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Glamour Women of the Year 2002: Oral Lee Brown


To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Glamour’s Women of the Year awards, we are delving back into our archives to highlight some of the incredible women we have honored over the last three decades.

In January, we’ve cast the spotlight on activism – and the incredible Oral Lee Brown. Today, when you think about activism, you might conjure up Greta Thunberg, for example – and a WOTY recipient in 2019 – or the #womensmarch or the powerful Black Lives Matter movement. But sometimes, the actions of one person alone, even in the smallest of communities, can leave an also indelible mark.

In our December 2002 issue, Oral Lee Brown was photographed with five of the kids she was putting through college. 

1987 was the year that Oral Lee Brown met an eight-year-old girl on the street in Oakland, California. The girl asked for a quarter – Oral Lee Brown responded with the question: why aren’t you in school? The little girl shrugged.

Unable to shake her encounter, the real estate agent made up her mind to help Oakland’s at-risk children. That year, she adopted an entire first-grade class at Brookfield Elementary School, promising to pay for their college education if they graduated high school.

Oral Lee Brown accepts a Minerva Award on day 3 of Maria Shriver's Women's Conference 2010
Oral Lee Brown accepting a Minerva Award at Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference 2010.Dr. Billy Ingram/Wire Image

She saved $10,000 a year from a $45,000 a year salary – and through careful investments and local fundraising events managed to grow her pot for the kids to over $1million dollars. 19 of the 23 children graduated. Oral Lee came through on her promise and sent them to college.

That was in 2002. Since then, she established the Oral Lee Brown Foundation, which has, to date, supported 136 students from low-income families. She offers mentoring, tutoring and financial bursaries and in 2005 established a Saturday school, where they could take children from all grades, rather than just first.

Oral Lee Brown at the 2002 Glamour Women of the Year Awards.
Oral Lee Brown at the 2002 Glamour Women of the Year Awards. Matthew Peyton/Getty Images

There have now been eight phases of her official first-graders’ program. Phase 5 kids graduated high school in 2017 and are now attending colleges, while the children in Phase 6, 7 and 8 are in high school, middle school and elementary school respectively.
The actions of one woman sparked a movement that has continued to have an enormous impact on the long-term futures of some of the most at-risk children in Oakland, California.

www.oralleebrownfoundation.org



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This Oral Sex Toy Is Unpredictable—Just Like the Real Thing


Hello from your friendly Amazon sex toy review lady! You know the one.

After my orgasmed-so-hard-I-saw-God review went viral, I got the job of reviewing sex toys for Glamour. So maybe I really did die and go to heaven. Either way, here I am, ready to review all the sex toys in the land from a busy mom’s point of view.

Next up, the very elegant Ora 2 by Lelo.

“ORA™ 2 is about pleasure—sheer, raw, indulgent pleasure,” the product description reads. Hi. Hello. Hey, baby, u up? Sounds like Ora and I would definitely get along. I couldn’t wait to see if this little baby lived up to the description and rave reviews.

I have to say, the presentation in the package was stunning. I felt glamorous just opening it. The blue with gold trim made it look like a precious sapphire ring. I half expected wine, candles, and a Boyz II Men CD to come with it. The shape of the Ora 2 is so unique that I know if my kids ever found it by accident, they would have zero idea what it’s for. Shoot, most adults wouldn’t even know.

Enclosed was a black satin storage bag and a sample of their water-based lube. I like a date who brings presents.

School is back in session so I finally have the daytime alone. Naturally, as soon as Ora arrived, I decided to take myself on a date with…myself. The romantic, “light the candles and draw yourself a bath” kind of date. If there’s one thing you need to know, it’s that this is not a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type of toy. This vibrator definitely requires dim lights, soothing music, and, as I soon discovered, patience.

The Ora 2 is designed to simulate oral sex with a “newly enhanced pleasure nub [that] rotates and vibrates, like a tongue, but better.” I quickly realized that lube is a must with the Ora 2 because when I placed it on my fairly dry clit, the sensation felt dulled.

At first the rotating nub, while pleasant, did not feel like oral. The setting was too predictable—teenagers-in-the-horror-movie-get-killed predictable, which is cool if you are into that kind of thing. Personally, I like my oral unpredictable.

