40 spicy challenges for couples to turn up the heat tonight

Forget the remote control. Tonight, the only button you'll be pressing is the one marked ego and desire in your partner.

A real challenge doesn't amount to some vague suggestion. It isn't "how about a massage?". A challenge is a directive. It means imposing an action, a limit or a rule of play on the other person. It means taking power for a few minutes, watching how they react, and driving the sexual tension up through constraint and nerve.

In a relationship, routine sets in when everything becomes predictable. The absolute antidote? The unexpected, dictated by a strict instruction. Whether you feel like driving them mad with frustration or going straight to raw action, here are 40 concrete couple challenges, imperative and formidable.

Choose your weapon, look your partner in the eye, and lay down your rule.

Phase 1: the "warm-up" challenges

Building the pressure. The aim here isn't to close the deal, it's to throw the other one off balance. You upend the habits of the early evening with simple orders that force closeness.

1. The hands-free glass. "I dare you to make me drink a mouthful from my glass, but you're absolutely forbidden to use your hands. You have to hold the glass with your arms, your neck, or your mouth." The sheer awkwardness of it breaks the ice and forces an unfamiliar kind of physical contact.
2. Blind undressing. "Close your eyes. I'm going to take exactly three garments or accessories off you. You have to guess which ones from the feel of the fabric sliding away, and nothing else. Get it wrong and you take something off me with your teeth."
3. The marble statue. "Lie on your back. You're not allowed to move a millimetre or to speak. I'm going to stroke your chest and your neck for three minutes. At the first flinch, you take a dare." This is the groundwork of gentle submission: making the body absorb pleasure without reacting.
4. The timed strip. "You have exactly 45 seconds to get my trousers and socks off, using one hand only. The other hand stays pinned behind your back. The clock's running."
5. The travelling ice cube test. "I order you to close your eyes and tip your head back. I'm going to run an ice cube over three areas of your body. You have five seconds to tell me which three, and no cheating."
6. The imaginary line. "Draw an imaginary line with your index finger, from the base of my neck down to my belt. Now I dare you to follow that exact path with your tongue, never once straying from it, even if I move."
7. The indecent whisper. "Come close to my ear. You have one minute to describe to me, in the crudest words you can find, the worst thing you want to do to me tonight. I'm only allowed to listen, and you're not allowed to touch me."
8. The thorough inspection. "Stand up and put your hands against the wall. I'm going to carry out a slow body search to check you're not hiding anything. Let it happen, you're not allowed to turn round."
9. The stubborn button. "Come and sit on my lap. I dare you to unbutton my shirt (or my jeans) using nothing but your lips and your teeth. Use your fingers and you start again from scratch."
10. The order of visual stillness. "Sit facing me. We're going to look each other in the eye for two full minutes. The first one to look away, laugh or speak has to make the other one's fantasy happen tonight. Clock starts now."

Phase 2: the "frustration and forbidden" challenges

The game of limits. Desire feeds on lack. Imposing a physical or sensory limit on your partner will multiply their urge to get on with it.

11. The barrier of breath. "I dare you to turn me on as much as you possibly can for three minutes, but you're strictly forbidden to touch me with your hands or your mouth. All you're allowed is your breath on my skin."
12. The blind guide. "I'm blindfolding you. I'm going to take both your hands in mine. You're not allowed to move your fingers. I'm the one who's going to guide your hands over my body, exactly where I want you to touch me."
13. The forbidden kiss. "We're going to kiss passionately for one minute. But the rule is strict: our lips must never touch. Kiss my neck, my jaw, the tip of my nose. If your lips so much as brush mine, you've lost."
14. Stop-and-go. "Start touching me. When I say 'stop', you stop immediately, you back off a metre and you wait in silence. You only start again when I say 'go'. Brace yourself, I'm going to say stop a lot."
15. The punishment of silence. "Until we get to the bedroom, you're completely forbidden to speak, to moan or to sigh. If a single sound leaves your mouth, the evening ends there." The effort of concentration leaves the body hyper-receptive.
16. Asymmetrical exploration. "I dare you to attend to nothing but the right half of my body. My right arm, my right thigh, the right side of my neck. The left side doesn't exist. You'll see how maddening it is."
17. The light restraint. "Put your hands behind your back. I'm tying your wrists with this tie. Your challenge: manage to kiss me and tip me onto the bed without using your arms."
18. The rule of the fabric. "One of us keeps their underwear on. I'm requiring you to give me pleasure through the fabric, never pulling it aside or down. Make do with the friction."
19. The body thermostat. "Find the hottest point on my body with your lips, then the coldest. You have two minutes to even out the temperature of both areas, using your tongue alone."
20. The brink (edging). "This is an order: bring me to the edge of orgasm, then stop everything. Let me come back down. Do that three times over. I forbid you to let me finish before the fourth attempt."

Phase 3: the "domination and role reversal" challenges

Who takes control? Playing with the usual power dynamics of a straight couple is an inexhaustible playing field. This is the moment to command and to obey.

