Whew, Chile. It’s National Orgasm Day!
If you frequent this site a lot—and hopefully, you do—you can certainly vouch for the fact that we talk about orgasms. A LOT. Off the top of my head, we've published "WTF Is A Blended Orgasm?", "10 Unexpected Ways To Intensify Your Orgasm", "This Is How To Master The Female Orgasm", "10 Things You Didn't Know About The Male And Female Orgasm" and "4 Hit It From The Back Moves That Are Bound To Get You To Orgasm"—and that's just for starters!
Are we obsessed? Eh, maybe a little. I mean, who doesn't enjoy having an orgasm?! But aside from the close-to-indescribable rush of pleasure that orgasms bring, there is also plenty of research and documentation that they do wonders for our health and well-being too. How?
Orgasms relieve stress, increase blood circulation, help to regulate your period, lessen pain (including headaches), strengthen your immune system, put you in a better mood, make you smarter—I mean, really…need I go on?
So, when I happened to notice that July 31 is National Orgasm Day, of course, I had to give a day that is so important to us—and hopefully to you—a big ole' shout out! When you think of all of the holidays and other special days of observance that come up in a 365-day cycle, be honest. Can you think of any other day (shy of your birthday) that you'd want to take out the time to celebrate more? Yeah, me neither. If you'd like to make this particular orgasm day the best one yet, here are some things that will literally turn your climaxes into the gift that just keeps on givin'.
1. Workout for 30-45 Minutes
Although I don't live in the gym, some of my closest friends do, and a few of them are big fans of post-sex coitus. They claim that it provides a high like no other (I did some Googling and there are several articles that actually cosign on that). At the same time, there are also articles that give rave reviews when it comes to getting a little cardio in on the front-end as well. The feel-good hormones endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin that come from exercising will intensify during sex, the increased blood flow from the workout will make your orgasms stronger, and since exercising can improve flexibility, it'll be easier to get into all of those sex positions that help you to orgasm the easiest too.
So yeah, if you didn't already workout this morning, try and get a half-hour or so in before heading home. That, combined with a warm shower (or even some shower sex), can take your climaxes totally to the next level!
2. Have a Fresh Berry Salad
If you're hungry but you're not sure what you want, this is the perfect time of year to enjoy a fresh salad; preferably one with some spinach and berries on it. Spinach, because the manganese that's in it will increase your estrogen levels, while the zinc that it contains will boost up your sex drive. Berries, because strawberries contain vitamin C, zinc, and iron to give you more stamina, blueberries trigger dopamine in your system so that you'll feel more pleasure, and raspberries because they've got Vitamin E in them. Vitamin E has the nickname "the sex vitamin" because of its uncanny ability to help us to strengthen our sexual performance.
3. Enjoy an Orgasm Cocktail
If you want a technical breakdown for why and how alcohol makes you horny,Maxim broke it all down pretty well. And, if your favorite alcoholic beverage of choice is wine, word on the street is the scent of Zinfandel or Pinot Noir is what will get you all hot 'n bothered, while the aroma of champagne or Moscato will do a man in.
Still, I figured that in honor of National Orgasm Day, why not toast one another and/or the sex you're about to have with a couple of Screaming Orgasm Cocktails? It's basically a combination of vodka, Irish cream and coffee liqueur that gets the name because of how good it tastes. But if somehow, even after reading through all of this, I still can't convince you to engage in a couple of romps, at least you can make this drink and not be lying when you say, "Yep. I had an orgasm last night" while talking to one of your girls tomorrow.
4. Affirm Your Partner
There's no question that the biggest erogenous zone that we have is our brain. After all, how could any of us become sexually stimulated without it? That's why you should never underestimate how much you and your partner need to feel positive, connected and affirmed by one another before, during and even after coitus goes down.
Take a few moments to talk about what you enjoy about one another and even what some of your fantasies are. Eye contact, heartfelt sentiments and honest compliments are some of the most slept-on acts of foreplay that there is.
5. Go Someplace Other than Your Bed
I'm known to ask people I know (and even people I don't know) random questions. One that I asked semi-recently is what can cause a person to get bored in the bedroom. Something that seemed to be a general consensus is "always having sex in the bed". When I asked where they'd prefer to go in order to switch things up, many said the kitchen, backyard or on the stairs.
Hey, I'm not saying that you should automatically aim for those locations. What I am saying is if the bed is always the go-to, at least try the couch or the floor. When it comes to good sex, variety is always key.
