[aroundtown]

The one question I wanted answered, how good is the sex on a mattress this big.

Nobody talks of how foam mattresses change the dynamics of sex. Gone is the nice bounce back from the coils. Instead you get the firm motion deadening of the foam. Participants expecting to find that extra spring in their step find they have to provide their own bounce. I hope your muscles are up for it.

I personally don't having sex on a foam mattress. I think those seeking a foam mattress should consider keeping around a spare coiled sex bed. Call it your guest bed if so inclined. It will be there for you, providing that extra spring you may be missing from you foam mattress.

[trey-jones]

Before I ever had sex I used to research all kinds of things that might affect how the sex is, including the mattress. Now, married these last 15 years, I can say with confidence that the mattress is one of the least important factors. We're adaptable to just about any soft and spacious surface.

[1123581321]

I’ve had the opposite experience as I wouldn’t have guessed beforehand how much the right environment would benefit us. Similar quantity of experience. It’s fun to make your home work better for you.

[stickfigure]

A waterbed will disabuse you of this notion. Terrible for sex.

[akomtu]

This is what preparing in advance looks like.

[sigg3]

Sex preppers, preparing indefinitely for something that's unlikely to happen;)

[heresie-dabord]

>sex prepper

Thank you for coining the term.

We could also merge two domains of highly hypothetical expectation and call them Temporarily Embarrassed Copulators.

[seanmcdirmid]

Hard beds, like those popular in Asia, definitely do affect matters. But western mattresses are all about the same.

[desmosxxx]

mattress is very important to me. well more so anything but foam, ymmv i guess

[rbobby]

> spare coiled sex bed.

Not what I'm used to reading on HN.

[Auracle]

My wife and I absolutely call our coil guest bed our sex bed, so he’s right on.

No guests have ever slept in it either, so there’s that. It’s more of a sex and snoring bed.

[HorizonXP]

Guests currently sleeping in their hosts’ guest beds are now recoiling in horror!

[twothamendment]

I hope they never sleep in a hotel. Who know what happened there!

[AlecSchueler]

Is it really horrific to sleep in a bed where someone had sex?

[Jeff_Brown]

Seems like a hard question to answer without the kind of survey data that most people do not have.

[_nalply]

People are irrationally afraid of being near dried body fluids inside mattresses.

[HorizonXP]

No not at all it was just an easy joke

[justinpombrio]

> Nobody talks of how foam mattresses change the dynamics of sex.

https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/mattress-sex.html

[paulcole]

The WSJ also covered this in 2012:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-HEB-49292

[voltaireodactyl]

FWIW I have found latex beds to be the absolute sweet spot between foam and spring. You don’t sink into latex as deeply as foam, it’s much less pronounced (and much more comfortable, in my experience).

The bounce is also not QUITE spring levels but I’d say 85% which I find to be a reasonable compromise.

[sedivy94]

I’m with you on this 100%. Had a latex mattress for four years and loved it. Adopted a barely-used memory foam mattress from a friend when I moved out west and now I’m struggling with thoracic kyphosis and neck pain. I have a large frame and have been bodybuilding for almost a decade, so I really need a mattress that pushes back. Saving up for my next latex mattress but maybe I should build my own?

[voltaireodactyl]

FWIW I went with a pure latex mattress. Nothing super fancy, I think around $700 out the door. I just made sure it was free of specific chemicals that I can’t remember offhand but research said might be important.

No need to buy layers and such I say go full latex.

[Jeff_Brown]

Huh. My mattress made me sore until I resumed (after a decade hiatus) lifting weights. I used to use all sorts of weird pillow designs, a special one for my knees, another for my upper arm, etc. Then I just stopped needing that stuff.

[GhettoComputers]

Latex beds also last a very long time. The topper I have is an ancient ugly teal from decades ago, it’s still in great condition.

[conductr]

I’d agree here. I found the surface rather easier to maneuver around. It’s like it improves agility. Yet it’s soft and doesn’t push back like coils do.

Foam I feel I just feel I sink into a divot and have to lift myself out before moving side to side. Which reduces agility. That feeling is compounded with another body.

Even when agility isn’t the main goal, it’s like you have to work twice as hard with foam and maybe 80% as hard with latex; as compared to coils.

This same sinking/floating type feelings also is the big contributor to why foam is feels so hot to me. It absorbs my heat then engulfs me in it.