21. The consenting puppet. "For the next five minutes, you have no will of your own. You're my toy. I sit you up, I lie you down, I put your arms where I want them, I part your legs. You let yourself be handled with complete passivity."
22. Compulsory formality. "From now until we're done, you address me as Sir or Madam. You ask my permission for every move: 'may I kiss you?'. One slip back into my first name and you get a cushion."
23. The asymmetrical undressing order. "Get up, stand in the middle of the room. I order you to take off every last thing you're wearing, slowly, while I stay perfectly dressed on the sofa watching you do it. Make a show of it."
24. The obedience contract. "Take this lipstick (or a pen) and sign my stomach. By that signature, you undertake to accept my next order with no negotiation whatsoever, whatever it turns out to be."
25. The roulette of decisions. "Here's a choice. Option A: I blindfold you and see to you with an object from the kitchen. Option B: you keep your eyes open, but your hands are tied. Choose in five seconds."
26. The impersonator. "Tonight we swap. I dare you to behave exactly like me in bed. Use my favourite lines, my usual moves, my way of starting things off. I'll do the same with your habits."
27. Room service. "Leave the room. Come back in two minutes playing the role of room service at a luxury hotel. You knock, you come in, you offer me a 'special service'. It's on you to be convincing."
28. Watch in hand. "The clock is running. I'm giving you precisely three minutes to make me lose my head. If in three minutes I'm not begging you to carry on, I take total control."
29. The accusing mirror. "We set ourselves up in front of the big mirror. I'm going to stand behind you. Your challenge: never look at me directly, you're only to meet my eyes in the reflection, even when it gets intense."
30. The imaginary leash. "Get on all fours on the rug. I'm going to take hold of the collar of your t-shirt (or your hair) and guide you to the bedroom like that. You move at the pace I set for you."

Phase 4: the "no safety net" challenges

Pure action and adrenaline. The negotiations are over. These challenges are built for direct action, for urgency, and for leaving the comfort zone.

31. The furniture roulette. "I dare you to take me right now on a piece of furniture in this house we've never done anything on. The washing machine, the hall console, the desk. Choose fast."
32. The body shot. "Lie down. I'm going to pour a line of syrup, spirits or ice-cold water into the hollow of your navel. I have to drink all of it in one go. Then we swap."
33. The solitary voyeur challenge. "Lie on your back. Touch yourself. Give yourself pleasure while I watch you from above, arms folded. I'll only step in when you ask me to, using my full first name."
34. The improvised routine. "I'm putting my phone on shuffle. Whatever style of music comes up — rock, classical, rap — you have to give me a lap dance to it for one minute."
35. The perilous phone call. "Get your phone. Call a family member's voicemail, or a restaurant's answering machine. While you're leaving a perfectly serious message, I'm going to slide my hand into your trousers. You're forbidden to hang up."
36. The indelible mark (near enough). "I dare you to leave a trace of where you've been. A small bite or a light love bite, but you have to pick a spot I'll be able to hide at work tomorrow. It's on you to aim well."
37. The slippery massage. "We pour an unreasonable quantity of massage oil over both our bodies. The challenge: manage to make love without sliding off, coping with the lack of grip." The friction is extraordinary.
38. The challenge position. "Open a browser, search for 'original Kama Sutra'. Click on an image at random. Whatever it is, even if it demands absurd flexibility, we have three minutes to try to reproduce it."
39. The held gaze, all the way. "This is the golden rule for this once: while we're making love, and above all at the moment of orgasm, we keep our eyes wide open, locked into each other's. It's intimidating, it's raw, and you're not allowed to look away from me."
40. The post-coital ban. "Once it's over, I'm requiring you to stay in exactly the same position. No getting up, no reaching for a tissue, no shower, for ten minutes. We stay pressed against each other, in the smell and the damp of the moment."

Your questions about spicy challenges

What's the difference between a challenge and a dare?

A dare lands because a round was lost: the game hands it out, and the loser decided nothing. A challenge needs no game and no loser. It's thrown down cold, in the middle of dinner or an episode, and that's exactly what makes it formidable: nobody saw it coming. If you'd rather have the version where chance picks who performs, it's here, with 91 dirty dares for couples.

What if my partner refuses the challenge?

You move on to the next one, with no comment and no negotiation. A refusal is rarely a refusal of the whole idea: it's tiredness, a bad moment, an instruction that landed wrong. The only challenge that damages an evening is the one you put a second time. And whatever the instruction says – several on this page flatly forbid refusing – a word agreed in advance stops everything, immediately: that rule comes before all the others. How to raise the subject at all is set out in how to suggest a naughty game to your partner.

Should you announce a challenge in advance?

No, and that's the whole point: the instruction lands without warning, and the other one has no time to compose an answer. The only exception is the long challenges, like number 20 or number 40, which assume you have the evening ahead of you. In that case, announce that there will be challenges tonight. Never which ones.

Which one do you start with if you've never done this?

With phase 1, in order. Those ten ask for nothing more than a glass, a scarf or an ice cube, and none of them requires taking any clothes off. Their real job is to get the first "I dare you to" out of your mouth, which is by far the hardest part. Once that sentence has been said aloud once, the rest of the list becomes surprisingly easy.

How far should you go with the riskiest challenges?

Two challenges in phase 4 involve someone other than the two of you. Number 35 brings a third party into the game, even in their absence: pick an answering machine that won't call back, and certainly not someone who will actually listen to the message. Number 36 leaves a mark somebody may see the next day: the spot is decided together, beforehand, not in the heat of it. Everything else on the list stays inside your own four walls.

You know what's left to do. Read this list, memorise the order that appeals to you most, turn to your other half and deliver the magic words: "I dare you to…". The rest belongs to you. And if you'd rather a card threw down the challenge for you, that is exactly the job the Oopsia games do.