GQ's What to Know Before Getting Naked With Someone New

What to Know Before Getting Naked With Someone New

Love is in the air. Or, at the very least, lust. We’ll bet five bucks that you’re taking advantage of the warmer weather by hitting bars and looking for tail. Be prepared: as the temperatures rise and your chances for bringing someone random home increase, there’s a few things you should take care of. It’s easy to feel vulnerable when you’re in your birthday suit, but here’s our guide to sleeping (and doing other things) naked next to someone new and still feeling your best. Word to the wise: do everything we say, but not so much that you look like you’re trying too hard.

Get Better Bedsheets

You can’t expect anyone to take off all of their clothes if their skin is going to touch raw, bristly, unclean sheets. Make sure you pamper your partner’s follicles with something superb—we’re not talking satin sheets here, but your thread count should be above 400, at least. Keep it classy with neutral colors, too. And please, please make sure they’ve been washed in the last week.

Do Some Deforesting

If it looks like a jungle down there, it’s time for a trim. You don’t have to lose all your body hair, but make sure the places where someone may be touching are trimmed up tight. If anyone new is going to be grabbing for your bod, it should be mostly skin they’re getting a grip on, not clumps of unkempt hair.

Scents Matter

Your skin is going to be the only thing within nose-length, so make sure it smells right. As higher temperatures start to make you sweat, it might be time to consider some subtle scents. Sure, one spray of cologne on the wrist before you hit the bars is a nice touch, but we’d actually recommend lightly fragrant body moisturizers—try Aesop’s earthy body balm—which have the added bonus of making your skin much more touchable. A room deodorizer like the woodsy one that Juniper Ridge makes is also a must—before you leave the house on a Saturday night, make sure you spritz every corner of your place (especially the bathroom).

Dim the Lights

No one—not even Ryan Gosling—looks good naked when there are fluorescent bulbs beaming overhead like at a 7-Eleven. Good lighting can hide the lumps. Invest in some dim lamps to scatter around your room. If you’re cool with a little bit of a hippie vibe, try out a Himalayan salt lamp for extra-sexy sight lines. And if you’re feeling cool and romantic enough to pull off candles, they cast everything, even love handles, in a warm glow.

Stock Supplies

Wearing nothing but a smile? That’s not the time to be rummaging around for towels, blankets, condoms, or any other equipment that comes in handy when a new friend is over. Keep a fresh towel for necessary post-coital cleanup stocked where you can find it easily even in the dark, and make sure you’ve got clean underwear within arm’s reach for late night trips to the bathroom. Before you hit the bedroom, fill two glasses of water for the nightstand to help prevent hangovers, and it’s always good to have a few eggs in the fridge so that you won’t have to put on clothes to make your new boo breakfast in the morning.

Why So Serious?

Look, shedding clothes with someone new is awkward. They’re feeling insecure, you’re feeling shy, everyone’s wishing they spent more time on the treadmill. The best way to make the weird business of being naked more fun is to actually just have more fun: crack jokes (don’t belly laugh too hard though—that doesn’t look attractive with your junk out), be playful, put all parties at ease. You’ll be doing both of you a favor. And remember: don’t make too big a deal out of all of this. If the barebones chemistry isn’t right, you’ll never have to see that person (clothes on or off) again. If you manage to have a good time, chances are you’ll be naked with them all the time.