Last Sunday (January 26), Demi Lovato returned to the Grammys stage in her first live performance since her 2018 overdose. And she followed this up with a performance at yesterday’s Super Bowl, where she sang the national anthem. It was a triumphant moment, for sure, and something Lovato herself knew would happen one of these days.
Her manager, Scooter Braun, was the first to point out that Lovato had tweeted her Super Bowl ambitions almost exactly10 years ago to the day. “10 years later. Dreams do come true. Congrats Demi. See u soon,” he quote tweeted. Lovato’s original post from February 7, 2010 reads, “One day, I’m gonna sing the national anthem at a super bowl. Onnnee dayyy….” (Carrie Underwood sang the national anthem that year ahead of the game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints.)
“Stealing this from @scooterbraun. Dreams really do come true y’all. ?????,” Lovato captioned a photo of the tweet on Instagram.
She also posted a clip of her performance, writing, “A dream come true ?? Thank you for having me today @nfl!! ? The #SBLIV visual album is up now and benefits will be going towards @inspirechange.”
Demi Lovato has been on the road to recovery since suffering an overdose in July 2018—and has been very open and honest about her struggles. “I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction,” she said on Instagram in August of that year. “What I’ve learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time.” After her Grammys performance, she wrote, “What an unbelievable night. My first time back on stage in almost 2 years. So emotional for me. Thank you all for the love, support and for sharing this moment with me. I love you all. ?”
Here’s to another night of making your dreams come true, Demi.
Meghan Markle made her first appearance since giving birth to baby Archie this past weekend, at Queen Elizabeth II’s annual Trooping the Colour ceremony. Those who tuned in assumed she and Prince Harry had left Archie at home, but it turns out he was at the event too—just not on the balcony.
“Archie was at Trooping the Colour,” a source tells Us Weekly. “[It] was a chance for him to meet some of his cousins.”
The insider continued, “The reason Harry and Meghan didn’t appear on the balcony when the queen returned back to Buckingham Palace was because she was breastfeeding.”
Markle was all smiles at the event, but this source tells Us that leaving Archie—even for that short period of time—was hard for her. “She has spent almost every moment with him and saying goodbye was very difficult,” they say. “But Meghan truly wanted to be at the celebration for the queen…. Meghan loved seeing all the other royal children and was doting on them.”
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Prince Harry has similar feelings about being away from Archie. A second source tells Us it was hard for the Duke of Sussex to go to Italy in May for an overnight engagement: “Harry left for Italy and it was very difficult for him to leave Archie and Meghan. He wants to spend every second he can with them.”
Baby Archie was first introduced to the world on Wednesday, May 8, during a photo call. Both Markle and Prince Harry gave short interviews about their new lives as parents.
“It’s been great. Parenting is amazing,” Prince Harry told reporters. “It has only been, what, two and a half, three days…. We are just so thrilled to have our own bundle of joy and to be able to spend some precious time as he slowly starts to grow up.”
In a post-Fifty Shades era, we’re increasingly encouraged to discuss our sex fantasies out in the open—or at least own up to them in our private lives. Taboos are eroding, sexual norms are shifting, and we’re likelier than ever to crow from the rooftops about what turns us on.
Both giving and receiving head came up as a top fantasy in one study. While oral isn’t exactly “out there,” it can be imbued with a kink dynamic that sets it apart from activities traditionally understood to be mutually pleasurable, like penis-in-vagina sex. You might sometimes view giving oral sex as a submissive service, for example, or a dominant act of taking what’s yours. Meanwhile, receiving oral might make you feel like a pampered queen in her throne or a thoroughly ravaged snack. However you frame it, it’s clear that tons of people find oral sex hot as hell.
The thrill of sex in a public or semi-public place has long been a popular fantasy: dark alleys, public bathrooms, and movie theaters are common choices. The thrill of getting caught is one commonly cited reason, as is a general interest in exhibitionism. A word of warning: Having sex out in the open can be a risky endeavor for both your criminal record and for the wellbeing of passersby, so it might be better left a fantasy.
Even if you’re fantasizing about the same old sex acts you always fall back on, out-of-the-ordinary settings like a hotel room, a sex club, or the kitchen counter can heat up your imaginings.
You can be perfectly happy with your partner and still find something electrically exciting about the idea of cheating on them. It could be the danger of getting caught that draws you in, the freshness of a new sexual connection, or something else entirely. As with many fantasies, it’s important to keep in mind that wanting to imagine this type of sex doesn’t necessarily mean you want to have this type of sex. But if you do, maybe some form of ethical non-monogamy is an avenue you should explore.
Missionary might do it for some, but for others, pegging is a big turn-on. For those who aren’t familiar, pegging is where a woman has anal sex with someone using a strap-on, and—for those who are game—it can be a surefire way to flip the script on vanilla sex. Hot tip: It’s not for everyone, but if you’re intrigued, talk to your S.O. to see if he/she’s down with this type of get down.