6. Incorporate a Little Honey
Back when I was sexually active, a favorite sex addition of mine was honey. I liked it for what I'm assuming are pretty obvious reasons, but apparently it was doing more for my bedroom action than I thought! There is a mineral in honey called boron that 1) raises testosterone levels in men and 2) increases men and women's libidos and can help orgasms to last longer.
So yeah, having some honey on your bed stand certainly can't hurt either.I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how to make honey work in your favor, but if you'd like an edible massage recipe that's got honey as one of its ingredients, you can find one here.
7. Play Musical Chairs (for Him)
As far as a sexual position that your man will be totally in love with, try your own sex twist to musical chairs. Maybe put on a throwback like Montell Jordan's "Let's Ride" (who remembers that?), do a quick little dance and then sit him down on a chair. Put your legs over his shoulders and, well, you get it. The visuals alone will be sure to do wonders and the deep penetration makes this a male orgasm favorite!
8. Get in the Missionary with a Pillow Underneath (for You)
The missionary position is a classic—always has been and always will be. I think for us, we like it a lot because it's comfortable, it's intimate (there's eye-to-eye contact that way), and it's a great way to enhance clitoral and G-spot stimulation. The best way to up the chances of this particular sex position giving you an orgasm is by putting some pillows underneath your butt. Your partner's access will be easier and deeper. And you know what that means.
9. Spell “Coconut”
If you ain't neva had sex with a Gemini before, you'd betta ask somebody. I am a proud card-carrying one. I've also had sex with one. There are no words (le sigh). Anyway, when all of the coconut memes went viral last month, personally, I found it to be quite fitting. Why not, during the month of June, should a new hot sex trend be on everyone's lips?
If you happened to miss it, the tip is to ride cowgirl while slowly spelling out the word "coconut" with your hips. Although the memes were jokes more than anything else, I know some folks who actually attempted it. Chile, they think that the Kenyan women who got the viral thing started in the first place were truly onto something, whether they realized it or not. And, since the cowgirl position is one of the praised positions for achieving an orgasm, why not give it a shot?
10. Set Your Sights on a Multiple Orgasm
What better day to have a multiple orgasm—or at least try to—than on National Orgasm Day? The way to achieve these is by making sure you are truly at ease with your partner, extending foreplay, doing some deep breathing (and edging) and increasing your stamina.
For more of a breakdown, "How to Have Multiple Orgasms: Tips and Techniques for Better Pleasure" is an enlightening read. But more than anything, purpose in your mind to enjoy yourself. While orgasms should be a regular occurrence, National Orgasm Day only comes around once a year. Make sure to make it totally worth you—and y'all's—while!
Want more stories like this? Sign up for our newsletter here and check out the related reads below:
10 Secrets To Feeling Super Sexy (When You Don't)
What GROWN Women Consider Great Sex To Be
Why You Should Stop Faking Orgasms ASAP
My First Orgasm Changed Everything I Thought I Knew About Sex
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Different puzzle pieces are creating bigger pictures these days. 2024 will mark a milestone on a few different levels, including the release of my third book next June (yay!).
I am also a Professional Certified Coach. My main mission for attaining that particular goal is to use my formal credentials to help people navigate through the sometimes tumultuous waters, both on and offline, when it comes to information about marriage, sex and relationships that is oftentimes misinformation (because "coach" is a word that gets thrown around a lot, oftentimes quite poorly).
I am also still super devoted to helping to bring life into this world as a doula, marriage life coaching will always be my first love (next to writing, of course), a platform that advocates for good Black men is currently in the works and my keystrokes continue to be devoted to HEALTHY over HAPPY in the areas of holistic intimacy, spiritual evolution, purpose manifestation and self-love...because maturity teaches that it's impossible to be happy all of the time when it comes to reaching goals yet healthy is a choice that can be made on a daily basis (amen?).
If you have any PERSONAL QUESTIONS (please do not contact me with any story pitches; that is an *editorial* need), feel free to reach out at missnosipho@gmail.com. A sistah will certainly do what she can. ;)
Beyond Burnout: Nicole Walters' Blueprint For Achieving Career Success On Your Own Terms
Nicole Walters has always been known for two things: her ambition and her ability to recognize when life’s challenges can also double as an inspiring, lucrative brand.
This was first evident more than a decade ago when she quit her job as the corporate executive of a Fortune 500 company during a Periscope livestream. “I’m not sure if there’s an alignment of [our] future trajectory. I’m going to work for myself. I'm promoting myself to work for myself,” she said at the time before flashing a smile at the viewing audience. As she resigned on camera, a constant stream of encouraging messages floated upwards on the screen.
