OK. Before we get all deep into this, let me just put a disclaimer up. It's been proven that, on average, a man can have an orgasm in a little under five minutes (no shocker there) while us ladies, we need a good 20-25 minutes or so (although one study said the average time is 13.5 minutes). I am a huge advocate of the female species gettin' theirs—and enjoying every moment of the process—as often as possible so, by no means, is this article about how to rush the overall process. Quickies are cool (and sometimes very necessary), but I don't know any woman who always or only wants sex to last as long as the commercial break between her favorite television show.
With all of that out of the way, what I'm about to share is how to make the peak of sex happen quicker—just in case you want to have several back-to-back, you want to have simultaneous ones with your partner more often or you simply want to teach your body how to not take 20 minutes if you don't want to wait that long.
As a heads up, there's a far greater chance that you can shave somewhere around 10 minutes off of your time if you do at least five of these things during each of your sessions. The good news about that is, as you're about to see in just a sec, I can't see one good reason why you wouldn't want to check all of these off of your sex-sessions-to-do list at least every other time you have sex with anyone. You'll see why I say that in just a minute.
Become a “Sextpert”
Thankfully, I've never been with a man who wasn't a fan of foreplay. Not only did they all enjoy partaking in it, they liked to mentally "set the stage" hours, days even, before anything went down; only my experience of pre-play was a bit different. Back when I was sexually active, I don't remember people being as text-consumed as they are now. I don't know about you but I know women in their late 70s who prefer doing it to talking on the phone!
Since that's the way it is in these streets, you might as well get good at sexting. From what I hear, it's one of the best kinds of foreplay when you and your partner are not in the same room with one another. If you're not already a pro at doing it, some sexting apps you might want to try are Kaboom (it functions like a sexy form of Snapchat), Confide (it makes screenshotting virtually impossible) and Dust (it not only encrypts your messages but no personal data is required; all you need is a name and password). Another thing that you can do is become fluent in sex emoji language. The Cut is a site that features a pretty extensive sex emoji list. Other than that, just remember to use your imagination and have lots of fun!
Now that you know how to protect your goodies—in word and in deed—from everyone but your partner, you can dirty text and nudie shot to your heart's content. I'd venture to say that just about anyone is ready to climax after sexting their partner all day long.
Extend the Foreplay
Speaking of foreplay, does it really need to go on record that the longer it lasts, the easier orgasms will be? Kissing. Fondling. Massages. Strip teases. Sexy board games. Making out (indoors or out). Impromptu lingerie (or nude) modeling. Shaving your man's face. Letting him shave you elsewhere. Bathing together. Enjoying a meal of nothing but aphrodisiacs. Discussing each other's fantasies. Something all of these things have in common is they qualify as being foreplay. The more build-up there is leading to the sex, the better the sex will be once it happens. So get off of the foreplay clock, take your time and enjoy each other.
Light Some Jasmine-Scented Candles
One of my favorite medical-related websites is Dr. Axe and he just happens to be a fan of one of my favorite scents—jasmine. According to him, jasmine essential oil reduces anxiety and stress, fights depression, relieves chronic fatigue syndrome, is a reliable PMS remedy and is also a tried-and-true aphrodisiac. The reason why it works on the arousal tip is because jasmine is able to increase your blood circulation, body temperature and overall breathing rate.
Placing jasmine directly onto your body is definitely one way to get you and your partner revved up. Taking a shower together with jasmine oil in your diffuser and then lighting some jasmine-scented soy candles (soy ones last longer and burn cleaner) in your bedroom is a great idea too; being that it will heighten your sense of smell, and women with strong smelling abilities are able to have more orgasms. It's proven.
Tell Him “More Neck Time, Please”
A few years back, TIME published an article about what science considers to be women's most intense erogenous zones. Guess what won out? It wasn't just the standard breasts and clitoris; it was also a woman's neck, forearm and abdomen. The neck is what intrigued me the most, so I went to look up why.
Apparently, our necks are extremely sensitive to light touch; especially the nape and back of the neck. As far as a man's favorite foreplay go-to spot, our breasts, they respond well to pressure and vibration; however, because they are so sensitive, there needs to be a switch-up in focus. After too long, it can be less sexy and more annoying. That's why men should explore more than just…the obvious.
Anyway, sex experts say that the more our neck is played with, the quicker an orgasm will come.
Bring Some Coconut and Cinnamon Oil into the Mix
If you want to speed up your climax, more lubrication is most definitely gonna help you to get the job done. A lot of doctors sing the praises of coconut oil because it's a natural option that contains antibacterial properties. I will give you a heads up that although coconut oil is dope, it can sometimes be a little too harsh. If after using it, you feel itchy, it could be because the properties in it have disrupted your pH balance. In this case, an alternative is sweet almond oil or an organic lubricant brand like Sliquid Organics Natural Lubricating Gel (it's pretty affordable on Amazon).
