Fingering Fundamentals

If you happened to walk into my bedroom, you’d be confronted with a cornucopia of apparatus designed to elicit sexual pleasure and mind-melting orgasms. But this arsenal of sex toys—impressive though it is—belies a surprising truth: I’ve made more women orgasm with my hands than with any other tool. 

Fingers are the most effective, underrated tools for learning how your partner’s body responds to every different kind of sensation. But despite the incredible pleasures hands can incite, people tend to devalue fingering and deprioritize it in their sex lives. There’s this perception that fingering—also known as finger-banging— is something teenagers do before they can have “real sex.” 

Well, I’m here to tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth. No other body part can match the human hand’s dexterity, positioning capability, and pressure sensitivity. In the Beyond Satisfied Pro course, I really take a deep dive into how elevated fingerwork is a foundational part of the sex act and something great partners don’t skip over. 

So let’s get back to the fundamentals of effective fingering because from what I’ve heard—and sometimes seen—fingering is a lost art.

Know What You’re Getting Yourself Into

A 2019 YouGov survey in Britain asked 2,000 adults to label the female anatomy.¹https://yougov.co.uk/health/articles/22596-half-brits-dont-know-where-vagina-and-its-not-just An astonishing 31% of males surveyed were unable to correctly locate the clitoris. Unless British men are outliers, we can assume that around 1.2 billion men on this planet cannot find the clitoris! In the Beyond Satisfied Pro course, we get into exquisite anatomical detail. For now, here’s a brief yet important overview. 

Vulva

When you hear people colloquially talk about vaginas, nine out of ten times, what they mean to say is the vulva. The vulva is the outer or external part of the female genitals, and the term encompasses a group of distinct structures. Among them are: 

The pubic mound or mons pubis

Usually covered in hair, this is the fatty pad on top of the pubic bone. The purpose of the pubic mound is to cushion the pubic bone during intercourse.²Nguyen, J. D. (2021, July 31). Anatomy, abdomen and pelvis, female external genitalia. StatPearls [Internet]. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547703/. It also contains sebaceous glands that secrete pheromones to induce sexual attraction. 

Labia 

Below the pubic mound are the labia. Labia is a Latin word that means “lips,” and the vulva sports two pairs of them. The labia majora and the labia minora. 

Labia majora 

The labia majora are the outermost set of lips and are also called the outer labia. They are generally fleshier. Depending on your partner’s grooming preferences, and may or may not be covered in hair. While not as sensitive at the labia minora, your partner may respond favorably to having them rubbed and pulled apart.

Labia minora

The labia minora are the inner set of lips. They are thinner and do not sport hair. The skin of the lips is thin, wet, and chock full of nerve endings, meaning that they’re likely to be much more sensitive. 

A note on vulvas: they won’t all look like the diagrams in medical textbooks. There is a huge variety of shapes and sizes, as you can see in this vulva gallery from my book Beyond Satisfied.

Clitoris

The clitoris is the most sensitive part of your partner’s anatomy and a key gateway to sexual pleasure. Formerly thought of as a pea-sized nub where the inner labia meet, the clitoris or clit is actually a much larger structure that is mostly internal. A piece of skin called the clitoral hood covers all or part of the head of the clitoris. If it helps, you can liken this to the foreskin of the penis. Masturbation usually involves direct or indirect stimulation of the clitoris. 

The urethral opening 

Just below the clitoris is the urethral opening. This is where urine (pee) leaves the body. It’s also the opening from which women squirt. Squirting is an expulsion of fluid during or before an orgasm. While female ejaculate comes out of the Skene’s gland in small amounts, squirt comes out of the urethra in larger volume. There’s a lot of conflicting research about what this stuff is composed of. 

A 2011 study demonstrated that female ejaculate contains prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and prostatic acid phosphatase, both of which can be found in semen.³Rubio-Casillas, A., & Jannini, E. A. (n.d.). New insights from one case of female ejaculation. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21995650/. The study also revealed that it also contains small amounts of creatinine and urea, which are found in urine.

For a deep dive into what squirt and ejaculate are made of (spoiler: they’re different!), check out my Is Squirt Pee? article.

Squirting is of extreme interest to me and partners who love to squirt or are interested in trying it for the first time. You’ll find ten videos dedicated to squirting in my Beyond Satisfied Pro course. I’ve also written a super detailed article on How to Squirt, with plenty of Pro Tips!

The vaginal opening 

The vaginal opening (also called the vestibule) is between the urethral opening and perineum or “taint.” As the name suggests, this is the opening of the vagina. 

