Our Outsiders Issue wouldn’t be complete without a roundtable discussing the whens and wheres and hows of having sex outside, and so we asked our team to paint us a little picture of a time they scissored, etc. in the great outdoors.
Heather Hogan Senior Writer + Editor
The first time I had sex with a girl was outside! But I can’t tell you that story because that girl’s husband works for a famous mega church now and you could find them both with a fast Google. Lucky for you, the second girl I had sex with, we also had it outside the first time. I met her on a Tibette forum during the heyday of The L Word and we got to talking about books and dogs and riding our bikes. We were both closeted and our only sexual outlet was fan fiction. Pretty soon we started exchanging photos and then sexy photos — which, this girl ended up hating me an awful lot and pitching an article to The Hairpin several years ago after I came out and got a little bit of internet fame, such was her lingering grudge, so if you ever see a picture of me floating around the internet, like maybe 27 years old, wearing nothing but a Hufflepuff scarf, you know where that came from.
One day I asked her if maybe we should meet. She lived five states away and so we decided that if we both drove 400 miles, we could meet in the middle in a quaint little touristy town in North Carolina. We did this five times, for a total of 2,000 miles before we finally worked up the nerve to have sex. But we didn’t have the nerve to get a hotel room because we were so closeted! I brought a blanket and a pillow and we “went for a hike” and found a kind of secluded place and laid down the blanket and the one single pillow. I like to do a little pre-foreplay by talking about good television, but she just wanted to get right to it. So we did.
I have, as you know by now, serious ADD that is specifically hard to manage around a lot of noise. I cannot concentrate when it’s noisy! I didn’t know much about sex with girls yet so I was REALLY trying to concentrate. Turns out our little secluded patch of woods wasn’t really secluded, but was in fact very close to a high school football field where a marching band practiced very loudly for several hours at a time. Drums! Tubas! Various horns! I tried hard to stay focused, but I just couldn’t do it. 400 miles this girl drove to have sex with me and a clarinet thwarted her.
Probably she wasn’t wrong to pitch that article to The Hairpin.
Erin Writer
If any of you are in or around the Portland area (assuming 50% of you?), there’s a spot in Mount Hood where huge slabs of rock line the edge of the Columbia Gorge and have deep crevices that are the perfect amount of space for exactly two people to stand face-to-face. It’s something I learned while camping nearby, and it was an opportunity that I felt deserved to be honored given it was one of the four months out of the year when Portland is blessed with perfect weather. To those before and after me! My then-girlfriend and I came across the rocks on our way to the sit by the river for the day and made a quick stop, as you do. It was hidden enough that no one would have been able to see unless they were looking for it, but honestly even if we’d done it on top the rocks I don’t think anyone would have noticed or cared as that’s sort of the vibe there. Long live summer!!!
Ari Writer
The first time I had sex outdoors was my second time at A-Camp. I was still a camper, we were still on that dang mountain, and there were rocks. Everywhere. It was post-Klub Deer, the moon was out, and there was this one path that after most programming was over, no one really used anymore? And there were rocks. And I think we tried to find a free cabin, but like it was already 1 am, all of the open cabins were being used for sex, and listen we were DRUNK okay?! The altitude does things to you! So yeah, we’re out here, literally on a footpath, drunk, covered in rocks and dirt, and then she ate me out! People absolutely walked by, hands were thrown over mouths to shut up moans… it was… an event. Why am I like this?! Why did I let myself get eaten out outdoors in Angelus Oaks, CA?! This is why the food was inedible: because I let myself do something foolish as fuck.
Ryan Yates Writer
I won’t live there by the time this post goes up, but for the last year and a half I lived on the top floor of one of the highest buildings in the area on Los Angeles. I was in a weird place last summer — divorce and constant gaslighting and lots of significant people you cared about never texting back again will do that — and so for a few months when I needed to breathe I would sneak onto the rooftop and lean against a low, sloping cover over the ventilation shaft warmed by the sun and smoke cigarettes and look at the sky and, eventually, masturbate while hoping no droids or helicopters would fly over. A lot of my most powerful sexual experiences have been variations on outdoor sex or public sex, but always with other people — and I almost never come without a vibrator and didn’t bring one to have roof sex with myself because it would not have been discreet — which made it feel like an experience just for me.
Molly Priddy Writer
I dated a woman last summer who loved the outdoors as much as I do, and we spent all of our time out there, wandering around mountains, swimming in lakes, making out against trees and on beaches, you know, the norm. BUT one of my most memorable moments was a makeout on the top of my car while stargazing that turned into much, much more. There wasn’t a plan to have sex on the roof of my car but I mean, who can plan these things? It was really fun because we were outside, but we weren’t worried about animals or bugs because we weren’t on the ground, and we were fully exposed to the stars above. Gave the forest a show that night, AND I saw a few shooting stars from the meteor shower so, win-win.
