Tag: Black Voices

Three software developers from Indianapolis are giving away free sex toys to support a truly feminist cause: closing the orgasm gap.

Jannet, Lexi and Shirin had been giving away sex toys, lube and condoms for years; offering free toys at health clinics, feminist gatherings, and even protests. But it wasn’t until January that they decided to launch their very own website called Sexy Liberation. (Last names have been withheld for privacy reasons.)

“So far it’s been wildly successful,” Jannet told The Huffington Post. And it’s no surprise why. 

On the Sexy Liberation website, shoppers can purchase a lipstick bullet vibrator, a silicone butt plug and a vibrating cock ring all for free. Yep, for free.

“Our mission is to provide free sex toys to those who are less fortunate, curious, or both,” the Sexy Liberation tagline reads.

Sexy Liberation does charge for some items ― such as a pink rabbit vibrator, kegel balls and a flogger, among other toys. While these products cost money, most items are sold at a discounted price. Jannet told HuffPost that they use the profits from these paid products to subsidize the free ones. 

Jannet explained that sexual exploration is “absolutely” a feminist issue and that’s exactly why the trio is offering this service to everyone, but women specifically. 

“This orgasm gap is not local to one region on this fine planet,” she said. “Our goal is a globally-oriented response to the ingrained societal messages that create barriers to people’s sexual enjoyment ― especially women’s. Women across the globe receive cultural messages that encourage them to put others’ needs before their own. Women’s sexual enjoyment and wellbeing matter. That’s why we do what we do. “

According to the website’s FAQ page, Sexy Liberation is open to suggestions for which free products they offer on the site. If shoppers have a product suggestion they can submit requests by email. 

Sexy Liberation’s main goal is to help women understand their bodies and enable them to embrace their own sources of pleasure.

“A woman who knows herself sexually will feel more confident talking honestly with her partner about her needs and desires,” the website reads. “If you are woman in a relationship that is having trouble getting off, we are here for you.”

Head over to Sexy Liberation to pick up a free or discounted sex toy.  

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

This sitcom feud just got refreshed.

The day after a photo emerged of the cast of “The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air” reuniting at the beach, one left-out actress lashed out big-time.

Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Vivian for three seasons before tensions led to her departure, wrote a scathing message Tuesday on Facebook in which she called Carlton Banks actor Alfonso Ribeiro a “media hoe” and an “ass wipe” for star Will Smith. She also pledged to up her efforts to pitch a memoir about the “behind the scenes story” of the show. 

Here’s a screenshot of a portion of the post:

There is no love lost between Hubert and Smith and Co. She was replaced on “French Prince” by Daphne Maxwell Reid in 1993. Reid appeared in this week’s viral picture of the beaming cast. 

Smith told an Atlanta radio station in 1993 that Hubert “wanted the show to be ‘The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show’ because I know she is going to dog me in the press.”

The snipes have erupted from time to time over the years. In 2016, Hubert even slammed Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, for urging a boycott of the Oscars to protest the lack of nominations for people of color.

H/T Us Weekly

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Mahershala Ali, Amy Poehler and a whole host of other stars are teaming up for Stand for Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU. Join us at 7 p.m. Eastern on Friday, March 31, on Facebook Live.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

No, Morgan Freeman doesn’t want to record your damn voicemail message.

On Wednesday’s “Late Night,” the Hollywood actor revealed “it gets exhausting” when fans approach him for a customized answerphone greeting.

“You know, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, ‘Hello, this is so and so… is not willing to come to the phone right now,’” he told host Seth Meyers.

Nowadays, Freeman said he’ll only record a message if he’s lost “a big bet,” such as the one he forfeited to Zach Braff, who directed “Going in Style” ― in which he stars alongside Michael Caine.

Freeman later turned down Meyers’ offer to record a greeting for him, claiming he already had the “absolute perfect telephone answerer” — the guy who installed his phone system in the first place.

“So the one place you can’t hear an outgoing voicemail from Morgan Freeman is on Morgan Freeman’s phone,” Meyers quipped. Touché.

