Birth control isn't the devil. Ovulation is the golden ticket. And the vagina is not a topic that should be kept on the hush.
These are just a few things I learned about my vagina within the first couple weeks of getting married and actually having an active sex life.
My now-husband and I decided not to have sex while we were dating, and waited until our wedding night. How? I have no idea. There were definitely some close calls, like really close, but somehow, we were able to hold out for more than two years. I've gotten so many different reactions about that one. I'm not sure it's as much of a gasp-worthy moment as I used to think it was. And to be honest, before we got married, there really wasn't any action going on with my va-jay-jay anyway.
To back it up a little, I had a very sheltered childhood and even early adulthood. I felt like if I just thought the word "vagina," I would get popped or hit with a million questions of why I even had it on my mind. And while I understand my parents' attempt to be protective, it left me with lots of questions about my body that I was afraid to ask. I will say the Internet made me feel a little better about being so ignorant when it comes to the most precious part of my body.
While I got a clean bill of health for my annuals every time I went to the doctor, there were a lot of questions out there and I wasn't the only one who was asking them. Still, I'm ashamed to say I waited so long to find out more about said precious body part.
While the answer is different depending on the woman and her body, learning about my vagina has been a key part of my journey of self-discovery and self-love. Here's what I've learned:
A Little TLC Never Hurts
Okay, so honest moment: I could probably count on one hand how many times I looked at my vagina with a handheld mirror before I started having sex on the regular. I can be the first to admit that that was pretty stupid. If anything, I should have at least been checking up on it to make sure it was all good. Even though I wasn't sexually active, there were a lot of other things that could have gone wrong; and I would have never known. The few times I did check out my va-jay-jay was from pure curiosity. I started doing mirror checks a lot more after I started having sex, and after I got my first Brazilian wax. I can't even lie I was definitely feeling myself. Let's just say I had a few secret "Hey girl, I see you!" moments in the bathroom.
I realized that even if nothing is wrong, the vagina is such a sensitive and vital part of the body, it's important to show it a little extra attention. I think the most hilarious way I learned how to do this is with kegel exercises. I discovered that this was a simple yet effective way for me to connect with my body even more. I call it "hilarious" because I do them all the time and no one ever knows. It's like an incognito way for me to stay in touch with her and let her know I haven't forgotten about her. In the future, I plan on doing a vagina steam and yoni treatment. Wish me luck!
Birth Control Is Not The Devil
When it came to birth control, I was really on the fence about whether I wanted to take it. I knew I didn't want children right away. (I wanted to wait two years and my husband wanted them ASAP, so we compromised and decided to wait a year). I also heard a lot of different horror stories that women experienced and said it was from being on the pill. From cancer to infertility scares, their stories made me steer clear of birth control at first. I still decided to talk to my doctor about it and she gave me a low-dose pill option.
When we got married, I still hadn't started taking it. But things got real and changed my mind less than a week after tying the knot. There was no way we wouldn't have kids right away at the rate we were going. So far, I surprisingly haven't had any side effects that I can recognize. Of course, every woman, their body, and especially their vagina, varies. I made the choice that I thought was best for me and so far, so good. I honestly just felt at peace about it. And let's be real, the pull-out method only works for so long, and considering we waited to have sex, using condoms was just not on the agenda either.
Say What? – No, I Can't Get Pregnant Every Time I Have Sex
This leads me to my next point, which marked one of the first indications that I was completely clueless about my vagina. I know y'all are going to judge me for this (I don't blame you, I still judge myself), but it's a moment that I have to confess and be vulnerable about. I had always heard of ovulating, but I didn't know I had to actually be ovulating when I had sex, in order to get pregnant. I know, I should have done better.
My moment of revelation came after our honeymoon. It was one of many times that we had sex and I just knew I had to be pregnant just because of the amount of sex we were having. I was talking to one of my friends about it and she asked if I was ovulating. I looked at my period app and realized I wasn't, and that it said I had no chance of getting pregnant the days we had sex so far. She gave me a major side eye but I'm glad I had that learning moment… as embarrassing as it was.
My Vagina Should Be Celebrated, Not Shunned
Anyone can see that this is the year of the woman. We're taking over, speaking out, and defending ourselves in ways that many of us haven't seen in years. I'm proud to be a woman and am embracing all of the things that make me a woman, including my vagina. I wish I didn't wait until I was sexually active to learn these aspects about what I consider the most prized and valuable part of my body. Now, it's taken my love for girl power and women's empowerment to a new level. It's not something that should be kept on the hush—and this is coming from one of the most private and personal people out there.
It's something that should be embraced, laughed about, and a key part of what makes me who I am. I'm on this interesting journey of finding myself, so I have to say this truly helped me to fall in love with who I am… vagina and all.
