FOR THE LADIES: READ "HOW TO HAVE A BETTER ORGASM"

Some women aren’t sure what orgasms are. If you feel a surge of relaxation, that may be it, for you, right now.

On the other hand, you’re probably not coming if sex leaves you feeling edgy.

To get past the problem—or to be multi-orgasmic and bathed in bliss—you may have to make it a project.

The key is to explore and learn what’s best for you, says San Francisco sex therapist Linda Perlin Alperstein. Sexuality is so “highly individual,” she says, that people can change their experience significantly by varying minute details. That exploration, for many people, takes courage, though it needn’t require a partner or trip to a sex shop.

Consider these moves:

Explore your breath. Many women hold their breath near climax without thinking. A deep exhale can intensify it. Some women say that moaning intensifies their orgasms as well. If you’re worried about waking the kids, experiment with moaning into a pillow. Moan when it will help you—many women do it near the man’s climax, in order to encourage him.

If holding your breath has become a habit, practice exhaling and moaning in private sessions. A technique from the Indian Tantric tradition is to take 15-20 panting breaths, followed by a long exhale. Repeat this three times, as you approach orgasm.

By contrast, some women find that intentionally cutting off their air supply intensifies orgasms, sometimes by hanging their heads over the side of the bed. Or just try not putting your head on a pillow.

Strengthen your vaginal muscles. While urinating, stop the flow of urine, release and stop it again—you’re squeezing the muscles that contract during orgasm. If you try contracting your vaginal muscles when you’re not peeing, you may find that you’re actually squeezing your butt and abs. The pee-test confirms that you’re using your vaginal muscles.

Don’t do the exercise every time you pee; you might end up with bladder infections if you don’t fully empty your bladder. Instead, squeeze and relax throughout the day—for example, while doing dishes or driving (you may know this as "kegel exercises").

Now that you’re used to the sensation, squeeze and relax those muscles while directly stimulating your clitoris. You can also do it during intercourse—each time he thrusts, you relax, and squeeze as he exits.

As with any muscle building program, resistance weights up the ante. GyneFlex sells plastic tongs that you close and release with your vaginal muscles, starting with a lightweight plastic good for new mothers to a stiff pair for champs. Pelvinn sells bulb shaped plastic weights in six weights. Silicone Benwa balls can be worn during the day, so you can squeeze whenever you’re bored.

Try new positions. Vaginal entry from behind can intensify orgasms. Or try climbing on top of him while he’s sitting, but at a slight angle. So if he’s facing 6:00, you face 3:00. You’re sideways. Or lie on your back, with your legs up in the air, as he kneels in front of you. Squeeze your butt muscles right before you think you’ll come.

Take fish oil and cut carbs and soy. Marrena Lindberg, the author of “The Orgasmic Diet” featured on “The Dr. Oz Show,” created her diet when she was inorgasmic. She says that women have boosted their sex drive and orgasms in two weeks to a month by following her program. Every day, you’ll consume a multi-vitamin, a glass of orange juice for extra vitamin C, and fish oil: for a 130 lb woman, 1700 mg EPA and 1300 DHA.

You’ll aim for meals with a balance of 40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fats—in effect a low-carb, high protein diet. Protein portions should be about the size of a deck of cards. She also recommends staying away from soy products altogether, avoiding coffee for six hours before sex and eating a half-ounce of dark chocolate a day. Get the recommended daily allowance of zinc and magnesium to help maintain your testosterone levels. Theoretically, the diet helps regulate your hormones, circulation, muscle tone and brain chemistry. It isn’t proven, but some women swear by it, so you can see if it works for you.

Talk to your doc about medication. Some anti-depressants and anti-hypertensive drugs interfere with orgasms in many women. It’s considered a side effect, so bring it up to your doctor so he or she can work with you on a solution. For some people, switching to the anti-depressant Bupropion (Wellbutrin) can help—some studies suggest that it can even enhance sexual response, although it has not been officially approved for that purpose.

Have a committed partner. Women have fewer orgasms in hook-ups, in part because men provide less oral sex to a partner who isn’t a girlfriend, according to surveys of college students collected by New York University sociologist Paula England, Ph.D.

Stay aware. Sexual pleasure and emotional rewards deepen when we observe our partners, look for ways to give them pleasure, and respond to their efforts towards us. If you’re both concentrating, you make love together, rather than drift off into your own heads.

The odd thing is, with all the pressure in our culture to think about sex, we don’t often hear this wisdom.