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Mahershala Ali, Amy Poehler and a whole host of other stars are teaming up for Stand for Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU. Join us at 7 p.m. Eastern on Friday, March 31, on Facebook Live.

You can support the ACLU right away. Text POWER to 20222 to give $10 to the ACLU. The ACLU will call you to explain other actions you can take to help. Visit www.hmgf.org/t for terms. #StandForRights2017

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Coverage + articlesList=58791661e4b09281d0eaa0f0,58d62f4ce4b02a2eaab46784,57e404ace4b0e28b2b52a86d

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

DURHAM, N.C. ― North Carolina has been in an almost constant state of protest for the last year.   

It started in March 2016, when former Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed HB 2, a measure preventing local governments from passing anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, into law. Thousands of protesters responded by storming the state Capitol. In late September, six consecutive nights of protest rocked Charlotte after a police officer fatally shot 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott. In October, the state chapter of the NAACP sued several counties over an alleged voter suppression attempt. Protesters again swarmed the capital, Raleigh, in December to stand against GOP-backed measures to limit the powers of the newly elected Gov. Roy Cooper (D). 

Now many activists are coalescing around another shared concern: President Donald Trump.

Progressives see North Carolina as a breeding ground of possibility, as recent liberal activism has begun to show what’s possible when organizers take aim at a common threat. This is especially true in the Triangle area of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, where more than 20 colleges and universities house plenty of aggravated liberals. Liberal Tar Heels want to use their energy to turn the state solidly blue by 2020, when a number of key political offices will be up for grabs.

Avid Trump supporter Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has been very critical of the current wave of protests, will be up for re-election in 2020. So will Cooper. And Democrats are aiming to take control of the state legislature ― Republicans currently hold 74 state House seats, compared to Democrats’ 46, and 35 state Senate seats, compared to Democrats’ 15.

Although these activists will have to contend with the state’s racial gerrymandering ― the general assembly drew new district lines in 2014 and 2016 that put a high number of voters of color into certain districts in order to dilute their voting power ― North Carolina’s status as a purple state makes progressives optimistic.

Many people assume North Carolina is a Republican state, but the state Senate was under Democratic control from 1992 to 2011. Democrats also controlled the state House from 1992 to 1994, and again from 1999 to 2010. Only three Republican governors have led the state in the last 50 years, and North Carolina went blue for former President Barack Obama in 2008. But that was the first time since 1976 that the state had voted for a Democratic presidential nominee, and it went for Republicans Mitt Romney in 2012 and Trump in 2016. Last year’s election was very close, however: Trump beat Hillary Clinton by just 3.6 percent.

Activists say they hope flipping North Carolina can cause a ripple effect across the 14 states that constitute the South. Republicans below the Mason-Dixon Line currently control 24 Senate seats, 110 House seats and 180 Electoral College votes (167 of which went to Trump in November).

“If you fundamentally shift any of those states ― and they begin to vote in more progressive ways ― then you fundamentally change the American democracy and the landscape,” Rev. William Barber, the president of North Carolina’s NAACP, told reporters last year.

North Carolina has a strong, influential history of political protest. On Feb. 1, 1960, four black students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University refused to move from a lunch counter in downtown Greensboro after being denied service. By Feb. 5, the Greensboro sit-ins had grown to include approximately 300 students.

Extensive television media coverage of the sit-ins helped the anti-segregation movement circulate through southern and northern college towns; students began peacefully protesting segregated libraries, beaches, hotels and other businesses. By the end of March, protests were underway in at least 55 cities in 13 states. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a youth organization that played an integral role in the civil rights movement, was founded a month later at Shaw University.  

Real policy change followed: Eateries throughout the South began integrating by the end of that summer.

That fight was similar to the current battle against Trump, said Marcus Bass, an organizing member of Charlotte-based activist group The Tribe.

“North Carolina’s civil rights history has been embedded in this political fight ― so much so that it makes sense for us to have a lot of this mobility around organizing,” he said.

