An ode to dismantling productivity culture by making out more

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If your feed is anything like mine, you’re seeing this surge in online content about analogue hobbies, long-form content and retraining our attention spans. There is a collective agreement that in 2026 we are taking back our time and one way that we are doing that is by getting off these damn phones and embracing slowing down.

This has been long overdue and there’s many a research study about why this is important for our physical, mental and relational health.

We are not made for constant content about optimisation and maximisation. We are not made for constant content that parkours from the trashfire of politics to the latest in Korean skincare to whatever is going on with the Beckhams in the span of a single swipe. We are not made for constant content about how we are not doing enough if we don’t do morning cold plunges, eat 60 grams of protein/day or track our sleep.

Babe, we are overstimulated.

How is productivity culture and making out connected?

Let’s get to the juice because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

It is now considered the norm to be overstimulated, rushing and multi-tasking. At this point, it’s chicken or egg as to whether it’s something imposed on us from cultural and social expectations or something we impose upon ourselves.

We rush and we pick up speed because we’re given positive reinforcement that on some level it works. We tick things off the list, we achieve more throughout the week, we reach a goal, we get external recognition and it feels good. So we keep going and going and going.

We start to see our life as a series of outcomes and that our worth depends on the quantifiable numbers that we have to show for it, whether that’s KPIs, Instagram likes, money in the bank account or in the realm of my work in sex therapy, how often we’re having sex.

We treat the frequency of sex as the most important indicator of long-term relationship health and sexual worth. It’s all about them quantifiable outcomes, of course.

In this way of thinking, we start to view sex as another task to cross off the list to protect our status as “good partner”. We fast-track through the whole experience, waiting for it to be over so that we can get back to the other tasks we need to do. We rush each step of the Sex Staircase (from Lauren Fogel Mersey and Jennifer Vencill’s book Desire): Touching, Kissing, Caressing, Genital Touch, Oral Sex, Penetrative Sex, Orgasm, and then are glad we don’t have to think about it again for the rest of the week.

We lose the juice that is savouring and exploring our own body and each other’s bodies for the sake of it because it’s inherently unproductive by society’s definition. We don’t have anything to show for a good make-out aside from the rush of hormones and feeling buzzed, maybe even inspired.

It’s at this point in long-term relationships often where obligatory sex begins and we start to wonder why sex is no longer enjoyable, why we don’t want it as often and how hard it is to get out of our heads during it. We keep talking about how much we miss making out and doing nothing else, but also don’t create the space for it. We talk about how good it feels to feel desired and wanted, but we forget that feeling wanted has more to do with sustained attention than it does with actually having sex.

How you approach sex is a mirror for how you approach your life

In rushing, we stay stuck in our head and more acutely aware of our to-do list and Google calendars much more than what goes on below our shoulders. We’re more likely to blow past boundaries, overcommit and crash.

However, you might also find that even when you do have time to unwind, you struggle to relax because you feel guilty or you feel overwhelmed by all the potential options so you end up doom-scrolling. There’s an engrained belief that you have to earn your rest and that’s productivity culture baby.

What makes this tricky is that productivity culture also encourages us to override what our body is needing and wanting (from Devon Price’s Laziness Does Not Exist). You might want a break, but you still have to work so you push through. You might not want sex, but it’s been a while so you have obligatory sex for the sake of your long-term partner. We get into the realm of tolerating, enduring and performing and none of this makes a recipe for good and healthy sex.

Some other insidious ways productivity culture can show up during sex is: avoiding receiving head because “you might take too long to orgasm”, faking orgasms to speed up the experience, going straight for the genitals instead of asking for what you actually want, or rushing masturbation via vibrators or porn instead of exploring and savouring the build-up.

There’s nothing sexy about rushing

While I’m not opposed to quickies, you don’t build a satisfying and sustainable sex life out of them. With the exception of emergencies, I say “nothing good comes from rushing”.

When we rush, we don’t feel sexy, the context doesn’t feel sexy and the touch doesn’t feel sexy. Whether you’re the giver or the receiver, rushed touch is unpleasant for all the reasons I’ve already named. It becomes performative, disconnected and there’s an unspoken pressure for it to feel good, which is where faking orgasms often come in. We lose the juice when we rush through experiences and through life.

One way that we can dismantle this internalised sense of urgency is to literally just go slower.

“The mind moves fast and the body moves slow.”

This was a phrase that stood out to me when reading Gabor Maté’s When The Body Says No. A book about repressing stress and the physical toll it takes on the body to do so, Maté talks about how our bodies need much more time and space than we often give them.

When we slow down, we show our mind and our body that all is good. This is the sweet spot that makes pleasure and eroticism possible. Despite what productivity culture may tell you, it’s not about doing more but it’s about how we do it.

Notice when you catch yourself rushing for absolutely no reason. This might be rushing through your shower, your dinner, your chores, your walk to work, your conversation with a friend or even of course a sexual experience and especially making out.

Can you let yourself linger here a little bit longer and invite your partner to come along for the ride?

Can you savour the feeling of your hands caressing your partner’s neck?

Can you hover over their lips and let the tension build?

Can you lean into the sighs and breathy moans and smushing of body parts?

Can you explore their sweet spots like it’s new terrain and let them do the same with nowhere else to be?

Can you?