Tag: Sound

Categories
Health

Only Ramona Singer Can Make Quarantine With an Ex-Husband Sound Fun


Ten minutes into my call with Ramona Singer, she wants to hop on FaceTime. “Want me to show you my refrigerator?” she asks in complete sincerity after I ask what she, her daughter Avery, and ex-husband Mario are snacking on while self-isolating in Florida. But fans of The Real Housewives of New York City shouldn’t be surprised by Singer’s openness here—she’s been putting it all out there since 2008, when the Bravo show began and catapulted her to reality TV stardom. That’s since morphed into full-fledged stardom—”reality” caveat not necessary—because these days people consume the Housewives and HBO prestige dramas with equal, unapologetic fervor.

RHONY has endured as long as it has because the show is more than just a Pinot Grigio-soaked romp of Manhattan’s matriarchal glitterati. It offers unflinching—and, at times, uncomfortable—insight into what so many women deal with. Infertility, infidelity, tumultuous friendships, divorce: It’s all represented on RHONY. The stakes on TV are higher and more glossy than real life, sure, but the emotional core is always there.

As is Ramona Singer. She’s the only woman in RHONY history to be a main cast member for all 12 seasons. The latest begins tonight, April 2, and her signature, take it-or-leave-it honesty is on display like never before. We see that immediately in episode one, when she expresses very real fears about never finding a partner.

I saw this honesty throughout our conversation too, where no topic was off-limits. Truly. She dished on everything: Dorinda Medley, who seems to be the source of major drama this season; Bethenny Frankel, who isn’t returning for season 12, something Singer says is for the best; and Mario, her ex-husband, who she’s on good terms with now but was understandably not for a few years. How did she end up quarantined with him, you ask? Find out the answer to that and much more in our full, very candid chat, below.

Glamour: In the season premiere, you have an emotional conversation in which you talk about how you’re afraid of being alone. What happened there?

Ramona Singer: Well, not feeling alone, because I’m never alone. I’m very social. I had this fear that I won’t find a partner who would be compatible for me. Dating is easy for me. I could be in a relationship. But I don’t want a relationship. I want the relationship. All of a sudden I was feeling, “Will I ever find that again?”

Can you talk to me a little bit about why you think that conversation bubbled up when it did?

I was hiding from going into my new apartment. I was avoiding it. I sold my apartment in June, and here it was now September, and I only spent five nights in my new apartment. The reality of moving into my new apartment was like, “Oh my God, I am single, I am divorced, I am on my own.” I believe staying in my existing family apartment cocooned me and isolated me from facing, “You know what, I’m on my own. I’m a single. I’m an empty-nester with no partner.”

What’s your story arc like this season? Does it build on that conversation you had in the first episode?

Basically you’re going to see me on my journey of [being an empty-nester], what I’m going through, and what I do to try to make it better. You’ll have to see if I come out the end feeling better or not. Everyone can relate to that. At that point, I felt lost and had no direction. Every viewer is going to relate, because when something major happens in your life—you lose your job, you lose a husband or a sister or brother—it shakes you to your core. You’re like, “Oh my God, what does it mean with everything? Where do I go from here?” I think it was just a huge wake-up call for me. I had a breakdown, to tell you the truth. I had a breakdown. I always have a direction. I always have a purpose. I always have a plan. All of a sudden, I felt lost.



Source link

Categories
Health

Is Sound Wave Therapy the Orgasm Treatment of the Future?


I haven’t been paying enough attention to my clitoris. That’s the first thought that floated into my brain as Briana Oster, M.D., a former pediatrician who now works at Revitalize Laser Care’s Denver office, talked me through a diagram of the female sexual organ as I prepared for a non-invasive med spa treatment that promised to improve my orgasms through the use of sound waves. “We’ve been focused on the top part”—the small, external bulb at the top of the vulva—she explained, pointing to an illustration. “But there’s a lot more going on.” Which brought me to my second disconcerting revelation: Have I been having sex all wrong?