In addition to fighting police violence, which has garnered a significant amount of media attention, black activities have been deeply involved in advocating for LGBTQ, immigrant and women’s rights in North Carolina. They are also key figures in the Moral Mondays protests, a movement launched in April 2013 to object against Republican legislative policies. Moral Monday protesters began meeting every Monday at the state Capitol to protest the actions McCrory and the Republican legislature had taken against voting and abortion rights, the environment and racial justice. Like the Greensboro sit-ins, the movement ignited activists in other states, including Georgia, South Carolina, New Mexico, Illinois and Massachusetts.  

“It’s provided a catalyst on a state level and on a local level for folks to begin to get engaged,” Bass said of Moral Mondays.  

An estimated 80,000 people participated in the 11th annual Forward Together Moral March on Feb. 11, which Barber led. This year’s march focused on the duty of participants to stand against the Trump administration and its policies ― such as repealing the Affordable Care Act ― as well as race-based gerrymandering and HB 2.

“We march not as a spontaneous action but as a movement that stands upon deep foundations of organizing that have gone on for years, setting the groundwork for times such as this,” Barber said to the crowd at the march. “Four years later we realize we have been preparing all along for such a time as this.”

Moral Mondays also laid the groundwork for other protests ― nearly 17,000 people participated in Raleigh’s Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration. And more than 1,500 protesters flooded the state’s airports after Trump issued the first version of his executive order banning immigrants from a group of predominantly Muslim countries on Jan. 27.

There was a strong protest movement in North Carolina before Trump, but his candidacy and election also worked to galvanize new activists. His election inspired Kelly Garvy, a 29-year-old graduate student at Duke University, to start the activist group Protecting Progress in Durham. Most of the group’s members weren’t involved in politics prior to the election.

“Many people feel a moral duty to get more involved,” Garvy said. “Trump has scared a lot of people.” 

Many people feel a moral duty to get more involved. Trump has scared a lot of people.
Kelly Garvy, Protecting Progress in Durham founder

 longChristopher Butler, 36, started out phone banking for the N.C. Democratic Party last fall and housing people who were working for Clinton’s campaign ― something he said he never would have done before Trump. Catherine Caprio, 50, became chair of Durham’s 25th Precinct after volunteering on Clinton’s campaign and registering voters in rural parts of the county. Cherry Foreman, a 42-year-old Democrat, said she started going door to door and helping people register to vote last fall.

These activists ― new and seasoned alike ― are laying groundwork they say can help elect more Democrats in 2018 and 2020.

Mandy Carter, a 69-year-old activist involved in several local and national organizations, is identifying rallying causes, such as education, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and the environment. She’s also paying attention to demographic changes and watching individual precincts for opportunities to elect progressives.

“All politics is local,” she said. “On Nov. 9, when I woke up that morning, besides being traumatized, nothing changed for me. My city council and my county commissioners have more control of my day-to-day life than what happens in D.C.”

Alyssa Canty, a member of the Raleigh Police Accountability Task Force, is working to institutionalize voting at North Carolina’s historically black colleges and universities and increase turnout among millennial voters, while also supporting and raising money for black candidates.

Protecting Progress in Durham is focusing its efforts on rectifying voting laws that disproportionately hurt black voters, like vague voter registration forms and limited early voting opportunities, and getting the state’s gerrymandered district lines redrawn more fairly. The group is also working to boost grassroots organizing in rural areas in order to win back the nine counties that voted for Obama in 2008 but went to Trump in November.

“North Carolina goes blue, it changes the game in a lot of different ways,” Garvy said. “The work that we’re doing here can’t be understated.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

Everyone takes work home with them sometimes. But in civil war-torn South Sudan, some health workers take theirs on the run.

Bodies have littered the streets of Leer, a once-bustling market center, several times since fighting broke out in 2013. There were four attacks on MSF’s hospital in the town before the group stopped rebuilding and restocking it. The facility was leaving the group’s workers, patients and supplies open to violence and robbery.

