With Valentine’s being here, there is a certain expectation for everything to be over the top. Romantic getaways. Sex Toys. Costumes. Fine Dining. Sensual Music. Flowers. These are all things that are known to guarantee a great night with a sweet one.
While all this is great, it is important as a woman or man to ensure that you reach a great level of confidence, trust, and intimacy with yourself and your partner to make the most of your romantic night. For many Nigerian women, there can often be a struggle to embrace your sexual side growing up in a pretentious, religious society that offers little to no guidance on sex and this can reflect negatively in your future sex life if it’s not dealt with.
In this interview, we spoke with certified sexologist and pleasure coach, Tyomi Morgan. She started her blog, Glamerotica101 as a way to help black women who are looking to explore their sexuality, and now it has become a well-known resource for all things sex education. If you fit into the box described above, look no further. Tyomi discusses how to overcome some of these issues and how to have fun with your partner this Valentine’s Day using the cowgirl workout!
In Nigerian society, it’s common to find women who’ve been sexually repressed. What advice do you have for women trying to overcome such repression and embrace their sexuality?
The first thing is to remember that your sexuality is yours. Society has its ideas and people have their opinions but there’s no one in the bedroom with you besides your partner or partners if you’re a poly person, and so the world doesn’t need to know what your sexual status or sexual orientation is unless you choose to express that. No one needs to know how you decide to express your sexuality if you’re kinky or into fetishes or having sex with multiple people. All of these things are information for you and your partners, so it’s not something that has to be broadcasted across social media or shared in large groups. When women realize that their sexuality is literally their responsibility, and no one else is going to check up on it for them, check them for it, or anything of the sort, then they can start to feel a little more empowered. Pleasure is our birthright and our bodies are wired for pleasure. So there’s no reason why women should not be out there, learning, educating themselves, experimenting, and exploring and you can do all of that in a very safe container within the confines of your mind. Writing things in a journal, going shopping online or booking appointments at boutiques that will do the personal shopping for you are some of the many ways to explore without it being such a public thing.
For those that might suffer from body confidence issues, what’s the best way to overcome that before having sex?
It’s a process. It’s not something that’s just going to just drop off overnight and it starts with realizing that the body that you have is the body that God gave you. If there are things about your body that you don’t like, ask yourself what inspires this dislike. Are you holding on to perceptions or attachments that society has programmed me to believe about myself? Most of the time that’s what it’s going to be: someone judging their body based on what society deems beautiful. It’s a process of shedding those perceptions and accepting your body, as it is. It’s really about embracing your body and making decisions about what you can change in order to feel more confident. If it’s wanting to lose weight, then what is going to help you get there to lose weight to feel more confident in yourself. If it’s your skin complexion, I don’t advocate for bleaching creams and things like that, but I do advocate for things like exfoliating and moisturizing. Showing it love on a regular basis. Also, think about what type of content you are consuming online. On Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, what types of images are you consuming on a regular basis? These images have an influence over how you view yourself, so if you’re looking at a bunch of women who have cosmetic enhancements and thinking your body doesn’t look like that. Well, change your narrative by shifting the images you see and follow people who look more like what your body type is. Through following those people, you gain more confidence in taking care of yourself and taking care of your body just by looking at how they care for themselves. So it’s really a process, and I would say, if you have issues with doing this work by yourself, see a therapist because a therapist can really help you move through the low self-esteem mentality that a lot of people have a difficult time moving out of.
How do you deal with embarrassing moments during sex?
Laugh at them. Things happen. I have a post on my page that says shit happens, and it does. We all have our fantasies and we have the ways that we think that we want things to go, but in real-time all types of shit can happen. Pets can get away. Emergencies can pop off. You might make a wrong move and kick somebody in the face or kick them in the gut. You might queef or get your period. There are so many things that can happen so just give yourself grace. It’s not something to take so seriously. Your body’s going to do what it does and sometimes things don’t always go as planned so learn to laugh at them. Adjust at the moment and take a moment to gather yourself and get back to it. You’ll be okay, but drop the judgment of what you could look like to your partner or what it means if you’re not perfect. There’s no reason to have to strive to be perfect in seconds. It’s about pleasure. Do you feel good or not? Also, it helps when you have a partner who is just as open-minded and focused on pleasure as you are because they will encourage you to just keep going. The average person going into sex has an understanding that things might not go as planned. You set the metronome. If you’re freaking out about it and feel embarrassed, then your entire mood is going to shift. But if you look at it as something that can be easily shifted or changed, and you just laugh at it, then the energy stays high and now, you’re moving into being more solution-based than shame-based.
