Missionary Sex Position

What It Actually Is

Receiver on back. Giver on top. Face to face. Penetration. The default.

Missionary gets called BORING. Heres the thing. The position is the most popular position in human history. Boring positions dont survive thousands of years across every culture. Boring positions get replaced. Missionary doesnt get replaced. Missionary just gets called boring by people who arent doing it well.

Quick aside. Calling missionary boring is like calling pizza boring. Sure, plain cheese is plain cheese. But pizza ranges from plain cheese to a $40 truffle thing in Brooklyn. Same with missionary. Whatever you think missionary is, theres a version of it that would change your mind.

The Five Missionarys You Should Actually Know

CLASSIC MISSIONARY

Receiver flat, legs bent or extended

Giver between legs, weight on arms

The default. Reliable. Slept on.

LEGS UP MISSIONARY

Receiver pulls knees toward chest

Deeper angle, more depth

Mating press lite, basically

CAT MISSIONARY

Coital Alignment Technique

Giver shifts up, grinds instead of thrusts

Best clitoral angle in the game

How To Actually Do It (And Make It Hit)

01
Pillow under the hips
If youre going to remember ONE thing from this article, its this. A pillow under the receivers hips changes the angle dramatically. The depth gets better. The angle hits the right wall. Suddenly missionary feels different. Pillows. Are. Everything.
02
Eye contact, on purpose
Missionarys whole advantage is the face to face setup. Use it. Look at each other. The intimacy this creates is the thing other positions cant match. Yes its weird at first if youre not used to it. Yes it gets less weird really fast. Try it.
03
Use the legs
Receivers legs flat: easy missionary. Knees up: deeper. Legs over givers shoulders: deepest. One leg up, one flat: angle change. Move them around mid scene. Different positions for the legs equals different sensations.
04
Try the CAT shift
Coital Alignment Technique. Giver shifts forward 6 to 8 inches. Pelvic bone now grinds against receivers clit area. Movement becomes more grind than thrust. Sounds weird. Lands hard. Look it up after you read this guide.
05
Move slow more often
Missionary is built for slow. The face to face thing. The eye contact. The chest contact. None of that works at jackhammer pace. Slow it down. Most missionary haters are people whove only had bad fast missionary.

Why Missionary Refuses To Die

Every couple who claims to hate missionary is just one pillow away from loving it.

Pretty much every sex therapist ever, paraphrased

Missionary works because of what it offers that no other position does as well. Eye contact. Chest contact. Kissing during. Whispering during. Watching each other during. The intimate connection that comes with sex thats face to face is structurally different from sex thats not.

Quick aside. The position got its name because of a 19th century myth that missionaries pushed it as the only proper position. Cool story, totally false. Missionary is older than civilization. Missionary is the position humans figured out before they figured out FIRE. Slightly hyperbolic. Mostly true.

Common Mistakes

No pillow. Receiver flat on the bed. The angle is okay but it could be GREAT. Fix: pillow under hips. Always.

Same legs forever. Receivers legs in the same position the whole session. Fix: move them. Knees up, then down, then over the shoulder, then one of each. Variety.

Going too fast. Missionarys whole advantage is intimacy. Fast missionary skips the intimacy. Fix: slow down. The eye contact only works at slow pace.

Avoiding eye contact. Some people find it weird. Fixed: lean into the weirdness. The first 30 seconds of locked eye contact during sex feels strange. The next 30 minutes are some of the most connected sex youll have.

The Bottom Line

Missionary is the most underrated position because everyones doing the surface level version of it.

Pillow. Eye contact. Move the legs. Try CAT. Slow down. Five tweaks. Most couples who actually do them describe missionary as their best position. The rest just keep complaining that missionary is boring while doing it once a week and refusing to change anything about it. Be the first group.

MISSIONARY