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My suit is in the mail.
Keep it sexy
Keep it healthy
SuzyKnew!
Dear SuzyKnew,
I am HIV positive and have been for 3 years now. Since being diagnosed, I’ve avoided serious relationships with men. But, I find I miss the closeness and support an intimate relationship offers. Are there benefits to having a sexual relationship, if you’re HIV positive or is it better for your health and the health of someone you care a lot about to abstain? Worried in Detroit, MI
*******
Dear SuzyKnew Reader,
After many years of medical research and learning about living with HIV and AIDS, we know that HIV positive people can and do live long and rewarding lives. Sexual and intimate relationships are a key part of a rewarding and satisfying life. There is a lot of literature on how to continue your sex life once you have been diagnosed with HIV (usually focused on protection and avoiding transmission). But there is surprisingly little written about how sex can benefit your health and wellbeing if you are HIV positive. Here is a list that may surprise you.
#1 Sex can help stave off stress, anxiety. If you are HIV positive, it’s likely that you are facing daily stressors. Stress can weaken the immune system, making it less able to fight off infections. Here’s the good news- sex activates the release of “feel good hormones”- endorphins and oxytocin. When these hormones are released, it creates feelings of intimacy, relaxation and can reduce stress. For an HIV positive person, reducing stress and keeping healthy is paramount.
#2 Sex can reduce depression. People with HIV are at a high risk for depression. According to doctors at the AIDS Psychiatry Service at Johns Hopkins, depression can trigger poor self-care, including non-adherence to drug regimens. The consequences of not taking your medications are dire; it can lead to poor health outcomes and drug resistance. So how can sex help fight depression?- it’s the same “feel good hormones” at work- endorphins and oxytocin. Although these happy hormones may give you a little boost, they will not be enough if you are experiencing clinical depression, and you will need to be treated by your doctor.
#3 Sex can lead to better sleep. Sleep is an essential part of good health and plays an important role in immune system health and function. Many drugs to treat HIV have side effects that affect sleep. Complications of HIV disease, such as peripheral neuropathy, can keep patients up at night. Sex (think about that post coital feeling of satisfaction), can lead to a better sleep. According to researchers at the Morehouse School of Medicine, several hormones are at play here- including estrogen and prolactin- which contribute to feelings of peace and relaxation and that can both lead to sleepiness and keep you asleep.
#4 Sex can help reduce pain. Barry R. Komisaruk, PhD from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey found that vaginal stimulation can block chronic back and leg pain. The lab studies have also found that genital self-stimulation can reduce menstrual cramps, arthritic pain, and in some cases even headache. There is no study conclusively linking the reduction of HIV-related pain to sex, but you may be willing to try this at home as your own clinical study.
Here’s to a long life, good health, and enjoyment!
Dear ASK JANICE,
I am crazy about this man I’m dating, but can’t get him to commit. When we’re together, he’s totally into me. He treats me well and truly fulfills my needs in bed. But, he always insists we’re not in a “real relationship”. He says he’s not looking for a relationship right now, but that he does care about me. Whenever I push him for more, he gets pissed. And then sometimes I don’t hear from him for weeks! What am I doing wrong? How can I get him to commit to me?
Can you help a Sista out, please!
*****
Hey Girlfriend,
First of all, you need to stop beating yourself up over this guy. No woman can force a man to do anything he doesn’t want to do. The only thing you’re doing wrong is accepting less than you want and deserve.
He’s already told you everything you need to know. He cares about you, but doesn’t want a “real relationship”. In other words, he’s just not that into you.
The bottom line is when a man wants to be with you, he’ll be with you. There will be no excuses and definitely no going weeks without hearing from him. You won’t have to pressure him or push him for more. He will be with you, plain and simple.
Clearly, you want more from this man than just casual sex. Sadly, you’re not going to get more from him. He already knows that he doesn’t have to commit to you to sleep with you whenever he wants. And since this kind of relationship works for him and you allow it, nothing is going to change.