You don’t need to come every time, or during intercourse. But it’s healthy to consider whether you’re getting all the pleasure you would like. Orgasms are one of nature’s ways of helping us relax and feel safe. They can soothe cramps and headaches and lull you to sleep. During a climax, we release oxytocin, the bonding chemical, which remains elevated in the bloodstream for at least five minutes. And having orgasms will make your romantic relationships happier—but you knew that.

SIDENOTE: I love learning new things about women!!!!

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JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: NBC JUST GAVE STEVE HARVEY HIS OWN DAYTIME TALK SHOW!

The comedian Steve Harvey has a nationally syndicated morning radio show. He’s the host of “Family Feud.” A movie based on his bestselling dating advice book is due out in March. He still does about 25 dates of stand-up a year.

And yet all this, he said, is “the calm before the storm.”

Next fall, NBC plans to begin airing his new daytime talk show, which Harvey envisions with an emphasis on “everyday people” rather than celebrities, variety-show elements such as singing contests and an overall feel he described as “ ‘Oprah’ with a sense of humor.”


I think it’s going to get absolutely crazy,” he predicted.

He has good reason to be optimistic. Harvey, 54, has been a working comedian for half his life, ever since he quit his job after performing at a Cleveland club’s amateur night. He hasn’t exactly toiled in obscurity — he toured as one of the “Kings of Comedy” with Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer and D.L. Hughley, an act featured in the 2000 Spike Lee film “The Original Kings of Comedy.” He starred in “The Steve Harvey Show” on the WB from 1996 to 2002, and his radio show has lasted more than a decade.

The past two years, however, have seen his fame hit a new level. His first book, “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” published in 2009, sold 3 million copies, and the follow-up, “Straight Talk, No Chaser,” sold 400,000. A spike in ratings followed him to “Family Feud.”

These successes, Harvey said, helped him finally convince TV executives he had mainstream appeal. Initially, he said editors at Harper Collins encouraged him to write his book for his already large fan base, but he insisted he could — and should — aim for a wider audience.

“Once I got Harper Collins to understand that it’s not a race issue, it allowed America to see what I’ve known about myself for a long time,” he said. “I’ve always known that I had crossover appeal; it’s just corporate sponsors and TV people — they didn’t see it. Well, the book opened the door . . . and ‘Family Feud’ blew the door wide open.”

When he was first approached about hosting “Family Feud,” Harvey said he hesitated. “I really wasn’t interested, because I didn’t want to be a traffic cop” steering contestants around, he said. But the show’s producers encouraged him to be himself, and his one-liners and trademark reactions revived a show that was, as he put it, “just plodding along.”

“I can put my own spin on it, have fun with the families,” he said. “These people provide you with the material and they give you the setup — all I have to do is punch line, punch line, punch line. I just punch it — that’s all I’ve got to do. That’s TV and stand-up — the things I do absolutely best — folded into one show.”

Despite his love of stand-up, Harvey, who lives in Atlanta with his third wife, Marjorie, and two of their seven children from previous marriages, said he plans to give it up, partly to make way for the talk show. He said his last comedy show will be next August, in Las Vegas.

“It’s been a complete joy to stand on the stage and tell jokes, but I don’t want to be 60, hoping people buy a ticket to come see me,” he said. “It’s tough, because stand-up is really dear to me. I know it is the thing that led to all of this — the movies, the TV shows. I always know that it comes back to that core gift of being able to make people laugh.”

Will you be watching Steve Harvey's talk show?

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#UPDATE: REMEMBER THE MCDONALD'S WORKER THAT WAS VIDEOTAPED BEATING THE TWO WOMAN WHO JUMPED ACROSS THE COUNTER? HE WAS CLEARED!

The ex-McDonald's cook cleared after whacking two unruly female customers with a metal pole makes no apologies for the wild confrontation — and plans to sue the fast-food giant.

Here's a original video, just in case you missed it:



Rayon McIntosh, 31, who served 11 years in prison for manslaughter, says he feared for his life when the two menacing women lunged over the counter of the West Village eatery on Oct. 13.

“My life was in danger,” McIntosh told the Daily News. “Females do murder men. . . . I displayed a lot of patience. I was in fear for my life.”

Cell phone video of the ugly smackdown at the W. Third St. franchise shows McIntosh striking the women with a 3-foot steel pole, fracturing one woman’s skull.

McIntosh was arrested on felony assault charges and tossed in a Rikers Island jail for seven weeks.

A Manhattan grand jury refused to indict him, forcing prosecutors to drop the charges and release him Friday night.

“I just feel elated. I wasn’t out there looking for trouble,” McIntosh said in the interview at his girlfriend’s Queens apartment.