It’s very common to hear women decry the quality of sex and their lack of orgasms? What are some of the things you find block women from receiving full satisfaction during sex?
There’s a lot. The first one is a lack of education. Some women don’t know their body, the capacity that their body has to experience orgasms, and how many different types of orgasms they can have. Also, some don’t know the techniques, the moves, and the positions that will assist you with getting there, but then also there’s this heavy layer of stress. Black women wear the world on their shoulders and it’s difficult to shift out of a space of survival. When that’s the most apparent thing in your life knowing how to manage stress and knowing how to decompress and shift out of this mindset of survival into a mindset of rest, relaxation, and receiving is a major thing and that starts before even getting into the bedroom. Learning stress management techniques is beneficial to your life. Most women are not relaxing into what they’re feeling and a lot of times it’s because they feel used by the men or the people that they’re having sex with and they don’t feel that they’re actually being seen and heard. Also, they don’t know how to communicate what it is that they truly desire and need to feel pleasure. Then, there’s a disparity in time. Men are busting nuts in five minutes. Their erections come very quickly. Female bodies become erect too, but those erections take 20 to 45 minutes to fully be there. If there’s no foreplay, no lead-up, and no lead-in and he’s just like come on let’s go, then she’s nowhere near warmed up enough to experience an orgasm. So there’s a disparity in time and sex education. And there’s also just heavy levels of stress and women are not getting stimulated the way that they need to so if women learn their bodies first and then learn how to communicate what their bodies need to feel as much pleasure as possible, then that is a good start. Experimenting with self-pleasure and also taking classes and maybe even hiring a coach to help walk them through the different ways that sex can be experienced and the different ways that the body can receive pleasure is good. This empowers them with knowledge and it helps them make more sound decisions and have options to bring to the table when they want to communicate to their partners that they want to feel or try something different. This also means they have to have the confidence to be able to teach their partners because a lot of men are just going to come straight into the situation, using the same moves they’ve used on the last woman thinking it’s going to work for them. When they already have a roadmap to their pleasure, they get to take the lead and show their partner how to satisfy them.
Are you big on Valentine’s Day? What does your ideal Valentine’s day look like?
I like Valentine’s Day because it’s a holiday. I love holidays in general, and this is the day where you get to do something special for yourself. It gives you an excuse if you don’t take care of yourself regularly to treat yourself and to also dote on the people you love. I extend love to the people in my life every day. Valentine’s Day is a special day to just do some extra stuff so I usually take that day to do some deep self-care. I buy myself gifts. I’m single right now so I usually do all this stuff for myself. Buy myself gifts, go out to dinner with my friends and I just love on myself. This year, I’m going to write a letter to myself and put it in the mail and mail it to myself just to really appreciate me and where I’m at now. So this will be my first time doing that specifically, but I think it’s a beautiful way to just remind myself of how amazing and beautiful I am.
For Valentine’s Day, I’m leading a digital retreat called the Spice it up Retreat with each day featuring five different classes that focus on several techniques, and even after the day, that course is going to be available. It will give people an idea of things to do to really deepen their sexual intimacy. Around Valentine’s Day, everyone’s always hitting me up asking how they can spice things up with their partner. I’m also starting a make sex fun again challenge from February 1 and it goes through the 13th so it’ll set them up great for Valentine’s Day if they actually participate in all 13 days. The challenge will be posted here and it’s going to be a free challenge so anybody that wants to join it can just sign up for free.
What basic tips, moves or products would you suggest for people looking to have the time of their lives on Valentine’s Day?
