Let me start this post off by saying injuries during sex aren’t extremely common. According to Debby Herbenick, a research scientist at Indiana University and the author of Great in Bed, injuries tend to be as a result of doing it in an unfamiliar place, rather than in an unfamiliar position. Needless to say, bumping and grinding can end you up in the ER (have you seen TLC’s Sex Sent Me to the ER???). Here is a list of the most dangerous sex positions that have been found to lead to the most injuries. I’m not saying don’t have sex, God no, but be careful kids. Here, everybody take some rubbers.

1. Doggy Style

While doing research, I found out that doggy style is considered one of the most dangerous sex positions. If he’s going at it too hard (“it” being you) then he can cause bruising or even vaginal tears. Also, the penis can accidentally slip into the anus, causing anal tearing. OW. A study published in the Journal of Impotence Research found that 41% of injuries during sex, specifically penile fractures (a rupture in two areas that are responsible for erections, f*cking ouch) were in doggy style. But if you ask me, if a guy accidentally slides into your ass, he deserves any injury he may get.

2. Missionary

TBH I thought missionary was super vanilla. Not that there is anything wrong with vanilla, sometimes you’re in the mood for that, but other times you need some mint chocolate chip, you know? IDK if I’m hungry or horny now. Nevertheless, this style was found to be the second most common position to cause penile fractures. How tho??

3. Woman On Top

The study found woman on top (aka cowgirl) to be the third most dangerous position that has been found to lead to penile fractures. Reverse cowgirl increases his risk of injury due to the similar positioning of P in V to doggy style. Thrusting too hard into her pubic bone could be painful for both partners. Although you taking control can be a serious turn-on for him, be mindful that his little large friend can be fragile and a penile fracture means temporary abstinence for the both of you.

4. The Eager Chef

Also known as “counter top sex”. The reason this position is v dangerous is because of its spontaneity. Being in a place that you aren’t used to f*cking in adds to the threat of injuries. Picture this: You are sitting on the counter, your SO is standing in front of you, you’re doing it, it’s passionate and hot, and he thrusts and misses your vajayjay and slams into the counter. Talk about a major mood killer. I can guarantee there will be tears and a trip to the ER.

5. The Pogo Stick

Romantic. It’s basically standing missionary. Slightly less vanilla but significantly more difficult. If your guy is super fit (#goals), then you should be fine. But having sex while my boyfriend holds me up sounds uber nerve-wracking. If he drops me, I’m injured. If he doesn’t drop me, he’s defs going to be sore the next day, and not in the way Ariana Grande describes.

6. 69

This one, surprisingly, lands on the list of most dangerous sex positions because of your increased risk of getting pink eye. LOL. Don’t fart in your man’s face and you should be fine.

Images: rawpixel / Unsplash

When my boyfriend found out I was writing this article, he displayed an emotional range that I usually reserve for getting my hair cut or finding out a TV show I watch is cancelled—you know, the really traumatic stuff. After vowing for 5 days that he would never lay eyes on it, he wound up glued to my latest draft while I repeatedly tackled him trying to reclaim my laptop. Because I have the core strength of an elderly Corgi, this was minimally effective and I had to hear a whole wounded speech of the “not all men” persuasion. So, for his benefit I’ve included the following disclaimer.

Disclaimer: This is exclusively for the purpose of not intended to make any guys out there self-conscious: you do me you. We’ve all just read enough articles about what guys think of our outfits, makeup choices, and morning-after behavior—it’s only fair that we offer up our thoughts about your dick’s behavior in return.

Doggy Style

This is heavily dependent on how the sex itself plays out. If he’s jackhammering for two minutes and then it’s over, this is just a guy who hasn’t had sex in too long, or who’s never had sex with the same girl more than twice, and exclusively knows how to effectively get himself off. Next. If it’s good though, and he’s not grabbing your hips and grunting like Khal Drogo (RIP), I’m willing to reserve judgment. Doggy style is awesome, and you can do a lot with it (bonus points for being creative with his hands).

My boyfriend’s insightful addition here: I think that guys like doggy style because it feels really good. (Thanks hon!)

