Having a parched mouth is never fun, but is there a worse time to go sandpaper-tongued than when you’re boning? On top of feeling unpleasant, dry mouth can lead to thick, sticky saliva, bad breath, and difficulty swallowing—none of which are exactly ideal in the bedroom, especially where kissing and oral sex are concerned. (If you’ve ever tried to go down on someone when there’s not a drop of spit in your mouth, you feel me on this.)
If your teeth, tongue, and lips transform into the Sahara Desert whenever you’re on a trip to Pound Town, you might think it’s just the price of a gasping good time. Luckily, you’re not doomed to endure a dry mouth during sex forever. Here’s how to make things wetter.
Why your mouth might feel especially dry during sex
Before tackling the problem, it helps to know why this is going on in the first place. Dry mouth, or xerostomia, happens when you don’t produce enough spit to keep your mouth wet. As SELF previously reported, one of the most common culprits is dehydration. Simply put, you can’t produce enough saliva if you don’t have fluid to make it with.
Chugging water like your name is Mrs. Poseidon doesn’t automatically save you in the moment when you’re having sex. For one, your body uses up a lot of fluid when you’re mid-hookup, like by sweating to cool you down and getting you properly lubricated. So there’s a chance you need to drink more water than you think, both beforehand and in the moment, to get through a hot encounter. As SELF previously reported, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences recommends taking in 2.7 liters (or 11 cups) to 3.7 liters (close to 16 cups), in terms of your daily hydration.
Most of us turn into heavy breathers during sex, and when we’re panting away, we’re not exactly helping our mouths stay moist. “The nose is the only way to humidify the air we breathe in, so mouth-breathing is drying to the mouth and throat,” Inna Husain, MD, an otolaryngologist at Community Healthcare System in Munster, Indiana, tells SELF. Not to mention, Dr. Husain says there’s actually erectile tissue in your nose that can become engorged with blood. So when arousal causes your body to pump up the flow to those tissues, you might get congested. This sex-specific stuffy nose (and sometimes sneezing) is known as “honeymoon rhinitis,” and it can cause you to breathe more through your mouth.
Next up, there are your hormones. There’s a lot going on when you’re in the throes of passion. You might feel a rush of excitement (say, from a new partner, kink, or location)—or you might feel anxious or stressed, like when you’re stuck in your head, struggling to perform, or worrying about your roommate overhearing you. Your body tends to interpret these feelings as stress, and it responds with a rush of hormones like adrenaline and norepinephrine. This can leave your mouth high and dry. The reason? “Blood is shunted toward systems that will help you flee from danger and away from parts of your body that help you rest and digest,” Gail Saltz, MD, an associate attending professor of psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell, tells SELF. That includes our digestive system, home of our salivary glands. In other words, your nervous system turns the knob down on your spit production as it attends to other parts of your body, like your heart and lungs.