My advice to you is that you end things with this guy. You’re not getting what you want from him, what you deserve. And that’s my point: you deserve the kind of relationship that YOU want. You deserve to be with someone who will commit to you and really treat you with respect.
I don’t know if you’re settling for less than you deserve because you’re afraid to be alone, or if you’re truly in love with this guy. But, you need to stop … NOW! Men get away with treating us so casually because we allow them to. You’ve given him all the power in this so-called relationship, and that’s just wrong! You’re worth more than that, Sister.
I would also argue that your guy doesn’t really care about you, at all. He obviously knows how you feel about him, yet he’s perfectly content to keep you dangling on a thread while he goes about his merry way. If he really cared, he’d either give you the relationship you want and deserve, or he’d leave you alone. But as long as you allow it, he’ll keep coming back for casual sex and a half-assed relationship on his terms.
This just isn’t the man for you, my friend. The great Maya Angelou says that when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Your guy has painted you a very clear picture of who he is. You need to believe him, and cut your losses. Let him go. Walk … no RUN away as fast as you can.
Trust me, when you let go of this guy, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor! Other than some occasional good sex, the only thing this man is doing for you is standing in the way of the man you’re supposed to be with. As the Church Mothers say, “Girl, he ain’t doin’ nothin’ but blocking your blessings!”
Leaving this unfulfilling relationship would be an act of genuine self-love for you. And like I always say, no one else is going to love you unless you love yourself first.
My dear, you deserve to have the kind of relationship that you want. You deserve to be with a man who will commit to you. Stop giving yourself to men who won’t give you what you want and deserve. Stop selling yourself short.
Let this one go. Let him be someone else’s problem. Your King is out there, and this guy is just in his way.
If you tell your friend you use the Fertility Awareness Method, chances are you’ll get a response akin to, “…Oh. And you say you don’t want kids right now?” A lot of people don’t understand how empowering FAM can be and how it actually works. On top of all that, chance are they’re missing out on something pretty great: sex during your period, or, surfing the crimson wave.
Lots of people love surfing this wave, but FAMers particularly appreciate it because it’s one of the weeks when we’re less likely to get pregnant. Now, in general, it’s possible, although rare, to get pregnant on your period, but as we take our temperature and keep track of our cervical fluid, we can know when we’ve ovulating. After you ovulate you have between 12 and 14 days until your period. If you notice your temperature hasn’t dropped after your “peak” day, don’t have sex without wrapping it up. Otherwise, indulge!
The benefits of surfing that crimson wave are plentiful. Will you feel like having sex on your period? Sometimes that general get-out-of-my-face feeling the crimson wave brings on may make you think you’d never feel like you’d never want to have period sex. However, hormones during your period may actually INCREASE your libido. Girl, it’s time to get your groove on!
Lots of us ladies experience emotional swings around our period, and, of course, lots of women get crampy, but sex on your period can ironically help with that. Sex, like lots of exercise, can lessen the pain of menstrual cramps. All that good blood flow during sex has the ability to help with headaches and lessen your cramps. And, of course, Lord knows the magical powers of sex to help with tension and stress!
Yesterday, March 8 marked International Women’s Day, and ladies, we know you’re still celebrating. Continue celebrating by living life Extra Large. Hit life hard as so rightly said by Ghana’s Sena Dagadu. The song Extra Large, a favorite on the continent and in Europe, came out last March on Sena’s album Lots of Trees. Sena is enjoying her rising stardom as well as the recent birth of her first child. She sings about the empowering realization that she can do and enjoy so much more than she ever thought. She sees so many growing “trees” of possibility and wants to go after it all.
Like the song says, use this day to find your own way of understanding. Understand your own life, your own love and play your cards straight from your heart. Your opinion does matter and your way of working is just fine.
You’re incredible.
Get to the point about what you want and go after it.
Keep it sexy!
Keep it healthy!
SuzyKnew!
This is what a young girl wrote Lupita Nyong’o, who accepted Essence Magazine’s Best Breakthrough Performance Award last week for the movie 12 Years a Slave. Lupita read some of the letter aloud as a part of her acceptance speech, making the audience cry and setting the media on fire by revealing her own personal struggle to “embrace” dark beauty in Black women.