Luckily there are 10 settings. After playing around a bit, I found one in which the vibrations were quite strong. But what impressed me the most was the variation offered by the Ora 2. A few of the settings were completely random intervals and strengths of vibration, which I found very different from other toys that I have used. The randomness brought a realness to it, similar to not knowing the next move your partner would make. It left me waiting in anticipation for each new sensation, totally different from the last.

If this “oral simulator” had a theme song, it would be D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”. With its slow build to a possible orgasm, it’s like sweet, sweet foreplay with a lover.

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But unlike many lovers, the Ora 2 took its sweet-ass time, I thought. Technically I did have the whole day to myself, but I didn’t have enough time to spend in bed trying to achieve the big O with a new toy. Every time I was close, a slight variation in the pattern would switch things up. (Again, not unlike a real partner.) It wasn’t for lack of trying! I wanted to pat it on its lil’ blue back and say, “It’s okay, buddy. We’ll get ’em next time.”

I was so close, excruciatingly close, but after an hour I ended up Donald Ducking it (you know, no pants, fanny out) to my closet to whip out my old reliable vibrator to finish the job. Bottom line: Make sure you carve out some time to really experiment with this toy. But if it’s instant O you crave, I found the Ora 2 pairs perfectly with a G-spot stimulator.



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Is Face-Sitting the Most Empowering Way to Try Oral Sex?


When it comes to receiving oral sex, many women’s default position is to get on their backs. And there’s a lot to be said for that: You can relax and let your partner worry about what to do. But there’s also a lot to be said for receiving oral on top, AKA face-sitting.

For one thing, it puts you in complete control, and some women find that it also provides a better angle. “It gives your partner full access to what is the most erogenous zone and most essential area to be stimulated for orgasm to occur: your external vulva, including your clitoris,” explains Laurie Mintz, sex therapist and author of Becoming Cliterate. “Many find this a totally empowering position, since the focus is all, 100 percent on your pleasure.”

If straddling your partner’s face sounds intimidating, we get it. If you’ve never tried face-sitting, it can feel incredibly vulnerable. Here’s how to try it without feeling totally out of your comfort zone.

Ask your partner

If the idea of receiving oral sex on top intrigues you, Mintz recommends telling your partner something straightforward like, “I love when you go down on me and I’d like to try this in a new position—with me sitting on your face. Are you game for trying?” If your partner hasn’t gone down on you before, you could tell them that you’d like to try both positions, says Mintz.

Put your weight on your knees

Now that you’re both in, time for the logistics. The first hurdle is figuring out how to get into position. Mintz recommends the following process: First, straddle your partner’s chest with your knees on the bed, scooting forward until their head is between your thighs, and spreading them until your partner’s mouth can reach you.

“It’s called face ‘sitting,’ but you’re really kneeling,” says sex therapist Vanessa Marin, creator of the online orgasm course Finishing School. It’s actually pretty comfortable once you get the hang of it. “You want to hold your weight in your knees rather than resting your weight on your partner’s face,” Marin says.

Support yourself

To make balancing easier, Marin recommends having your partner lay down near the head of the bed and putting your hands on the headboard or wall for more support. That way, you won’t be worrying about keeping your balance and can instead focus all of your attention on your pleasure.

Change up the pressure

The nice thing about receiving oral sex on top is that, much like any position that puts you on top, you can control the pressure by moving closer or further away from your partner, says Marin. Lower or raise your body when you want to experience more or less sensation.

Try having your partner hold still

If you want complete control, you can ask your partner to stay still with their tongue out while you experiment with different motions. Marin recommends slowly grinding your hips back and forth or around in circles over their face.

Try holding still yourself

Alternatively, if you want the feeling of being in control while still having your partner do all the work, you can just sit there and relax, says Jess O’Reilly, Astroglide’s resident sexologist. “The seated partner can stay still and allow the supine partner to use their lips, tongue, face, fingertips, and hands to kiss, fondle, lick, slide, and rub,” she says.

