Awkward Music I've Had Sex To

One of the four trillion problems with Hollywood is that it has made us all narcissistically convinced that there should be a meaningful and well-selected soundtrack playing in the background of the miniscule events of our lives. This ends up very rarely being the case, unless you're having an emotional moment at a bar or wedding or something, while a song plays that relates tonally or lyrically to the situation at hand, in which case you are ruining the party so get out of there anyway, you big cry-baby.

Very occasionally a song will come on that turns the situation around or makes it unwittingly hilarious, ie. a friend of mine had to listen to “Papa Don’t Preach” while getting an abortion, thanks to the easy listening soft-rock radio stations preferred by nurses, doctors, and dentists the world over. But most often when there’s music happening, it's only tangentially related to the situation at hand. This, I think, is why people have sex playlists. It’s one of very few times in a person’s life where you can decide what tunes are going to accompany what act. Unless you hit shuffle by mistake.

So, the following is a playlist of songs that have come on inopportunely while, I or people I know, were trying to get sexy. Use this knowledge to clean up your iTunes OR create the ultimate cockblocking compendium to ruin your flatmate’s life.

“Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time” - Paul McCartney

My first university boyfriend and I had to have music on whenever we fooled around, because the walls in my shitty residence hall were so thin you could hear the girl next door breathing. I was, and am, obsessed with The Beatles and I’ve always found sexy playlists kind of sad and weird (soz) so we used to just put on some John Lennon solo stuff and go for it. One day my boyfriend put The Beatles on, but just as things were getting properly heated up we were treated to the opening bars of this Christmas classic and the sound of sleigh bells was tainted forever.

“Sexual Healing” - Marvin Gaye

My mate Sarah lost her virginity with Radio 2 on in the background, and right around Penetration O’Clock it hit her with the smooth sounds of Marvin Gaye, simultaneously making her a woman and a cliché.

The Lion King soundtrack

Laura was having an "adult sleepover" with a gentleman companion who she claims had a pretty good music set up in general. On this occasion, for whatever reason, the iTunes Gods were pissed, and although on shuffle it kept returning to the opening bars from Disney’s The Lion King. You know the ones: "BAHHHHHH SVENNNNYAHHHHHHHH". She deleted the song in a rage and they got back to it, though, so this story has a happy ending.

Unpaid for Spotify ads

My flatmate claims this has happened more than once and is the reason she now pays for Spotify.

“Lick It Up” - KISS

After the other male involved chickened out of the beginnings of a four-way, Matthew was left alone with the ladies involved and obligingly set to work making sure they both had a good time… at which point the man who couldn’t handle things started playing a game I like to call, erm, “Perfect DJ.”

“Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth” - Marilyn Manson

Not to be taken literally.

“Jump Around” - House of Pain

Not technically a sex story, but at Gemma’s first school dance, a boy who liked her forced her to dance with him for most of the night, and finally made his big move when House of Pain came on. Attempting the bold maneuver of tonguing while also jumping and raising his hands in the air at the appropriate moments in the song like an overexcited labrador. True love?

Self-made sound experiments

When Geoff was at art school he had to make a digital media project that involved soundscapes and the idea of pain or something, yeah, I dunno. The point is, he'd downloaded an unnecessarily long clip of a girl screaming in pain and then just kinda forgot about it. Fast forward to Geoff and a sexy man friend getting stoned and putting on Bonobo really loud to get down and dirty to, when all of a sudden a girl started screaming at the incredibly high volume they had reserved for their smooth fuckin’ tunes. This made the man scream, which made Geoff scream, which made several of his flatmates come to his rescue and check everything was OK. #AWK or #cute?

“I Kissed A Girl” - Katy Perry

Steve’s girlfriend went through that same semi-experimental, semi-just-something-we-like phase that all girls go through (all girls go through this, right?) (and never fully 100% ditch it, right? Is this on? Guys?!) and part of it was that one night in the corner of a bar she got off with a female friend of Steve’s and then just quietly came back to the table. Steve was sort of trying to figure out a way to turn the whole thing into a threesome when Katy Perry came on and made it too hilarious to be sexy, thus cockblocking him forever. Fuck you K-Pez!

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

“Books on tape and a mouth full of a guy you met on Grindr do not mix.”

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