Once you've got the right oil, add a little cinnamon essential oil to it. Not only is it naturally sweet to the taste buds, but it provides a tingly sensation that will set off more than a couple of fireworks!
Get Your Belly Button Some (More) Attention
Here's the phrase for today—"naval fetishization". It's all centered around the fact that some of us are able to have orgasms when our belly buttons are given the much-needed attention that they deserve. What makes it all happen? Legend has it that when our belly button is stimulated, it arouses the vagus nerve which is a nerve that connects our brain to our cervix. When that happens, an orgasm is just around the corner.
Sounds to me like that's one more place that men shouldn't underestimate. Point your partner into that direction and let me know if that triggers anything for you.
Be a Queen Who’s “Queening”
You are a queen, so why wouldn't you be out here queening? What is that exactly? It's the slang term for face-sitting. As far as the cunnilingus portion of why this will give you an orgasm faster, I'm thinking that's obvious—it's all about positioning oneself. When you're on your back, your partner is more in control. When you've over his head, you are. And when you can control his mouth, all kinds of amazingness ensues!
Get into the “Cat” Position
I remember once seeing two cats have sex. It was super fascinating. The female cat was on her stomach while the male cat was on her back, seemingly biting her neck (if you think I'm making it up, you can watch it all go down on YouTube here). Not to get too graphic or personal but when I saw that, I thought to myself, "maybe cats are my spirit animal" because I am a big fan of that position myself.
The reason why we humans like it is because a man can better control how deeply he penetrates as we women are able to stimulate our clitoris simultaneously. As a direct result, quicker and much more intense orgasms. It's the blended variety too.
Become More of a Missionary
The missionary position is a classic one; that's because it's been able to give women orgasms since the beginning of time. From the on and offline research I've done, sex experts and women alike agree that the combination of the eye contact, kissing and comfort of their partner's body enveloping them all play a direct role into why this is the kind of sex position that can give you a faster orgasm.
Even if you think it's a little on the boring side, give it some points for being mad reliable. Because it is.
Breathe Deeply
Television and the movies tend to depict a lot of things incorrectly. For me, the first two that come to mind is labor and sex (not necessarily in that order). Back when I was getting my birthing certification in order to become a doula, I took a series of Hypnobabies courses (the same birthing class that Meghan Markle took). One of the things that it taught was the importance of deep, slow and focused breathing.
As life would have it, the way to have a lot of fun while making a baby is to deep breathe when you feel like you're about to climax as well. When you deep breathe during sex, it increases blood circulation. The more that happens, the more likely you'll be able to have one in record time; a really powerful one too!
So, if you've been he-he-hee'in during sex or labor, that's been working against not for you. You're much better off breathing in, holding for a count of 3-5 and fully exhaling. Next time you bring a baby into this world, the contractions—or pressure waves as we call them in hypnobabies world—will be easier to handle. And, as far as your bedroom action goes, your orgasms will come so much quicker. (Someone put Hollywood actors on game about that. Thank you.)
Featured image by Getty Images
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Amber Riley has the type of laugh that sticks with you long after the raspy, rhythmic sounds have ceased. It punctuates her sentences sometimes, whether she’s giving a chuckle to denote the serious nature of something she just said or throwing her head back in rip-roarious laughter after a joke. She laughs as if she understands the fragility of each minute. She chooses laughter often with the understanding that future joy is not guaranteed.
Credit: Ally Green
The sound of her laughter is rivaled only by her singing voice, an emblem of the past and the future resilience of Black women stretched over a few octaves. On Fox’s Glee, her character Mercedes Jones was portrayed, perhaps unfairly, as the vocal duel to Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), offering rough, full-throated belts behind her co-star’s smooth, pristine vocals. Riley’s always been more than the singer who could deliver a finishing note, though.
Portraying Effie White, she displayed the dynamic emotions of a song such as “And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going” in Dreamgirls on London’s West End without buckling under the historic weight of her predecessors. With her instrument, John Mayer’s “Gravity” became a religious experience, a belted hymnal full of growls and churchy riffs. In her voice, Nicole Scherzinger once said she heard “the power of God.”
Credit: Ally Green
Riley’s voice has been a staple throughout pop culture for nearly 15 years now. Her tone has become so distinguishable that most viewers of Fox’s The Masked Singer recognized the multihyphenate even before it was revealed that she was Harp, the competition-winning, gold-masked figure with an actual harp strapped to her back.
Still, it wasn’t until recently that Riley began to feel like she’d found her voice. This sounds unbelievable. But she’s not referring to the one she uses on stage. She’s referencing the voice that speaks to who she is at her core. “Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind,” the 37-year-old says. “It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women. I got so comfortable in [doing so], and I really want other people, especially Black women, to get more comfortable in that space.”
“Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind. It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women."
