Here’s the conundrum: after having met my potential fellow sex mates in some discrete coffee shop, usually a Tim Horton’s because Canada, establishing that we have chemistry and bringing them home to my boudoir, I want to play music during sex. I don’t want songs that are overly sentimental or lovey-dovey. I want to start with music with a good steady beat, move on to long, slow licks. Perhaps even returning to the more rhythmic compositions and then end something instrumental and sexy for post orgasm bedroom talk. Nobody’s lighting up a post-coital cigarette in my bed. The last guy that did that almost set the mattress on fire when we fell asleep.

Both my husband and I have tried various playlists I’ve made for our sexual adventures with others and each other. Apparently one of his lovers complained when Florence + the Machine’s “Never Let Me Go” came on. She thought it was too poppy, poppish?

I have my favourites: Sophie B. Hawkins’ cover of Dylan’s “I Want You,” and “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover,” and “Before I Walk On Fire” but a lot of her Tongues and Tails album is just a bit too weird to unleash on strangers. I had my first really good orgasm (at the age of 37) to that song when Brian sat upright in a chair and I slowly slid onto his cock. His anti-anxiety meds kept him hard and he couldn’t cum. Later on, we lay on the parquet floor beneath his drum set, beside beer bottles and cigarette butts and I had to remove his heavy arm after he passed out from all the Grant’s Whiskey he drank after fucking me.

I find a lot of men don’t seem to like hearing Jeff Buckley. One guy stopped in mid-lick when Jeff Buckley’s “Everybody Here Wants You” (Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk) came on to tell me he just didn’t like Buckley. And he wasn’t the first to say so. The licks stopped. I think they’re jealous of his seductive voice and come hither looks. I mourn Jeff Buckley who died much too soon, on the day of his death every year.

Some lovers don’t notice the music and don’t care what comes on. Is it wrong to generalize and say that those who are not interested in music make poor lovers? I can only speak for myself.

Sometimes I like the beat, but the lyrics are clearly wrong for sex. I love Concrete Blonde’s “Take Me Home” from Group Therapy, but the song is about a drunk who has to be rescued and is a sad lovelorn bit of nostalgia about bar flies and loneliness. But I fucking love Johnette Napolitano’s voice. Heck, it still works pretty well. I have licked a lot of cock to this song. Life is beautiful and terrible and strange. I offered sex to the guy who recommended this album to me. He had been involved with an older woman in his early twenties and he still pined for her. We never slept together and he moved to BC. I wrote a sad, erotic tale about the experience called “Sex with An Old Woman.”

Joan Armatrading’s “Down to Zero” and “Love and Affection” are great songs. Her voice is so sexy it sends chills down my spine, but her songs are often about jealousy and heart ache, which are inspiring subjects, but kind of a downer when you want to enjoy yourself.

Tavish Graham’s “In My Soul” from the Rachel Getting Married soundtrack has it all: a great beat, good rhythm and repetitive lyrics.

Danger House and Sparklehorse’s song “Dark Night of the Soul” from the eponymous album has a kind of creepy megaphone like sound, but the beat and piano are just right.

Many of my playlists start with Depeche Mode’s “Angel of Love,” “Slow” and “Heaven” from Delta Machine and “Personal Jesus” from Violator because the beat of both songs is just right for a good slow fuck with the guy on top and sweaty. I went to bed with a welder who had two Prince Albert Piercings. He had to go slow because those things could be damn painful. If I had a sexual bucket list, I’d include fucking someone with piercings to the list. I’d like a woman with a tongue piercing to lick my clit, for example. I just need the right song.

An early song on the playlist is “Sour Cherry” by the Kills from Midnight Boom. It’s a little feisty and makes me feel confident and sexy. Complement that with Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” from Substance. Ian Curtis’ voice is so damn sexy, another sad loss.

I have been groped by a 6’5 handsome Israeli on my couch to “Black Velvet,” the Alannah Myles song, covered oh so sexily by Lee Harvey Osmond on Dominonated, but the guy turned out to be a right-winger who wouldn’t use condoms, so as much as I loved the way he ate me out and loomed all over me, I had to say no to future adventures.

Nine Inch Nails’ “Get Down Make Love” from Pretty Hate Machine is a bit too freaky and distracting for sex, in my opinion. The sound of a woman moaning and the authoritative voice asking her questions about sex is kinda hot, and the beat is good, but I dunno…maybe a bit too obvi?

I fucked a beautiful young blond who was into metal and he recommended Judas Priest, the Sad Wings of Destiny. I lay on top of him during “Dreamer Deceiver.” His cock had a gentle curve that I almost got off on. I don’t usually cum from penetration, but I came close that time…dreamer, deceiver.

There are some who prefer playing whole albums during sex. They might choose the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, but it’s too monogamous for my purposes. I don’t want some guy I picked up from Snapchat to get the wrong idea.

I save the more hard-core, freaky music, such as “Submission” by the Sex Pistols and “Venus in Furs” by the Velvet Underground, Nine Inch Nails’ “The Only Time” for those exceptionally high libido days when I’m thinking with my little head. A surgeon with a monster cock got an exceptional blow job from me during “The Only Time.” I admit I flash back to that cock every time I hear the song.

Here’s the most recent playlist I made for sex with strangers: http://tinyurl.com/y6pw9lh3

Here are a few other promising sex playlists, but for me they have songs that are just too monogamous or love focused to use for my sex with strangers playlists, but that might work great for you:

Queer Summer (but it’s a bit short): http://tinyurl.com/y22g4dsg

Slow Down Love, a playlist by Jessica Romero : http://tinyurl.com/yxfsjg3w

Songs I’ll Eat You Out To: http://tinyurl.com/y4ls52ky

Sex Songs (Hip Hop/R&B) [this one has a decidedly feminist tone, including Ariana Grande’s God is a woman- yay!]: http://tinyurl.com/yxerwnmr

And apparently every year Spotify releases its list of the ten best sex songs and in 2017, the writer Lindsey Lanquist decided to masturbate to them and see what worked: https://www.self.com/story/spotify-sex-songs.

I admit I don’t play music when I jill off. I’m usually exchanging pervy fantasies and naked pics on Snapchat or Whisper with the fellas.

Do you have a sex playlist? Songs that are great for flogging to? Songs for a fellatio opera or a cunnilingus choir?  I’d love to know your song recommendations. And if you want to try them out, let me know.

Amanda Earl is a 55-year old bisexual polyamorous poetesse, a romantic, nonmonogamous slut, publisher, editrix, vizpoet and fictioneer who lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with her husband, Charles. She’s the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. She has written three books: Welcome to Yes (DevilHouse, Ottawa, 2015), an erotic e-novel about a woman who sleeps through her thirty-fifth birthday party and misses an orgy; Kiki (Chaudiere Books, Ottawa, 2014), a trade poetry book inspired by the ribald and creative Montparnasse between the Wars; and Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl, (Coming Together, New York, 2014), a collection of filthy short smut. Her poetry chapbook, Electric Garden won the Tree Press Chapbook Award in 2017. In 2014, Amanda was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. More info is available at AmandaEarl.com, or connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle or Snapchat: ottawamandy.

Medha Singh is Music Editor at Queen Mob's Teahouse. Send her your reviews at music [at] queenmobs [dot] com.

Image by Mari Chordà via Wikimedia Commons (cc).