In July 2016, just under 200 local health workers fled the hospital for the final time. Sixty-seven of them decided they couldn’t abandon their patients in the wilderness. Most of those patients had already lost their cattle and crops and had been displaced from their homes many times. The MSF workers in Leer were local community members themselves, many with no formal education, who had been trained to treat common illnesses.

This mobile clinic experiment, while extremely challenging and limited in scope, is one of the few ways to provide life-saving health services to people in dangerous, remote areas of a war-ravaged country plagued by famine and disease.

Reaching people stripped of everything and scattered across the countryside can involve paddling a canoe for over 18 hours, explained Nicolas Peissel, an MSF project coordinator in South Sudan. People are “living in the bush, hiding in the swamps,” where they are “forced to drink swamp water and to forage for food,” he said.

Civil war has added to the already immense logistical challenges of health care in the world’s youngest country, which was forged in 2011 after five decades of war with Sudan, its neighbor to the north. Substandard health systems and almost nonexistent infrastructure meant treatment delivery to those in need was already tough; the war made circumstances much more deadly. 

In addition, more than 3 million people across South Sudan have fled their homes because of the fighting.

“With very few functioning health care facilities across the country, it is impossible to provide any reliable statistical data about the health situation,” explained Bart de Poorter, health coordinator in South Sudan for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

ICRC, which also provides emergency frontline medical care in some of South Sudan’s hardest-hit areas, sees people having to walk for many hours or days to reach the nearest health facilities, many of which closed their doors because of the ongoing violence.

“In this situation, curable and preventable diseases can become fatal,” de Poorter said.

Tens of thousands of people from around the Leer area were forced to hide in swamps and survive on water lily roots, wild fruits and filthy water. Life-threatening outbreaks of diarrhea and cholera were rife. Others battled the many neglected tropical diseases prevalent in South Sudan ― like kala azar, the second largest parasitic killer in the world after malaria.

Far from remaining health services, often reachable only by crossing frequently shifting battle lines, these displaced people are now at the epicenter of a famine.

“After three years of fighting, people are just worn down ― they have no resources to help them cope,” said Peissel.

By using backpacking medics, MSF could truly follow their patients’ treatment, despite the challenges of keeping their bags full. The health workers would have to paddle or walk, sometimes through the night, to collect fresh packs flown hundreds of miles in small, light aircraft from South Sudan’s capital, Juba, to a number of remote locations in Leer and neighboring Mayendit county.

In these places, an MSF “clinic” today looks like an informal outdoor gathering attended by between four and eight medics sitting under a tree with their packs.

“It’s very low profile because at any time there can be an attack. Anything that will call attention to yourself will likely make you a target,” said Peissel.

Humanitarians across South Sudan face threats to their lives as they carry out their work. On March 25, six aid workers from a Unicef partner were killed in an ambush as they traveled to a town in the eastern part of the country. At least 79 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan since 2013, according to the United Nations. 

“Our health workers are living with these populations and are just as at risk as the civilians,” said Peissel of MSF’s mobile teams.

To ensure these makeshift clinics are working well, international MSF staff from Juba visit every month to do training and assessment. They have found that the dozen mobile clinics embedded within displaced communities receive double the patients that the Leer hospital once did.

In February, an attack by armed men on the swamp island of Loth in Leer County put MSF’s mobile tactics to the test, as patients and staff fled further into the swamp, along with medics and their moveable clinics.

“Small amounts of medication were destroyed,” Peissel said. “Within 24 hours we had resupplied our team and they were running a new clinic.”

Even when the bullets aren’t flying, lack of access is one of the biggest barriers to providing emergency health care. And South Sudan isn’t alone in facing these challenges. In the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, teams of doctors and nurses have to trek for days through steep, water-logged land to give people life-saving vaccinations. In northern Kenya, mobile clinics come on four legs ― in the form of camels ― to reach semi-nomadic communities living on arid plains.

Having to seek safety from violence with tens of thousands of people in squalid camps dramatically increases the risk of disease. The World Health Organization considers South Sudan’s overcrowded camps ― home to 1.9 million people ― to be more dangerous breeding grounds than the cities or swamplands for highly infectious diseases like cholera.

