Sex Bucket List: 40 Ideas and a Fair Way to Compare Lists

Updated November 1, 2026

A sex bucket list is a shared list of things you two would like to do together before you run out of decades. It can hold anything from a long weekend in a cabin to a dance lesson you’d both be too embarrassed to mention to anybody else. Writing one is most of the fun, since you get to spend an evening discussing what you want instead of waiting for it to occur to someone.

Coming up with ideas is the easy part; the tricky part is speaking first.

Solving the “you go first” problem

Think about what happens when one person says “I’ve always wanted to try that” and the other looks unsure. Neither of you has done anything wrong, but it stings a bit, and that small sting is why so many couples never have this conversation at all.

A blind comparison fixes it. Each of you marks your list privately, then you only look at what you both marked. Your partner never learns about the things you picked that they didn’t, and you never learn what they turned down. Matches feel like a lovely discovery, and non-matches don’t feel like anything.

Paper can’t quite do this, because whoever holds the page sees both lists. That’s why we built the bucket list for two, which handles it through a locked link and shows only your overlap. We’re upfront there about how strong that lock is and isn’t, and about the fact that it’s built for people who trust each other.

Forty ideas to get you started

These sit alongside the 80 in the game. Use them as they are, or steal the concept and write your own.

Close to home

Spend a morning in bed with nowhere to be and a pot of coffee. Rearrange the bedroom just for the fun of it. Buy really good sheets and make an event of the first night on them. Learn to give a truly excellent back rub, then trade. Have a dinner where the only rule is that you feed each other. Throw a two-person party with a dress code. Make a playlist for the bedroom and argue about the track order. Read each other a chapter of something steamy, and try to keep a straight face. Set up a movie night where one of you is only allowed to watch the other. Spend an evening with candles and no plan.

Getting away

Book a room you can’t quite justify. Pick a place on the map neither of you can pronounce. Take a train overnight and share the bottom bunk. Rent a cottage in the off-season, when the rain gives you an excuse to stay in. Find a hotel with a bath big enough for two. Stay a night in the town you first visited together. Go back to where you got engaged, or where you nearly did. Rent a place with a fireplace, then find out what the fuss is about. Go stargazing somewhere truly dark. Drive somewhere with no destination, and stop at the first place that looks good.

New to you

Take a dance class that requires close contact. Try a couples’ massage workshop. Sign up for a life-drawing class, then practice at home. Read an erotic novel at the same time and compare your favorite passages. Write a story together, a paragraph each, passing it back and forth for a week. Shop for a toy together, and let your partner choose the color. Learn about a kind of massage you’ve never heard of. Go through a yes, no, maybe list and find out where your curiosities overlap. Try a roleplay scene, the sillier the better. See how long you two can go on eye contact alone.

About the two of you

Write down your best night together, each from your own side, and read them aloud. Send a real letter with a stamp on it, to your own address. Plan one date a month for a year, taking turns. Keep a private notebook of things you’ve liked. Give each other a stack of homemade coupons. Replay your first date together with a better ending. Say a thing you’ve never said, once a season. Spend a whole weekend off your phones. Make up a tradition for your anniversary that only you two understand. Find something you’ve both always been curious about, and go find out together.

Making the list work once you’ve written it

Keep it somewhere you’ll see it. An app you never open is a graveyard for good intentions, whereas a folded page inside a book you both read now and then will catch you off guard in a nice way.

Choose one thing and put a date on it. A list without dates stays a list forever, and the easy items count just as much as the grand ones. Crossing off “learn to give a truly excellent back rub” feels fine, and it might be what gets you to the bigger stuff.

Let things fall off. People change. Saying “I’m over that one” should be as easy as adding something new. Take the same approach to any idea that gets as far as being tried: if one of you changes your mind on the way there, or halfway through, you stop and do something else. It stays a treat only as long as you’re both still enthusiastic.

What to do with a list that doesn’t match much

Sometimes your overlap comes out short, and that can feel a little flat at first. In most cases it just means your lists were too specific, or one of you was being cautious. Run it again in six months, or switch to a slower conversation. A game of intimate questions often brings out why someone said no to an idea, and often you’ll end up with a third idea that neither of you had written down.