The Best Mattresses For Sex

A mattress should complement the most intimate moments of your life while ensuring a great sleeping experience. Whether you are napping on your own or cuddled up with a loved one, having a comfortable and supportive mattress for sleep or sex is essential for a high-quality life.

Your preferences may lean towards a more plush bed when you sleep, particularly if you’re a side sleeper. However, if you’re sexually active, you may prefer a product that has a more responsive touch, allowing easy movement and repositioning. Softer models typically lack a high response.

In this article, we’ll discuss the various factors to keep in mind when looking for a bed to support sexually active couples. Additionally, we’ll list the best mattresses for sex and what makes them stand out from the crowd.

At Sleep Advisor, our mattress reviews are based on findings from in-person tests that allow us to have a genuine understanding of how the mattress feels and performs. For this roundup, we looked specifically at features that can benefit sexual activity, such as bounce, edge support, and cooling.

After testing, we take all the information we’ve gathered to rate the bed in specific categories. These results allow us to help our readers find the right mattress for their needs.

A myriad of factors needs to be accounted for when choosing the best mattress for sex. Some of them include:

This is the criterion showing how quickly the bed should adjust to the movements you're making while laying on it. A slower response time could easily make you feel as if you are having intercourse amidst a field of quicksand.

A model that reacts quickly can accommodate the rapid movements you make as you change positions. This should help to ensure that you are on a stable surface throughout the night.

This relates to the feeling that the mattress produces when it's being compressed. A product with a good level of bounce is going to rebound. The alternative would absorb the impact.

The former option is preferred by many as it can create a consistent rhythm, which could enhance the act instead of working against it.

A short term solution to test out what kind of mattress firmness is best, would be to try adding a Mattress Topper to your mattress to see the impact on your sleep and the bounce of the mattress.

The durability of the mattress is something you'd put to the test during sex. A proper solution should be capable of standing up to the challenge for years.

Learn More: How Long Do Mattresses Last?

Comfort is a characteristic which you should always prioritize. If the bed creates excessive pressure points on your and your partner's body while having sex, this could easily limit your desire as well as the amount of time you'd like to spend on this sexual activity. The ideal option would be one which doesn't create any additional pressure points, regardless of the condition.

If there is a time when you need discretion desperately, it's when you're making love. The last thing you'd want is for your mattress to make unpleasant noise, drawing a lot of unwanted attention. For many, the ideal mattress for sex is going to reduce the noise to a minimum, keeping this act to you and your loved one.

Edge support is a crucial factor in a mattress that will be shared by a couple. Whether you’re sleeping or having sex, sturdy edges allow you to utilize the mattress’s entire surface area without being worried about the bed dipping at the borders.

Edge support may come in the form of higher-density foam or reinforced coils around the mattress’s perimeter. You can test to see if a bed has superior edge support by sitting or bouncing on the edge of the bed. Note that some beds have edge support along all four sides, whereas others only reinforce the two long edges.

Because sexual activity is often a high-energy activity, you’re likely to feel overheated afterwards. You’ll want a mattress that helps to dispel rather than retain warmth.

Modern beds have a host of cooling features that can assist with temperature regulation, including foams infused with cooling gels or metals, coil units that promote air circulation, and covers made of highly breathable fabrics.

If you’re sensitive to warmth during sleep or sex, look for a mattress that combines multiple cooling elements. Avoid all-foam models made of traditional memory foam without any cooling mechanisms, as this material has the most trouble dissipating heat.

A tighter budget does not have to put a damper on your love life, and there are many more affordable beds on the market that can provide all the support and comfort your intimacy requires. One option is to look at brands that manufacture their own products and sell online, as these can often offer better deals without compromising on quality because they can cut overhead costs associated with middlemen.

You may be drawn to the noise of innersprings because of the bounce they can deliver but the noise can often be prohibitive for many. Many brands, even budget brands, are incorporating pocketed springs that can keep the noise down, especially when paired with responsive foams in many budget hybrids.

Get More Info: Best Budget Mattresses

Features like bounce and responsiveness can certainly enhance your love life, but your sleep life is also important. When shopping for a mattress with your partner, you not only want to consider your more intimate moments but also restful sleep afterwards. Sharing anything requires some degree of compromise, but sleeping needs can be highly specific, and it’s important to your day-to-day life that these are met properly.

