How to Have Sex on Memory Foam

Without becoming one with the mattress

When I met my husband, he had a lot of the things I was looking for in a partner. One thing he didn’t have, though, was a decent mattress.

It was a spring mattress his mother gave him when she bought herself a new one. By the time either of us slept on it, it already had several years of wear - and you could really feel it.

It was uncomfortable. The firmness was uneven. It squeaked loudly whenever we shifted our weight.

I was having the best sex I ever had on the worst mattress I ever slept on.

It was fine. I had great sex on the seat of a train before, so I was a pro at making the best of an uncomfortable arrangement. But I still couldn’t wait to get rid of that mattress.

For our first anniversary, I booked the honeymoon suite at a hotel out of town and we spent a weekend fooling around, getting room service, and not worrying about anything.

The room had a Jacuzzi, but it’s the mattress that impressed me the most. I slept so well it was like I had taken a shot of Nyquil before laying down.

I told Mr. Austin one of my goals in life was to own a bed as comfortable as a hotel bed.

I didn’t achieve that goal right away. We bought our first mattress when we moved to attend university.

With our combined college student budgets, we had to shop at a store that bragged about its prices instead of the quality of its products. Even then, we could only pick from the mattresses with a “Sale” tag on them.

It was an improvement - the coils weren’t quite as squeaky as our last one - but I never let go of my dream.

I kept doing some occasional mattress window shopping and research to figure out which would be the most comfortable. And five years ago, I upgraded us to a nice, thick, king-sized memory foam mattress.

It was amazing for sleep. It was soft and sinking into it made you feel like you were drifting off to sleep before you even closed your eyes.

Sex, though, was a bit more of a challenge.

Sex on memory foam is kind of like fucking on a giant marshmallow: sounds fun in theory, but not that fun or easy in practice.

My sex life has improved over the years. And after being married to Mr. Austin for ten years, I’m having better sex than ever.

But it’s despite our memory foam, not because of it.

That Sinking Feeling

The sinking was nice for sleep, not so much for playtime.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. Having the mattress conform to our shapes meant that we had to adjust our positions a little bit, but it felt comfortable so that was fine.

That lasted about a year. After that, the mattress started losing some of its firmness and it was less like making love on a cloud and more like we were fucking on quicksand.

When I’m riding my husband, my knees sink in and it feels more like a high-intensity quad workout than a fun sex session.

Doggystyle’s a bitch, too, because my hands sink in and I don’t have enough support for my wrists.

Having Mr. Austin on top also causes problems. I used to like missionary a lot more, but now because of the sink, he often comes in at weird angles. It’s still fun, but it’s easy for him to slip out and that puts me at high risk of getting a dick stab somewhere unpleasant.

And I still like to get prone boned, but now it comes with a risk of suffocation. (If you suddenly stop hearing from me, know that I at least went out feeling good!)

No Bounce to the Ounce

Over the last five years, I’ve come to really appreciate the work those coils were doing, even the old, worn out ones.

Banging on top of them gave us a little extra bounce. It helped us keep a rhythm without having to just rely on the sheer force of our muscles.

Well, now we’re relying on the sheer force of our muscles.

When Mr. Austin is giving it to me, it’s like I get half of his thrust and the energy from the other half is absorbed into the memory foam. It’s like we’re having a threesome with the mattress.

I was hoping all that extra effort would make us buff - getting buff in the buff sounds like a great workout. But so far it’s only made us tired and sore.

The Wrong Kind of Edging

The sink in the middle of the bed is bad enough. But on the edges, it starts to feel like a hazard.

The sides of the mattress are soft and they start sloping down whenever we’re too close to it.

When we’re doing anything close to the edge, we feel a slight gravitational pull. Neither of us have ended up ass-on-floor because of it, but it’s really distracting.

How to Have a Good Time on a Memory Foam

Fucking on a memory foam isn’t hopeless. We’re not suffering from bed death just because of our mattress. But we did have to make a few adjustments.

First, we move around a lot. Sometimes, it’s to get in a different position or go from one sex act to the next. Sometimes, it happens mid-position just so we can get a firmer spot that doesn’t have too deep of a groove yet.

It feels like we’re trying to outsmart the mattress, and banding together against a common enemy has to improve our bonding, right?

Another strategy is to only have one of us on the bed. For logistical reasons (but also because I’m kind of a pillow princess), I usually stay on the mattress while Mr. Austin stands and does his thing.

We would do that anyway because those positions are fun. But now there’s the added benefit of Mr. Austin not throwing any of his energy into the void and can concentrate all of it on plowing into me.

Otherwise, we try to avoid the edges as much as we can. That means we treat our king-sized mattress like a queen-sized one during sex, but it still gives us plenty of room. (If we had a twin bed, I guess we’d just have to fuck on the floor instead.)

Pillows have also been super important. We can deal with some of the sinking and the weird positions we get into because of the dips in the mattress by shoving a pillow under my hips.

Wedges are even better. They’re firm, help with position, and can almost completely compensate for the memory foam. I personally use the Liberator Ramp and Wedge and they’re amazing.

If you make those adjustments, even a worn out memory foam mattress can support you while you get down and dirty. Plus, it’s very cozy for post-shag snuggling.

This post contains an affiliate link for the Liberator Wedge and Ramp Combo. If you click on it (or click here) and treat yourself to anything from the site, I earn a small commission and you’ll be supporting my work! And be sure to use the code LOVEEMMA at checkout to save 15% on your entire order!

If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Most Overrated Sex Acts (From Bad Bondage to the Worst Anal Position) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!