Lately, there has been much printed about the act of spooning and how it’s not that great. The author of this Slate piece could not be more wrong. I counter that spooning is great, and perhaps the author should look past what is an undertaker-like description of “where to put all the arms and legs” and look toward the strategic relationship advantages spooning provides.
Spooning is a great activity to engage in with partners for many reasons. Chief among them is to experience a moment of relaxation and general shutting up of your partner so you can think about your life choices while facing the other way. If you tried to do this in any other position, it would lead to talking.
If stony silence isn’t your jam, spooning also offers a way to have pillow talk with your partner while rolling your eyes and pulling faces while they say dumb stuff. This offer is not valid if you have a mirror facing your side of the bed.
But let’s say you don’t want to just talk or not talk in bed while spooning. Here’s another benefit: Spooning makes most forms of intercourse impossible. Unless you’re in Cirque Du Soleil, hand jobs are out of the question. A nice fitting pair of flannel pajama bottoms can take care of the rest. If you’re still unconvinced, try being the “big spoon,” ladies.
But spooning still offers the possibility of sex, and it signals something else: an ability to recapture your furtive teenage sex flailings by reminding you what it feels like to have a boner pushed up against your back and pretend you’re asleep. This is a priceless piece of nostalgia on par with mint in package Wookiees. Do not pass up this opportunity to go back in time.
Maybe your Saturday night’s all right for fighting. ONCE AGAIN, spooning can help. Implementing warfare while spooning is easy if you’re good at faking being asleep. Nature gave us something called the hypnic jerk, which is an involuntary, sudden movement. Use this to your advantage if your partner was being a dink by “involuntarily” delivering some jerks to the areas spooning ideally puts closest to you. If you try to jab your partner facing them or standing up, you’d better prepare for a fight. Do it while spooning, and you’re home free.
It’s important to note that Slate’s J. Bryan Lowder created his anti-spooning rhetoric while his “partner” is “out of town.” What are you trying to hide, J. Bryan? We’ve all heard the ol’ “my partner is in Spain” trick before.
What’s important and good about spooning is what it represents: togetherness, yet freedom. The promise of sex in a nostalgic knock at your back door. An ability to deal bodily blows without having to answer for them. Spooning is an essential part of bedroom politics that we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss.