The Passage du Désir shop sent us Grasse Mat’ Coquine, a sexy card game, subtitled “The game that makes you want to stay in bed…”.
Note the ellipsis: you can assume it’s not for falling back asleep or gorging yourself on croissants on the pillow. Even if it includes a few dares involving breakfast.
With the weekend under way, it may be the perfect time to talk about lie-ins. And all the sexy things you can make the most of. Fancy a game?
Here’s the review of the Grasse Mat’ Coquine game.
About the Grasse Mat’ Coquine game
The Grasse Mat’ Coquine game comes in a small red box. It doesn’t fit in a pocket, but it’s still easy to carry in a bag.
It consists of 100 cards : 50 “Action” cards and 50 “Truth” cards, whose format is roughly the same as that of standard playing cards.
The backs of all the cards of the same type are identical, so that you can’t tell them apart when you draw one. The front of each card shows its instructions.
Game rules
The game’s rule is simple: it’s “Action or Truth”, with cards.
Each player in turn chooses to carry out either an “Action” or a “Truth”, and draws a random card from the corresponding pack.
“Action” cards give you naughty challenges to complete, while “Truth” cards ask nosy questions about players’ sexual experiences and preferences.
The game only stops when the participants want it to.
Players
Grasse Mat’ Coquine is played for two, preferably during a lie-in under the duvet.
The game is aimed at all couples without exception. All the cards are unisex, none of them assumes the sex or sexual orientation of the participants. It’s not rocket science, just avoid words that don’t apply to everyone (“your penis”, “your vagina”, “sir”, “ma’am”, etc), replacing them with more neutral terms (“sex”, “partner”, etc…), but many naughty games don’t make that effort (and that’s a bit of a pain). So credit to Grasse Mat’ Coquine on that, then.
The “Action” cards
Among the “Action” cards :
- Around a third of them involve 100% sexual acts (that is, involving your genitals and/or your partner’s). If you’re planning to bring the game along to a mates’ night, ask your mates first whether they’re okay with sleeping with you.
- Among the others, a fair few prompts don’t involve direct sexual acts, but can be considered foreplay : licking body parts, caressing, massaging, nibbling, scratching, pinching, doing a striptease…
- But also a few rather cuddly gestures : kissing each other, writing things on each other with a finger or tongue, etc…
- And a few challenges that lean more towards the A bit of fun on a sexy backdrop (mimes, etc.
The card I find the funniest: “Pull a coat over your naked body and go and buy the croissants”.
What surprised me: two cards assume that the players are wearing pyjamas. Pyjamas, on waking, after a night between lovers, while both of them are about to have another go for an erotic morning? Why? How? Where on earth are these pyjamas coming from? I could live with them having been worn before bed the day before — not the height of sexy, but I’m sure we can find a rational explanation. But how come nobody has sent that blasted pair of pyjamas to the other end of the room since? Bizarre bizarre….
The proposed actions are pretty much all achievable without embarrassment for a couple, even a very new one. There’s sex, but only “gentle” sex, nothing extreme.
And there’s nothing to stop you picking out and removing the cards that wouldn’t suit the players. They’re only “preliminaries”; there’s no penetration, no orgasm.
There are a bit too many cards involving licks or massages to my taste. Let’s say it’s the sort of challenges that one expect to find a bit too much in this type of game… I would have liked to be more surprised…
But on the other hand, finding sexual dares that will suit most people while remaining sufficiently unusual and outlandish, it is no easy task (Is that even possible?)…
Unless the players are the ones who make up the dares themselves… In which case, all you have to do is play Action or Truth without cards, which requires a greater effort of imagination, and more potential embarrassment (instead of leaving it to chance, you have to dare to suggest dares). But the cards are there to do the heavy lifting.
The Truth cards
The “Truth” cards are meant to uncover the other person’s tastes, preferences and sexual experiences, through prying questions.
- Around half of them ask you to share your experiences, by telling anecdotes. Example: “Have you ever made love via webcam or phone? Tell me about it.”
- The others quiz you on your preferences and fantasies. For example: “What type of women’s and men’s lingerie do you prefer?”, “Which well-known person would you like to make love with?”
The proposed questions seem rather well chosen for getting to know the other person and their desires. Many of them invite you to expand on the topic, encouraging discussion and storytelling… A good opportunity to learn a little more about your partner, to open up, but also to jot down, for later, ideas for sexual practices that might excite the other person.
These questions are more aimed at couples who want to build a close bond, but don’t know each other all that well yet. If you’ve been a couple for a long time, it’s quite likely that you’ll be able to guess a good deal of your partner’s answers.
In particular, we laughed when we came across the card: “Have you ever tried any sex toys ? If yes, which ones ? If not, would you like to?”.
Conclusion on the Grasse Mat’ Coquine card game
The good points:
- The game’s format is handy, compact and not too fragile, so it’s easy to carry.
- The game has the good sense of not being hetero-centric.
- The “Truth” cards are really great for starting conversations about everyone’s fantasies and sexual exploits: this can be a good way tolearning to better understand what a partner likes in bed.
The downsides:
- Among the dares suggested by sexy board games, the “Action” cards don’t stand out all that much. That said, they at least have the good sense to be easy to carry out, rather amusing and of the same “order of magnitude” (no absurd contrasts of the kind: card A, give a kiss on the nose, card B, go out naked in the street and look for volunteers for a gang-bang), which is already not bad.
If you already know your partner inside out, Grasse Mat’ Coquine is probably not the game for you: you may end up repeating “I already knew that” a good number of times during the game (unless you like trying to guess the other person’s answers directly, why not, that could be fun…).
That is why I would tend to recommend the Grasse Mat’ Coquine game mainly to fairly new couples. While making for a fun and sexy morning, it also lets you learn a little more about your partner’s desires along the way – and so, potentially, discover shared fantasies in a playful way.
Review score
Pros
- Compact and portable format
- Not hetero-centred
- Great for getting to know your partner better
Cons
- The Action cards aren't particularly original