“Conflict takes a major toll on health,” said Peissel.

South Sudan is also one of the few countries that is home to almost all 18 illnesses designated by the World Health Organization as neglected tropical diseases.

In 2015, South Sudan’s government launched an ambitious plan to eliminate these diseases by 2020. But before the civil war broke out, disease experts such as Peter Hotez had warned that conflict would spell a public health tragedy.

“The renewed hostilities in South Sudan could portend a public health crisis from neglected tropical diseases,” he wrote.

Mobile medical teams may be one of South Sudan’s best chances of battling these illnesses, as well as expected spikes in malaria, diarrheal disease and respiratory infections, in the country’s most deprived areas.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

• He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.
• This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen
• Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.
• A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Trevor Noah has been one of Donald Trump’s harshest critics, but it seems he can’t help but have a soft spot for the president.

On Wednesday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Noah spoke about Trump’s promise to save the U.S. coal industry as well as his campaign-style rallies in swing states where it is big.

While airing footage of a rally in West Virginia, where Trump wore a hard hat and sort of swung his body to the right in a macho golf swing sort of way, Noah couldn’t help but join in.

At that point, Noah said, ‘Trump may destroy the world, but, god damn, he’s cute.

He then pointed to Trump’s recent photo op in a Mack truck.

Moments like these reminded Noah that Trump really enjoys being president, he just doesn’t like the work.

“You realize, that’s all Trump ever wanted was to play president,” Noah said. “We should have just given him a Fisher-Price set.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

CNN commentator Angela Rye had no patience for former Congressman Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) when he said the bar was lowered for President Barack Obama because of his race. 

“I’m not talking to bigots,” Rye said during a CNN segment Wednesday. 

Rye and Walsh were invited on air to discuss what started as a Twitter fight. In response to Rye saying that Obama “had to be the next best thing to Jesus” during his presidency, Walsh argued that the president was held to a lower standard during his two terms because he is black.

Rye criticized CNN for bringing Walsh on the air.

“I am not interested in trying to convince and change the mind of a bigot, someone who will openly troll me and say things that are offensive that he knows are not true,” Rye told host Brooke Baldwin.

When Walsh repeatedly defended his comment, Rye succinctly responded, “That’s what makes you a bigot!”

She added, “I’m not interested in having a dialogue with someone like Joe, who has demonstrated a propensity towards bigotry, and he did that on Twitter yesterday, in 140 characters or less.”

Watch the fiery exchange in the video above.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Sex isn’t everything in a marriage, but for most people, a healthy, regular sex life matters quite a bit. 

Sex therapists can vouch for that. Below, they share seven issues that can ruin a relationship if left unaddressed.

1. The couple no longer has sex.

Surprisingly, you can be in a sexless marriage and still have sex. Therapists define a sexless relationship as one in which the couple are physically intimate less than 10 times a year. 

In most sexless marriages, the absence of any physical connection divides couples, said Sari Cooper, certified sex therapist and host of the web show Sex Esteem. 

“Partners end up alienating each other on a very deep, very primal and sometimes emotional level,” she told The Huffington Post. “Very frequently the couple not only avoids sex, but the discussion of the problem itself. That only leads to a further sense of isolation and loneliness for the partners.” 

When couples in sexless marriages come to Cooper’s office, she helps them broach the discussion without placing the blame on one person in particular. 

“The sexually frustrated partner needs to ‘break the ice’ and let their S.O. know how much they miss them,” she said. “That’s a much better approach than arguing or blaming the other.” 

2. One partner doesn’t feel sexually desired. 

Feeling wanted and desired is a huge turn-on, especially for women. As sex researcher Marta Meana once put it in an interview with the New York Times, for women, “being desired is the orgasm.” When a partner fails to reassure a woman of her desirability, their sex life naturally takes a hit, said Laura Watson, a sex therapist and the co-host of the sex advice podcast Foreplay.