Girl On Top

You’re obviously fucking hot, so you can’t really blame him for wanting to lay back and enjoy the view here. But unless you’re climbing on top and initiating this, this guy is straight-up lazy. Also, assuming this is your first hookup, who wants to invite that much eye contact??? Boys with mommy issues who will expect you to take care of all their cooking/cleaning/existential woes, that’s who. He thinks he’s sexily staring into your soul, but really you’re just thinking about how much your quads hurt and how much longer he’s going to lie there until he flips you over into a position he can actually finish in. This position is a privilege, and he should work his way up to earning it.

Missionary

Ah, the vanilla ice cream of sexual positions. I like to play a fun game when someone uses the phrase “best sex of my life” to describe missionary, and the game is that I leave immediately while deleting their number from my phone (preferably leaving them with the check for my meal in the process). I’m definitely saying not saying that liking missionary makes you a bad person, but it does make me think you’ve never heard of any other positions and/or seen a movie that isn’t PG-13. A first hookup is about bringing your A-Game. If this is his A-Game, he’ll probably cry in front of you within three weeks and wear the same T-shirt until you burn it in front of him. 

Standing Up

Couple of thoughts here. First of all, if you’re having sex standing up you’re almost certainly in a public place, which means you’re wasted he operates quickly and is good at improvising. Also, he’s probably missing certain key shame genes, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on how weird you like to get in bed, and whether or not you were hoping to see this guy in daylight/introduce him to friends. If you’re in the comfort of someone’s home and his first move is to throw you up against a wall, you should either lock this down immediately or run for your life. He’s clearly experienced, knows how to take charge, and has excellent core strength. All of which is fantastic but also describes Patrick Bateman, so you see my point.

I get it. When you’re a wrinkly and crusty old lady, you want to be able to set the grandbabies down for tea and regale them with tales of your golden era as a sexually adventurous, totally bangable piece. Dropping sugar cubes and knowledge as an old lady like you once dropped that ass. I know. Dream. But let’s be real, some sex trends, like any trend, are just embarrassing and you should probably never admit you tried them—just like how you should burn all your pictures from the time you shaved half your head and thought exposing the strip of torso above your belly button was cute. So hold on to your lube-coated ankles, because I’m here to de-mystify some of culture’s most overrated sex positions—the ones that everyone pretends to love when in reality they’re boring/uncomfortable/outright weird. You’re welcome.

1. The Sixty-Nine (69)

Fine, laugh at the number.  I’ll wait.

Now that that’s done, let’s break down the practicalities that make this oft-referenced position an actual nightmare. First, there’s the matter of angles. If you’re doing it right, your partner isn’t going to be flaccid, meaning he’ll be jamming it down (or up—I leave that up to you) your throat in a way that’s going to force your jaw into a dangerously uncomfortable position. The only way to avoid hyperextending your lower mandible is to be twisting yourself around some dude who’s significantly shorter than you, and… I mean… ew. So, assuming your hookup is a respectable height, there’s the chance you’ll end up at the doctor with lockjaw. And then there’s the fact that it’s kind of impossible to enjoy oral when you’re focused on also giving good oral at the same time. You can’t even give directions because you literally have a mouth full of dick. 

Secondly, there’s the matter of buttholes—namely, the butthole of each participant. Butts in your face. Butts near your mouth. I don’t care how often you frequent the anal bleaching center—it’s not going to be a pretty sight. Just say no to this position. Nobody wins and everybody loses.

2. The Pile-Driver

All right, ladies, I know you’ve been dedicated to that New Year’s Resolution to find your zen and master your gym’s intermediate yoga classes (if only you kept that resolution not to hook up with randos in music festival port-a-johns anymore as successfully), but the bedroom isn’t necessarily the time to show off.

Who am I kidding? Of course it is. But the pile-driver isn’t going to bring out the peace in you, I promise.

Sure, you might feel sexy sinking into plow in your Lululemon yoga pants, but naked is a whole other thing altogether. Literally no one can curl up like that without having a flabby pack of rolls present themselves like a pan of fresh-baked King’s Hawaiians at Easter dinner. And you, with your craned neck and unavoidable double-chin, get a front row seat to the roll-a-rama. Then enter some dude stage center, to literally sit on your butt, as if gravity and your own body weight weren’t enough on an inconvenience to your attempted sexiness. Then you have to just remain there, immobilized, with the weight of a grown-ass adult pressing down on your neck, while he tries to find a way to get his erect dick to aim the exact opposite direction from its natural inclination in order to penetrate you. 