More specifically, the woman wrote: ” Dear Lupita, I think you’re really lucky to be this Black but yet this successful in Hollywood overnight. I was just about to buy Dencia’s Whitenicious cream to lighten my skin when you appeared on the world map and saved me.”
Even though our mothers tell us we’re beautiful, often we don’t believe it until someone like Lupita is recognized as beautiful. “The gate keepers of beauty,” as Lupita says, are the ones we believe. Last year at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards, Kelly Rowland confessed that she didn’t “embrace” her “chocolatiness” until Beyonce’s mom sat her down and talked to her. This got people talking, too.
We know beauty is more than skin deep and black women like Michelle Obama have inspired us. We, like Michelle, Kelly, and Lupita, have to face the onslaught of derogatory messages by those who don’t appreciate our beauty. How Mrs Obama endures comments like Michelle “My Butt” Obama or “Moo-chelle” with grace and class may be beyond most of us.
But, to be surrounded by the Lupitas, Kellys and Michelles must be enough to give us wisdom, courage, and strength to make our own marks in the world for others like us to follow.
Keep it sexy!
Keep it healthy!
SuzyKnew!
Dear SuzyKnew!
I am 25 years old and wonder if I’m at risk for cervical cancer. I know there is a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer but I heard it’s just for teens. I also read the SuzyKnew! piece on Black women dying from reproductive health issues more often than white women. What’s your advice? C. Johnson
****
Dear SK Reader,
Yes! Black women do die more often than white women from cervical cancer, according to the Black Women’s Health Imperative. 40% of the 2,000 Black women diagnosed with cervical cancer each year will die. Most deaths are among women who have not been screened within the last 5 years. This is unacceptable. Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable types of cancer, and women can be screened for it with routine Pap tests
Yes! There are vaccines that protect both men and women against the HPV virus, the main cause of cervical cancer. One is called Gardasil and the other Cervarix. It is given to young people way before they are sexually active so that their immune system has enough time to build up protection against the virus BEFORE they are exposed to HPV.
According to the World Cancer Research Fund, cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women and 7th most common cancer in the world. It is more common in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, where rates can be up to 3 times higher than the world average.
The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is a very common sexually transmitted infection and also causes cancer of the anus and penis. HPV is also linked to oral cancers. Although we are very vulnerable to this disease, what recently caught our attention about HPV was when Actor Michael Douglas spoke about his HPV-positive throat cancer. The Huffington Post came out with an infographic on the risk of HPV-related cancers for women and men. The American Cancer Society, knows that oral cancer from HPV on the rise for both women and men and recommends being vaccinated. As of 2004, 72 percent of oral cancer tumors were HPV-positive — up from 16 percent of tumors in the 1980’s. Why? HPV is out there and is easily spread. This is particularly concerning for young people that want to preserve their virginity and think they wont get an STI from oral sex. Wrong! Not only can you get an STI from oral sex, but also potentially cancer.
So what can we do to prevent HPV?
1) Get the vaccine early. The CDC recommends the HPV vaccine for preteen girls and boys at age 11 or 12 years. If you missed the early window, girls can get the vaccine between ages 13 through 26 years and for boys ages 13 through 21 years. So, lady, get vaccinated today!
2) Get your annual Pap Smear. Traditionally, our main weapon against cervical cancer has been early detection (though annual exams and Pap Smears) and once detected, treatment.
3) Use a barrier method (condoms) for all sex- oral, anal and vaginal to prevent exposure and spread of the virus.
SuzyKnew! Ladies: We need to spread the word about the HPV vaccine! Rates of vaccine uptake is still pretty low and there are a lot of unfounded myths surrounding the vaccine. According to the CDC, in 2011, only 35 percent of girls ages 13-17 received all three shots in the vaccination series, and only 30 percent of women ages 19-26 had received the vaccine.