The vagina

The vagina is a muscular canal that goes from the vulva to the cervix. Cervix means neck, as it’s the neck of the uterus. Most of the nerve endings are located in the third of the vagina nearest the opening. This is where penetration happens and where vaginal lubrication comes from. It’s also where menstrual blood leaves the body. 

G-spot 

You can find the G spot, or Gräfenberg spot, between 1 and 3 inches inside the vagina, along its front wall. Like the clitoris, it’s a nerve-rich and highly sensitive structure that can sometimes swell when touched. G spot stimulation—as we’ll, ahem, touch upon in a moment—can lead to intense sexual arousal and orgasm for many people.

Now that we’ve got the basic geography out of the way, we can move on! 

Take Good Care of Your Hands 

While fingering offers a lower sexually transmitted infection (STI) risk than other types of play, including oral sex, vaginal, and anal intercourse, the risk certainly isn’t zero. If you have a herpes outbreak and inadvertently touch any sores, you can spread the infection to your partner’s body or another part of yours. 

Human papillomavirus (HPV) too can be transmitted from hands to genitals in rare cases. As some strains of HPV cause genital warts—not to mention cervical, penile, and anal cancer—it’s important to wash your hands thoroughly. 

But it’s not just STIs you need to be careful about. Having certain contaminants on your hands can upset the flora of the vagina and cause a yeast infection⁴Willems, H. M. E., Ahmed, S. S., Liu, J., Xu, Z., & Peters, B. M. (2020, February 25). Vulvovaginal candidiasis: A current understanding and burning questions. Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland). Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151053/.  or bacterial vaginosis.⁵Kairys, N. (2021, July 18). Bacterial vaginosis. StatPearls [Internet]. Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459216/. 

It’s also important to take good care of your fingernails. Keep them trimmed and nicely filed so you don’t scratch a sensitive area that, as we’ll see in a moment, is rich with nerve endings. Medical-grade gloves are great for fingering because they create a smooth, clean surface. They also add a kinky vibe…if you like that sort of thing.

Ask for Feedback (negative as well as positive) 

Before you even get down to playing with your partner, it’s important to let her know that you intend to make her feel good. An all too common error is for the fingering partner to assume that what a previous lover liked will be appreciated across the board. You can’t use your ex-girlfriend’s map to navigate your new girlfriend’s neighborhood! While it’s good to go in with a solid base of knowledge, know that what every partner likes will be different. It’s crucial to “learn” your partner. Furthermore, what people like and respond to is subject to change, so feedback isn’t only reserved for new partners. A technique that blows her mind one night might not do anything for her the next morning, so you’ve got to pay attention. (Also, you don’t want to give her the same old stimulation every single time, as boredom is the #1 libido killer for many women.)

While moans and groans can constitute feedback, specificity is going to yield the best results. Tell her that you want to know what feels good, what doesn’t, what she wants more and less of. Tell her to be blunt about when she is ready for you to change something or when she wants you to continue exactly what you are doing. Tell her that you want and encourage feedback about speed, pressure, and positioning. Let her know that it’s important to tell you when she wants to gear down, take a break, or stop altogether.  

If her feedback isn’t giving you all the information you need to make her feel good, invite her to show you what she wants to feel by demonstrating pressure, speed, motion, etc., on an area of your body. 

Better yet, you can ask her to show you how she masturbates. 

Put your ego to one side, adopt what’s called a “beginner’s mind,” and learn each new—and existing—partner from scratch. Trust me: they’ll thank you for it. 

Okay, now we’ve got through our pre-play checklist, we can get down to business… slowly. 

Only Fools Rush In

Fingering is often thought of as foreplay, but this doesn’t mean that you don’t need to work up to it. You may, of course, have a partner who likes to be roughly fingered from the get-go, but I’d wager that’s going to be a minority of people. Most guys worry about premature ejaculation, but you know what’s far worse? Premature penetration!

A top-tier fingering experience is predicated by a good amount of build-up: making out, sensual touch, teasing, etc., before your fingers directly touch the vulva region. Make out with your partner, explore her body with your hands, and squeeze and caress her breasts, hips, butt, and inner thighs. Generally speaking, the longer you delay touching the vulva directly, the more turned on—and lubricated—your partner will be. Be on the lookout for cues that she’s ready for you to touch her most sensitive areas. Moans, whimpers, squirming, and other types of body language, etc., can all be tip-offs that she is ready to take it up a notch. 

You want your partner to be aching to feel your fingers on her skin by the time you’re ready to touch her there. This isn’t something you can rush, so vicariously enjoy their anticipation and be safe in the knowledge that what you’re doing now will make what comes later all that more enjoyable. 

Repeat After Me: There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Lube

If you’ve been faithfully following all of the pointers I’ve laid out so far, you may well have an increasingly slippery vagina to play with. That’s a very good thing as partners aren’t generally into a dry fingering experience. 