Consider a partially seated position

If full-on face-sitting freaks you out, you can try one of these intermediate positions, says O’Reilly: Have your partner lie down near the edge of the bed and put one foot on the bed and one on the ground, or get on all fours with your crotch near their mouth and face away from them. “You can slowly lower yourself into their face and enjoy the sensation without fully sitting,” she says.

Create a signal

One worry some people have about face-sitting is that they could squish their partner’s face, says Mintz. This is pretty unlikely to happen, since you can hold yourself up with your thighs. But if you’re concerned about it, you can create a signal for your partner to communicate when they need a break, like tapping your thigh or butt. A signal like this can be useful to communicate in general since your partner’s mouth may be, er, busy.

Experiment with different positions

Just as there is more than one way to receive oral sex, there’s more than one way to face-sit. Mintz recommends experimenting with facing away from your partner as well as facing toward them and seeing which you like best.

Know your partner is loving it too

The idea of being on display in this way might make some people uneasy, but chances are your partner is enjoying it. “Know that this is an extremely sexy position that your partner is bound to love,” says Marin. “But you can ease into it by dimming the lights or lighting candles. Or try blindfolding your partner and moving your body closer to or away from their mouth.” But, as with any sexual encounter, don’t assume—communicate with your partner regularly and openly to ensure you’re both enjoying yourselves.

All that said, if getting oral sex on top does not appeal to you—or you try it and aren’t a fan—no need to do it. “Most sex therapists recommend that one try new things and stretch one’s sexual boundaries—but never do anything that is aversive,” says Mintz. “If the idea sounds completely aversive, then don’t do it. If it sounds a bit scary but doable, give it a try. You might love it.”



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Oral Sex Tricks: How to Give the Best Oral Sex


Ever heard that saying that giving itself is a gift? Well, it definitely applies to oral sex. Oral can be just as fun for the giver as it is for the receiver, especially if you experiment with brand-new moves that both of you will love. Here are some techniques that’ll take oral up a notch for your partner and make it more exciting for you as well.



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The Oral History of the Frenetic Last Days Before the Women's March


January 21 marks the one-year anniversary of the Women’s March, the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. All this week, Glamour will be spotlighting the stories, people, and issues that framed the March, as well as where we go from here.

In the days before the march, the organizers worked from the infamous Watergate Hotel. The national team traveled to Washington to join Janaye Ingram and her team of organizers and volunteers, overseeing logistics and operations in the District of Columbia. As the activists dove into their last days of planning, they shared tense elevator rides with enthusiastic Trump inauguration attendees, dealt with online harassment, and faced critiques within their coalition.

JENNA ARNOLD [Women’s March Strategic Adviser and National Organizer]: I remember showing up at the Watergate Hotel the week before the march. I mean, the irony of us being based at the Watergate Hotel while planning the largest human rights protest in history has to be mentioned.

NANTASHA WILLIAMS [Deputy of Operations and National Organizer]: To my knowledge the Women’s March decided to stay at the Watergate because, simply put, they had the most available rooms to accommodate us and were willing to work with us on numerous things. The Women’s March was a very last-minute, rushed thing, so we were scrambling and had been in talks with many hotels to work out the best deal given all the complexities. Trump supporters were all over D.C. that weekend, so it would have been really hard to avoid them altogether.

TAMIKA MALLORY [Cochair and National Organizer]: That was a very, very intense week. We had received death threats. Linda, specifically, was under attack. So much hate coming at us from so many different directions. Being in the hotel with Trump supporters wasn’t easy.

JENNA: We didn’t want anyone knowing that we were at the Watergate. We didn’t know what the reaction would be. So yeah, so it was definitely confidential. But it was really hard because it was swarming with people with red hats.

ALYSSA KLEIN [Director of Social Media Strategy and National Organizer]: We got death threats on Twitter. They said they were happy for their Second Amendment rights because they were going to be able to use them on us and the people onstage.

CASSADY FENDLAY [Director of Communications and National Organizer]: Hate crimes had increased following the election. The visibility of the march brought a new level of intensity to the online harassment and death threats. A certain element felt emboldened now. We were days away from a new administration that had promised to unleash hell on so many communities, so there was a menacing element, like: Soon we’ll be able to get you.