If you ask Riley’s manager, Myisha Brooks, she’ll tell you the foundation of who the multihyphenate is hasn’t changed much since she was a kid growing up in Compton. “She is who she is from when I met her back when she was singing in the front of the church to back when she landed major roles in film and TV,” Brooks says. Time has allowed Riley to grow more comfortable, giving fans a more intimate glimpse into her life, including her mental health journey and the ins and outs of show business.
The actress/singer has been in therapy since 2019, although she suffered from depression and anxiety way before that. In a recent interview with Jason Lee, she recalls having suicidal ideation as a kid. By the time she started seeing a psychologist and taking antidepressants in her thirties, her body had become jittery, a physical reminder of the trauma stacked high inside her. “I was shaking in [my therapist’s] office,” she tells xoNecole. “My fight or flight was on such a high level. I was constantly in survival mode. My heart was beating fast all the time. All I did was sweat.”
There wasn’t just childhood trauma to account for. After auditioning for American Idol and being turned away by producers, Riley began working for Ikea and nearly missed her Glee audition because her car broke down on the highway while en route. Thankfully, Riley had been cast to play Mercedes Jones. American Idol had temporarily convinced her she wasn’t cut out for the entertainment industry, but this was validation that she was right where she belonged. Glee launched in 2009 with the promise of becoming Riley’s big break.
In some ways, it was. The show introduced Riley to millions of fans and catapulted her into major Hollywood circles. But in other ways, it became a reminder of the types of roles Black women, especially those who are plus-sized, are relegated to. Behind the scenes, Riley says she fought for her character "to have a voice" but eventually realized her efforts were useless. "It finally got to a point where I was like, this is not my moment. I'm not who they're choosing, and this is just going to have to be a job for me for now," she says. "And, that's okay because it pays my bills, I still get to be on television, I'm doing more than any other Black plus-sized women that I'm seeing right now on screen."
The actress can recognize now that she was navigating issues associated with trauma and low self-esteem at the time. She now knows that she's long had anxiety and depression and can recognize the ways in which she was triggered by how the cult-like following of the show conflicted with her individual, isolated experiences behind the scenes. But she was in her early '20s back then. She didn't yet have the language or the tools to process how she was feeling.
Riley says she eventually sought out medical intervention. "When you're in Hollywood, and you go to a doctor, they give you pills," she says, sharing a part of her story that she'd never revealed publicly before now. "[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that's not fixing my problem. If anything, it's making it worse."
“[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that’s not fixing my problem. If anything it’s making it worse.”
Credit: Ally Green
At one point, while in her dressing room on set, she rested her arm on a curling iron without realizing it. It wasn't until her makeup artist alerted her that she even realized her skin was burning. Once she noticed, she says she was "so zonked out on pills" that she barely reacted. Speaking today, she holds up her arm and motions towards a scar that remains from the incident. She sought help for her reliance on the pills, but it would still be years before she finally attended therapy.
This stress was only compounded by the trauma of growing up in poverty and the realities of being a "contract worker." "Imagine going from literally one week having to borrow a car to get to set to the next week being on a private jet to New York City," she says. After Glee ended, so did the rides on private planes. The fury of opportunities she expected to follow her appearance on the show failed to materialize. She wasn't even 30 yet, and she was already forced to consider if she'd hit her career peak.
. . .
We’re only four minutes into our Zoom call before Riley delivers her new adage to me. “My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway,” she says.
On this Thursday afternoon in April, the LA-based entertainer is seated inside her closet/dressing room wearing a cerulean blue tank top with matching shorts and eating hot wings. This current phase of healing hinges on balance. It’s about having discipline and consistency, but not at the risk of inflexibility. She was planning to head to the gym, for instance, but she’s still tired from the “exhausting” day before. Instead, she’s spent her day receiving a massage, eating some chicken wings, and planning to spend quality time with friends. “I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I’m not going to talk down to myself. I’m going to eat my chicken wings, and then tomorrow I’m [back] in the gym,” she says.
“My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway."
This is the balance with which she's been approaching much of her life these days. It's why she's worried less about whether or not people see her as someone who is humble. She'd rather be respected. "I think you should be a person that's easy to work with, but in the moments where I have to ruffle feathers and make waves, I'm not shying away from that anymore. You can do it in love, you don't have to be nasty about it, but I had to finally be comfortable with the fact that setting boundaries around my life – in whatever aspect, whether that's personal or business – people are not going to like it. Some people are not going to have nice things to say about you, and you gotta be okay with it," she says.
When Amber talks about the constant humbling of Black women in Hollywood, I think of the entertainers before her who have suffered from this. The brilliant, consistent, overqualified Black women who have spoken of having to fight for opportunities and fair pay. Aretha Franklin. Viola Davis. Tracee Ellis Ross. There's a long list of stars whose success hasn't mirrored their experiences behind the scenes.
