Twanna A. Hines

Psychology Today’s Are You with the Right Mate? is appealing. It’s a question we all ask: Is there something better? Homebuyers wonder if they’re picking the right house. Renters who double up wonder if life would be sweeter with a different roommate. Employees wonder if they should stick with their current job’s stability or accept a new opportunity with better pay or a better work environment.

I recently returned from a Chicago stay at the Hotel Felix where a friend and I overheard a 20 something dude in the lobby bar ruminating about his love life, sloppily debating whether or not he should leave his 34 year-old girlfriend. “I’m 28. I don’t have any kids. I’ve never been married. I own my own business …” Dumbass, I muttered under my breath. You think you might be able to get something better because you’re a catch in the Midwest. In Manhattan, I can’t go to a party and spit straight without it hitting at least a dozen guys kind of like you except they would be richer and hotter. If you truly love your girlfriend — and, more importantly, if she’s good to you — keep her. For now.

I’m a fan of casual sex, fucking around, and having tons of experiences with a lot of different people when you’re single. New Yorkers live the hell out of life first, then settle down (if ever). I’m in my 30s, single, never been married, and I don’t have any children. I was frustrated with the Hotel Felix lobby bar guy because I wondered: “If I ever move back to Chicago, will all the good men my age be already married? Would I be stuck dating someone like this guy — a 20-something blabbing he wanted to dump me?”

Read this. It’s from a couple years ago, but I still feel the same. I miss the Midwest like hell, and I’ve contemplated moving back. Not tomorrow. Someday. I’m noncommittal about longterm plans. I could own a pad in River West, Wicker Park or Humbolt Park in 2016, or I could remain on the East Coast forever. It’s like that old adage: The grass isn’t greener on the other side, it’s greener where you water it. Today, I’m watering the grass in New York City. If I ever decide to move, I’ll water the grass somewhere else just fine, too.

I will always love New York. For your viewing pleasure: “Never A Dull Moment On the NYC Subway” (via the lovely and delicious Jonathan Fields)

“Sooner or later there comes a moment in all relationships when you lie in bed, roll over, look at the person next to you and think it’s all a dreadful mistake,” says the Are You with the Right Mate? article. Finding happiness isn’t about chasing the next best thing. Regardless who you’re with now (or are seeking), there will always be someone hotter, richer, smarter, thinner, curvier, less challenging, more challenging, more fun, more something. If you believe your personal happiness is what matters most and you would be happier without your significant other, it may be time to figuratively “water” the relationship a bit more. However, if you’re already doing that yet grass keeps dying anyway, it may be time to reevaluate.

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Should You Stay or Leave?

I live in New York. During my first years in the city, I spent portions of New Year’s Eve standing in Times Square, excited about watching the ball drop live with the freezing crowds. By 2010, I decided that was for tourists. I spent that year’s NYE warm and stilettoed at a private/indoor party overlooking Times Square. This year, I’ve escaped the city all together, and I’m spending a low key evening with longtime Illinois friends in Downtown Chicago. I’m either growing tired of New York, or I’m growing old.

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I wish you a safe, happy and sexy send off to the New Year!

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Wishing You a Sexy NYE 2012!

Online dating is like shopping at Forever 21. You have to sift through a bunch of crap before you find that one cute dress. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently test-drove HowAboutWe – a site that lets you suggest a date idea or tell someone you’d like to join them for their suggestion. Scanning dudes’ posts, I found a few, um, gems. HowAboutWe …

• “Stay in and take in a good movie while we take in each other.”
• “Go get stupid drunk and have blast. I only drink once a month so that one night is always fun.”
• “Both dress up as Snooki and make out.”