LINDA SARSOUR [Cochair and National Organizer]: In 2003, I was with my son, who was four years old at the time, in line at a bank in Brooklyn. It was winter, and I was wearing a long black coat and a black hijab. A middle-aged white man in the bank started yelling, “How can you serve people like this? They killed Americans. They are animals.” He was looking directly at me, but I ignored him. He continued to scream and walk toward me, and my son was like, “Mommy, why is that man screaming at you? What did you do?” This is a four-year-old child. The man came directly next to me saying, “We will get rid of you all.” One of the bank tellers asked him what he needed so she could get him the hell out. Eventually he left, but I felt so unsafe. My office was across the street, but I didn’t go there. I jumped on a bus
so he wouldn’t follow us into the building.

Times are the same and maybe even worse than they were then. I don’t want to see the threats. The vitriol is just draining. It’s not that I’m afraid of it, but it’s draining. I wear hijab. And I’m from Brooklyn. There was a moment when I realized that I am this administration’s worst nightmare. And not only that, but I also was resonating with people far and wide across this country.

MICHAEL SKOLNIK [Board Chair of The Gathering for Justice]: One of my duties was security. I’ll never do that again. It’s an awful feeling knowing that there might be some car out there with a bomb. No insurance company would give us insurance. Thirteen companies denied us. I ended up calling my aunt, who’s in the production side of the music business, to ask who insures Coachella, and I called that broker. The Friday before the rally, at five o’clock, he said, “You’ve got a deal—but this is the most expensive policy I’ve ever sold.” This guy insures Coachella! It ended up being $108,000. For one day.

TAMIKA: It was so intense. You know, just in terms of all of the stress. It was almost like we were in a bubble. There were moments when we were in that hotel, in the basement where it felt like being underwater at the bottom of the ocean.

MARIAM EHRARI [Deputy of Operations and National Organize]: I kept running into Trump supporters and many Russians in the hotel and thought, Is this real?

“No insurance company would give us
insurance. I ended up calling my aunt,
who’s in the production side of
the music business, to ask who insures
Coachella, and I called that broker.
The Friday before the rally, at five o’clock,
he said, ‘You’ve got a deal—but this is the
most expensive policy I’ve ever sold.'”
—Michael Skolnik

NANTASHA: It’s so funny, thinking back, on the things that weren’t negotiated until the last minute. Like, Oh, we need to have a
little office space, right? We need to have some type of war room, or peace room, or something. And then negotiating with the hotel to give us that space for free.

TOSHI REAGON [Music Director]: Janaye was doing all of these negotiations with the city through all of it. She is a badass, and in big meetings she would take out a map and say, “This is happening, and it’s happening here.”

JANAYE INGRAM [Director of Logistics and National Organize]: There was a whole range of emotions, staying at the Watergate. There was the very stark, contrasting reality of seeing people who were probably opposed to our very existence, who were also staying in the hotel and going to balls. And we had the hotel staff saying to us, you know, “Please don’t tell anyone you are here.” They didn’t want anyone to know that we were staying in the hotel, because they had all of these inaugural guests who were also there, and they felt it would hurt business.

MICHAEL: We were worried about security. We wanted to make sure that we were doing everything we possibly could to protect people. So we spent much of the week trying to get more security. But every firm in Washington was booked for the inauguration, and they didn’t want their guys or their women to work 48 hours. So we ended up hiring officers out of Philadelphia. We bused them in, about 57 security officers—mostly former police officers, civil service, FBI, and current officers off duty—so we had 175 in total, but that still wasn’t enough.

MYSONNE LINEN [Head of Security]: The thing is, everyone needed to be safe. Not just those on the stage and the speakers, but the whole march. We had an entire plan for how security would be inserted into the crowd, how they would march in the crowd, the exit strategy for an emergency.

PHOTO: Noam Galai/Getty Images

The crowd in Washington, D.C., at the Women’s March on January 21, 2017.

PAOLA MENDOZA [Artistic Director and National Organizer]: One of the hardest moments for me was accepting the fact that my son Mateo wouldn’t be able to go to the march. I knew the day of the march would be the busiest day for me. I also knew that Michael was going to be consumed filling in holes, so we had to make the decision to not bring our son on this historic day. I wish he could have seen in the flesh what his mama and papa did for him and his country. Mateo Ali wasn’t able to be there with us on January 21, but it was his spirit, his joy, and his love that carried us through that historic day.