Trouble came looking for the Jamaican immigrant as he worked on the 9 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift, at his first job since being paroled from prison in March.

When McIntosh questioned the validity of a $50 bill, the two women turned snarly, he said. They berated him with F-words and the N-word, spit on him and slapped him. He said they even insulted his mother.

“I wasn’t trained to handle that kind of situation,” McIntosh said. “I think I was patient.”

Then the women leaped over the counter.

McIntosh said he grabbed the closest weapon within reach, a steel and aluminum pole used to scrape food from the gutters of the grill.

“I just grabbed that up and I started swinging it,” McIntosh recalled. “I had no other option to defend myself.”

He said he blames McDonald’s for putting him in the perilous position, explaining that staffers had warned the franchise owner of fights, drunken customers and even guns inside the eatery.

In March, a 26-year-old gay man was beaten outside the McDonald’s by two men screaming homophobic slurs.

“I do plan on bringing a civil suit against McDonald’s for putting me in danger,” McIntosh said. “If a security guard would have been there, this wouldn’t have happened.”

The franchise owner, Carmen Paulino, countered that one of her “top priorities” is to maintain a safe establishment.

She said she has long had private security workers on Friday and Saturday nights. She added security personnel on Wednesday and Thursday nights after the Oct. 13 incident.

“First let me say that I, along with my employees, are happy for Rayon and that he was released and cleared of all charges,” Paulino said.

McIntosh said he took the McDonald’s job only to help support his daughter.

There’s one thing he would change from that fateful night.

“I would have never gone to work,” he said.

“I’m not a monster,” he insisted. “I’m a people person.”

As for the two women who provoked the violence, he said he forgives them.

“I hope we do learn something from this,” he said. “You can’t just go around bullying people and then spitting on someone.”

Now, the way I see it, if those two ladies wouldn't have JUMPED ACROSS THE COUNTER AND CONFRONTED the McDonald's worker, this wouldn't have ever happened.

The sad thing is, he STILL had to spend 7 weeks in jail, just to be cleared.

I don't think he'll win millions, but there is something to say about protecting your employees, ESPECIALLY at an 24 hour McDonald's.

I'm just sayin'.

Your thoughts?

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INTERESTING READ: CHECK OUT "ARE YOU BEING PIMPED BY YOUR PASTOR?"

Written by Jayne Dirt

You can go to any Baptist church, on any given Sunday, and find the pews filled with throes of Black women shouting hallelujahs and amens to the high heavens in support of their Pimp—I mean pastor—in the pulpit. Most of these women are single, never been married, divorced, or in otherwise unhappy relationships. The Pastor, in their eyes, embodies one, if not the only, quality “Good Black Men.” They cling onto his every word, shouting and jumping, carrying on as if they’re experiencing a real, live orgasm from the messianic words that are spewing from his mouth.

Some of my sistren are living paycheck to paycheck and can barely afford childcare for lil’ Hakeem. For some, their lights are about to be turned off, but somehow that does not stop them from faithfully cutting a check to Greater Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church of the Burning Flame at least once a week. In fact, a sister probably drove to church in her Hyundai Sonata with a quarter of a tank of gas to experience the hooting and hollering, and other shenanigans, theatrically presented by the ‘Bishop’ in the Holy name of Jesus Christ. (When did Pastors start calling themselves ‘Bishop’ anyway? I’m just waiting on one to crown himself Pope, but I digress.) The point is that my sistren are being pimped. Plain and simple.

I have stopped to think on many occasions that this must be orchestrated. The order of service begins with a few praise filled animated songs from the choir. The organ starts crying and the drummer gets the base jumping. The Pastor starts humming. Everybody is feeling good, and then like clockwork—time for the offering!

I expect there was some discussion at a grand meeting of clergymen where it was unanimously agreed upon to take the offering at this particular time, and then get the congregants all riled up again in this same manner after the sermon, to take a seed offering. These pimps posing as pastors peddling propaganda from the pulpit know exactly what they are doing. It’s so obviously formulaic, which is why I believe many men are absent from the church—because ‘game recognize game.’

Now, do not get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with receiving your daily bread and fellowshipping with other like-minded worshipers. The Bible (basic instruction before leaving earth) has some powerful contents that we all can benefit from subscribing to, but what part of the game is giving a man 10% or MORE of your money week in and week out, at your choice of sunrise, 8:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., or evening worship service? Oh, and lets not forget the seed offering and the obligatory building fund. It doesn’t stop here though. Some of my most devout sistren don’t miss Wednesday night Bible study, weekly choir rehearsal, the usher board meeting and any other auxiliary meeting where the collection plate is indubitably passed around. It’s like the church house is charging an entry fee just to get in the building—and isn’t that why Jesus drove out the money exchangers from the synagogue? I’m just saying.