Reading these suggested dates depresses me because it makes me the majority of people online are only looking for casual sex. As you likely already know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with consenting adults hooking up. It’s just that I don’t need a website to get it. The “send” button on my cell phone works just fine. So, if I’m online dating, I’m looking for something a bit more than strictly sex. To be fair, some of the dates posted sounded interesting, including HowAboutWe …

• “Go to the Sleep No More afterparty at the McKittrick Hotel on Sunday at 11pm. The timid need not apply.” (NOTE: You could argue this is as suggestive as ‘come to my place and make out,’ but I disagree.)
• “Spend a Saturday afternoon at the NY Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. I hear they carved a 2,000 lb. pumpkin.”
• Walk the whole High Line Park and take pictures of the city views.
• Try one of New York’s Most Insane New Bacon Dishes as recommended by EaterNY
• Do a meatball challange, check out Meatball Shop and Meatball Factoryand see who is best

Any date that involves me ripping meat open with my incisors will always sound like fun. I can’t help it; I’m Midwestern. So, a few weeks ago, I gave HowAboutWe a try by contacting dudes who suggested meatloving dates. Online, like offline, when dudes ask me out to a restaurant, movie, museum, bar, or whatever, I often let them take the lead on suggesting the venue. I’m easily entertained; I usually don’t care what we do. However, a friend who attends Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts suggested I should make a list of everything I want to do in New York and, whenever someone asks me out, see it as an opportunity to cross something off my list. (Mama Gena’s is a New York institution as much as a part of the city as yellow taxi cabs. If you’re not familiar with her, listen to a free audio sample that promises to fan the flame of your desires. You’re welcome.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh, yes, online dating.

In addition to link up with a  few HowAboutWe guys who intrigued me with their date ideas, I posted a date idea or two of my own, including: How about we watch people skinny-dip at Carsten Höller’s “Experience” at the New Museum? After living in New York nearly 7 years, it’s one of the few museums I had yet to visit. To my delight, a dude said he would like to join me. I was even more surprised when I found out we actually already knew each other through a mutual friend. We went Dutch at the museum and hung out for the day. I had fun! (NOTE: The exhibit’s slide is more intimidating than you’d think. I screamed like I motherfucking banshee on the way down.)

Cutting through the bullshit, online dating is often about finding someone with whom you can share your time, touch, lick, kiss, and/or possibly sleep with. So, yeah, if you’re interested in trying something different, I’d suggest giving HowAboutWe a try. After the free trial they gave me expired, I didn’t renew it; but, the experience was well worth it.

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Dating: A HowAboutWe Review

It’s been months since I’ve had contact with or enjoyed the New York dude’s penis. I miss it very much. But, not enough to have it again. Ah, if only the guy attached to it was a better person for me :(  Usually, when I don’t update my site for several weeks, I’m either enjoying a private love affair about which I don’t want to write, or I’m busy working. For much of the Autumn / Winter, I was doing both. For more regular updates, find me on Facebook and Twitter.

Back to the guy.

I love friendships with men because they give me: (1) a guy’s perspective on things and (2) a stable selection of fuck buddies whenever I need one. In conversation with a guy friend / fuck buddy I’ve known for a couple years, I confessed, “I stayed in my most recent relationship, even though I had doubts about him since the beginning, because I was lonely and the sex was good.” The guy friend reminded me, “Well, if you’re looking for good sex …” We joked around a bit. Eventually, he slipped back into supportive friend mode — returning to what I said about staying with the guy I dated. “Those two things aren’t a good reason for staying in a relationship.” He paused. “You knew that, of course.”

I did. I still do.

I’m not sure what’s in store for my sex & dating life in 2012. But I — like many of you who are single out there — truly believe somewhere, somewhere, I will find someone to love me for who I am. Again. I’ve had great relationships in the past, mostly pre-New York. I have no reason to believe I won’t have them again. I deserve it. So, I leave you today with this parting thought from my pal Natalie Lue‘s relationships site: “Every time you say YES to an unhealthy situation, or continue to participate in it once it becomes apparent that it’s not what you thought it was or could be and is in fact unhealthy, you’re saying NO to a healthy relationship and essentially making yourself *unavailable*.”

Here’s to being more available in 2012.