TONY CHOI [Deputy of Partnerships]: Another thing I did was make sure people drank enough water. Movement people are terrible at taking care of themselves!

BREANNE BUTLER [Global Director and National Organizer]: It was insane. A few days before, the London lead called me to say, “Oh my God, they’re telling us now that our march is too big. Our permit doesn’t hold as many people as we’re anticipating and now they’re saying we can’t march there.” And this was, like, 48 hours before the march. And we decided, “Alrighty, let’s go as high up as we can [laughs] and try to see how we can turn this around.” We ended up getting approved through a petition in Parliament.

SARAH SOPHIE FLICKER [Women’s March Strategic Adviser and National Organizer]: Three days before the march, someone told us we had to talk to this woman who knows all about Internet safety. She told us, “On the day of the march, your Internet is going to go down. What is your waterfall plan? Where is your auxiliary Internet? It has to be off-site, in a secured place. How are you dealing with emergencies?” We were terrified.

ALYSSA: So we brought in the Digi Geeks, a superhero squad of kick-ass women of color working in social media and tech led by the extraordinary Stefanie Cruz. With less than 48 hours’ notice, they came on as our trusty reinforcements to essentially run all social media while we were in the dark at the march.

TAMIKA: There were a lot of different issues coming up. I think during that week, we dealt with the antichoice issue.

TONY: There were organizations that signed up through our website to be partners, and we were responding to them one by one. It wasn’t working. I sent out a mass email, bcc’ing everyone and saying, “If you want to be a partner, please reply and confirm and we will add you to the list.” Well, that may have been a mistake because some antichoice groups made it onto the list because their names were intentionally deceptive. The list should have been vetted better, but we were doing so much. From that point on, we did more extreme vetting of partners.

TAMIKA: We also dealt that week with Clinton supporters wanting her name to be included in the list of historical women that we were uplifting. There was a lot happening all at once.

LINDA: We chose not to invite Hillary or Bernie to speak. Nobody’s “invited” to march. Bernie showed up on his own in Vermont. But De’Ara was in contact with Hillary—which is what people assumed wasn’t happening. And not only were we in contact with her that morning, but she asked us, “How can I be helpful? Can I tweet in support of the Women’s March?” We said, “Absolutely.” So that day, she actually tweeted in support of us.

TAMIKA: I’ve been in the movement for a long time. I’ve had the FBI knocking on my door at five in the morning. I’ve witnessed some very intense moments. Whether it be organizing the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, or the Million Man March twentieth anniversary. I’ve been in intense spaces where the work was constant and the stress level of everyone involved was up. But I have never, ever dealt with the intensity that we were in, in those last few days leading up to the march. And then the backdrop of that hotel, and what it represents in American history, was constantly looming.

I mean, I really found myself looking around my room for bugs. [Laughs.] I was looking behind the TV, in the light posts, looking for potential—you know, wiretapping. All of that was happening that week.

“I’ve been in the movement for a long time, whether it be organizing
the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, or the Million
Man March twentieth anniversary. But I have never, ever
dealt with the intensity that we were in, in those last few days
leading up to the march.” —Tamika Mallory

CARMEN PEREZ [Cochair and National Organizer]: The night before the march we gathered in a room and I asked everyone to hold hands. We said the Assata chant together and I felt a vibration of togetherness. We had all given our souls for this moment.

JENNA: So at like six or seven the night before the march, I had a moment where I was like, You know what, we’ve done everything we can. All right, everyone, just put down your pencils, close your computers. That’s it. We were literally turning it over to the universe. There was just this moment of calm. I had been prepared to work through the night. I said, “I need to get a proper meal and go to sleep.” Which is not me—typically I’m hustling until the last minute. We all went up from the basement to go find food, and the lobby was packed with people dressed in black tie on the way to the inaugural ball. And that fucking sucked to see.

This article is adapted from Together We Rise, a new book by the Women’s March Organizers and Condé Nast, publisher of Glamour, which is available for purchase now.

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