Why aren’t more people getting the vaccine? I believe that there has not been enough press about the vaccine, which is why I was thrilled that you wrote in. Some doctors believe that it’s because you have to have three separate shots over a six-month period. That can be hard for some folks to schedule, but doctors are used to playing catch up on a vaccine series. Also, some conservative groups have been spreading the message that giving the vaccine to young people will increase their likelihood of having sex. Please, chile… Education is the key here. Both my son and daughter will get the vaccine. Will you and your children?
Keep it sexy!
Keep it healthy!
Lelo, the premiere sex toy company, recently put out their 2014 infographic on sex. The study looks at what women are doing now compared to 2012.
Today, women want more intimacy – and less kink. But, they are going further to get pleasure. Personal massagers… er… vibrators are increasingly popular. As for our male partners, 89% of men said they would welcome the chance to use a vibrator on their woman.
Also, these days ladies have overcome their stage fright. 52% confess to have produced their own “naughty” home movie. Ooh…la..la…!
See the infographic below. Take Lelo’s newest survey and save 20% of Lelo products!
Are you dreading Valentine’s Day this year? Does the approaching “holiday” remind you that you’re single, unattached, man-less? Are you already sick of the Hallmark and jewelry store commercials throwing ridiculously happy couples in your face? Does all the hoopla around the day make you feel lonely and depressed?
If any of this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Commercials and magazine ads would have you believe that everyone is “boo’d up”, and that single people are rare and miserable. Well, don’t believe the hype. In the U.S. alone, 43% of all adults are single, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. That’s almost half of all adults! In 1950, that number was only 22%.
Singlehood is a growing trend in the US and elsewhere, and it no longer carries the same stigma it did in the past. No one says the word “spinster” anymore. No one really questions why a woman is still unmarried at 25 years old, or 30 or even 40 like they used to. And when you factor race and ethnicity into the equation, women of color are even more likely to be single until much later in life.
So single ladies, rejoice! You’re no longer the pitied oddballs you used to be!
Don’t get me wrong, though. I know it’s real in these single streets. While some women choose to remain single for a variety of reasons, many still prefer to be in committed relationships. For the most part, everyone wants love and companionship. But not having love and companionship doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It doesn’t mean your life is empty or incomplete. In fact, if it takes another person to make you feel complete, you’ve got bigger issues than being dateless on Valentine’s Day.
Remember that line from the 1996 romance movie, “Jerry Maguire”? The one where Tom Cruise stares longingly at Renee Zellweger and says, “You complete me”? While it made for great romance on the big screen, it kind of made me cringe, too. Because in real life, you really don’t want some piece of a man so pathetic that he needs you to “complete” him. Sure, you want to feel wanted and even needed, but to complete him? Uh uh. No, thank you. I’d rather have no man than an incomplete one.
And any man worth his salt feels the same way. A real man doesn’t want the responsibility of “completing” his woman. He wants to feel wanted and even needed, but he doesn’t want some little piece of a woman that he has to complete.
The truth is you need to be “complete” by yourself before you get involved in a relationship. Needing a man and wanting a man are two different things. And you don’t ever want to be someone who NEEDS a man. Don’t be one of those women who build their entire lives around their guy. They give up their friends, their interests and themselves to be whatever he wants at all times. They lose themselves in their men, becoming mere shells of who they used to be. And when those guys leave, as they inevitably will do, those women are left broken and barely able to survive on their own.
So, don’t look for someone else to make you feel whole. While you’re single, use your time wisely. Be the best version of yourself at all times. Find yourself. Get to know yourself. Improve yourself. And most importantly, learn how to enjoy yourself by yourself. Stop filling your days chasing after the perfect man. Instead, use your days to develop yourself into someone so wonderful, so fabulous, the good men will start chasing after you.
Embrace your singlehood as your opportunity to continue working on the masterpiece that is your life. Treat yourself well and focus on making yourself happy. Stop listing all the things that are wrong with you as the reasons you’re alone. Instead, work on making improvements in your life that will make you feel fulfilled.