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Good Sex Is Still Just Sex

Try online dating, if you haven’t already. You might like it. Rewind to last summer, before snow fell on the ground and grey skies clouded the heavens. I was sitting at an Italian restaurant’s white linen-clothed table in lower Manhattan with a married Brazilian woman and one of her redheaded acquaintances. We were three women having otherwise unremarkale dinner conversation until the girl with orange hair asked the Brazilian, “How did you meet your husband?”

The wedded one avoided eye contact. “Through a friend.”

Liars usually lie when they’re uncomfortable with the truth. I knew the once-bride met her then-groom online, but I didn’t call her out on it. Experience has taught me, when you confront liars on a bald-faced lie, they get angry. Not at you, at themselves. But, they still take it out on you anyway.

“Really?” The unwitting acquaintance continued talking to the married Brazilian, “Which friend? Maybe they could set me up!”

The wedded lady moved her hips to shift weight, forked food around her plate, and awkwardly lapped her tongue up and down to partially confess, “I met my husband through a guy who set us up on It’s Just Lunch.”

The puzzled acquaintance tried to push ill-fitting pieces together. “You know someone works at It’s Just Lunch?”

“N-n-no, I didn’t know them,” the woman with the ring stuttered. “We were just matched through the service.”

“That’s … wait … So, you didn’t meet through a friend?” The redhead’s eyes bounced from the married lady to me and back again. “Why didn’t you just say you met online?”

The married woman looked at her plate.

In Austin next March, at my South by Southwest (SXSW) panel Sex, Dating and Privacy Online Post-Weinergate with Rachel Kramer Bussel, Violet Blue and Samhita Mukhopadhyay, I’ll delve into: online dating & stigma, how the internet has changed the nature of “privacy,” the politics of sex scandals, and why this matters in the lives of everyday people & their coworkers. In the meantime, for now, let’s stick to simply talking about adults who date online.

The dating service industry includes 393 entities who employee nearly 3,125 people and generate $928 million in revenues. Recently, HowAboutWe linked up with FUNKY BROWN CHICK®, gifting me with an account so I could write a review. Separating my personal love life from my professional life, when I create my profile I’ll specifically include something like: I run FUNKY BROWN CHICK® and I’m on HowAboutWe to write a review.

If you’re not familar with the site, based on New York City’s Lower East Site, HowAboutWe lets you post date ideas and/or tell someone you’d like to join their suggested date. I could post, “How about we take off our clothes and go skinny-dipping in Carsten Höller’s Experience at the New Museum?” Interested parties could privately message me or click “I’m intrigued.” (Fret not! Just example; I’m not literally going to suggest an exhibition.) What I like about HowAboutWe co-founders Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout‘s approach is this: they creatively match people by common interests instead of body type, height, or other things that ultimately don’t matter. As a result, you’d meet potential dates online similar to the way you’d meet them offline.

“[O]nline dating, now, is tantamount to dating,” Sadie Stein writes in her Jezebel piece Has online dating really lost its stigma? “Especially in cities, it’s simply a useful shortcut, and for every self-aggrandizing frog, there’s the great guy who [...] you date for two years.” Maybe longer. Perhaps, one day, you’ll sit at an Italian restaurant’s white linen-clothed table in lower Manhattan, boldly telling someone: “I met my husband online via HowAboutWe.”

My next post will be a full HowAboutWe review. Until then, please feel free to use the comments section to tell me about any of your online dating experiences.

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How HowAboutWe Works

MYTH: “If you have sex while you’re on your period, there’s absolutely no way for you to get pregnant.”

DIRECT VIDEO LINK:

youtube.com/watch?v=EY49Y1y1zz8

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

“M” (age 27): “If you have sex while you’re on your period, there’s absolutely no way for you to get pregnant. Think about it. You’re bleeding. Where’s the egg gonna go? It’s like a totally inhospitable landscape in there.”

Eve Espey, MD: “Eggs can find an oasis in any landscape. The truth is: There’s no absolutely safe time. For one thing, not every episode of bleeding is an actual period. So, just remember to be covered 100% of the time.”

