How to Have Good Sex in the Summer—Even When It’s Hot as Hell

Summer goes down (heh) as the horniest season on record, with that itch reaching peak scratch in July and August. Guys cheat more during the summer (allegedly!), people try to lock down more one-night stands and internet searches for sex things spike during the warmer months, too.

The trouble is: Fucking when it’s really hot and you don’t have AC, or when that AC is not doing its job, is fucking miserable.

When you’re already overheated and sticky, being touched by so much as a single finger from another hot human hand is about as sexually stimulating as wrapping yourself in wet wool.

Still, the desire persists. It’s largely chalked up to serotonin’s mood-boosting powers, though it may also be a number of other factors: decreased melatonin (which thwarts sex hormones), exercising more and all that socializing and sultry lounging about while scantily clad.

So how do you reconcile your need to screw with the need to keep cool? Here are some practical tips for getting it on—even when your house feels like a pool of lava.

Cool Your House Off

Your first step at coordinating a tolerable summer sex sesh is to solve the temperature woes in your home. Anything that cools off your abode when you don’t have proper AC is better than nothing. Got a fan? Crank it. Got blinds? Close them. Got a natural breeze? Open the windows and direct that traffic. Fill up a bowl with ice and then place it right in front of your fan.

If you’re doing it in your bed, ditch the flannel sheets for cotton, linen or anything natural and breathable. If you have the foresight, people swear by these cooling pillows. Setting the lights down low won’t just help with mood but literal heat transfer, and it should go without saying that you shouldn’t be using this time to bake anything in your big stupid hot oven. If your bedroom feels like a cremation oven, remember that heat rises, so consider doing it on that cold tile floor.

Cool Yourself Off

A cool shower sounds like a perfect antidote to a sweaty body, but science tells us that making it slightly warmer than you’re imagining will actually do the trick. That’s because a shower that’s too cold ultimately keeps the core body temperature up over the long term. So shoot for around 33 degrees Celsius instead of 20–25.

Drink and Eat Right

If you’re going to eat anything, keep it light and keep it cool. Feeling stuffed and hot while trying to do it is a recipe for instant barf. Cold fruits and vegetables, popsicles, frozen bananas or even just some watermelon are a great, easy-to-digest way to cool down.

Since you were going to get tipsy anyway, serve up something extra ice-cold and refreshing. That could be very simple, like gin and tonics or extra cold beers, or go more advanced with light fizzy drinks that refresh. (Try an easy-to-make aperol spritz with lots of ice.) Demonstrate the incredibly appealing man skill of being able to whip up a seasonally and situationally appropriate mixed drink. If you’re sober, serve up some lemon or cucumber water or another refreshing beverage that says you have actual usable items in your fridge and you know what to do with them.

Have Sex in a Body of Water

In addition to showering to cool yourself off, you can always kill two fuck birds with one fuck by having sex standing up in a cool-ish shower. Or alternately, try fucking semi-doggy style in a bathtub filled with cool water — what Cosmopolitan calls the “Niagara Falls.”

Just don’t fuck in the ocean or on the beach, because the water is gross and the sand is nasty and can cause rashes or diarrhea. Also don’t fuck in a swimming pool, not just because you can get diarrhea there, too, but it also messes with a woman’s natural lubrication.

Try a Cooling Lube or Massage Oil

That said, there are both lubes and massage oils specifically for cooling down.

Try No-Touch Fucking

Of course, not everyone can get to a body of non-infectious-disease ridden water anyway. And not everyone can fit two people comfortably in a bathtub. So if you’re stuck fucking on land, you’re going to have to get into the kinds of positions that let things go inside or on their proper places without having to rub your bodies against each other. What’s the best way to penetrate someone without actually touching them? Imagine you’re playing Twister, but for fucking.

Options include:

• Doggy style: Note: Try to do so without grabbing her hips, or perhaps with hands only hovering around them.
• Reverse cowgirl: Bonus points if she can continuously bounce without ever making full body contact between her haunches and your abdomen.
• Woman on top: See above.
• The pretzel: This one is widely recommended for summer heat laziness, but, again, the problem here is too much skin contact. You have to straddle her left leg, and her right leg is wrapped around your waist. Friction equals death.
• In front of an open fridge: This one’s from behind but standing up with the refrigerator door open. To be clear: Any of these positions can be done in front of an open refrigerator. But please make sure the fridge is cleaned out first so that the sex isn’t fueled by cold air and the smell of rotten milk.

Eat It (or Beat It)

If the idea of rubbing sticky thighs or body parts together nearly cancels out the pleasure inherent therein, you can just stick with oral or masturbation. She can do it with her hands tied behind her back, you can do it propped up on a raft made of bags of crushed ice.

Go on Vacation

If none of this works for you, and you’re still way too hot to have sex but way too horny to ignore it, try a vacation. Yes, this requires disposable income, time off and a willing and available partner. But not only is there likely to be a good, commercially functioning cooling system in your room, but one survey found that some 64 percent of people say they always have sex on vacation.

Just remember: In all the frenzy to fuck, and the fog of the heat, don’t forget about protection. Alongside the rise in summer sex is, naturally, an uptick in STIs.

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Tracy Moore

Tracy Moore is a staff writer at MEL. She covers all the soft sciences like psychology, sex, relationships and parenting, but since this is a men’s magazine, occasionally the hard ones. Formerly at Jezebel.