How to Have Sex With a People Pleaser

And make it really enjoyable for them

I’ve always been really passionate about sex. But being a people pleaser made it harder for me to enjoy it.

Sex was fun, it was exciting, it was something I desired intensely. But because of my people pleasing tendencies, it was also something that could be used against me.

The worst part is, I was usually the one getting in the way of my own enjoyment.

Being a people pleaser made it difficult for me to assert my boundaries. I could only do it comfortably if the person I was sleeping with made it perfectly clear that they were completely fine with me putting limits in place.

Unfortunately, that rarely happened.

There was always the option to just say no, but that’s an incredibly challenging word for a people pleaser. I’ve had lots of sex I didn’t really want to have, all because saying no felt worse than going through with it.

I struggled with having sexual preferences, too. I know that wanting things is perfectly normal, but my brain twists it and makes it feel like I’m imposing something on others.

I’ve got my kinks and sexual fantasies, but I kept them to myself unless I knew for sure that my partners had the same ones. Not because I was embarrassed by them or too shy to voice them (though sometimes I was), but because I assumed that having those preferences would be hurtful to them. Like they’ll feel bad for not being able to fulfill my every desire — and it will be my fault they feel that way.

I was honest but not open. I never lied about my preferences. Instead, I camouflaged them. I never volunteered that information, even when it meant I could have much better sex.

I just sort of went with the flow. I let other people take the lead and I did my best to give them what they wanted. Making suggestions never felt like an option.

There Are No Easy Solutions

Of course, I realize that this kind of people pleasing behavior is irrational. I know it makes my life worse. I know I should change my thinking because it’s doing a lot more harm than good.

But it’s not the kind of thing you can just snap out of. If it were, I would’ve done it years ago.

People pleasing is a damage that’s hard to undo because it’s been drilled deep into me. It’s the way I was raised.

My father had highly negative and over-the-top reactions to just about everything. He managed to take offense to the smallest things.

He had an explosive temper that was triggered by things that seemed completely inconsequential. And he had a talent for delivering cutting insults while his anger was boiling over.

It’s like he was looking for an excuse to act like a tyrant, and he found one everywhere he looked.

Every little point of disagreement between us became a landmine I had to do my best to avoid.

He treated saying no as an unreasonable affront. So, I made sure to say yes — or say nothing at all.

He called me rude or selfish just for having opinions. So, I kept them quiet and felt scared whenever I let one slip out.

When you get punished for saying no and get shamed for having boundaries, you learn very quickly that the only way to feel safe is to make sure no one is ever displeased with you.

Sadly, that kind of thing stays with you.

And it affects our partners too, because we carry all of that into our relationships. Even after being together for years, there’s still this little part of us that feels like we’re not good enough and that we have to try harder to satisfy them.

Being with someone who’s desperate to please others sounds like it would make for some amazing sex. But it really doesn’t. Mostly, it makes sex feel a little disconnected.

Sleeping with a people pleaser isn’t as fun if you can’t figure out what they want or whether you’re giving it to them.

You have to constantly wonder if they’re really into it or if they’re only doing what they think you want them to do. And it’s hard to feel present and in the moment if you have to keep second-guessing everything.

I haven’t found a way to cure my people pleasing tendencies. I’m not even sure I ever will, not completely at least. But I am happy to say that I’ve finally found a way to have incredibly satisfying and amazing sex — sex that I genuinely want, not just the sex I think my partner wants from me.

In part, it’s because I’ve made progress on myself. I’m practicing saying no and I’m getting a little more comfortable opening up about what I want.

But mostly it’s because I married a guy who knows just how to handle me. Over the course of our sixteen-year relationship, he’s figured out the art of having sex with a people pleaser.

Being with him has taught me what I need and taught me what people pleasers like me need to feel safe enough to be open and be ourselves.

If your partner is a people pleaser, you already know how challenging it can be. But it’s not hopeless. There are things you can do to make sex much better for both of you.

Give Them Lots of Choices

The best thing my husband does for me is present me with a lot of choices about sex.

It’s still hard for me to say no without feeling guilty. But when I have enough options in front of me, I can turn something down just by saying yes to something else.

When he’s trying to gauge how open I am to having sex, he won’t just hit on me or propose that we go have a fuck. He’ll also add something like “If you want to just cuddle and watch YouTube videos instead, I’m down with that too.”

On some evenings, he’ll basically give me a menu of activities to choose from. He’ll ask me if I’d be into getting tied up and teased, receiving a massage, enjoying some mutual masturbation, or just hanging out in bed.

That helps me tremendously because I can pick whatever I want from that list without worrying that it’s not the one he wants.

I really appreciate it during sex, too. I feel bad saying no to requests, but I can feel comfortable choosing one option over another.

When he asks “Do you want me to fuck you?” but I still need more foreplay, asking for it puts me in an awkward position. But when he says “Do you want my cock or do you want my fingers?” or “Do you want me to fuck you now or do you want me to keep using my tongue?” I can say no to getting fucked without actually saying no — which is exactly what a people pleaser needs.

Look for (Very) Enthusiastic Consent

Voicing your needs is a fundamental skill when it comes to sex, but it’s something people pleasers struggle with. We’ve been told that it makes us bad, selfish, terrible people — and on some level we believe that.

Asserting my boundaries doesn’t come easily to me. It’s something I find really distressing. I’ve even lost sleep over having to tell someone what I needed from them or asking for space.

A people pleaser will say yes to things they don’t want because it’s sometimes less painful than saying no and feeling like a horrible person because of it.