My $0.02 [not included in video, special bonus for FUNKY BROWN CHICK® readers]: “In case you’re wondering, But, aren’t there times that are more safe than others for barebacking?! and/or How does ovulation work?, check out National Institutes of Health’s blow-by-blow description of ovulation. “Fertile days,” they explain, “are the days a woman is most likely to get pregnant.” So, theoretically, you won’t get pregnant if you avoid your fertile days, right? Wrong. There’s a catch (or two or three). Sperm loves vagina. In fact, sperm loves hanging out in the vag so much that it’s able to stay alive in there for up to 3 to 5 days after sex. Plus, it’s not wholly possible to know exactly when a woman is going to ovulate anyway. And, very few women have naturally 100% regular menstrual cycles. Long story short: If you’re having sex and you don’t want to get pregnant, use birth control.

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Sex: Pregnant During Period?

“When it comes to sex,” writes Arielle Loren, “fear is a catalyst for silence and preserving ignorance [...] If you’ve ever had a question about sex go unanswered, know that these women are passionate about educating, sharing stories, and spreading knowledge.”

I’m flattered and humbled to be included with Columbia University’s Dr. Hilda Hutcherson and other amazing women in Clutch magazine’s 10 Black Women Teaching Us About Sex. If you love sex — and sexy, brown-skinned women writing about tantra, transgender, queer, sensual strength training and other topics   — this list is must see / must read.

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Sex + Chocolate: Meet the New Class

“[He] didn’t speak a word about condoms, and, in response, I didn’t either.” That’s from my friend Rachel Kramer Bussel‘s article, Dating Drama: No Glove, No Love? Not Always. What’s more? Another writer friend, Carolyn Castiglia confesses, “I’m not using them right now, either.” Current HIV/AIDS and STI rates in New York City warn the vast majority of reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases are among women. Knowing Rach and Carolyn don’t wrap it up every time drives this sex educator crazy. I love them, and I want their little vaginas to be healthy.

I’ve taught hundreds of teens and adults how slip male and female prophylactics against penises and vaginas. Many use condoms. Adults who don’t often complain, But it feels different without one. True as that may be, guess what probably feels worse? Getting gonorrhea. I recently learned its nickname, “the clap,” likely comes from the Old French word clapier, meaning brothel. Somewhere a long time ago, a velvet beret-clad old Parisian dude named Jean-Pierre d’Oesti probably had a secret and jaunted to a teeny cafe near the Seine to share it with the tall handlebar-mustached bartender, Jacques Francois Mautadit Tabarnacle, who happened to be his best friend. Quietly, Jean-Pierre probably whispered to Jacques Francois, “Ca brule quand j’fais pipi. Il y a une sorte de merde verte qui sort de mon zizi et mes couilles sont enflés!” (English translation: It burns when I pee. There is some kind of green shit oozing out of my dick and my testicles are swollen.”) In response, Jacques Francois probably laughed. “Err, leet me guezz. You visited a, um, brothel?” Twirling mustache with forefinger and thumb, he continued, “Now you have … err … how you say … Le clap clap?! Oh, la la! Ah ha ha ha!” Thus, the slang was born! ;)

All kidding and French stereotypes aside, in addition to “the clap,” gonorrhea is also called “the drip” because that’s exactly what happens. If you contract gonorrhea, green shit might ooze out of your penis or vagina. That’s fucking gross. You don’t want that. So, I implore everyone out there bumping uglies, please keep your genitals safe. Wear condoms.