It is not my intent to offend anybody, because I know folk are sensitive about Jesus. But let’s make a clear and succinct differentiation of what is going on. I totally understand and support contributing to the welfare and upkeep of the church and the activities housed therein, but if you were in a squeeze, can you go back to the same place where you have dutifully invested your hard earned money to assist you in your time of need? What is the ROI (return on investment) of your tithes and offering? Or are you simply lining the pockets of a mega pastor who was probably chauffeured to the tabernacle in a Bentley that you’re paying the note on, from a home in some palatial estate that your ‘seed’ offering finances?

To be fair there are many pastors who devotedly deliver the word of God to their flock, but don’t be duped by some of these pimps in pin striped suits proclaiming to be men of the cloth, while simultaneously playing off of your vulnerabilities to line their pockets with money. Pay yourself first!

SIDENOTE: This one's gonna be a hot button topic!!!!!

Comments?

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GREAT READ: CHECK OUT "IT TAKE A VILLAGE: THE IMPACT OF COMMUNAL PARENTING"

Written by Alisha L. Gordon, M.Ed.

Communal parenting evokes the sentiment of the age-old adage "it takes a village to raise a child" and explores the ancestral African roots of an entire community of "investors" (aunts, uncles, sisters, parents, neighbors, etc.) taking responsibility for the life and welfare of the children in the community. Adrienne Lance Lucas, Principal and COO of Inheritance Capital Group and co-founder of the Kids Entrepreneurs Need Opportunities (KENO) Micro-Loan Fund has embraced and made the communal parenting impact work to her benefit. "Parenting has been a fantastic experience," Lucas explains, "but of course it has its challenges. Raising a young son isn't an easy task. I would never be able to do what I do without the people around me." Lucas, who was one of five children, has only one son, Keno. Lucas has used the communal parenting process to foster excellence and a sense of communal responsibility in her son.

"When Keno was 3 years old, he was fascinated with money and debit cards. He enjoyed drawing and we wanted to find a way to help him combine his two favorite pastimes: money and art. We created a website for him to sell his artwork at $5 apiece. It was then he became captivated by entrepreneurship."

Now at age 12, Keno runs a nonprofit organization that teaches kids about entrepreneurship, money management, business planning and the like. The KENO Micro-Fund (named after him), is hosting a Youth Entrepreneur Week November 13-19 in Atlanta, GA where kids will have the opportunity to win micro-loans for their business ideas and participate in conversations with businesses owners across the globe in conjunction with Global Entrepreneur Week.

Lucas attributes her son's success to not just direct parenting, but the communal efforts of friends, families, men and women in the community who have a stake in seeing her son succeed. Although now raising her son as a single parent, Lucas notes that single parenting doesn't limit her abilities to parent successfully. "There's this social stigma that single parent homes can't do just as good of a job as two-parent homes, but that's far from the truth. When the community steps up to ensure that every child in every household is accounted for, we have a greater chance of success for our children."

Tapping into the shared effort to raise our children is vitally important; with the recent news of Amber Cole, a 14-year-old who was filmed performing sexual acts on a young male, we are in desperate need for a shift in the way we engage in the lives of our children. Of course, every household is responsible for instilling core values and principles that produce good citizens, and the full responsibility of parenting falls on the parent, but when we all become invested in the welfare of our children we are creating a community where they can be productive, safe, and successful. "We must have a community of people to rely on -- don't be afraid to ask for help or expect those around you to have a vested interest in your child. When one child does well, we all win."

SIDENOTE: As I read this article, I couldn't help but picture SOME parents scoffing at the thought of communal parenting.

Now I understand we live in a different world, where you really can't trust EVERYBODY. Folks are crazy out there. Then again, coming from Brownsville, Brooklyn and being a latch-key kid, if it wasn't for some of my neighbors (in the 70's & 80's looking out for me) it would have been a problem.

Then you have the proverbial parents that think they can do it ALL ALONE. I've always said that parenting requires on-the-job training. In other words, it's a crap shoot. There's no how-to book on parenting (that makes any real sense). Ergo, communal parenting. Mentoring programs, extra-cirricular programs (scholastic AND sports) and unconditional love in the home is a good way to start.

I agree. It takes a nation to raise up a child.

Your thoughts?

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