But even when we agree to something, there’s a limit to how much enjoyment we can fake. We’ll put up with things, go through the motions, and let other people use us — but we won’t act like it’s the most exciting thing in the world.

So when you’re dealing with a people pleaser, don’t just look for their agreement — look for signs of desire. Don’t proceed unless they’re enthusiastically, eagerly into what you’re doing.

That can involve talking things out, but be sure to also look at their body language. Saying yes to something you don’t want is always uncomfortable, and that discomfort is going to show if you’re paying close attention.

Also make sure you’re not the only one escalating. Give them the opportunity to move things ahead, too. If you’re the only one driving the action, there’s a chance it’s because you’re the only one who’s really into it.

Ask Specific Questions

I kept my sexual preferences under wraps for years.

My husband would often ask about my kinks, my turn-ons, and my fantasies. I answered honestly every time but I never gave him the full story.

Mostly, I stuck to the desires that felt safe to share — the ones I thought he might like to hear. Anything he couldn’t fulfill for me or might not be into, I kept to myself.

This is one of the ways that people pleasers get in the way of their own happiness. Because he had no idea what I fantasized about, he never even had the opportunity to make those fantasies come true.

That changed when he started asking those questions a little differently. Instead of asking open-ended questions, he got more specific. When he boiled it down to yes-or-no questions, there was no way for me to evade them without lying — which I wasn’t ready to do.

When he asked if I was into dirty talk, I had to say yes.

He asked me if I wanted to explore bondage. That was a yes, too.

He wanted to know if I was turned on by humiliation. That one was a no, but it also gave me the opportunity to say that I’m actually into the opposite — I get off on being praised.

And it turns out that we share quite a few kinks.

Showing him my sexually submissive side brought out his dominant tendencies.

I told him I might be a middle and he just so happens to be attracted to them.

I confessed my love of edging and it perfectly complements his love of teasing and torturing me with pleasure.

Asking about each turn-on and each kink individually takes a lot longer than just laying your whole deal out on the table. But with enough time, you’ll get to learn a lot more about your people pleaser and what they want out of sex.

Set Up a Simple Safeword

Safewords can be really important for people pleasers because it helps them voice their needs without using language that’s difficult for them.

I personally find saying no kind of triggering. It puts me in a weird place emotionally, gives me all sorts of anxiety, and it can take a while to get back to the sexy mood I was in before I had to say it. Even something like “can you go slower?” can be emotionally difficult to say.

But “red” is fine. So is “orange.” And most people pleasers have no problem saying “pineapple.”

I’ve personally found that having one safeword isn’t enough. I need different ones so I can give different kinds of feedback.

That’s why I really like the stoplight system. I can give a green light to anything I’m really into, a yellow light when I want things to slow down, and a red light if I need to modify what we’re doing or switch to something else entirely.

Safewords put some of the power back in the people pleaser’s hands, but it’s important to understand that they might not feel entirely comfortable using them. So, make sure to check in with your partner often. Ask them where they are. Ask them if they need to use their safeword. Ask them if it’s a red light or a green light.

Show Them It’s Okay to Be Open and Honest

People pleasers are always watching the way people react to them.

Because we’ve spent our lives feeling scared of disapproval, worrying that we’ve upset others, or feeling like we’re a burden, we have become highly attuned to signs of displeasure. We notice every little shrug, every uncomfortable smirk, and pay close attention to changes in people’s tone of voice.

And sometimes we go a little too far and read signs of disapproval that aren’t even there.

That’s why it’s so important to have a positive and supportive reaction when your people pleaser sets up a boundary or voices a preference.

It’s easier said than done. Saying no might be hard for a people pleaser, but hearing no is hard for everybody.

If you react negatively, pout or mope over not getting to do what you wanted to do, or try to negotiate your way out of the boundary they set up, it sends a message to your people pleaser that it wasn’t okay to put themselves first.

The best way to avoid this is by learning to see them turning you down or saying no to you as a good thing. Appreciate their preferences because that’s what makes them who they are, even if their choices aren’t the same as yours. When you come up with a compromise, focus on what it allows you to do instead of what you’re prevented from doing.

Most of all, be proud of them for taking their own needs seriously. That’s a hard thing for them to do. Putting up a boundary is a huge accomplishment for a people pleaser, so treat it like one.

And be proud of yourself, too. If a people pleaser is saying no to you, it’s because you’ve managed to create a safe space for someone who normally only feels safe when they’re by themselves.

Make the Sex Amazing

The sad reality is that it’s really easy to take advantage of a people pleaser. We’re accustomed to putting ourselves second and when people use us it just confirms everything we already believed about ourselves.

But you can’t have a good relationship with someone you’re taking advantage of, and you can’t have great sex unless you’re both comfortable and getting your needs met.

Your people pleasing partner has to do some work to achieve that. They have to learn to assert themselves. They have to learn to see their value. They have to learn to just accept disagreement without guilt.

But it’s a really long process. You can’t push someone out of people pleasing and it won’t happen overnight.

But you also don’t have to wait until they’ve recovered and healed before you can have better sex.

That’s where you come in. There’s a lot you can do to make them feel more comfortable and open with you.

That thing I said earlier about sex with a people pleaser not being as hot as it sounds? That’s only partly true. Because if you can make your people pleaser feel safe, if you give them the space to be vulnerable, and if you can help them see voicing their desires as a positive thing, you’ll get to see just how hot it can be to have sex with someone who truly wants you to have an amazing time.

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