By 2021, she’d fashioned her work as a corporate consultant and her personal life with her husband and three adopted daughters into a reality show, She’s The Boss, for USA Network. This year, she released the New York Times bestselling memoir Nothing Is Missing, written as she was in the process of getting a divorce and dealing with her eldest daughter’s struggles with substance use.
Convinced that there’s no way the 39-year-old has achieved all of this without intentional strategic planning, I asked her about it when we spoke less than a week before Christmas. I’d seen videos on social media of her working on 2024 planning for other brands, and I wanted to know what that looked like following her own year of success.
She listed a number of goals, including ensuring that the projects she takes on in the new year align with her identity “as a Black woman, as an African woman, as a mother, as someone who has lived a [rebuilding] season and is now trying to live boldly and entirely as themselves.” But, I was shocked by how much of her business planning also prioritized rest.
Despite the bestselling book, a self-titled podcast, and working with numerous corporations, Walters said she’s been taking Fridays off. This year, she doesn’t want to work on Mondays, either.
“A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement,” she said, noting that she’ll check in with herself around March to see how successful this plan has been. The goal, Walters said, is to only be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays by sometime in 2025. “It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to have happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change.”
"A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement... It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change."
Walters said the decision to progressively work less was partially in response to her previously held notions about her career, especially as an entrepreneur. “When I first started, I thought burnout was a part of it,” she said. “What I didn’t realize is that even if you’re able to bounce out of burnout or get back to it, there’s a cumulative impact on your body. If you think of your body as a tree and every time you go through burnout, you are taking a hack out of your trunk, yes, that trunk will heal over, and the tree will continue to grow, but it doesn't mean that you don’t have a weakened stem.”
But, the desire for increased rest was also in response to the major shifts that occurred three years ago when she was experiencing major changes in her family and realized her metaphorical tree was “bending all the way over.”
Courtesy
“One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity,” she added. “That is some language that I think is just now starting to really get unpacked.” In recent years, there’s been an increased awareness of achieving balance in life, with Tricia Hersey’s “The Nap Ministry” gaining attention based on the idea that rest, especially for Black women, is a form of resistance. Even online phrases such as “soft life” and “quiet quitting” have hinted at a cultural shift in prioritizing leisure over professional ambition.
"One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity."
If companies are lining up to consult with Walters about their brands and products, then women have been looking to her for guidance on starting over since she invited them to livestream her resignation 12 years ago. As viewers continue to demand more from content creators in the form of intimate, personal details, Walters has navigated her personal brand with a sense of transparency without oversharing the vulnerable details about her life, especially when it comes to her family.
The entrepreneur said she’d been approached to write a book for several years and was initially convinced she was finally ready to write one about business. “I started to do that, and then I went through my divorce. When that happened, I said, why would I write a book telling people to get the life that I have when I’m not sure about the life that I have,” she said.
Instead, she decided to write Nothing Is Missing and provide a closer look at her life, starting with being born to immigrant Ghanaian parents (“You need to know my childhood to know why I’m passionate about entrepreneurship.”) through the adoption of her three daughters and eventual divorce. Despite her desire to share, however, she said she felt protective of the privacy of her family, including her ex-husband.
When discussing this with me, Walters said she was reminded of a lesson she learned from actress Kerry Washington, who released her own memoir, Thicker Than Water, just a week before Walters’ book release. Washington’s memoir grapples with family secrets, too, specifically the fact that she was conceived using a sperm donor and didn’t learn about it until she was already a successful TV star. While Washington reflects on how the decision and subsequent deception impacted her, she’s also careful to hold space for her parents’ experiences, too. “A lot of things she said was that she had to recognize where she was the supporting character and where she was the main character,” Walter said.
This is something Walter worked to do in Nothing Is Missing when discussing her daughter’s struggles with addiction. “I was very intentional about making sure that I did not reveal more than what was required,” she said. “If I say something about someone’s addiction, I don’t need to go into the list of the substances they used, how they used them, what I found. [I don’t need to] walk into a room and paint a picture of what it looked like for people to understand.”
Walters said some of the most vulnerable moments in the book barely made a ripple once it was released. She was extremely nervous to write about getting an abortion, she said. But no one has asked her about this in the months since the book was released. Instead, people have been more interested in quirkier revelations, such as the fact that she once appeared on Wheel of Fortune.