For example, you’re not single because you’re overweight. Maybe you’re not happy with yourself because you’re overweight; and maybe your weight is affecting your self-confidence. If you work on losing weight in order to make yourself happier, then you’ll get a lift in your confidence. And that’s what will attract a man, not the weight loss itself.
Do you see the difference?
You don’t need a man or a relationship to make you happy and whole. You need to find a way to be happy and whole on your own, first. Yes, having a man can enhance your life, but he shouldn’t BE your life. He should be your dessert, not your main course.
If you haven’t found your Valentine yet, don’t despair. That just means you have more time to build your life around YOU before you meet HIM. Remember, you can’t properly love anyone else until you love yourself, first. And when you truly love yourself and learn to make yourself happy, you’ll attract the person you’re supposed to have in your life.
In the meantime, if you’re single, feel free to enjoy this Valentine’s Day with the best date ever: yourself. Treat yourself to some candy or flowers. Buy yourself something sexy to wear just because it makes you feel good. Treat yourself to dinner and spend some quality time celebrating yourself. The best love is self-love, and the best day to celebrate self-love is the day of love itself: Valentine’s Day.
Dear Suzy Knew,
I’d like to get a Brazilian bikini wax for my man this Valetine’s Day. But, I’m wondering if I can get a STD from this?
****
Dear SuzyKnew Reader,
Removing pubic hair (through shaving, waxing, threading, trimming, etc..) is a very common practice. Looking at several surveys, between 70-88% of women and 58-78% of men admit to removing some or all of their pubic hair. Pubic hair removal has also become more extensive over the years- a look through a magazine like Playboy from the 1960’s through the present day will show how dramatically hair has thinned out over time. The Brazilian bikini wax is among the most extensive of the hair removal treatments, removing hair from several areas- most typically the pubis, labia, and anus. This is an increasing popular method of hair removal.
So if everyone is doing it, what’s the big deal? Pubic hair is there for a reason. It acts as a shield to protect the delicate skin of your lady parts from debris and infectious particles. Think of it like your eyelashes. If you removed your eyelashes you could get all kinds of stuff in your eyes. Granted, our lady parts are protected by clothes when we are out in public, but without the protective layer of pubic hair, during sex, at the gym or at the salon, all kinds of unwelcome germs can gain access.
What actually happens when the hair is removed? There is a reason it is painful. When the hair is removed, the skin is traumatized. A small surface layer of your skin gets pulled off with the hair. The follicle also gets inflamed from the mechanical removal of the hair.
Is there risk of infection? Absolutely. And I’m willing to bet most readers have had little bumps, redness, and irritation after hair removal. Those are signs of an infection. Once your skin is irritated, it is vulnerable to whatever germ it comes into contact with- a bacterial skin infection like staph, or even a virus such as molloscum or herpes. Infection can be introduced from poor hygiene practices at the salon, or from a dirty towel, or from sexual contact with irritated skin.
How can you protect yourself? Here are a few tips: 1) Ensure that your salon is licensed by the state in which you live, and that your anesthetist is certified to perform the procedure or treatment you want. 2) Make sure your anesthetist washes his or her hands thoroughly with soap and water. 3) Make sure the salon practices clean care, meaning they do not double dip the wax and you have clean towels.
After your treatment, remember that the area has had micro trauma. Keep it clean, using a mild soap and water with an added antibiotic ointment if you see any irritation. If the irritation is painful or worrisome, call your doctor.
Avoid unprotected sexual activity (rubbing, touching) in the area for a few days and until there is no signs of irritation. That raw skin is an open invitation for any germ, including an STD.
A final word of caution. You should weigh the risks and benefits of extensive hair removal, like a Brazilian, if you have diabetes, liver or kidney disease, or are on immunosuppressant medications. You may be more susceptible to infection and have delays in healing times. In addition, if you have an active viral or bacterial infection on the areas you are requesting hair removal, please, please wait. You do not want to unintentionally spread an infection to others.
So we just need to weigh the risks and benefits of any beauty treatment, right? Choose the path that’s best for you, armed with information to protect your body and your future.
Keep it sexy! Keep it healthy!
SuzyKnew RN