Thankfully, I haven’t, you’ll be happy to know, but there’s always room for improvement. Enter Cliovana, a painless, noninvasive treatment which aims to increase arousal levels, orgasm frequency, and orgasm intensity, by stimulating the clitoris via sound waves. I had to know: Was this the future of better orgasms?

Biohacking Your Orgasm

As shocking as it may sound, the full clitoral anatomy wasn’t really known until the 1990s, and we’re still learning about it: It wasn’t until 2009 that the first 3-D image of a clitoris was created. Why’s that important? Because what many of us have long thought of as the clitoris—that external almond-sized nib Oster was talking about—is just the tip, as a fellow writer put it, of the clitoral iceberg. In fact, the clitoris extends much further, surrounding the vulva on either side like a wishbone. Meaning there are a whole bunch more nerve endings that can be aroused to stimulate orgasm than we previously thought.

Lucky for me, orgasming isn’t a routine problem, unless I’m stressed, which, I’ll admit, has been a near-constant state recently. Many women are having a different experience: A study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2014 found that just 62.9 percent of women experienced an orgasm with a familiar partner, compared to 85.1 percent of men. Researchers have dubbed this the “orgasm gap.”

At 31 years old, however, I have noticed a reduction in lubrication and that it takes longer to get aroused than it once did. When I heard that Revitalize Denver would be the first clinic in the country to offer Cliovana—I decided to give it a try. If it worked, it’d be a fun, and hopefully stimulating, early wedding present for myself and my fiancé.

At my first appointment, I settled onto the exam table, pants- and underwear-less, with a paper sheet covering my bare lower half. (A pre-appointment email recommended I “trim [my] pubic hair to facilitate better results.”) Dr. Oster had already walked me through the basics: Cliovana uses sound waves to promote the creation of new blood vessels and increase nerve sensitivity—in other words, make your whole clitoris more responsive. Patients receive the $2,000 treatment four times over a two-week period, with each appointment lasting about 10 minutes. (Full disclosure: Revitalize offered me the procedure free of charge.)

Unlike FDA-approved medications or the O-Shot, Cliovana is performed externally, and it’s solely designed to enhance female sexual satisfaction. (While the sound wave device Cliovana uses is FDA-approved, the procedure itself is what’s known as “off-label.”) “We don’t treat a condition,” said Keri Hall, Cliovana’s executive vice president of business development. “It’s for any woman who wants improved sexual satisfaction, orgasm intensity, frequency, and increased arousal levels and lubrication. It’s for any woman who feels as though she’s not completely satisfied.”

The sound wave technology behind Cliovana is relatively well-supported by science for a variety of other uses. It’s been used by urologists to break up kidney stones since the 1970s and more recently, the energy has been directed toward the penis as a potential aid for men dealing with erectile dysfunction. (So far, the clinical trials are promising.) But Cliovana is the first time this sound wave technology has been applied to women’s sexual organs. That may explain why I felt a bit like a lab rat as Oster placed a bell-shaped plastic cup over my clitoral hood, aka the part we all know about; for about three minutes, a gentle tapping ensued, meant to bring blood flow to the surface and prep the area for treatment. It was an odd sensation, but not painful or uncomfortable.



Source link

Categories
Health

What Would a World Without Sexism Look Like? 25 Women Sound Off.


It doesn’t have to be like this. The discrimination and sexism. The catcalls and violence and harassment. We could live in a world where women have access to all the rooms where it happens. We could make a future that’s better and fairer and more equitable than the present. Of course, to be a woman alive now is to know that there’s still so much work to do—in politics and business, in factories and plants, on movie sets.

Still, it’s never been clearer that the leaders we waited for are here. Women have flooded the House of Representatives and the Senate, stepped into top jobs at hallowed companies, tried to save the literal planet, and protested and organized to make sure we know about it. These women are realistic about the uphill climb, but true visionaries know it takes a dream to create a better world. Glamour asked 25 women to imagine what would happen if the sexism that’s held us back for centuries just…disappeared. What if it evaporated? What would our lives be like then? From Melinda Gates to Taraji P. Henson to Kate Upton to three 2020 presidential candidates, here’s what they came up with.



Source link