Howl

Why I Make Noise in the Bedroom

I love hearing myself express the pleasure I’m feeling

For women, making noise in the bedroom is a subject fraught with landmines. On the one hand, many of us are taught to be quiet in the sack. It isn’t “ladylike” or “dignified” to audibly express our pleasure.

On the other hand, movies and porn have made audible expressions of pleasure something of an expectation. Many women feel pressure to perform during sex — to moan like a porn actress — because we know a lot of men like that. And sometimes, men bring this expectation to the bedroom, as well. “Make some noise, girl…”

I never made a peep during sex with my first boyfriend. We were both so young, and both virgins, bringing all of our sexual hang-ups and insecurities to that relationship with absolutely no experience, knowledge, or resources to help us move past them.

Looking back on those memories, I sometimes chuckle. I can see us locked together so stiffly and awkwardly, and in total silence. Neither of us ever uttered a sound and rarely said a word to each other once our clothes were off.

Strangely, I was extremely vociferous about other pleasures in life. My friends used to tease that they hated eating with me because I so often groaned when I tasted something delicious. “It’s like you’re having an orgasm with your food,” they said.

I also discovered this tendency when I had my first massage and involuntarily let out a long, low, staccato-style moan as soon as the masseuse pressed her hands into my back. The moment the moan ended, my eyes opened and my face flushed. I was mortified and never paid a stranger to massage me again.

By my early twenties, I had developed a bit more sexual confidence, and wanted to be able to express myself in the bedroom. But I’d learned by then how much hearing a partner moan can turn men on, and I was uncertain whether or not my desire to express myself in that way was pandering to this knowledge. I knew that my sex life tended to be centered around my partner and his pleasure rather than around me and mine, and I wanted to start correcting that so that I could enjoy myself more and make the experience better and more authentic for me and my future partners.

These thoughts flew out of my head the night Jay took me to his bedroom where we could fool around without being interrupted by his roommates. When he took my nipple between his lips and tugged it out along the length of his tongue, I let out a moan so loud that he froze. He looked up at me with an expression I couldn’t quite interpret, and I grew nervous in the ensuing silence until he suddenly grabbed my hips and said in a growl, “Jesus Christ, that was fucking hot.”

I was surprised to find that I loved it, too. I loved hearing myself express the pleasure I was feeling, so I let it loose, allowing myself to make whatever noises organically arose.

Sometimes, I became self-conscious. I’m not a socially-acceptable yipper or screecher and I don’t do the yes-yes-yes-yes-yes cry. That was what I had seen in porn, and what I assumed men enjoyed.

Nope. I tend to go deep. I moan, groan, growl, and grunt. I’m guessing it’s not at all cute or feminine. But I can’t help it. That’s what comes out of me, and even back then, still struggling to build my sexual confidence, I didn’t want to make sounds that weren’t natural to me just to make sure my partner thought I was feminine and sexy.

So yes, there were moments when I tried to stifle myself. There were times when I tried to suppress a grunt and instead turn it into something like, “That feels so good,” or “Keep doing that.”

The next time I saw him, he mentioned my vocal enthusiasm and that I’d kept his roommates up all night. All of a sudden, that moaning he had thought was so “fucking hot” was a point of contention for him. Something that had embarrassed him or should have (he thought) embarrassed me.

But his attempt to shame my expressions of pleasure didn’t affect me. Had we spent much time together outside the bedroom, he would have noticed that I make similar noises when I’m cradling a forkful of fettuccine alfredo on my tongue. That was just who I was — someone who deeply appreciated sensory pleasures.

My last partner loved the sounds I made in bed. He said when I made those really deep, guttural, grunting moans, he would have a hard time not coming right then and there. I was relieved that he found my more animalistic, unfeminine sounds so sexy.

He wanted even more “noise,” though. One night, he asked me to talk dirty to him. I was dismayed. Believe it or not, I’m terrible at dirty talk. I can write a filthy love note or an erotic poem that would make a man come in his pants, but ask me to talk dirty in the moment? I can find the words, but I just can’t sell it. The best I could do was to tell him how much I loved having him inside me and to try to describe how it felt.

Unsurprisingly, he did not object when I gave up on dirty talk and went back to my moans and groans and grunts.

He also wanted me to verbally express my proximity to orgasm, which is entirely reasonable. That’s just good manners, really. But I couldn’t do it. It took me out of the moment and suddenly my “I’m about to come” turned into “Give me another few minutes…”

I think this led to some uncertainty for my partner in the beginning of our relationship, but as I became more comfortable with him and able to vocalize my full range of expression, he became quite adept at reading my sounds. Just before climax, my moans would get shallower and closer together, and then I’d be quiet for a few seconds, and then I’d moan again, and then the silence would descend upon me, and then another moan, more silence, I’d stop breathing, and…

I remember one night, feeling my body travel through this process, far gone from my conscious control, and during one of the waves of silence, I sensed my partner’s body tensing for just a split second, then suddenly he continued what he had been doing as I started to climax.

I realized he’d just learned to understand my language, the way my body would tell him, without words, that I was about to come.

The truth is, that was the first night I had noticed that, too. I had never realized that my body went through such a specific, ritualized process right before orgasm — I’d always been too swept up in the moment to notice it. But seeing my partner witness it made it apparent to me.

I loved realizing that the sounds I made during sex were a very real, precise language of their own, communicating information to both my partner and to me.

Though I still find myself occasionally self-conscious about the noises I make, I will continue to let myself express my pleasure as honestly and authentically as I can. I know not everyone enjoys making noise during sex, but for me, it enhances the experience. It helps me focus on my body, staying present in the moment.

And honestly, it turns me on to hear my own pleasure.

If it turns on my partner, too, all the better. Maybe my next partner will finally join in. I’ve never been with a man who was particularly vocal in the bedroom, except for my last partner, who very occasionally made these tiny moans in the back of his throat that made me tingle from my neck to my root.

Someday, I would love to be with a man who moans, groans, grunts, and growls right alongside me.

This article was written for Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2019

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