The sex position names writers use most are missionary, cowgirl (on top), reverse cowgirl, doggy style (from behind), spooning, standing or against the wall, lotus (seated, face to face), the edge of the bed, the shower, the chair and, for two women, scissoring. What a writer needs from each is what it allows: whether they can see each other's faces, who sets the pace, which hands are free, and whether anyone can talk. The chart below gives all four for 13 positions, so you can pick the one your scene needs instead of the one you thought of first.
This page is craft, and it stays non-explicit. It's for romance and smut writers blocking a scene, not a sex manual.
Sex position names, and what each lets the scene do
These are the blocking cards from KudoNovel's sex position generator for writers, cut down to the four things that change a scene. "A" is the partner the scene is usually told from (the heroine, in most romance), "B" her partner. Every card except scissoring works for M/F and M/M alike: swap the pronouns and the staging holds.
| position | also called | eye contact | who leads | free hands | talk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Missionary | — | face to face, inches apart | B; A steers with heels and hands | A's both; B's only if he takes his weight on one elbow | whispers at the cheek |
| Cowgirl | on top, riding | she looks down, he looks up | A, all of it | both of his | she can tease or give orders; he can only ask |
| Reverse cowgirl | — | none; one look back over her shoulder | A | his, on her back and hips | her words go away from him |
| Doggy style | from behind | none, unless there's a mirror | B at first; A takes over by pushing back | his | he talks at her ear; hers go into the pillow |
| Spooning | — | none; cheek against cheek | nobody; small, slow movements | his top arm | low voices at the ear |
| Against the wall | standing | face to face, nowhere to go | B physically; A with legs and hands | none of his if he's holding her up | short, breathless words |
| Lotus | seated, face to face | eye to eye, same height | shared; they rock | everyone's | barely a whisper |
| Edge of the bed | — | down the length of her body | B | both of his | she has to raise her voice |
| In the shower | standing | water in their faces | whoever is behind | all, and slippery | the water swallows words |
| Lying flat | prone | none; his mouth at her neck | B | his | into her neck; hers into the mattress |
| Kitchen counter | — | level, face to face | B has leverage; A has her legs | everyone's | a conversation that turns |
| In a chair | lap | face to face, her a little higher | A; the chair gives him nothing to push from | his on her waist and back | close and quiet, it keeps going |
| Scissoring (F/F) | — | face to face across their legs | shared | on each other's thighs and waists | laughing while they find it |
Source: KudoNovel's sex position generator, the 15 two-person cards (two left out here for heat), November 2026. The generator also has four cards for three people, for why choose romance.
What the chart shows. Of the generator's 15 two-person cards, five have no eye contact at all (reverse cowgirl, doggy style, spooning, sixty-nine, lying flat), six are face to face at close range, three put one partner above the other's eyeline (cowgirl, the edge of the bed and one left out of the chart), and in the shower the water gets in the way. So before heat or variety, a position decides who can see whom. A confession nobody can say to a face belongs in spooning. A power shift she starts belongs in cowgirl or the chair, where she leads and he can only ask. A moment where he has to watch her decide wants a position where he can see her face: if you write her expression from his point of view in reverse cowgirl, he's describing something behind his own head.
How to choreograph a sex scene: block it first
Intimacy coordinators stage these scenes the way a fight director stages a fight. Ita O'Brien, who coordinated Normal People, told Dazed (2 May 2020) that a "basic shape, physically, in the scene" comes first, and only then does she "start agreeing the touch and choreography": "just as with a dance or a fight, we're doing intimate content."
A page needs the same thing, and it fits in four lines you write before the prose and delete after:
- Bodies: where each one is, and on what (bed, counter, his lap).
- Hands: where all of them are. Count them.
- Faces: who can see whose, and what the POV character can't see.
- Lead: who sets the pace now, and the moment it changes hands.
Write the note again each time they move. Most of the slips below show up in the note before they reach the prose.