Credit: Ally Green
If Black women outside of Hollywood are struggling to decrease the pay gap, so, too, are their wealthier, more famous peers.
Riley says there’s been progress in recent years, but only in small ways and for a limited group of people. “This business is exhausting. The goalpost is constantly moving, and sometimes it’s unfair,” she says. But, I have to say it’s the love that keeps you going.”
“There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman,” she continues. “We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
"There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman. We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
Last year, Riley starred alongside Raven Goodwin in the Lifetime thriller Single Black Female (a modern, diversified take on 1992’s Single White Female). It was more than a leading role for the actress, it also served as proof that someone who looks like her can front a successful project without it hinging on her identity. It showcased that the characters she portrays don’t “have to be about being a big girl. It can just be a regular story.”
Riley sees her work in music as an extension of her efforts to push past the rigid stereotypes in entertainment. Take her appearance on The Masked Singer, for instance. Riley said she decided to perform Mayer’s “Gravity” after being told she couldn’t sing it years earlier. “I wanted to do ‘Gravity’ on Glee. [I] was told no, because that’s not a song that Mercedes would do,” she says. “That was a full circle moment for me, doing that on that show and to hear what it is they had to say.”
As Scherzinger praised the “anointed” performance, a masked Riley began to cry, her chest heaving as she stood on stage, her eyes shielded from view. “You have to understand, I have really big names – casting directors, producers, show creators – that constantly tell me ‘I’m such a big fan. Your talent is unmatched.’ Hire me, then,” she says, reflecting on the moment.
Recently, she’s been in the studio working on original music, the follow-up to her independently-released debut EP, 2020’s Riley. The sequel to songs such as the anthemic “Big Girl Energy” and the reflective ballad “A Moment” on Riley, this new project hones in on the singer’s R&B roots with sensual grooves such as the tentatively titled “All Night.” “You said I wasn’t shit, turns out that I’m the shit. Then you called me a bitch, turns out that I’m that bitch. You said no one would want me, well you should call your homies,” she sings on the tentatively titled “Lately,” a cut about reflecting on a past relationship. From the forthcoming project, xoNecole received five potential tracks. Fans likely already know the strengths and contours of Riley’s vocals, but these new songs are her strongest, most confident offerings as an artist.
“I am so much more comfortable as a writer, and I know who I am as an artist now. I’m evolving as a human being, in general, so I’m way more vulnerable in my music. I’m way more willing to talk about whatever is on my mind. I don’t stop myself from saying what it is I want to say,” she says.
Credit: Ally Green
“Every era and alliteration of Amber, the baseline is ‘Big Girl Energy.’ That’s the name of her company,” her manager Brooks says, referencing the imprint through which Riley releases her music after getting out of a label deal several years ago. “It’s just what she stands for. She’s not just talking about size, it’s in all things. Whether it’s putting your big girl pants on and having to face a boardroom full of executives or sell yourself in front of a casting agent. It’s her trying to achieve the things she wants to do in life.”
Riley says she has big dreams beyond releasing this new music, too. She’d love to star in a rom-com with Winston Duke. She hasn't starred in a biopic yet, but she’d revel in the opportunity to portray Rosetta Tharpe on screen. She’s determined that her previous setbacks won’t stop her from dreaming big.
“I think one of my superpowers is resilience because, at the end of the day, I’m going to kick, scream, cry, cuss, be mad and disappointed, but I’m going to get up and risk having to deal with it all again. It’s worth it for the happy moments,” she says.
If Riley seems more comfortable and confident professionally, it’s because of the work she’s been doing in her personal life.
She’d previously spoken to xoNecole about becoming engaged to a man she discovered in a post on the site, but she called things off last year. For Valentine’s Day, she revealed her new boyfriend publicly. “I decided to post him on Valentine’s Day, partially because I was in the dog house. I got in trouble with him,” she says, half-joking before turning serious. “The breakup was never going to stop me from finding love. Or at least trying. I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness, and you enjoy it and work through it.”
Credit: Ally Green
"I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness and you enjoy it and work through it.”
With her ex, Riley was pretty outspoken about her relationship, even appearing in content for Netflix with him. This time around is different. She’s not hiding her boyfriend of eight months, but she’s more protective of him, especially because he’s a father and isn’t interested in becoming a public figure.
She’s traveling more, too. It’s a deliberate effort on her part to enjoy her money and reject the trauma she’s developed after experiencing poverty in her childhood. “I live in constant fear of being broke. I don’t think you ever don’t remember that trauma or move past that. Now I travel and I’m like, listen, if it goes, it goes. I’m not saying [to] be reckless, but I deserve to enjoy my hard work.”
After everything she’s been through, she certainly deserves to finally let loose a bit. “I have to have a life to live,” she says. “I’ve got to have a life worth fighting for.”
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