If a larger mattress might be your best solution, check out our Best King Size Mattresses here.

If your partner has a significantly different body shape or size, things can become tricky fast. Look for brands that advertise adaptability or a “universal” feel, as these are more likely to adjust to different shapes. Some brands even come with dual-sided firmness and feels that can allow both you and your partner to rest comfortably in the mattress feel that works best for you as individuals.

Read Our Full Guide: Best Beds for Couples

The material of the mattress is also a critical characteristic that you'd have to account for when it comes to choosing the best mattress for sex. We've decided to compare innerspring, memory foam, and latex, as these are the most common options that people usually go for. Let's see how they stack when it comes to the highest-rated bed for sexually active folks.

Does sex on memory foam mattress make sense? Being one of the most common options in the last few years, memory foam offers a lot of capabilities, but it also has a few potential drawbacks. Right off the bat, this mattress type is not usually that bouncy.

Find out more: Best Firm Mattresses

Some of the solutions might be constructed to be a bit bouncier but, typically, these beds perform a bit worse in this specific category.

On the other hand, this material tends to be very quiet, which is a tremendous plus. However, it's also not that responsive, potentially making some brands a bit harder to move on (though not all).

Edge support is also something to look into if you go with this type. While many brands are just fine, cheaper models can have issues. If this is the kind you need to sleep well, just do some extra research or read the reviews above to make sure you are getting the best option possible.

One of the things that people love about latex mattress is that it's bouncy. Additionally, it doesn't make much noise. It's easy to move on it as it is very responsive.

While the edge support tends to be quite good in general, this is one of the aspects that is fairly dependent on the brand and the model of the solution you go for.

Latex mattress is also incredibly comfortable by most accounts and has a lot of the qualities that most people look for when searching for a mattress for sex.

While innerspring mattresses offer superior responsiveness and they bounce well, they also tend to be the noisiest of them all, making them an option that a lot of people stray from.

On the other hand, if you have no issues with that, you should know that they are easy to move on and the edge support is comparatively superior in general (though there some excellent exceptions out there in other materials as well!).

Hybrid mattresses merge the benefits of innerspring and foam models into one package. They typically feature foam comfort layers above a coil unit, so sleepers can experience both pressure relief and responsiveness.

For many people, a hybrid bed is the perfect compromise between features for sleep and features for sex. You get a plush surface with a springy, supportive foundation, as well as the cooling afforded by the coils. They tend to have excellent edge support, and they’re also a bit less noisy than traditional innerspring mattresses.

Contrary to what you may have heard, there’s no reason why the perfect space for sleep and sex can’t come rolled up and compressed into a box. Many brands offer top-notch value and quality in this growing market and should be able to provide all the comfort, support, and bounce you need for your more intimate moments and when you’re drifting off to sleep in your partner’s arms.

One thing you should look out for, however, is edge support. Average bed-in-a-box performance in this category is not exemplary, and this has the potential to crowd you towards the center. If you require more room to maneuver, look for brands that go beyond expectations for boxed options in this category so that you can maximize the amount of surface space you and your partner can spread out in.

Read More: Best Bed-in-a-Box

Mattresses on the firmer side tend to be better for sex. If a mattress is too soft, it will make repositioning difficult, and may cause partners to feel “stuck” in the material.

Firmer mattresses will more solidly support you on top of the bed, rather than “in” it. They’re also more likely to have a bit of bounce to their feel. Of course, if a mattress is too firm, that can also present problems in terms of comfort—you’ll want to find a bed that suits both your sleeping and sex preferences.

Memory foam mattresses aren’t usually considered the best mattress type for lovemaking. The material is associated with a few drawbacks, including heat retention and too much of a sinking, stuck-in-the-mattress feeling that makes movement more difficult than it would be on a springier surface.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make sex work on a memory foam bed. Some people prefer the compression that the foam offers, and many models are built with cooling elements and other features that counteract the above shortcomings.

Hybrid mattresses with memory foam comfort layers can also represent a good compromise between pressure relief and responsiveness.

Yes, a latex mattress can be a great choice for sexually active people. Latex foam is innately springier than other kinds of foam, so it ranks high in responsiveness while simultaneously providing relaxing pressure relief during sleep.

Some manufacturers also make latex hybrid beds, which position latex foam above a coil unit for additional bounce and airflow.