Edging Games: 18 Tease and Denial Games for Couples

Edging is simple: get close to orgasm, stop, and start again. Edging games add rules, so a die, a timer or your partner decides how close you get and when you’re allowed to finish. The result is a long, delicious tease, and usually a much bigger finish when it finally comes.

These 18 edging and tease and denial games are for two consenting adults, in private. Agree your limits and a safeword first: the person being edged can end any game at any time.

Before you play

• Agree how it ends. With an orgasm, a ruined orgasm, or no orgasm at all tonight? Settle it before you start, not in the heat of the moment.
• Pick a word for “close”. “Edge”, “almost” or a simple tap. When you hear it, stop completely.
• Use plenty of lube. Long play means lots of friction, and soreness ends a game fast.
• Know the after-effect. Some people feel a dull ache after a long time aroused without release. It’s harmless and passes with time or an orgasm.

Solo games with your partner watching

The person being edged does the touching; their partner watches and calls the shots. A great first step if being touched by someone else while you’re close feels like a lot.

1. Show me how

Edge yourself while your partner watches. Say “close” every time you get near, then stop and take your hands away. Your partner counts. It’s intimate, a bit exposing, and the best way to teach them exactly where your edge is.

2. The conductor

You touch yourself; your partner sets the pace. They call “faster”, “slower”, “lighter” or “stop”, and you have to follow every word. Swap roles next time and see who’s the crueler conductor.

3. Hands off

Your partner watches and, whenever they like, says “hands off”. You freeze for 30 seconds, hands by your sides, before you’re allowed to start again. They can call it as often as they please, especially when you’re nearly there.

Partnered edging games

4. Place your bets

Before you start, you each guess how many edges the receiver can take before begging. Whoever’s closest wins and chooses how the game ends. Write the guesses down: there will be arguments.

5. One to ten

The receiver calls out a number from one to ten as arousal builds. At nine, the giver stops completely. They can’t start again until the receiver says they’re back down to six. It takes the guesswork out of partnered edging and makes the receiver say how turned on they are, out loud.

6. The edging menu

Every edge has to use something different: hands, mouth, a vibrator, grinding, a stroker, the shower head. The receiver can’t repeat anything until every option’s been used. You’ll find out which one gets them there fastest.

7. First to the edge

Edge each other at the same time. Whoever has to call “close” first loses the round. Three rounds, and the loser has to wait while the winner finishes first, or not at all, depending on your stakes.

Orgasm control games

Games where permission is the prize. If longer-term control appeals, read our guide to orgasm denial first.

8. Edge tokens

Every edge earns the receiver a token (a coin, a sweet, a playing card). Five tokens buy permission to come. The controller can take tokens away for begging, moving, or anything else you’ve agreed counts as a broken rule.

9. Coin flip finish

After the final edge, the controller flips a coin. Heads: permission to come. Tails: one more round, then flip again. The receiver gets to watch the coin spin every time.

10. Come on zero

The controller counts down slowly from ten. The receiver may only come on zero. The controller can pause, slow down or go back up a few numbers whenever they like. It’s a classic tease and denial game, and it’s harder than it sounds.

11. Red or black

At the end, the controller draws a card. Red means a full orgasm; black means a ruined orgasm. Only play this if you’ve both agreed ruined orgasms are in. Our sex card game has more ways to let a deck decide.

12. Not tonight

Edge your partner several times, then stop for the night: no orgasm until tomorrow evening. Text each other through the day about what’s coming. Agree the end time before you start, and the denied partner can call it off at any point, for any reason.

Dice and timer edging games

13. Edge dice

Roll a die to decide how many edges come before the finish: one to six. At the end, roll again. A one means no orgasm tonight; anything else means permission. Our online sex dice can roll the action for each edge, too.

14. Secret timer

The controller sets a timer on their phone for a time between 5 and 20 minutes and doesn’t tell the receiver how long. Keep edging until it goes off, with no coming before the alarm. Not knowing is the whole tease.

15. The cool-down timer

After every edge, flip a one-minute sand timer (or set your phone). Nothing happens until it runs out, not even a kiss. Each round, add 30 seconds. The breaks get longer, and somehow that makes everything more intense.

Long-distance edging games

Before you play apart, agree what’s okay to send. Only share what you’d be comfortable with if it ever got out (many people leave their face out of anything intimate), and never save or forward your partner’s messages without asking. Play somewhere private, where nobody can see or hear.

16. Edging by text

The controller texts instructions: “touch yourself for two minutes, then stop and tell me how close you got”. The receiver follows them and reports back after every edge. Permission to come arrives by message, or doesn’t. Our guide to sexting examples has lines to borrow.

17. Video call conductor

On a private video call, the controller calls the pace and the edges, exactly like the conductor game above. Seeing your partner react, and hearing them ask for permission, makes the distance feel very small.

18. Remote control

With an app-controlled vibrator, the controller decides the speed and the stops from wherever they are. Only play at home, in private. The person wearing it can switch it off or take it out at any time, and the controller checks in regularly.

Stop if…

• Anything hurts, stings or feels raw. Add lube, change technique, or stop for the night.
• The receiver uses the safeword or says they want to stop. A denial game always ends when they want it to, however close the count was.
• Frustration stops feeling playful and starts feeling upsetting. Talk about it and change the rules next time.
• An ache from long arousal doesn’t fade after a while. It usually passes on its own; if it doesn’t, talk to a doctor.

Afterward

Long tease and denial games can leave you both a little wrung out, emotionally as well as physically. Cuddle, have some water, and talk about which games you’d play again. That’s aftercare, and it’s worth doing even after a playful night.

For more, our BDSM games for couples has a tease and denial section, our foreplay games are built around the slow build, the Tease & Denial pack in our truth or dare game deals edging and denial cards for two, and the list of kinks shows how edging fits alongside chastity and other control kinks.