Love your follow-up questions here! I’ll try to give a little feedback, and also want to note that from my experience, while it’s easy to read peoples’ comments and recounting experiences as if we must be kinky all the time, I have the stats from my last year and at least 75% of our sex falls under our routine bedtime sex. So we have plenty of that climb into bed, read for a little bit, and then kinda check in with a “wanna have sex?” before we turn out the lights. And of the 25% that isn’t that routine, a good chunk of it was regularly just the inclusion of a vibrator at bedtime, or maybe oral at bedtime, so it’s not all kinky all the time.
Here are my thoughts - tried to put in a building sort of order, but I think bullet 3 is really my short answer to your question:
- Scheduling/premeditating together to set the intention. We have the conversations through the week of - “I’m really looking forward to our date night” or “I’m really in the mood to dominate you this weekend.” Just helps to preheat the oven.
- We discuss the following sorts of questions through dinner, or driving home - this is the part where consent becomes sexy and a part of our foreplay. We’ll negotiate the expectations for boundaries and how assertive/aggressive to be in our play. Even if you don’t think you’re going balls to the wall, you should navigate safe words so that you know as you’re playing if you’ve gone too far, or if her resistance/fighting back/even saying “stop” is part of the game or genuine.
- One of my favorite ways to transition from a date to sexy night is as we’re getting home I tell my wife to go up to the room and get ready - I describe if there’s lingerie I want her to put on or to be naked, whether to set toys out or restraints, and any other mood things. Then, like you said, I can let the dog out, do a little tidying, whatever normal evening chores might be waiting, while she’s getting prepped. (Or vice versa - she’s set the same expectation for me). Coming into the room 5 or 10 minutes later to see my wife kneeling on the bed in something (or nothing) sexy inspires me to immediately declare my intentions and tell her what I want to do (or want her to do to me).
- Role playing sets up another space to plan together and transition to our play - if this is the route we’re going, we have a conversation of what’s the plan? What’s the character and setting? Who will be taking the lead or dominating? Then we will head to separate rooms to dress or undress for the play and reconvene to start our scene.
I hope that helps! At the end of the day, the biggest sex organ we all have is our brain and communication is how we get those organs to interact and our bodies are just the implements of the brain’s desires. The more that you build the communication around desires, expectations, boundaries, and joint planning the more skilled you will become at putting it all together.