While natural lubrication is fantastic, the supply is finite and can sometimes run out, especially during a long, exploratory session. Also, people can sometimes get self-conscious about becoming dry: just like a guy might feel self-conscious about losing his erection. It’s always a good idea to have good-quality lube on hand and to use it.

Condom-safe silicone lubricant lasts the longest and feels best against the skin, though many people like to use a natural multi-purpose product like coconut oil. However, if your play session leads to intercourse, it’s important to know that oil-based lubricants are prone to degrade condoms.

How to Finger a Girl

Don’t go straight into fingering your partner’s clit or sliding your fingers in her vagina (unless you know she likes that right away). Giving too much stimulation too quickly is like throwing on a light switch in the middle of the night: it can be a jarring change for the nervous system. Instead, think of increasing stimulation like a dimmer switch, gradually ramping up the intensity.

Before I even touch my partner’s vulva with my hand, one of my favorite fingering techniques is to put one of my legs between hers and press the softest part of my thigh against her vulva. I vary the pressure, starting light and giving more pressure as I kiss and caress more intensely. If she’s ever humped a pillow or a teddy bear (and loads of women learned to masturbate this way), she knows what’s up. 

External Touch 

As your partner warms up, pay attention to how her pussy changes as it becomes engorged. You can mix techniques to create a variety of sensations. Give her a grounding touch with your whole palm covering her vulva, using some pressure and a little movement. I call this a “pussy hug.” It helps bring a calming sensation to her genitals without creating stimulation right away.

When your partner is ready for more stimulation, give light strokes around her labia. Now is a good time to use lube on your fingers as your dry skin might be too much friction too early. 

Because the clit is incredibly sensitive, it usually doesn’t like to be touched directly right away. You can tease the clit by pinching the outer lips of her labia around your partner’s clit and hood to make a sandwich. Use your fingers to lightly squeeze and massage the layers of tissue, and you’ll be stimulating her clit at the same time. 

How integral to orgasm is the clitoris? Very. Clitoral stimulation is the most common way for women to orgasm. A 2017 study found that 36.6 percent of women needed external clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm during intercourse.⁶Herbenick , D., Dodge, B., Sanders, S. A., Arter, J., & Jane Fu, T.-C. (n.d.). Women’s experiences with genital touching, sexual pleasure, and orgasm: Results from a U.S. probability sample of women ages 18 to 94. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28678639/. That same study also showed that around two-thirds of women preferred direct clitoral stimulation. The most popular motions were up and down, circular motions, and side to side. Around 1 in 10 women preferred firm pressure, while most preferred light to medium touch on their vulva.

Different Strokes

You can try a variety of different kinds of touch around your partner’s clit, but a few specific techniques stand out as being the most popular pleasures.

If your partner prefers sensation across her whole vulva, use your whole hand, with fingers flat and pressed together, to stroke back and forth across her vulva and clit. The subtle ripple between your fingers will give stimulation similar to a vibrator. You can increase the sensation by fanning your fingers out and moving your hand faster back and forth.

For another technique, make a loose fist. Place the flat surface of your fingers, between your second and third knuckles, against her vulva, and wiggle your fingers as you move your hand side to side. This will stimulate her vulva and clit with a rippling sensation. You can do the same motion while also flexing your wrist up and down, which doesn’t induce orgasm for many people but gives a pleasurable mix of swiping-circular sensations.

As you continue to play with new types of touch, continue to watch for and ask for feedback from your partner. Tell her to let you know right away if something feels off or she doesn’t like a particular technique. The faster she lets you know, the quicker you can calibrate the kind of touch that feels amazing.

The more dexterity and body awareness you develop, the better quality of touch you’ll develop, too—until your hands become a better sex toy than whatever is stashed under your bed. Your touch can be more precise, varied, and responsive than anything on the market.

Internal Touch

Before you slide your fingers inside your partner’s vagina, tease around the vaginal opening to get the tissues warmed up to sensation. When your partner is fully aroused, she may be wet or not; it depends on the person. One little hack I like for lubing my fingers is to create a little “dipping tray.” I pour a little lube onto a part of their body where the lube can pool, like the hip crease or belly button. 

When you’re ready to slide your fingers in, turn your hand palm up so your fingernail presses against the bottom of her vagina, toward her anus. The bottom wall of the vagina stretches the most, and your lubed-up finger will slide in smoothly. 

Once your finger is inside and knuckle-deep, keep your finger still for a moment. This pause will give your partner a moment to feel the sensation of your finger inside. If you want to insert two fingers, stagger your index finger on top of your middle finger, so they create the least amount of surface space sliding into the vaginal opening. 