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While speaking to xoNecole, Eva shares that she’s a lot like the beloved 1994 character in many ways. “Lyric is so me. She's the odd flower. A flower nonetheless, but definitely not a peony,” she tells us.
“She's not the average flower you see presented, and so she reminds me of myself. I'm a sunflower, beautiful, but different. And what I loved about her character then, and even more so now, is that she was very sure of herself.
"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Je-Caryous Johnson Entertainment
Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Fortunately, five simple words have simplified my dating process and ushered in clarity faster: “Would my husband do this?”
A couple of years ago, I met an entertainment lawyer who was tonguing down a twenty-something-year-old woman for breakfast while I slurped my green smoothie and chomped on a flatbread sandwich. Okay, Black love, I grinned and thought as I sauntered out of the Joe & The Juice. As soon as I stepped down from the front door, a torrential downpour of Miami summer rain cascaded and throttled me back inside to wait out the storm.
I grabbed a hot green tea and vacillated between peering out the wet door and anxiously checking my watch. My lengthy agenda started with attending the Tabitha Brown and Chance Brown’s “Black Love” panel, and I was already late. That’s when the lawyer introduced himself to me, after he made a joke about neither one of us wanting to get soaked by the rain. His female companion had braved the storm, leaving us to find our commonalities.
We both lived in L.A. and had traveled to the American Black Film Festival to expand our network. He represented various artists, including entertainment writers, while I was working as a writer/creative producer in Hollywood.
While there is no shortage of internet advice on how to strategically meet a prominent man at conferences, if I spend my hard-earned funds on career growth, I have tunnel vision, and that doesn’t include finding Mr. Right. So, I stowed his contact details away as strictly professional.
Keep It Cute Love And Hip Hop GIFGiphyAs the humidity and mosquitoes were rising around L.A., two months later, another suitor-turned-terrible match cooled off after three unimpressive dates and a bevy of red flags. I posted what some of my friends called a thirst trap, but it was really me wearing a black freakum jumpsuit with a plunging neckline to my friend’s 35th birthday soiree despite feeling oh, so unsexy and bloated on my cycle.
I’d been waiting to post a sassy caption and finally had the perfect picture to match: “You not asking for too much, you just asking the wrong MF.”
That’s when the entertainment lawyer swooped into my DMs and asked me to dinner. I was quite confused. Is he asking me on a date? Or is this professional? Common sense would’ve picked the former. Once it clicked that this would in fact be a date, I told my mentor, who’s been happily married for over twenty years and has often been a guiding light and has steered me away from the wrong men.
Upon telling him about how we met, he emphatically stated, “He ain’t it.” He followed up with a simple question, "You have to ask yourself: Would my husband do this? Would you tell others that you met your husband, tonguing down another woman, and later married him?"
Aint It No Way GIF by UFCGiphyOuch. The thought-provoking question cleared any haze. Prior to going out with the lawyer, the first thing I inquired about was the woman.
“You saw that?” He said, taken aback that I’d witnessed his steamy PDA. Surely, anyone with two open eyes peeped him caressing her backside as he kissed her in the middle of the coffee shop.
He brushed her off as a casual someone he’d gone on a couple of dates with but had since stopped talking to. He said he hadn’t been in a serious relationship in over three years. Though I was still doubtful, dating in L.A. is treacherous and ephemeral. Making it past three months is considered a rarity.
With my antennae alert, I dined with him at a cozy beachside steakhouse restaurant where we were serenaded by a live jazz band. I’d emphasized forming a platonic friendship first.
Break Up Friendship GIF by TLCGiphy“I’ll come to you,” he obliged. I liked that he had made me a priority by driving over 50 miles to see me. I also liked the effort he made to check in with me daily. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he initiated on a professional pretense and then alley hooped through the back door on a romantic venture, which bombarded me with confusion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my dating life, God is not the author of confusion; any man who brings confusion, rather than clarity, is simply not The One. It doesn’t matter how many boxes he checks–eventually, that confusion will manifest itself into bigger problems, in time.
After diving into deeper conversations on the phone, post our first dinner date, I quickly realized this man was indeed not The One for me. But I’m grateful for the valuable lesson I learned.
I don’t expect some unattainable fairytale of a husband; we all have our own flaws and conflict is inevitable, but after dating for two decades, through failure and success, I’ve realized that the person I ultimately marry must mirror the values I exert into the world. He must reciprocate kindness, patience, and respect. He must be quick to listen and slow to respond. He needs to be forgiving and trustworthy, practice healthy communication, and be a man of his word at the bare minimum.
If I’d had “Would my husband do this?” in my toolbox when I was dating and floundering in stagnant relationships, in my twenties, it would’ve saved me a lot of precious time. But now that I’m equipped with the reminder, it’s allowed me to ground myself in my non-negotiables and set/maintain the standard for the special person, I’ll one day say, “I do,” to.
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