When Megan Thee Stallion coined the term “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019, we had no idea what was coming. Since that summer of hot girl shenanigans, we’ve experienced a global pandemic, repeated killings of Black men by police, threats to our reproductive rights, and multiple mass shootings. Some days it feels like year 789 of 2020. Despite these physical and existential threats, we remain resilient. Whether you’re having a hot girl summer, a scorching nonbinary summer, or a lukewarm solstice this year, you can find joy and pleasure and a deep connection with yourself or someone else. I challenge everyone to live their best Hot Girl life this summer and beyond!
According to Meg, “Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, and being the life of the party, etc.” If you’re living authentically and embracing who you are, you too can be a Hot Girl. Hot Girls represent a range of gender identities and sexual preferences. How will you take up space and explore your desires as a Hot Girl this summer?
Know What You Want
- Explore your body. Now is the time to reconnect with your own desire and pleasure. Set aside some alone time to touch and tour your body. Experiment with different pressure, temperature, and textures.
- Check out these Black-owned sex toy brands for some inspiration.
- Enby is a Black/Trans-owned company that believes all bodies deserve affirmation and pleasure. They strive to create a safer, and more comfortable sex-toy shopping experience for the Queer community and more specifically gender non-conforming, trans and non-binary people.
- The Hoelistic shop delivers organic and body-safe products for every body and specifically Black women. Its mission is to promote, educate, and hold space for Black women and everyone else as they build happy and healthy sexual lives.
- New York Toy Collective creates high-quality intimacy toys and products for all forms of gender affirmation. They use 3D technology to customize sex toys to customer’s bodies.
- Kolby Brianne makes custom-sized leather pieces for work and play. She is a Black lesbian based in New England with roots in the South.
- By confirming what feels good in your body you’ll be better equipped to show your partner what you like.
Communicate
- Ready to explore your desires with a partner? Be clear and consistent in your communication.
- Now that you know what you like, don’t be afraid to make specific requests.
- Speak up if you are unsure or if you change your mind.
- Check in with your partner. Sometimes the sweetest pleasure comes from making another person feel good.
Stay Safe
- Advocate for your safety. Safety may look different for everyone. Take care to pay attention to your physical safety and emotional safety. You deserve to be safe at all times.
- Practice safe sex to the best of your ability. There are many tools to support your safe sex journey.
- b condoms is a Black-owned company that makes organic, vegan, and odorless condoms and works to end health disparities in the Black community through focused action.
- PrEP is for women too! Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a safe and effective medicine that can protect you from HIV. Talk to your doctor to see if PrEP is a good option for you.
- If preventing pregnancy is on your priority list there are many hormonal birth control options available. Go ahead and schedule your annual well woman exam and ask your doctor about birth control.
- Check COVID-19 rates in your community and consider masking up indoors. Find free masks (N95 Respirators) if you need to stock up. Don’t forget to order your free at-home COVID-19 tests.
After everything we’ve been through the last two years, you deserve to let loose a little this summer. Whether you’re ready to be outside or high gas prices have you in the house, take some time to connect with yourself and/or someone else. Protect your peace and have some fun!
Sara Fails is a health communicator and content strategist. In her free time, she enjoys living vicariously through Black heroines in fantasy novels and having dance parties with her toddler.