No one’s in total control of their body in this situation. So you’re both forcing your bodies to do things they don’t want to do, pretending like anything’s going to come from it other than eventual debilitating scoliosis. Oh, and you know he’s going to “accidentally” go for the wrong hole. 

3. Doggie Style

“Oooooh, my guy’s so kinky, he likes to hit it from behind, blah blah blah.” WHATEVER. Yeah, I was in tenth grade once too. But it’s time to grow up. Can we all agree that doggie style is the new missionary? There’s nothing exciting about it anymore. Maybe it’s hot if you’re facing a mirror, but more often than not you’re just face-down in a dirty comforter, trying to not suffocate for four and a half minutes with your eyes pounding around in your skull.

And I hate to break it to you ladies, but if he can only come when he’s hitting it doggie style—HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU. Worse, he prob doesn’t even find you attractive. Are you his girlfriend? Ariana Grande? Nicolas Cage? From your dude’s point of view, he literally cannot tell. Plus, why am I going to spend an hour contouring and highlighting my face for a dick appointment if he’s just gonna flip me over and rub it all off on the pillow anyway? That’s gonna be a no from me, dog.

4. Titty Fucking

You know where my clit is not? It’s not on my damn sternum, I’ll tell you that much. NEXT.

5. The Stand And Carry

I know it’s tempting, but unless you are both professional athletes, abort the fucking mission. This position requires a lot more core strength and endurance than you’d imagine. Plus, your guy’s biceps needs to be ripped, because despite you doing your sexiest naked koala impression, the onus to keep you from falling to your (very sweaty) death falls on his muscular arms. Have you ever started slipping from a piggy-back ride? Now imagine the same misstep, only from a piggy-front ride and with a hard-on clobbering away at your innards. And you’re naked. There’s just too much space for disaster.

6. Shower Sex

You know when you’re slicker than a baby oil-covered slip and slide? One of the worst things you can do is to wash it all away. If your dude is making you as horny as he damned well better, then your body is going to produce all the moisture you need to do the damn thing. (Sorry, I said moist in a sex article.) (Sorry, I did it again.) If you’re wet and ready to go, climbing in the shower is just going to rinse away all your body’s hard work. Plus, you’re going to have to take a real shower after sex, so this is pointless on many levels.

Even moving past the issue of lubrication, shower sex is overrated because people assume it’s steamy, but they forget that hot water only lasts so long. Do you really want to have hot shower sex for sixteen minutes—twelve if the neighbors flush the toilet—and then suddenly be boning under a glacial waterfall? And you’ll probably be concentrating so hard on not slipping and falling and cracking your skull on the tile and dying of a brain injury that you won’t even enjoy the sex. 

7. Reverse Cowgirl

Only rodeo clowns ride horses backward. Are you a rodeo clown? No? Moving on.

8. Missionary

If you and your new husband Jeremiah have just arrived to some isolated Mozambique village in the 1920s with a charge from God to build a church and teach the children, and you’ve just dismounted from your eighteen hour carriage journey to sweep the rug of your new hut, and you look over to your straw mattress to see Jeremiah giving you that come-hither stare from beneath the brim of his Panama hat, then sure, have missionary sex with that beautiful, boring, god-fearing man right this instant. But if you’re showing up at Chad from Bumble’s loft at 11:45pm with a half-empty bottle of silver tequila and push-up bra with whipped cream stains on the cup, then trust me when I say that missionary is not the position for you.

Not only is it boring as all hell, but you run the risk of Chad wanting to maintain eye contact with you while he mutters about how much he loves you or the ways you resemble his ex or his favorite scone recipes or literally ANYTHING. All the while you just have to watch him watch you. The risk factors are immense.

Obviously, do your thing—if you’re super into doggystyle or something, I give not a single fuck. Just know that there’s a whole world of (actually good) sex positions out there you’re leaving unexplored.