Teaching more than 50 men and women ages 21+ how to talk dirty while incorporating condoms into foreplay, last Saturday night, I performed my “Adults Only, Dirty Talk” condom demonstration as part of the Balls Out Comedy show at the Bowery Poetry Club. Sex education programs have to be incredibly audience specific. In classroom instruction with teens and young adults, I keep condom demonstrations clinical/technical. It’s about How to Put On A Condom. Proper steps. No jokes. Why? There’s a difference between perfect use and typical use. From Guttmacher‘s first-use condom research we know, if you use a condom correctly, the failure rate is only about 2%. However, if you use it the way people typically use them–without checking the expiration date or looking for air tightness, without squeezing the tip, withdrawing without holding on to the end, etc.–the failure rate jumps to nearly 20%. Teens need skills-based instruction. Adults, on the other hand, are stubborn. They don’t like being told, in essence, “Um, yeah, you don’t know how to put on a condom.” They know. Some simply choose not to. So, I teach those fabulous ladies and gentlemen pleasure-based techniques. At Saturday’s show, I grabbed a dude from the audience and made him hold a yellow banana in front of his cock as I taught the beer-sipping audience how to safely tear the plastic condom packet open with teeth, roll the rubber on a shaft with their mouths and/or while jerking him off, play with the guy’s balls, and talk dirty throughout the whole thing. We had a blast!

If this sounds fun, join me next time. You can catch me performing, educating and training throughout the New York metro area. Again, tone varies by topic and presentation. It’s Let’s Talk Month. Tomorrow in Westchester, I’m teaching a parent-child workshop that encourages teens and parents to talk about healthy relationships and teen dating violence. A couple days later, I’m speaking at a domestic violence awareness luncheon. I’m wrapping this week up with a sexting presentation at Pace University. My guess is most FUNKY BROWN CHICK® readers would be most interested in the Manhattan-based performance / comedy gigs similar to my “Adults Only, Dirty Talk” condom demonstration. Apologies I didn’t post about Balls Out Comedy until after the fact. I’ve been SWAMPED! Moving forward, for those who would like to attend, I’ll do a better job of posting relevant announcements on my site before the event. Subscribe to keep up with me, and link up on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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Why People Don’t Use Condoms

New York induces poverty while, at the same time, affording the luxury of amazing creative friends and writers. If wealth is abundance, even though I am without significant financial means, this city’s comedians, burlesque dancers, visual artists and others keep me richly entertained, turned on and engaged. Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life. Great title, right? Samhita wrote it, and and it’s available on Amazon and other places where fine books are sold. Only rabbits breed faster than the pace at which Rachel pushes out deliciously juicy erotica. Marty’s The Heming Way: How to Unleash the Booze-Inhaling, Animal-Slaughtering, War-Glorifying, Hairy-Chested, Retro-Sexual Legend Within… Just Like Papa! landed him on MSNBC. Baratunde’s How to Be Black comes out in January. Rakesh. David. Abiola. Jenn. Larry. And, so on. Writers. Writers. Writers. Mazel! Mazel! Mazel!

I completed the first full draft of a book last year. Funny thing happened on the way to editing and pitching. I moved three times, unexpectedly started a new gig, got a local television show, bought a car and logged 9,000+ miles on the road over the past six months. New deadline: January 2, 2012. I’ll pitch the book no later than that date. Hard to believe that’s approximately 12 weeks away. Did I want to pitch sooner? Yes, but I think Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich is right: Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

It’s been said lovers of the pen (keyboard?) should “write drunk, edit sober.” That is, figuratively, be intoxicatingly honest and excessively messy to get everything on the page. Literally imbibe, if you wish. However, in editing, be calculated, precise and mindful. In celebration of everyone with completed books as well as those in progress, raise a glass, folks! Also, as always, many thanks to those of you who have read and continue to read my work. Without readers, there would be no writers. As a token of gratitude, I’m happy to announce Naked Winery has kindly agreed to offer FUNKY BROWN CHICK® readers 30% off their orders at www.nakedwinery.com. (Discount code: SINGLE) Pick up a bottle of Foreplay Chardonnay and enjoy! Full disclosure, I’ve not yet sipped from their vineyards. They’re sending me a bottle of ripe tropical fruits, pear and a hint of green apple flavors that complement a subtle crisp finish. It’s slated to arrive soon; I’ll let you know how I like the fruity little number. Wine should be alcoholic and yummy; If Naked Winery meets those qualifications, I’m happy. (For more detailed vino analysis and info, visit Gary or read his books.)

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Write Drunk, Edit Sober