There are all types of toys, depending on what you’re into. Kinky toys, vibrators, male strokers, sex furniture, sex swings, playmats, and all kinds of stuff so my suggestion is to go on to a site that ships to Nigeria because I know not all sites ship to Nigeria. There are a lot of stores in Nigeria as well. One of my favorite online stores is called Pink Cherry. Then, if you are a person that’s a little kinky and you want to experiment with impact play or bondage or anything like that you can totally use items that are already around the house and turn them into sex objects. A spatula could be a paddle or a pair of pantyhose could be bondage for the wrists or ankles. A pair of underwear could be a gag. There are so many different ways that common household items can be turned into sexy things. They’re called convertibles. Bringing in some vibrators for women who are not having orgasms regularly or during sex at all. Clitoral stimulation in combination with penetration is key. Using a vibrator on the clit with penetration will help with that and then also lubricant. Sometimes sex gets a little dry and people don’t like to just outwardly admit that things are getting dry because they feel embarrassed by it.
The fact of the matter is it’s something that happens so having some water-based lubricant on standby for couples that will be going for longer than five minutes and also for those who know that they start out kind of dry. We all need a jumpstart sometimes. Make a sexy playlist ‘cos having the music you like turns you on. Foods that are delicious and yummy to you that you can feed to each other. Flowers like rose petals and whatever your favorite flowers are to bring some fragrance into the room and candles. Just creating a whole list of things to buy to create a scene, especially if you know you’re not going to go to a hotel or something like that you want to transform your space into a sexy oasis. So just think about the things that visually look good to you and there’s a lot of discount stores that sell these items for really cheap. It’s a matter of just really thinking about what you want your experience to be like and then gathering all those things. For the retreat that I’m doing, I will have a shopping guide for all of the people who sign up so that way they know how to create sexy scenes or what we call sacred space for their sexual experiences, and then it’ll have recommendations on different products to buy and also discount codes for them to get things at a discount online.
Tell me a bit more about the cowgirl workout. Why should every woman be doing it?
One way that women can ensure that they’re going to have an orgasm is by controlling their stroke, so instead of allowing the man to stroke you and just be inside of you. For like 30 minutes straight, you can jump on top, or you can stroke back from the bottom, and you can maneuver your hips and maneuver your body to where he’s going to stroke the spots that feel good to you. Now when you’re on top and you’re in cowgirl, you’re controlling the whole stroke. You get to control the speed and the depth and the positions so that you can get your orgasm and so many women want to master this but they don’t know how to move. They have stiff hips or stiff lower backs, their hip flexors are tight and their needs are shoddy. I’ve made several tutorials on YouTube. It gives the basics on how to move, but a lot of women still don’t know how to move even from watching that video, so I created the cowgirl workout in 2015. It turned into a tour and has since gone digital and now it’s a whole community where women can join me live Tuesday through Saturday to work out because practice is how you get better, through using repetitious movement. The three pillars of the cowgirl workout are strength training, stamina building, and flexibility. These are the three areas that women have issues with primarily when it comes to learning how to ride. They’re tired within 30 seconds. They’re not flexible, so their hip flexors hurt, which then causes them to not move, and then they’re not flexible because they’re not stretching on a regular basis. This workout teaches them how to stroke in eight different patterns and it helps them to build stamina so that it can last on top longer than just three minutes. I’m training women to snatch souls in a good three minutes. If you want to last longer than that, you totally can by using the training that I provide. Some people will join and fall off and it’s the consistency that matters. You could be that kind of person that takes it once and then you get it and that’s great. But then, you may be the kind of person that needs a little more push to practice regularly to really get it, because if you’re not a dancer or somebody who’s used to like moving their hips, there may be a bit of a learning curve. The workout isn’t for everybody. There are certain medical conditions that just will not work with the program so things like arthritis, severe scoliosis, or other conditions that affect the bones or muscles where it’s difficult to move. It doesn’t matter what your weight is, a lot of my clients are 300 to 500 pounds. They are the main ones who think they can’t do it, but I’m like all you need to learn is how to isolate your hips and leverage your weight and how to move when you’re up there, and the different positions that make it easier, and you will be fine. I just think that every woman should be in the program because it’s going to help them take control of their pleasure and have more fun in sex and not feel so shook. I don’t want any woman allowing a position to make them feel less than worthy of receiving pleasure. There’s no reason why any woman should freak out and feel like they’re not a good lover because they don’t know how to ride dick. It’s the easiest thing to do. I am very passionate about empowering women to get there because they deserve it.
Tyomi currently offers a masterclass for the cowgirl workout and they take place once a month this year. To find out more information on how to register, click here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photo credit: Ezell Hudson