2025 is all about the art of 'clean dirty talk'.

I remember the first time someone ever talked dirty to me and I liked it.

I was making out with a man older than me, in his pool, drinking champagne from the bottle, and feeling pretty f**king fabulous. He nuzzled into my ear and began recounting the first time he ever saw me at my workplace (behind a bar) and all the dirty thoughts he had as he watched me work.

It wasn't the typical dirty talk you hear in porn, which is mostly made up of a swear word followed by an enthusiastic or sultry "yes!!!" — but I think that's why I liked it. He was basically telling me a story, whispering erotic literature — and I was the main character.

He didn't swear once, it didn't feel performative, and it really turned me on. He took me outside my body for a moment, and into a make-believe world of desire, romance and allure — and the whole escapism experience really worked for me.

Dirty talk featured in my early 20s mostly as a performance request — men asking me if I liked 'it', imploring me to tell them how I felt about what they were doing with dramatic swear words and shrieking tones like they'd seen women being 'pleasured' in porn videos.

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Because of this, I actually rallied against dirty talk. I told myself I wouldn't say anything that didn't feel natural to me in the bedroom, which meant I didn't engage with it much at all. The performative element of it made — and still makes — me uncomfortable. To me, it's like small talk at an industry event, or falling into the catch-up trap with someone you don't really care to catch-up with at all. I have a personal disdain for saying things just for the sake of it, or to make someone else feel comfortable and validated, while negating your truth.

Dirty talk as we know it also feels so limiting. The mainstream language we have to work with comprises approximately five or six words, which doesn't lend itself to the spectrum of emotions we can feel during intimacy. In a recent episode of Couples Therapy on SBS, psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik suggests that one of her clients is hiding behind swear words instead of acknowledging her true feelings. That's kind of how I feel about dirty talk. 

We don't have an expansive language around sex, because the majority of the language has been created by men. Sex hasn't been an open dialogue for women (especially in mainstream media) until the last decade, and we're slowly finding our voices. There's so much 'grey area' within sex, desire, pleasure and all that lies in between, that quite frankly a "f**k yes!" or "keep going, baby!" doesn't quite cut it.

But then the question becomes, how can you build upon your dirty talk repertoire, outside the swear words and cliché, cringe-worthy phrases?

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This reddit thread, asking what people who don't swear say during sex/dirty talk, has a few funny suggestions.

"Oh, heavens!" one user wrote, followed by Bridgerton-esque phrases:

"Quite... splendid, I dare say!"

"Do proceed with vigour, my dear, but ever so gently — yes, right there! Oh, how marvellous!"

"I must confess, this is truly delightful — how wonderfully invigorating!"

"Goodness gracious, I'm positively beside myself! Bravo! Absolutely capital work!"

TBH, I don't mind the Jane Austen of it all. If I were to choose a role-play scenario for myself, it would definitely be a love scene from the 1800s, using proper language while taking off a corset in a flurry, or getting fingered in a horse-driven carriage.

Other wildly funny ones like "boom goes the dynamite", "shiver me timbers, I'm about to mark the spot" and "put your shovel in there... dig up my treasure.." made me literally quiver on my chair, and not in a good way. 

Although many of the phrases throughout the thread did the opposite of turning me on — and I think I'd truly walk out on my boyfriend if he ever said anything like them in seriousness to me — I enjoyed reading other people's journeys to saying the thing they're trying to say, without using swear words.

"My thing feels so good in your hoohaa, darling," is basically just saying, "I love the way my penis feels in your vagina" — but we still live in a world where it's not normalised to call out the actual names of our private parts, especially during sex. We use other words, like "p**sy" and "c**k", which are considered to be more sexy… according to porn.

One user wrote: "Praises. It works wonders but can make some people emotional", which is an interesting point and also a nice place to start. Give your lover a compliment or praise them on something they're doing as a way of engaging in dirty talk. As the commenter said, it might cause an emotional response — because sex is a vulnerable practise, and to feel validated within it can be an emotional experience.

Another user wrote that "dirty talk is not rocket science. You're saying how something feels. You're asking how something feels. You're asking someone to do something to you. You are expressing enjoyment. You're asking/confirming their enjoyment. You're providing narration/commentary."

I love this perspective, because it strips 'dirty talk' down to what it really is: communication. You're just talking to your lover while experiencing intimacy with them. It doesn't have to be a certain volume, it doesn't have to only be praise or swear words; it can be literally just asking for what you want, or saying what you like about what they're doing in a conversational way.

Dirty talk doesn't have to be 'dirty', and I think the insinuation that it does is what deters so many women. It could also be the allure, but it definitely creates this pressure of having to be 'good' at it.

You don't, though! If you're having sex you're inherently doing something sexy; so just verbalise what you're doing and where you want it to go. Not only are you engaging with dirty talk in a "cleaner" way, this kind of communication can actually help massively with consent and getting more intimate knowledge around what you and your lover like.

I think this is where I've landed on dirty talk: My boyfriend and I have a super-healthy sex life, and we're comfortable talking throughout sex, which is something that has become more natural over time. Sometimes our communication is complimentary and sexy, while other times it's more practical, like asking for something we need; a finger to be a little higher, the pressure to be harder or lighter — actual communication about what we're desiring at any given moment.

Dirty talk for us is also outside the bedroom. It's simply talking about sex in normal everyday life; taking the time out to be curious about each other's experience in the bedroom. I find that the more we know about each other, the more we feel comfortable talking during intimacy;because we don't need to go out on a limb and say something 'wild' — we already know how the other will react.

So, while a bit of old-fashioned, mainstream dirty talk isn't a bad thing, I think it's important to engage in it in the way that makes you feel most comfortable. If that means not being performative (like me), not swearing or faking it — lean into the curious communication of it all. Talking during sex is sexy by simply existing.

Feature Image: Getty.