Too many hands, and the other slips readers notice
Romance author Cassandra Carr put "impossible body positioning" in her five annoying problems in books (9 Oct 2012): "if the hero has five hands, it's a problem." Sherry Thomas posted her editor's note on the aftermath of one of her own love scenes, where she stands facing a table and he is behind her (17 Oct 2006): "How can she slam her palms into his chest unless she turns completely around?" And the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction prize names "anatomical confusion" among the faults it mocks (Ooligan Press, 30 Sep 2019).
| the slip | where it happens | the fix |
|---|---|---|
| A third hand | missionary on both forearms; holding her up against the wall | say which hand moved before it does something new |
| A face the POV can't see | reverse cowgirl, doggy style, spooning | give the sound, the breath, a look back over the shoulder |
| A forgotten height difference | from behind, the counter, the edge of the bed | mention it once: a pillow, spread knees, a step |
| Endless stamina | riding, holding someone up | let her slow down; have him carry her somewhere |
| Clothes that vanish | any position change | one line for each layer that comes off, or one for all of them |
| The partner nobody mentions | three people, any position | cut back to them every few lines, through her eyes |
A before and after
Here's a short, tame passage from her point of view with two slips in it.
He held her up against the door, both arms under her thighs, and cupped her face in his hand. She watched him smile against her neck.
He has no hand to cup her face with, and she can't watch a smile that's pressed into her own neck. Fixed:
He held her up against the door, both arms under her thighs, so she was the one who had to take his face in her hands. She felt him smile against her neck.
With his hands taken, she's the one touching his face, and that's a better beat for the heroine than the one you started with.
Naming the position in the prose
Almost never by its name. "Cowgirl" and "doggy style" are words for a list, not for a love scene: in close third person they're the narrator stepping out of her head. Show the position through the one thing the scene is about. If she's taking charge, it's "she pushed him onto his back and didn't let him sit up". If it's the confession, it's "his voice was at her ear and she didn't have to turn around". One concrete detail of where the bodies are does the job; the reader assembles the rest. Bodies follow the same rule, and describing a woman's body without the male gaze has the words by heat level.
The name can work in dialogue, when a character would say it: a joke between two people who know each other well, a dare, a nervous laugh. Then it tells you about them, not the furniture. The register rule from how to write smut applies here too: pick plain or heated words for bodies and keep them, and clinical terms only for a character who'd use them.
Moving between positions in a sentence
A change of position is a beat of its own, and it reads best as one movement with a reason. From the generator's cards:
- Missionary to cowgirl: she hooks a leg and rolls them, and he lands on his back without anyone getting up.
- Cowgirl to missionary: he sits up, an arm around her back, and tips them both over.
- Doggy style to spooning: they fall onto their sides together.
- Against the wall to the bed: he carries her, three steps that feel like thirty.
Whoever starts the move takes the lead, so a change of position is also the place to hand the scene to the other character.
What people search, and what writers need from it
These are the searches around this page. Keyword Planner hides most sexual queries, so treat them as floors.
| query | searches a month (US) |
|---|---|
| sex position names | 33,100 |
| sex dice | 6,600 |
| sex position generator | 1,600 |
| random sex position generator | 1,000 |
| how to write a sex scene | 320 |
Source: Google Keyword Planner, US, checked November 2026.
The gap between 33,100 and 1,600 is people who want a name against people who want to be handed one. The generator does the second: roll one when a scene has gone stale, or use dice mode and let the roll pick.
Blocking a sex scene with AI in KudoNovel
The slips above are continuity errors, and continuity is what KudoNovel keeps for you. Put the facts the choreography depends on into the character's entry in the story bible: he's a head taller, her knee is bad, there's a scar on his ribs she always finds. Before each beat is written, KudoNovel picks the bible entries the passage needs, so the height difference shows up in the bedroom scene without you pasting it in. You write the scene as beats, one position change each if you like, and when one comes back with the wrong hand on her face, a one-line steer ("his arms are holding her up; she touches his face") edits that beat in place, and the steer outranks the rest of the brief.
There's no content filter of KudoNovel's own, so the heat is yours to set within the law. For which models write which heat, see AI smut writing, and for the scene's job and its aftermath, how to write smut. If ChatGPT keeps softening the scene, the ChatGPT jailbreak tricks for NSFW writing were tested and show how far they get. KudoNovel runs in the browser, with one free credit after you confirm your email and one-off packs after that.
Roll a position in the generator, write the four-line blocking note, then write the scene as a beat.