Fifty Shades of Greynormalized this fantasy more widely than ever before; one study found 65 percent of women crave being dominated. There’s a wide palette of fantasy scenarios to draw from here: You can picture something as subtle as a trusted partner holding you down by the wrists while they kiss you, all the way up to extreme BDSM involving pain, humiliation, or whatever else your kinky little heart desires.
While not as socially sanctioned for women as submissiveness, fantasies of being in control in the bedroom are super fun and quite common, with 47 percent of women admitting to having had this fantasy. It can be incredibly hot to call the shots during sex, especially in a culture that systematically tries to strip women of our power both in and out of the bedroom.
From impromptu tools, like neckties à la Christian Grey, to more intense bondage scenarios involving rope, cuffs, or under-the-bed restraints, the thought of being restrained (or restraining someone else) is incredibly hot to many folks. Being unable to move makes you helpless to a partner’s advances, whether those involve pleasure, pain, or a little of both! (Do your research on this one before acting it out, though. There are a lot of ways bondage can go wrong, in an actually dangerous and not just kinky-dangerous manner.)
Blindfolds are one easy way to explore this avenue. Wearing one keeps you blissfully unaware of what your partner is about to do to you—and putting one on someone else helps you maintain your control and mystique over them. Adding noise-cancelling headphones can also be fun if you really want to keep someone on their toes!
Showing off can be incredibly sexy, especially if the person watching you is as excited about your bangin’ bod as they ought to be! Maybe you fantasize about stripping for a partner, performing in a porn flick, or masturbating for an agog audience. It’s hot to feel hot.
On the flip side, watching other people get it on can be a massive turn-on. Maybe you imagine peeking at a couple boning in a fitting room at the mall, sitting in as an anonymous tipper in an online cam show, or watching a boundary-pushing BDSM scene at a dungeon. There are so many possibilities for (consenting) perviness.
Some 52 percent of women reported having had this fantasy, and with good reason: Celebrities are often hot as hell. It’s also often easier and less complicated to picture your fave celeb—say, the star of that primetime comedy you can’t get enough of or that singer/songwriter whose crooning gets you swooning—than a stranger or someone you actually know in real life. Plus, there’s something affirming about the fantasy of a celebrity choosing you over all the other fawning fangirls available to them.
The idea of going there again would be bad, but the ways in which they understand your body can be so, so good. In your fantasy life, you can revisit the excellent ex you’ll (hopefully) never hook up with again, without any of the emotional drama that would arise if you tried.
Anonymity is probably what draws many people to one-night stands, after all. It’s potentially hot to think that someone would be attracted to you only for your body and your sex appeal, since they don’t really know anything else about you. And when you’re done, you can throw your clothes back on and peace out. Easy-peasy.
It might be problematic in real life, but being the teacher’s pet is a sexy fantasy, even if you’ve been done with your college days for a while. Plus, professors are so smart, distinguished, and accomplished—and don’t even get me started on those tweed blazers with the elbow patches.
If you struggle to let your inner sex kitten loose, sometimes imagining yourself in a specific role can help. It’s kind of along the same lines as getting it on with your hot professor: Does a nurse-and-patient fantasy get your gears turning? How about boss and secretary? Parent and babysitter? The possibilities are almost endless.
Costumes can help you get in the right headspace for some serious debauchery. They can also make you feel like a total vixen. Whether you go supernatural (Catwoman? Wonder Woman?) or slightly more down-to-earth (Dana Scully? Lara Croft?), you might feel foxier in a borrowed persona.
Though anal just straight-up feels good for many folks, it also comes with a whole host of cultural taboos that add to its forbidden hotness. It’s “dirty,” something only “bad girls” do. You don’t have to ascribe to these shame-y judgments in your day-to-day life to be able to enjoy them in your fantasy.
Threesomes, foursomes, and “moresomes” put a novel spin on sex, which might explain why 57% of women have fantasized about these ambitious trysts. They might go better in fantasy than in reality —in fantasies, for example, no one ever has to feel left out or confused about what they’re supposed to be doing—but if a group sex fantasy piques your interest, it might be worth pursuing IRL too.
This can mean different things to different people. Maybe your idea of romance is rose petals, Champagne, and staring into each other’s eyes—or maybe it’s a partner knowing exactly how to dominate you and exactly what names to call you in bed. Whatever the manifestation, it’s lovely to imagine having a deep emotional connection with the person you’re banging.
Interestingly, this fantasy is common even for women who identify as straight. It might be the mild frisson of taboo still attached to same-sex interactions, or it might be that lesbian sex tends to focus on the things that actually get most women off: oral sex, fingering, and other clit-focused activities. Craving sex with another woman could mean you’re actually attracted to women, but it also might not; either way, it can be fun to imagine.