[fraa-orolo]

> I personally don't having sex on a foam mattress

I'm sorry but you personally don't what on a foam mattress? You left out like the most important word of all of your comment. Don't mind, don't like, don't love, don't prefer?

It can be guessed from the context but still.

[mhh__]

One of the (many) things that led me to getting a referral about possibly having ADHD was noticing that my hackernews comments are absolutely riddled with missing words, missing sentences etc. On hacker news that isn't so bad, but when writing in a formal context it is pretty annoying looking like a moron for forgetting a preposition or whatever.

Recently, I even wrote "buy" instead of "by"! Crazy times

[jkhdigital]

Only on HN can I encounter an ADHD subthread in a thread about the sexual merits of mattress materials

[maximus-decimus]

That would indeed be rather strange in a MatterMost thread at work.

[willhinsa]

This is a fantastic comment, and so . Thanks for the laugh. :)

[0] the intentionally missing word is "true"

[1] the intentionally missing reference ([0]) is after the word "so"

[2] there are no more omissions

[penjelly]

missing words or mistyping words is more symptomatic of dyslexia then ADHD isnt it? I have some form of dyslexia but i believe its a spectrum disorder and mine is workable so ive never considered medication for it

[Amezarak]

I don't think eliding words or automatically substituting homophones is a symptom of any disorder, just very common for 'good' typists - good in the sense you don't have to think about the mechanical action of typing or spelling, in the sense you've reducing[1] typing to a sub/unconscious activity.

It's just something occasionally goes wrong with the thought -> word pipeline buffering in the one case. I find the homophone substitution more interesting - I would never, ever make the mistake writing, or if I was paying attention to what I type (I find it happens even more commonly if I'm not paying attention to the window I'm typing on), at some level it seems that the unconscious word-to-keyboard process 'hears' and transcribes somewhat phonetically in a way totally disconnected from my conscious thought process. I find it fascinating I can 'visualize' the spelling of and think a word like, I don't know, 'bare', but my hands, as if completely independent, type out 'bear.'

Another piece is that, if someone talks to me while I am typing, sometimes words from our conversation creep into the text.

Interestingly, I find these mistakes are more common when I am taking stimulants (caffeine) than when I am not.

[1] This is another common mistake I've noticed. I am quite certain I thought 'reduced', but 'reducing' came out anyway. I think this is usually due to me changing the grammatical structure of the sentence midstream; I probably originally thought "you're reducing" instead of "you've reduced", but I typed faster than the thought completed. Maybe this says something about my intellectual capacity. :)

[penjelly]

ive noticed all(?) of the things you describe here and i find it interesting to see them put into words like that. Curious that you notice that caffeine has an effect too. Something ive never considered before.

also, i tend to agree with your conclusion, i think what i described are normal human errors, not necessarily signs of dyslexia.

[mhh__]

Could well be, but it's amongst a bunch of other things as well.

[sjg007]

Did the ADHD thing pan out? I do this too.

[mhh__]

Apparently I'm going to find out next week. I've been meaning to start a blog (but not started, see the trend?) for a while, so that might be something to record and compare in a year's time.

[BugWatch]

As a potential ADHD sufferer (hopefully to be diagnosed soon) - if you do, I'd very much be interested in reading about your experience(s).

[Gracana]

I call those thinkos. They're weird to notice. Why did my brain do that? Do I do it often? No idea.

[Gatsky]

I also find myself making these homophone errors or complete word omissions. It has only started happening since I turned 30. As you say, I seem to have zero awareness of them as they are occurring.

I think it is an advanced state of distraction that causes it, a brain unable to really care about anything until the next dopamine hit.

[AngryData]

Even outside of that I don't see how people like foam and super soft mattresses. I find them extremely uncomfortable. Even just rolling over takes a significant amount of effort and they always give me horrible back pain which is something I otherwise never have.

[linsomniac]

Not all foam is created equal. If you find it hard to roll over, it's probably (in my experience) some fairly high component of memory foam. Latex, on the other hand, is fairly springy and very similar to the traditional beds I used to have, primarily Posturpedic.

There are a lot of foam bed options out there these days, so you have lots of choice. Unfortunately, the composition of them is often not really spoken about, you really have to dig to find them.

FYI: A "memory foam" mattress only tends to have a little memory foam in it.

