Spicy for Two

Strip games

NutritionServes2Time15 minHeat● ● to ● ● ●
High Card

You need: A deck of cards, or the card button on this page. Takes: about 15 minutes.

  1. Before you deal, each of you says how far tonight goes and which items are staying on.
  2. Each of you turns over a card. The lower card loses one item of clothing, chosen by whoever is losing it.
  3. A tie means you both put your cards down and kiss until one of you laughs.
  4. Aces can buy back an item, or be spent on making your partner keep their next one on a little longer.

How it ends: The game is over when one of you has run out of agreed items. The winner chooses what happens next, and the loser gets a say.

Dice Race

You need: Two dice, or the dice on this page. Takes: about 10 minutes.

  1. Pick a target number together, somewhere between 20 and 40. Lower numbers make for a shorter evening.
  2. Take turns rolling and adding to your own total. Doubles give the roll to your partner instead.
  3. Every time your total passes a multiple of ten, you lose one item of your choice.
  4. If either of you wants to freeze the game where it is, you freeze it, and the totals stay on the fridge until next time.

How it ends: First to the target wins and picks the music for whatever comes next.

How Well Do You Know Me

You need: Nothing but memory, and a healthy sense of humor. Takes: about 20 minutes.

  1. Agree on a few topics you are both happy to be quizzed on, then take turns asking questions about yourselves. Coffee order, worst haircut, favorite place to be kissed.
  2. Get it right and your partner loses an item. Get it wrong and you do.
  3. A question either of you would rather leave alone just gets swapped for another, with no discussion.
  4. Arguing over the right answer costs both of you a kiss.

How it ends: When the clothes run out, the one who answered more questions correctly gets the first massage.

Best of Three

You need: Your hands. Takes: about 10 minutes.

  1. Say up front what counts as an item. If earrings count, say so now, because this rule causes more arguments than any other.
  2. Play rock, paper, scissors, best of three.
  3. The loser of each set takes off one item, as slowly as the winner requests.
  4. Whoever is losing badly may offer a kiss in place of an item. The winner may accept, or either of you may simply call the game.

How it ends: Last one still wearing something wins, and takes off that final item only if they feel like it.

Hot and Cold

You need: One small object and a room you both like. Takes: about 15 minutes.

  1. Agree on the search area first: one room is plenty. One of you hides the object while the other waits outside.
  2. The seeker has two minutes. The hider steers with "warmer" and "colder", and nothing else.
  3. Find it in time and the hider loses an item. Run out of time and the seeker does.
  4. Swap jobs after each round. Either of you can sit a round out, and the game waits.

How it ends: Play until the room gets interesting or the clothes run out, whichever comes first.

Strip poker assumes a working knowledge of poker. Here are five games you can explain in a sentence, and they work just as well if you’re terrible at everything.

Pick by mood

High Card is pure luck, ideal when you’ve both had a long day. Dice Race takes about ten minutes and speeds up as it goes along. How Well Do You Know Me is the one where you’ll learn something. Best of Three needs nothing but your hands, so it works anywhere private. Hot and Cold gets you off the couch and hunting around the room.

Each game on this page comes with its full rules, what you need, and how it ends. We spell out the ending because strip games have a habit of falling apart at the moment the clothes run out.

Even the odds

Before dealing or rolling, take stock. If one of you is in a coat, scarf and boots and the other arrived in a bathrobe, this isn’t going to be a fair contest. Count what each of you has on and even things up, or agree that a kiss can stand in for an item.

While you’re at it, decide what’s staying on tonight; it’s a perfectly good answer and much easier to say before the game than during. Either of you can stop at any layer, for any reason or none at all, and the game simply ends there, because winning a round never entitles anyone to more than the other person feels like giving.

Fine print

Best of Three is over in ten minutes or less, and High Card can be just as quick if you start with fewer layers. The page can deal and roll for you, though real cards and dice feel nicer in the hand. If you want to mix things, try losing an item for each card you skip in truth or dare, as long as you both like that idea, or roll for it with the sex dice afterward.

As for who chooses the item, in most of these it’s whoever’s losing it, which keeps everybody comfortable and makes for some strategic sock management.