“Resolving the issue is all about exploring expectations. You have to consider how intimate couple time can lead to better and more sex,” she said. “It also doesn’t hurt to make sure your partner is getting good sex with plenty of orgasms so she’ll want to do it.”

3. There’s a breakdown in intimacy after an affair.

Broken trust after an affair can be a hard thing to mend and your sex life will take even longer to restore, Cooper said. 

“It takes a lot of effort and work by the unfaithful partner to re-establish trust. Meanwhile, the betrayed partner needs to better understand what led to the affair,” she said. “Often, the couple needs to create a new sexual contract of sorts, that addresses the needs that were not being met or hidden. 

If the unfaithful partner continues to have contact with the other man or woman in secret, it may be impossible to repair the emotional and erotic bond, Cooper said. 

4. There’s no physical attraction.

In long-term couples, waning sexual attraction can do a number on the relationship, said Moushumi Ghose, a sex therapist and author of Classic Sex Positions Reinvented. 

“Sometimes, it’s a matter of one spouse letting themselves go,” she said. “Obviously, life happens and the daily stressors of work, marriage, and having a family can take its toll, but people who are no longer physically attracted to their partner sometimes take it as a sign that their partner has given up on themselves and their relationship.” 

5. Physical barriers to sex become a scapegoat.

There are plenty of physical and health-related reasons couples stop having sex, from premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction, to pain during intercourse for women. 

These problems should be addressed with a doctor, but there’s usually some emotional work that needs to be done by the couple as well, said Celeste Hirschman, a sex therapist and the co-author of Making Love Real: The Intelligent Couple’s Guide to Lasting Intimacy and Passion.

“When these functional problems end up being blamed for all the sexual problems ― and sometimes, problems in the relationship in general ― it blocks the couples ability to discuss their sexual and emotional needs,” she said. “Couples need to see beyond the dysfunction and look at the dynamic that’s been created around it, like fear of being undesirable or blaming the other person for everything.” 

6. Sexual interests and fetishes are laughed off. 

We all want different things: When your partner opens up about how they want rough sex or to role play, the worse thing you can do is disregard it or laugh it off, said Ava Cadell, a sex therapist and author of NeuroLoveology: The Power to Mindful Love & Sex. 

“I tell my clients that everything is negotiable, even in the bedroom,” she said. “If one partner enjoys BDSM and the other is not that into it but wants something else, I recommend they each share three romantic fantasies and make one a reality for the other.” 

From there, continue to share your sexual fantasies and boundaries without any fear of judgement or rejection, Cadell said. 

7. There’s a desire discrepancy. 

Many couples suffer from a “desire discrepancy,” a situation where one partner wants sex more than the other. This poses a big problem for most couples because the lower-desire spouse holds all the control of the couple’s sex life, whether they realize it or not. Eventually, the higher-desire spouse grows resentful, said Megan Fleming, a psychologist and sex therapist in New York City.

“Sex mismatches are at risk for affairs and divorce if not addressed, since the more sexual partner often can’t imagine living the rest of their lives this way,” she told HuffPost. “After all, they committed to a marriage, not a life of abstinence.”

Don’t wait until your partner is at their wits’ end before addressing the issue. 

“The good news is that reasons for low desire are complex but treatable,” Fleming said.

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Stories + articlesList=57c5b96ee4b09cd22d92d358,58d3f3b2e4b0b22b0d1aa255,5711330ae4b06f35cb6f8551,56e9db0ee4b0860f99db85e8

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Over the last 48 hours, members of the Trump administration have embarked on a stunningly tone-deaf campaign.

After a presidential campaign rife with blatant misogyny, President Donald Trump spent his first months in office contemplating anti-woman policies surrounded by groups of white men. Now, Team Trump would like the public to believe that women’s empowerment is an administration-wide priority.