Apply pressure up toward her belly button to map where her G-spot is. Start with a broad, sweeping motion from one side (one hip) to the other, making a half-moon shape to get a sense of where she feels the most sensation. Only move your fingers in or out to adjust the depth, not as a back-and-forth thrusting motion. 

When you have a sense of where the most sensitive spot is for your partner, you can focus your attention there. Press harder to see what range of pressure she likes—you might be surprised at how much pressure you can apply. You can also add friction, curling your fingertips back and forth. Try friction only and pressure only to see what your partner likes best.

To create maximum sensation on the G-spot, uncurl your fingers all the way, so they press toward the back wall of the vagina. As you uncurl your fingers towards the back wall of the vagina, you’re creating more range of motion. Then you can generate more force as you press back up against the G-spot in a come-hither motion. 

You can create even more pressure by flexing your wrist as you curl your fingers. Then, extend your wrist as you straighten your fingers out again. Do this in a rhythmic motion. This might feel awkward and unnatural at first, but it will get easier with time. 

You can also curl your fingers upward in a walking motion like you’re doing the moonwalk on her front vaginal wall with your fingers. This is a variation in sensation that some people like. Pay attention to your fingertips as you do it, trying to feel the urethral sponge under your fingertips.

If your partner likes an even more firm sensation in this area, you can use your other hand to press down on her lower abdomen from the front, pushing the front wall of her vagina back into your other hand.

Once you’ve mastered these prerequisites, you’ll be ready for a deep dive! Check out my Advanced Fingering Techniques article, or, better yet, get the Beyond Satisfied Pro course and blow her mind tonight.

Keep Going Until Your Partner Tells You To Stop

Here’s some news you can use.  Women take 14 minutes to reach orgasm on average.⁷Rowland, D. L., Sullivan , S. L., Hevesi, K., & Hevesi, B. (n.d.). Orgasmic latency and related parameters in women during partnered and masturbatory sex. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30195562/. For many, it can take longer, and a lot of people are self-conscious about taking “too long.” Tell her you’re going to keep touching her for as long as it feels good for her—not until she orgasms, but for as long as it feels good. Why? Because you don’t want to put pressure on your partner and take her out of the moment. 

When women masturbate by themselves, it doesn’t typically take them that long. In fact, the time it takes them to orgasm is more similar to the time it takes men. The difference is that, while masturbating, they are paying attention to their experience, they’re super aroused (by what they are watching or their imagination), and they are giving themselves the exact sensations that feel good. Just like men masturbating while watching porn. We pick porn that turns us on, we’re paying attention to the entire erotic experience, and we’re touching ourselves just the way we like it… and voila! Orgasm!

Most of the time, if a woman is taking longer to orgasm, it’s because one or more of these crucial ingredients is missing. You could be fingering her just right, but if she’s worrying about being stinky because she just got home from yoga, and the whole time she’s scanning for your reactions rather than focusing on her own pleasure, she’s probably not going to cum.

That’s why I’ve invested so much time into crafting my book and course, to make sure you are able to cook with all three ingredients. It might sound complicated, but if you master the techniques I teach you, you’ll be well on your way to becoming her best ever. But if you don’t master the fundamentals, you can’t master the most advanced techniques, so start here, with your fingers!

Sources

• 1
  https://yougov.co.uk/health/articles/22596-half-brits-dont-know-where-vagina-and-its-not-just ↩︎
• 2
  Nguyen, J. D. (2021, July 31). Anatomy, abdomen and pelvis, female external genitalia. StatPearls [Internet]. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547703/. ↩︎
• 3
  Rubio-Casillas, A., & Jannini, E. A. (n.d.). New insights from one case of female ejaculation. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21995650/. ↩︎
• 4
  Willems, H. M. E., Ahmed, S. S., Liu, J., Xu, Z., & Peters, B. M. (2020, February 25). Vulvovaginal candidiasis: A current understanding and burning questions. Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland). Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151053/.  ↩︎
• 5
  Kairys, N. (2021, July 18). Bacterial vaginosis. StatPearls [Internet]. Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459216/. ↩︎
• 6
  Herbenick , D., Dodge, B., Sanders, S. A., Arter, J., & Jane Fu, T.-C. (n.d.). Women’s experiences with genital touching, sexual pleasure, and orgasm: Results from a U.S. probability sample of women ages 18 to 94. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28678639/. ↩︎
• 7
  Rowland, D. L., Sullivan , S. L., Hevesi, K., & Hevesi, B. (n.d.). Orgasmic latency and related parameters in women during partnered and masturbatory sex. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Retrieved October 10, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30195562/. ↩︎