Vanessa Friedman Community Editor
I really love having sex in a tent! I know this is a controversial opinion because like, tents are not the most spacious structures, but there’s just something so damn fun and exciting to me about having sex in what is essentially a tiny bedroom outside! I’ve had a lot of tent sex in my life but I had the most tent sex the summer of 2014. My whole life was a mess and I lived in a tent for four months on a lesbian commune in Southern Oregon. My landmates used to tease me because I’d have girls from the city visit me “out in the country” and we’d inevitably fuck and my landmates would inevitably hear us and eventually it became a given that when I said “I’m having a friend to visit” what that also meant was “you’re probably going to hear me having sex” and you know what, good landmates will be chill about that! And they were! Also here’s a juicy tidbit, I wrote about tent sex in my Anonymous Sex Diary for this very website, so if you couldn’t already tell which one was mine from the incredibly obvious voice behind it and a few other telltale clues, welp, now ya know! I’m actually heading back to Southern Oregon tomorrow (!!!) to live in my tent for the next six weeks and do research for the book I’m working on, so…
Drew Burnett Gregory Senior Editor
I spent the summer after my freshman year in college in LA with my girlfriend at the time. Since I grew up nearby it was fun showing her around to non-touristy places and one day I took her to this secluded beach I’d discovered in high school. I don’t think the intention was just to hook up, but it was meant to be romantic with hooking up as part of that. We were lying on our towels making out, hands were reaching places, bathing suits were half off, when a quaint family of five strolled down the hidden stairs. We immediately stopped, of course, and tried to just go back to lying there. But we were 19 and very horny, and ultimately decided to leave so we could finish at home. We made it about halfway before we stopped in the parking garage of a mall. Again, 19, very horny.
Riese Editorial
Well, I went to boarding school in the woods, so! One does what one must. A lot of being fucked up against trees, or once we did it in the big outdoor theater, on the ground in the aisle. Maybe that was the night before we graduated, walking down those same aisles. Everybody had a bruised spine out there.
I have an ex who loved being outside more than anybody I’d ever known. She had a permanent sunburn and these blue eyes that could convince me of nearly anything. We were driving through central Oregon in July, through the Painted Hills — big mounds of earth rising from the surface, ringed in stripes of copper, sienna, amber, all of it looking vaguely like somebody had put blankets over a bunch of flat-topped pyramids. She was driving ahead of me in her truck and took a turn to roll up one of those hills to a lookout — a spot to take pictures and pee — and once we got up there she eventually had me basically sitting on the informational panel that explained where we were and why it was important and why these hills looked like they did. We were making out and then she was fucking me and I kept thinking somebody would drive up, or at least drive by, but nobody did. That was the most incredible part to me, that where we’d been driving was so empty. Maybe one or two cars came by in half an hour. It felt like we were all alone at the top of the world, and I don’t know. Maybe then; we were.
KaeLyn Rich Writer
So many times, so many choices made to have sex in ridiculous places outdoors. The most adventurous time was with an ex who I was in a complex relationship with for about a year when I was 18. We went to the local beach (on Lake Erie, not the ocean) and walked out past the regular, populated area of the beach to this little secluded area. We had to sort of wade around a big rock formation to get to it and then we found this super-private area with high rock walls on all sides. Perfect for our dream of hooking up on the beach!
The sex itself was slightly less than fine, as most of our sex was, TBH. Never did I have an orgasm. Not one time. Sex is not about orgasms, but I would have liked one is all. I was 18 and didn’t know how to, like, stop performing having good sex and actually have the good sex I wanted to have. I digress. Also, sand. Sand everywhere. Human-made imported beach sand by a Great Lake everywhere. It’s not a sexy feeling.
That’s not the adventurous part, though. You see, the beach was artificial, but the lake was not. And one thing that Lake Erie has is a tide pattern. We stayed there past dusk, just rolling around in the gross, dirty sand, and suddenly realized that the tide had come in and we were literally trapped by water in our little rock area. We could have gone in the lake to get back to the other beach, but neither of us was dressed for swimming. We were not planning to go to the beach. It’s just where we ended up for hook up purposes. I was still in high school and didn’t want to explain coming home sopping wet from a drive with my “friend.” Using teen logic, we decided to SCALE THE ROCK WALL and hop the fence around the public beach to get out.
I still can’t believe this is the plan we came up with, given my general lack of athletic prowess and also the unnecessary level of danger. I was really that scared of being found out, I guess. So we did and I almost did not make it over the fence and it turned me off from beach sex ever since. If you are going to do it, know about the sand getting in every crevice and BEWARE THE TIDE.
