LOL. You can have sex anywhere, you can get a good night's sleep on a memory foam mattress.

The ideal mattress for sex would be made from Velcro and chocolate.

As for sleeping, I'm not a memory foam fan. It feels like laying in rotten meat. I like a nice firm bed, a manly sort of mattress. But SWMBO likes a squishy soft bed, the Princess & Pea thing and all. Divorce was an option, but we instead got a Select Comfort "Sleep Number" bed.

I dial my side to a Sleep Number between 70 and 80 (quite firm), she turns her side to 30 (rare meat but not quite rotting), and everyone is happy. Well, right at the boundary between he-man 75 and princess 30, there is a little slope, if I wander over there, I'm likely to roll right into Princess territory. Sounds juicy, but often the response is "You're making me hot. Get back on your own side." No Velcro and chocolate for you!

When I grew up, I never even had a bed. My dad was a poor graduate student, we moved all the time, I just slept on the floor, and so did he. Okay, I think there was some weird Asian notions of health and asceticism involved too. Did I mention that he didn't believe in bandages either? You already know, or suspect, my family's attitude toward food safety . . . Anyway, sleeping on a hardwood floor just seemed normal. Then as a young man I did a lot of backpacking, where a 1/8 inch sheet of foam was supposed to make a rocky hillside the lap of luxury, just as a pack of ramen sprinkled with dehydrated beef was supposed to be delicious. And it actually was. So the current crop of super-beds is a little bit weird. Do we really need $3,000 worth of bed to get a good night's sleep? How did people get a good night's sleep before there was Swedish memory foam and wirelessly controlled air pumps? Well, I suppose we just do, and for those who need even more doing, there is now a mattress that circulates heated or cooled air through internal channels so that one person can stay cool while the other stays warm. I suspect this will be popular among women going through The Change and their long-suffering husbands. YuMeBed.com if you're curious.

John, you would love the bed in my guest room. It's hard as a rock. I prefer a firmer bed but I don't know what I was thinking when I bought that mattress. Great for a sore back, though.

I'll need a new mattress soon and will have to make the great inner spring or foam decision. Guess I'll have to decide between a good night's sleep or good se... oh never mind.

One time I went on a Outward Bound sailing trip in what was basically a large rowboat with sails. We put the oars (sometimes you had to row) across the benches (I know there is a nautical term for them but I forget it) and then threw our sleeping bags over the oars. I didn't sleep for a week but the stars at night were gorgeous.

When I was a kid the best bed in the world was an old appliance box on my aunt's concrete porch. Uncle owned a store and gave us the boxes. We made houses out of them and slept in them.

Velcro and chocolate?? Further explanation required.

For those whose entire repertoire in doing the horizontal mambo consisting only steps from the missionary text, no question will find it out of rhythm with his/hers partner on any mattress. As in cooking meat, there is more than one recipe for any given desired end result, regardless if you are performing explosive deep frying or long slow simmering.

But let's talk about the ins and outs of foam instead.

There are fundamental engineering issues with memory foam.

Foam is a superb insulator. That makes it uncomfortable when your body heat cannot be continually ventilated. One partner may be hot while the other frigid.

By definition, memory foam has open cell structure. We all know what household dust is, which is mostly dead body cells and spider mites. Use your imagination what happens after a while with memory foam, what can get collected deep in those open cavities.

Granted it is probably more comfortable than rolling in the hay, however, while the foam can conform to your body shape, it takes time for that to happen, that means each time you change position, there will be a duration the foam needs to adjust to you body shape. Not everything can go from soft to hard that quickly.

There is another interesting option. Waterbed, (making it cooking related), it is like a reverse sous vide cooker, that water is in a bag and you are not. You set the ideal water temperature, and it will keep that temperature, summer or winter, regardless of your positions and activities.

By the law of physics, water is the only substance that will give your body good support. There is no other method that will truly give your body even support. (not counting air support in sky diving). When you are in a swimming pool, you are basically experiencing weightlessness. All parts of your body are supported evenly and there is no pressure on any of your joins. It's like in hydrotherapy.

Not trying to make waves, in my experience, the most logical mattress choice is a waterbed mattress.

dcarch

"Not everything can go from soft to hard that quickly." I am dying laughing, considering the subtext of this thread.

dcarch, that's funny. I still have my big old California King sized waterbed, I even bought a new mattress for it a couple of years ago rather than give it up. I love the darned thing. Old fashioned one, no baffles or soft sides, just a plain old waterbed.

I sleep on my stomach and I'm, ahem, relatively well endowed, so sleeping on my stomach on a conventional mattress is pretty much out of the question.

elery used to tease me and say that when I grew up I'd get a big girl bed. Now, though, he has a bad hip, the doc says it needs replacing. The only bed he can sleep in comfortably is the waterbed. It's he!! getting out of the thing, though.

Oh yeah, and it's just fine for that other activity too.

Annie

To all - It's really a matter of who you are with, too.

In a double down sleeping bag at 20 on a snow covered mountain it's heaven, at 30 in a deluxe king suite with cotton quilts in Cabo it's heaven, at 40 in a plain old heated waterbed it's totally squishy yummy, at 50 in the depths of a German feather bed (there in the winter) it's like no other, but at 60 - someplace with 900 count sheets serves the same purpose - localized pleasure.

I told my DH that my pine box had better be filled with premium goose down and fine denier silk sheets and that there better not be anything plastic adorning my final surroundings or I would come back to haunt him.

Moral of the story - plastic is not for sleeping with.

Nancy

Nancy, I couldn't agree more about excellent sheets. I just love good sheets.

Interesting, I see that Select Comfort "Sleep Number" now makes a bed that has both individual firmness control and memory foam surfaces.

The latest thing in memory foam now seems to be "anti-microbial gel" which supposedly (many grains of salt here) allows you to sleep "cooler" without the buildup of mites.

Seems like if you combine that with the individual heating and cooling (YuMe), the motorized bases (Select Comfort, others), aromatherapy and sub-conscious calming white sound (pat. pending), and you'd practically have a bed that will do the sleeping for you. All you need is some sort of overhead motorized lift to raise and lower you onto the bed. Which might be handy for dcarch's mambo too.