Before you crawl into a corner to laugh and/or weep, let’s review the events of the last two days:

On Tuesday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Ivanka Trump held an event at the National Air and Space Museum, extolling the women of NASA featured in “Hidden Figures,” as well as the Trump administration’s apparent commitment to NASA and STEM education writ large. Meanwhile, the budget that President Trump has proposed would completely eliminate the NASA Office of Education ― which funds programs to get kids from marginalized communities involved in STEM.

On Wednesday morning, First Lady Melania Trump gave remarks at the State Department honoring the 12 women who received the 2017 Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Awards. “As leaders, we must continue to work towards gender empowerment and respect for people from all backgrounds and ethnicities,” she said, adding: “Wherever women are diminished, the entire world is diminished with them.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Press Secretary Sean Spicer echoed the First Lady’s remarks, and then took her sentiments quite a few steps further.

“The president made women’s empowerment a priority throughout the campaign,” he said earnestly, theoretically hoping his audience wouldn’t remember this president called his female opponent a “nasty woman” during one debate and alluded to how big his dick was during another.

A few hours later, President Trump joined a White House Women’s Empowerment Panel to deliver a speech filled with platitudes about women entrepreneurs, working mothers, affordable child care and Susan B. Anthony. “Only by enlisting the full potential of women in our society will we be truly able to ― you have not heard this expression before ― make America great again,” he said. 

And yet President Trump has done nothing to support women (other than his daughter) who want to see their full potential enlisted. 

Apparently, members of Team Trump believe that if they say that they care about women’s empowerment enough times, that makes it so. That’s not actually how reality works. 

Before becoming president, reality star Donald Trump was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by the pussy without their consent. He said that Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever.” He spoke to reporters about both of his daughters’ bodies. He made demeaning comments about the looks of famous women. He held rallies where his supporters cheered and chanted “lock her up!” He suggested that sexual assault was a natural outcome of allowing women to serve next to men in the military. He faced more than a dozen public accusations of sexual assault. (He is currently trying to use his position as POTUS to get out of a defamation suit filed by one of his accusers.)

This is not a man who was ever going to be a credible spokesperson for women’s issues. 

Since entering office, the Trump administration has done little to indicate that the needs of women are a priority. The president reinstated and expanded the global gag rule, which prevents NGOs from receiving U.S. aid if they provide abortion counseling or referrals ― in a room full of white men. The (now defunct) GOP health care bill included a provision to defund Planned Parenthood, and would have eliminated maternity care from many insurance plans. The administration sent two women who have spent their professional lives opposing LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights to represent the United States at the UN’s annual summit on women. Experts say that Trump’s proposed budget would be devastating to poor victims of domestic violence. And the “affordable child care” he says he wants to fight for has not made its way into any meaningful legislation. 

Donald Trump became president by tapping into men’s fears that equality for women would mean less power for them. He’s spent his time in office proving to those men they have nothing to worry about. When he chants “Make America Great Again” to a room full of women, the irony is completely lost on him that the “again” he’s referring to means a returning to a time in which women had fewer opportunities, rights and seats at the proverbial table.

Nice-sounding words about women are just nice-sounding words. When you’re (a known misogynist) leading a nation, actions speak a whole lot louder, and no faux feminist speech tour is going to change that.

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related… + articlesList=58da892ce4b0928a6b781fac,57cec2efe4b0e60d31dffffb,577b38b3e4b0a629c1aa95b2,57ffae1fe4b0162c043a7212

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Ca.) exuded the ultimate class, grace and strength on Tuesday.

The congresswoman responded to Bill O’Reilly’s racist and sexist insult about her hair with words that deserve to be a daily affirmation.

“I am a strong black woman, and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined,” Waters said on MSNBC.

Waters paraphrased her powerful words in a tweet using the hashtag #BlackWomenAtWork, amplified by activist Brittany Packnett in response to the disrespect the representative and White House correspondent April D. Ryan endured on Tuesday.

HuffPost Black Voices was so inspired by Waters’ response that we decided to highlight even more women. Using the hashtag #StrongBlackWoman, we asked our Twitter followers to tell us what makes them a boss. 

Check out some of their tweets below: 

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Source: HuffPost Black Voices