Rachel Kincaid Former Managing Editor
I have had a LOT of sex in cars, as a girl who spent her adolescence in the suburbs, especially when I was 5-10 years younger and my body was more amenable to the spatial challenges of the backseat of a Honda Accord. I feel like that doesn’t quite count, though, as the function of a car in that context is creating a mini-indoors in the outside. I’m a thoroughly indoorsy person, and don’t get out into the wilderness with activity partners that often. I started to fool around with an ex in a hammock once, the kind with the netting and everything, and we were starting to get into it before deciding to leave the hammock and move indoors because, you know, it was a hammock! Similarly, I started making out with a date while laying on a picnic blanket on a cute riverbank date, and we both thought about going for it but then a sweet little old lady was walking her dog past us and it seemed dicey and we just decided to leave. I guess I’m actually just recapping my entire relationship with the outdoors: this has been great, but it would also be even greater to be inside!
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Comments
I once had sex on the deck of a cruise ship. Unfortunately we were interrupted…moral of the story, even if you don’t see any cameras they are DEFINITELY there. If you choose to follow in my footsteps I would definitely advise waiting until the last night of the cruise, otherwise you’ll be suffering a lot of awkward stares from the crew for the rest of the week because the entire night shift watched security footage of you getting eaten out.
TRISH.
rachel i will never get over my love for you for a million different reasons but wow, this roundtable contribution is really up there on that list. <3
My roundtable contribution, as recounted to my camp crush just now via text (edited for horrific typos):
“I think my fave outdoor sex activities were:
1) Being eaten out with my head in a bush and my legs in a duck pond in the cemetery in high school;
2) You behind the tents at camp (would have been fine with you in the middle of the hill at camp too 😍);
3) Accidentally almost fisting R on The Field;
4) Blowing A on his front porch at like 4 in the morning? He and I had a lot of sex outside, actually. I think once on a trampoline, that was weird.”
Would probably add the time I fucked my friend on a patch of black ice at a Montreal bus stop at 3am as we waited for the night bus. It was…cold.
If I had to make a list of “Worst Music to Have Sex To”, a high school marching band would be at the top of the list. However, I WOULD watch a hilarious, coming-of-age movie about that story.
At a golf course in Hickory, NC on one of the greens. Interrupted by a groundskeeper who kept the spotlight on while we dressed. Not scary at all…
Hahahaha I grew up just up the road from Hickory in Lincolnton
Oof! That would suck.
I would just like to give a hearty bravo to Molly Priddy because I think that’s actually the best case scenario when it comes to outdoor sex? I mean, a freaking meteor shower. That’s the dream.
Also, reason number 4032 why I adore Heather Hogan: “400 miles this girl drove to have sex with me and a clarinet thwarted her.” What an incredible sentence. *chef’s kiss*
(I haven’t had sex outside so I’m just here to cheer on you brave souls…)
I loved these stories, thwarts and all.
I second the joy of sex in a tent, especially when it’s lightly raining outside. Heck I’ve even never minded the tent and just used a poncho as a kind of modesty panel. Amazing what two amorous lesbians hanging out near a picnic table, in the rain, can get up to.
One of my first outdoor sex experiences was in a hay loft which I don’t recommend at all !
The second time I ever had sex was outdoors, with an ex who turned out to be terrible. It was hot, he pulled off the condom, I did NOT orgasm, and I got bug bites all over my back and legs. My current partner and I have fucked in lakes and a pool and I orgasmed each time and maybe it isn’t as sanitary but I don’t care! Water sex is amazing, I haven’t had to worry about condoms for three years, and I don’t fake orgasms anymore. ✌🏼
Heather’s story reminded me of this:
I had a high school boyfriend (it’s a caveat I always use since I’m not bisexual but… anyway) he used to like to make out. We used to play tennis on the courts across the street from our high school and one night we were making out in the grass while a football came was happening. My quirky geometry teacher was the announcer at football game and the loudspeakers carried his quirky geometry teacher antics all the way over to the park where we were making out. It was an experience! Not any worse than our typical make outs but I felt guilty like, QGT could see what I was doing!
Thank you, Carolyn!
I always liked the idea of outdoor sex more than the reality. Mostly because rocks. Rocks are everywhere. You might think “hey, that meadow is pretty, we’re pretty, let’s go fuck in that pretty meadow” but in reality it’s just rocks all the way down.
I also first had sex outdoor sex at A Camp! A couple of times. Very recently. I’ll never look at orange groves the same way…
thanks for that orange grove at a-camp, pals!
BEWARE THE TIDE
This is the advice I need in life, as I am kind of clueless about water-based and water-adjacent activities, sexual and non. Thank you KaeLyn.