you don't know where exactly to focus on, just ask if your partner can guide you or look up a diagram on google images.

5.) Receptivity 

The fact of the matter is that everyone is different so one thing that works for one person may not always work for someone else. Sex isn't a one trick fits all kind of thing, but people often go into it thinking that they know everything right off the bat up to the point where they don't even listen to their partner's true desires. You don't literally have to sit someone down beforehand and ask for a list of sexual Do's and Don'ts, but make sure you're listening to when your partner tells you that they like something, don't like something, needs more of this or more of that.

The funny thing is that these tips aren't anything revolutionary. In fact, they're probably more common sense than anything else. I just think that because of how obvious they should be, that the tend to be overlooked anyway. With that said, I don't believe that lack of mastering these basics makes anyone inherently bad at sex. There are some people who you'll naturally find yourself more sexually compatible with and some you won't. However, communication goes a LONG way, and as I said before, not every trick up your sleeves...or pants rather, works for everyone.