Some call it “soaking.” Others: “parking,” “marinating” or the “Provo Float.” Or my personal favorite: the “dock and talk.” The definition, however, remains the same every time: when a person inserts a penis inside a vagina and… that’s it. No thrusting, no grinding, no climax. Just pop it in, and hold the fuck still. It’s “like ‘planking’ only your dick is inside of a Mormon,” Urban Dictionary explains.
The maneuver was allegedly popularized at Brigham Young University, a Mormon institution famous for insisting its students abide by church-dictated chastity. As Redditor Easilyremembered explains in the r/exmormon forum, “soaking” is considered by some — including the church — to be a loophole. He remembers the term “insertion without thrusting,” being used freely at a Sunday lesson attended by teenage boys, adult leaders and the bishop.
Sexually frustrated Mormons and evangelical Christians alike have adopted “soaking” as the next best thing to premarital sex. Case in point: TheFilthiestCorndog, whom I met in /r/cringepics, a subreddit featuring “images depicting awkward or embarrassing social interactions.”
In Corndog’s second year of college at a state school in Indiana, he started rounding third base with a religious virgin named Ashley…
I was 21; she was 20. She was Presbyterian, but the attachment to her virginity had more to do with not wanting to displease her father than the religious aspect of it. She had this “purity ring” she wore on her left ring finger from her dad that represented her promise to remain a virgin until she was married. I, on the other hand, wasn’t religious at all. In fact, I probably could’ve been considered an anti-theist back then. I would actively seek out conversation and argument with theists to get them to question their beliefs because I felt religion was that manipulative and harmful.
Her and I would fool around often — dry humping and performing oral sex — but she was adamant about maintaining her virginity. I wasn’t a virgin. I’d had a previous long-term relationship with regular sex and two other partners besides that. We dated for a little more than a year, and our fooling around got progressively more intense until it was both of us naked and I was just rubbing the shaft of my penis up against her clitoris to bring her to orgasm.
The first time we “soaked” we were on the floor of my living room, and she just asked me to put it in but not to move it around. We never referred to it as anything in particular — we just did it. I think if I’d given it a name like “soaking” or “floating” she would’ve been pretty upset. It wasn’t premeditated — she just had a strong desire to have sex and was willing to push the boundaries of her virginity as far as her sensibilities would allow.
There wasn’t anything special about this “maneuver” — we would just lay in the missionary position motionless — but it was hot as hell. All of that buildup and anticipation made it super exciting. Needless to say, it didn’t last long. After maybe 2 minutes of just laying there as motionless as I could, I pulled out and came on her stomach. I don’t think she came.
She most definitely still considered herself a virgin after that, continuing to wear the ring and alluding to it in our private conversations. I don’t know what her rationale was, but she still said that she was going to wait until she was married to have sex.
We did it three or four more times after that. There was always squirming on both of our parts but never any real thrusts. I guess squirming is technically moving, but it’s not like her preacher was reffing the event. I was inside of her; it felt good; and sometimes we would kinda grind involuntarily. It was torturous for both of us, but it was going as far as she could justify going.
No rules were laid out, but she did clench me up and ask me to stop moving if I was getting too wiggly.
What was she was getting out of it?
Probably the same thing I was: It felt good, maybe not as good as full-on sex, but she wouldn’t know that and she was too ashamed/guilty/scared to find out.
The other times certainly seemed more satisfying for her than me, though I’m only making assumptions off of her physical reactions during the act. We didn’t talk about it too much afterward; it was more just something that would happen if we were really getting hot and heavy. Personally, I was mostly just frustrated. My satisfaction was only from the anticipation from the first time we did it; the other times we would always finish with oral or the like.
She cried a few times about it because she felt like she was violating a sacred oath, but still asked me to do it occasionally when we were fooling around.
We only stopped because I broke up with her — in no small part because I was incredibly sexually frustrated. I was still enamored with her; I just wasn’t going to play this pseudo-sex game anymore. Of course, there were other issues, too: I wanted to spend more time with my friends. We’d both get insecure and jealous. Neither of us were ready to settle down.
But the “floating” didn’t help.
I found it a little emasculating as well, though this wasn’t something I fully grasped at the time. I’d always assumed that her desire to keep her virginity would pass, especially because of how far we’d go when fooling around. Once we “floated,” I thought for sure it was only a matter of time until we went the rest of the way. When I started to realize that it may not happen, I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me.
We’d gone so far that, in my mind, I’d already taken her virginity. Why then was she so unwilling to admit that to herself? I began to think she was unwilling to admit the loss of her virginity because I wasn’t the kind of man she wanted to lose it to. That messed with me on a subconscious level and made me resentful. We would talk about it, which was one of the ways I found out that she still solidly considered herself a virgin. She was adamant about maintaining her virginity until she was married and assured me it had nothing to do with my sexual prowess.
Later on, I also realized we never would’ve stayed together even if we’d had sex. I respected her, but I think we both knew after dating for a year, our relationship wasn’t going to end in marriage. We gave it a good go, but we weren’t all that compatible for a long-term relationship. She wasn’t about to marry an atheist, and at that time, I wasn’t about to marry a Christian. Plus, I was pretty hard-headed and liked to argue, and she was pretty hard-headed and liked to argue.
What happened to her purity ring?
I don’t really know.
I do know she still wore it regularly when we broke up. And that she’s married with a daughter now. So it’s probably been replaced with a wedding band.
C. Brian Smith
C. Brian Smith writes hard-hitting gonzo features for MEL, whether it be training with a masturbation coach, receiving psycho corporal treatment from a spank therapist, or embarking on a week-long pleasure cruise with 75 Santa Clauses following their busy season.