Most mattresses tend to be a high density foam base (~5"), a lower density foam on top of that (2-3"), and the memory foam or whatnot on top of that (another 2-4"). The more expensive latex beds IIRC are all or mostly latex, but most of the <$1K mattresses are largely high density foam.

~10 years ago I had a memory foam mattress that was comfortable to sleep in, particularly once it had warmed up for a few hours and was easier to move in. I tend to move a lot when I sleep, rolling over regularly. But for sex it was fairly annoying.

I swapped it after a couple years for a new bed, I ended up doing a bunch of research and selected a Leesa, because it seemed to be one of the few that had a latex-like top layer. As I mentioned previously, finding the composition to compare mattresses was fairly hard, the vendors don't really seem to talk about it (circa 7 years ago). On top of that I put a 3" latex topper, because my wife wanted something softer.

[MiddleEndian]

The latex foam is not as soft as you're imagining it. It's pretty firm. The buckling gel buckles but it's form fitting. It's hard to describe accurately but it does not feel like memory foam. I used medium-hard foam and sleeping on that combo feels like something that is supportive but also happens to contour to your body correctly.

[Sylamore]

Just spent 3 nights sleeping on one in a hotel and it confirmed my tester impressions when mattress shopping that it would lead to a bad nights sleep. I'm sure there are maybe some wonderful to sleep on foam mattresses but they all seem spongy and hot to me and those are the last things I want in a mattress.

[Stratoscope]

Keep in mind that memory foam and latex foam are very different from each other. Since I sleep "hot" I don't like memory foam at all, but Talalay latex suits me fine.

[smileysteve]

There are different firmness configurations of memory foam. Pillow tops will hurt my back.

I prefer a firm that you won't find in 80% of spring mattresses.

[akvadrako]

There are high-density foam mattresses which are firmer than most spring mattresses.

[fancyfish]

I’ve found it depends on the position mainly. The more you thrust vertically (cowgirl, etc), the less satisfying due to less bounce. On the other hand, foam is better for digging in for horizontal thrusting (doggy, missionary).

This is why about 65% say foam is worse for sex than springs, while ~35% say it’s the same or even better.

That said, I just prefer foam for sleeping. Much more comfortable and I wake up feeling more refreshed with no back pain. We keep a separate guest spring mattress bed for sex (and obviously guests). We bought it a year ago and our sex life has never been better but ymmv!

[aulin]

> foam is better for doggy

if we're talking about knees on the mattress, I'd say it's still worse... the more cushioning the more the blood flow is restricted, the faster you'll get weak and shaky knees. Just like a too cushioned bike saddle is bad for you crotch area.

[MiddleEndian]

Remember though my comfort layer is buckling gel so it has less direct contact than regular mattresses!

[MiddleEndian]

This is certainly not as squishy as most foam mattresses, it's not memory foam, the materials are pretty bouncy. Plus the buckling gel allows you to have good on-the-fly form fitted gripping locations. So to keep this HN appropriate, I'll just say no complaints here!

[Aunche]

I don't find this a problem on foam mattress that aren't overly plush. On the other hand, I find that spring mattresses will occasionally have an undesirable wavelength that isn't conducive to sex.

[brailsafe]

I much prefer having quieter mattress and strong muscles. Easy enough to get the best of both.

[csomar]

This is the answer: https://www.lazada.sg/products/modern-chaise-longue-balcony-...

They are hard to find, so maybe get one custom made. You'll need a bit of a larger bedroom too. But it's the real deal.

[01100011]

I find sex on a foam mattress gives me knee pain. I don't get that with a firmer spring mattress.

[voz_]

In bed? in 2021? Brother it's time to travel.

[amerine]

I totally agree!!! I really prefer some springs under my partner/me compared to foam. Sex is really different on foam.

[dannykwells]

Just have to say, this comment lead to one of the more unique, yet also on brand, HN threads Ive seen. Bravo.

[BatFastard]

Waterbeds rule for sex, riding the wave!

[EastOfTruth]

no need for a mattress.. try this: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Sex-Adult-game-Hangin...

[jamiek88]

Yeah but grandma is reluctant to use that when she stays over. Something about her hip.

[ameminator]

You know, that was the last thing on my mind when I bought a mattress. It will likely still be the last thing on my mind when I buy the next one