The great thing about fantasies is that they don’t have to mesh with your real-life ethics and beliefs—you can be as perverted as you want to be inside your own head. “Daddy” has become a popular kink honorific in recent years, and “step-sister” and “step-mom” porn tends to top the charts on tube sites, suggesting that taboo dynamics have wide appeal. These archetypes and power imbalances can lend themselves to white-hot fantasies.
They’re likelier to have more sexual energy than an older person, so you can go at it like jackrabbits for days on end. They’ll also have that wide-eyed naiveté that age and heartbreak tend to beat out of us. And maybe there’s a bit of the forbidden there, too: Thirty-something women aren’t “supposed” to lust after their 19-year-old pool boy, after all.
They could teach you exactly how to please them, because they’ve been around the block a few times. They might look at you patronizingly and call you “sweetheart,” or their eyes might fill with gratitude and incredulity at their luck for getting to bang a hot young thing like you. Fun!
“Happy-ending” massages are a popular search term on porn sites, especially for women. It may be that the relaxation and slow, calming movements prep your body and mind for heights of arousal; sex researcher Emily Nagoski notes in her book Come As You Are that stress can physiologically inhibit pleasure and orgasm in women, after all. Once you’re all oily and melty and floaty, the stage is set for sinfully intense ecstasy.
No matter what your jam is in fantasyland, remember that your private thoughts don’t have to define you—and that it’s OK to have fantasies that conflict with who you believe yourself to be in real life. Your fantasy life is just your fantasy life, until and unless you choose to make it into more. And whether the situations you picture are tame or wild, “standard” or taboo, sexual imagination can be a deep well of joy and excitement.
When it comes to fashion, Kate Middleton has been known for her traditional, polished, even referential sense of royal style. But according to new reports, the Duchess of Cambridge might be trying out a new look—and we might start noticing it very soon.
The Daily Mail} reports that Middleton has hired a new stylist, a former British Vogue and old friend of the Duke and Duchess from their college days. (She even attended their royal wedding back in 2011.)
Virginia Chadwyck, a U.K.-based editor and consultant, will be stepping in for Natasha Archer, Middleton’s longtime stylist, while she’s out on maternity leave. But already, Chadwyck—or Ginnie, as she’s known to friends—has had an impact on the Duchess’ royal wardrobe.
“Ginnie is Catherine’s secret weapon,” a royal source told the Daily Mail. “She has made a big difference to the Duchess’ wardrobe for public engagements and has helped give a whole new sense of confidence.”
Middleton’s fashion has been influential since she joined the royal family: Like sister-in-law Meghan Markle, items she wears are known to sell out pretty soon after she’s spotted in them. Still, the Duchess of Cambridge has been known to re-wear her favorite pieces—which, to be honest, makes being a royal seem a little more relatable.
Recently, we’ve seen her divert slightly from the usual super-classic British silhouettes she’s normally gravitated towards, and start embracing more on-trend items—think wide-legged trousers and pussy-bow blouses.
Kate, is that you?ARTHUR EDWARDS/AFP/Getty Images
She’s even revisited some of her evening wear and made adjustments to make them look more modern, like she did to the Alexander McQueen gown she wore to the Portrait Gala a few weeks ago.
Kate serving floral realness.Karwai Tang/WireImage
Just a couple days ago, she wore combat boots—refined combat boots, but combat boots nonetheless—to an outdoor engagement with some Scouts. (Keep in mind that Middleton’s a woman who’s played field hockey in stilettos.)
Working those combat boots!Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
It’ll be interesting to see how her style continues to evolve. In the meantime, we’d like to offer ourselves up as the willing recipients of any clothes in her “giveaway” pile.
Kinks and fetishes are less taboo than ever—ours is a post Fifty Shades of Grey world where BDSM has become mainstream and shows like Broad City, Hot Girls Wanted, and Slutever have helped normalize everything from pegging to cannasexuality. It’s real progress, but it doesn’t erase the fact that for many of us, fetishes can still feel totally weird or even shameful.
The first thing you should know: fetishes are much more common than you might realize. Nearly half of participants in a representative survey published in the Journal of Sex Research in 2017 reported being into something psychologists consider outside of the “normal” range on the sexual spectrum. In an earlier survey taken in 2015 found nearly half of participants had tried public sex, a quarter had tried role playing, 20 percent said they’d experimented with BDSM, and 30 percent said they’d tried spanking.
That doesn’t mean you have to jump straight into a BDSM dungeon if you think you might have an unexplored fetish. The idea of dripping hot wax over someone’s body or having a toe in your mouth can feel a little bit… intimidating. Maybe even scary or weird, so take it as slow as you need.
Here is everything you need to know about what a fetish is, how to know if your fetish is normal, and the healthy ways you can incorporate it into your sex life.