“I have bared my soul about this thing I went through in my youth that has changed me for people, and people are like, ‘So how heavy was the wheel when you spun it?’” she said, chuckling. “It just goes to show that people never worry about the thing that you worry about.”
With the success of Nothing Is Missing, Walters said she still isn’t planning to release a business book at the moment. But, as she navigates parenting a teenager and two adult children while also navigating a relationship with her new fiancé, Walters said she believes she has at least one or two more books to write about her personal journey. “There is sort of an arc of where my life has gone that I know I’ve got something more to say about this that I think is important, relevant and necessary,” she said.
In just three years, Walters’ life has undergone a major transformation. There’s no telling what the next three years will have in store for her, but it seems likely she’ll retain an inspired audience wherever life takes her.
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It's 2024, and you're ready to get back into the dating scene. Well, you're not alone. According to Jonathan Kirkland, Head of Brand and Marketing of BLK, a popular dating and lifestyle app for the Black community, the day after Christmas through Valentine's Day is considered "peak season" for dating apps. So, whether romance is on your vision board or you just want to date for fun, it's necessary to make your dating profile stand out. If you've used dating apps, then you've probably seen it all. The shady profiles with creepy photos, the lack of info or too much info in the About Me section, and much more. While we know that's not you, you could be making some mistakes that are keeping you from making a connection with a potential love interest.
In an exclusive interview, Jonathan lists 10 dating profile mistakes to avoid in 2024. Read below to kick off your dating journey in a positive way.
Blurry Pictures
Jonathan says blurry pictures are the ultimate no-no. "Pictures are your first representation of yourself on the dating app. So make sure that you have a clear picture, make sure that the picture represents you. If it's a blurry picture, people can't see you. They will see your picture before they read your profile."
Inappropriate Pictures
Next are inappropriate pictures. "Typically, they'll get flagged on dating apps by our moderators, but I mean a torso pic. I mean, even if you have a six-pack, people still want to see your face."
Morsa Images/ Getty Images
Incomplete Biographies
"Another profile mistake; I will say incomplete bios because after people see your pic, if they like it. They want to, you know, get to know a little bit about you," he says.
"If the app gives you as much information to fill out like if you want kids, education, are you a smoker or do you work out, you know, fill out as much as possible because that way that also helps, you know, get you to your match quicker and can alleviate some of that time back and forth. If you know, it's not going to be a match."
Misspellings and Grammar Mistakes
Jonathan recommends that dating app users use spellcheck when writing bios. Grammar mistakes and misspelled words may show that you don't "pay attention to detail, which people probably don't want."
Being Vague About Intentions
While you may be looking for a serious relationship, other people may just be looking for a good time so revealing what you're looking for in your profile will help weed out those who don't match your intentions. "So on BLK we now have, you can select your intention right on your profile. Are you looking for long-term relationship, friends with benefits, friends, you know, things like that?"
Pro-Stock Studios/ Getty Images
TMI
However, there is such a thing as too much information. "Because then that could be safety and privacy, like you don't want to put your phone number on there. I mean, you might not want to put your Snapchat or Instagram." He continues, "I will say like, keep your different social media separate and not give all your information out on your profile."
Negativity
If you're on dating apps, then you've probably seen a negative profile or two, but don't follow in those footsteps. "Even if you've had bad experiences in dating apps or relationships, you don't take it to the dating app because it's supposed to be a place of hope."
Not Updating Your Profile
Have you dyed your hair or lost weight since creating your dating profile? Then you might want to update it, sis. "I mean, you don't want to misrepresent yourself, like if you got a picture from when you were in high school, probably not the best thing because if you meet somebody in person, you're not going to look the same. People's weights, especially during COVID, have gone up, gone down. So you might want to keep that updated to be in accordance with what's real."
Overuse of Filters
While we love our filters, we want to make sure our pics on our dating profiles match how we look in real life. No catfishing here. "Overuse of filters is definitely a faux pas because, again, it's not representing who you truly are," he says. "We want to be all about authenticity. Like that's why BLK exists because it's like you can be your real self, so with BLK, you don't have to code switch. So, I would say, like the filters and edits, let's not lean into that so much.
Lack of Initiative
Lack of initiative applies to after matching with someone. "Bumble says make the first move. We're not gonna say that, but it's like, I mean, send a message if you already matched, so it's like okay, you both swiped right on each other. Don't wait for the other person to message you first. Just go for it. I mean, all you can lose is just somebody you don't know."
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