The simplest way to define fetishes according to sexologists: normally non-sexual things that ignite sexual feelings in a person. “A fetish is sparked when things that seem completely normal, suddenly bring you great sexual satisfaction and pleasure,” says Daniel Saynt, a sex educator and founder of The New Society for Wellness (NSFW). You can have a fetish for a thing, like being attracted to feet; or a place, like having sex in public; you can even have a fetish for a texture like latex.
By definition, fetishes fall outside of the sexual “norm”—but that doesn’t mean every out there sexual desire qualifies as a fetish. There’s a line separating a fetish from something that you’re just kinda into: to be considered a true fetish, the object or act must have to be a part of a sex act for you to get turned on. If you enjoy the occasional, or even regular spanking, for example, that doesn’t mean you have a spanking fetish—people with a true spanking fetish need that act of domination to get off.
So, where do these sexual kinks and quirks come from? “Most fetishes are thought to be learned behaviors in which a person comes to associate a given object with sexual arousal through experience,” says Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D., a research fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of Tell Me What You Want. That may come from childhood or adolescence or you might stumble upon a fetish as a sexually experienced adult. “You may not know you’re into a fetish until you try it,” adds Saynt, “which is why I always encourage people to try new things and be curious.”
Most of us can relate to having a sex fantasy that feels downright weird—but most of them are totally harmless and fine to explore. If you have a thing for fishnet stockings and your partner agrees to wear a pair to help get you off, go for it. If you get turned on by feet and enjoy watching foot porn while you masturbate, you do you. Totally normal fetishes include everything from age play, to gagging to golden showers.
A few months ago, I met a friend for dinner. “Your skin looks amazing,” I said, leaning closer. It looked radiant and freakishly smooth, like that of J.Lo at two months old.
I was sold on the spot. What also intrigued me was that it doesn’t hurt. My pain threshold is lower than the Mariana Trench. (I whined for a full half hour after getting the flu shot.) You’re not going to find me signing up for a fractionated laser session anytime soon, which is why a treatment that could deliver results without me breaking into a cold sweat has obvious appeal. Where do I sign up?
For those unfamiliar, the HydraFacial is essentially a peel, microdermabrasion, and hydrating mask in one. But unlike the facials an aesthetician would usually perform by hand, it’s done using a medical-grade device that pulls debris out of your pores, while also moisturizing and exfoliating. (You’ve probably heard of some variations of it called a “pore vacuum.”)
It can treat just about any skin condition, which is ideal as I’ve been feuding with a forehead breakout for months now. “What I love about HydraFacial is how customizable it is to each patient’s unique skin concerns,” says Deanne Robinson, M.D., the co-founder and president of Modern Dermatology in Westport, Connecticut, and member of The Women’s Dermatologic Society. “It’s a great treatment for all ages and skin types, from oily, acne-prone teenagers to more mature skin battling fine lines and pigmentation problems.” The only exceptions to this are an active rash, sunburn, or rosacea flare-up, she notes.
“Every patient benefits because it’s not only using targeted serums to help with hydration and breakouts and pores, but it’s also doing a vortex fusion of exfoliation and sucking out the dead skin,” says Graceanne Svendsen, the senior aesthetician at New York’s Shafer Plastic Surgery & Laser Center. She finds the treatment especially valuable during the change between seasons as well as before weddings, since it’s like giving your skin a hard reset.
There’s nothing spa-like about the experience, so don’t expect to hear Enya or fall asleep on the bed. Instead, the HydraFacial device is a huge machine with various attachments that whirr and suck and spin. First, Svendsen cleansed my skin twice, because the foundation I’ve been wearing is apparently comedogenic (meaning it clogs pores). The first was a foamy cleanser, which she then followed with a vitamin C enzyme mask. “The enzymes open up your pores to help release the makeup so I can get your makeup off, and the hydration is going to keep it from over-drying your skin,” she told me. (Yes, I have switched foundations since.)
Once my skin was clean for what must have been the first time since birth, Svendsen embarked on the hydro-dermabrasion portion of the treatment—which is, essentially, hydration plus the microdermabrasion-style exfoliation. “It spins serums out [of the device] and drags in dead skin,” she says. The first is what she calls a “deep pore-cleansing step,” in which she used a small wand to sort of scrape my skin—going lightly over problem areas. Then she buffered back over everywhere with a serum.
The next step is a gentle acid peel, with 7.5% glycolic acid and 2.5% salicylic acid. As a glycolic acid stan, I was delighted to feel the familiar tingle.
Afterward, Svendsen used the device to do extractions. Unlike the medieval torture of typical extractions, the HydraFacial method uses the wand, but with a new attachment, to suction gunk out of your pores. It felt so good; I wish I could hold it over every single one of my zits like a face vacuum. This suctioning action is multifaceted: It not only removes grime, but also boost circulation and stimulates the lymph system, which removes toxins from your face.
