It’s Friday! Let’s F*ck Some Sh*t Up Together!

Happy Friday, lovely! It’s time to fuck some shit up! 

Twice a month, in accordance with the lunar cycles, we gather in circle here and in your inbox for a salaciously good time. We talk sex, self-care, and reclaiming what has always been ours via ritualized practices and hexing shitty politicians. And for my entrepreneurial babes out there, you’re getting a little bonus sales tip, too. 

Why? Because I want to combine everything in my varied background into one place to offer my highest and greatest good to you. Take what resonates. Leave the rest. 

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🔥 SEX – In this segment, I hand you a little tip to keep your sexual health in line or spice up your bedroom. Why? Because I sold sex toys for 12 years and received training from some of the best sexologists in the world. Any products mentioned are available HERE.

In the last Fuck Shit Up Fridays newsletter, we talked about how it’s often a REALLY good idea to use a lube. But how do you decide which one to use?

Here’s a quick and dirty breakdown of the basics:

💦 Vaseline — This is a big NO. Petroleum sits on the surface of your tissues, creating a barrier. Sounds great and protective, until you take that to the next step and realize that it actually suffocates those tissues. Your vag needs to breathe, and there’s no way to get the Vaseline OFF and OUT. So you’ll end up creating the perfect trap for bacteria overgrowth. (This will also break down a condom and destroy any toys.)

💦 Baby Oil — This is also petroleum. So everything I sad about Vaseline? That applies here, too.

💦 Lotion - Also NO. Lotion is intended for your external tissues, not your internal tissues. Don’t do it. Nearly guaranteed yeast infection. And many lotions contain petroleum. So…all the Vaseline stuff applies to them.

💦 Plant-Based Oils — There are differing opinions on this, but here’s what’s important to note. Just like petroleum, oils sit on the surface of your tissues, and you can’t get them out or off. There’s less risk of tissue suffocation because *eventually* the oils will break down, but that takes time. So that can create a breeding ground for bacteria. Some medical providers will say coconut oil is the only advised oil to use because its antibacterial properties prevent the bacteria overgrowth that other oils can foster. But there haven’t actually been any worthwhile studies on this. So this is a bit of a gray area. (This will also break down a condom and will be less destructive to toys than Vaseline, but won’t be great for them.)

💦 Water-Based Lubes — These are generally regarded as safe, though you’ll want to read your ingredients. Some folks are sensitive to glycerine, which is a common lubricant ingredient. And for the more “natural” lubes, aloe is becoming more common…which is great unless you’re either allergic or have endometriosis. (Aloe exacerbates the symptoms of endo, so you’ll end up having more painful sex.) Water-based lubes are excellent for vaginal penetration and play well with pretty much all toys and condoms.

💦 Silicone Lubes — If you’re into water play (shower sex, hot tub sex, sex in the neighbor’s pool…), silicone lube will be your friend! Since silicone is a larger molecule than water, it doesn’t dissipate in water the way a water-based lube will. That said, you’ll want to be careful with silicone lubes and toys. Silicone likes to be a liquid, so when it meets another silicone, it often liquifies. And you do not want your toy to liquify inside your body. (Some toy manufacturers formulate their own silicone lubes to be safe with their toys, and if you purchase toys and silicone lube from the links I provide, that’s the case there. But if you’re buying a silicone toy from one company and a silicone lube from another, you may have an unpleasant experience. I’d advise against it.) Silicone is also the best lube for anal play because it doesn’t absorb into the body like a water-based lube will, which means you’ll have the slippery consistency much longer. (Why is that okay, but petroleum isn’t? That has to do with the formulation and molecular structure. Silicone lube is designed to be inserted and easily dispelled by our tissues.) Some silicone lubes are condom compatible, while others aren’t. So you’ll want to read the bottle on that.

💦 Water-Silicone Blended Lubes — These are formulated to be safer for toys and condoms, while maintaining a bit more slip than a water-only lube will.

💦 Cream Lubes — These aren’t cream-based. We’re not putting dairy in our vaginas, folks. (Yes, that also needs to be said.) This is generally a water-based formula. Read the ingredients.

💦 Sensation-Enhancing Lubricants — These get a lot of hype, but do they live up to it? That depends. If you’re already pretty sensitive, this may end up being more of a painful experience than anything else. My advice: If you want to venture into this territory, try it on your own first so you know what to expect when partnered. (Also, not all sensation-enhancing products are lubricants. DO NOT MIX THEM UP. Trust me.) Generally toy-safe, though not necessarily condom compatible. Read the packaging on that one.

💦 Flavored Lubricants — This can also create a painful experience for some folks. Or an itchy experience. If your genitals are made of steel, you’ll probably be okay. But if not, give this a whirl during a non-sexy time first and see what happens after a few days. Also generally safe, though not always great for condoms, so read the bottle.

Hopefully this is helpful for you and guides you to a more pleasurable lubrication experience!

I always recommend reading the ingredients of your lube, no matter what. If you could remove your nail polish or de-ice a plane with it, maybe don’t use it on your genitals. 🙃

Did I miss a type of lube? Email me and let me know! 🔥

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💖 SELF-CARE – In this segment, I combine my background as a massage therapist with my training as a coach to offer you tips for physical, mental, and emotional well-being. My personal recommendation for physical movement is the Pilates-based mat work offered by Tandy Gutierrez. Not only has Tandy’s work helped me navigate living in an auto-immune body, but over the years, this has helped me more than anything else to heal my nervous system. Check out her Unicorn Wellness Studio HERE.

Since we’re talking about the ingredients your lube is made of, let’s take that concept out further to your skin.

I’m not an aesthetician, and I’m certainly not qualified to tell you what products to use. But I have worked with a lot of aestheticians, and here’s a quick tip I picked up.

How you layer your skincare products greatly determines how well they’ll work for you (if at all) based on what they’re made of.

You don’t have to dig deep into the ingredient lists, though. You just have to know if the product is water-based or oil-based.

When layering your skincare products, you always want to put water-based products closer to your skin, with oil-based products on top. (And finishing with sunscreen, obviously, when it’s your daytime products.)
Why?

Because oil will create a bit of a seal effect. So if you put it on first, the water-based products won’t be able to get through the oil layer. You’ll essentially be wasting product because whatever you think the water-based product is supposed to do, it’s not even touching your skin.

But because of that seal, if you put the water-based products on first, the oil will allow it to sink in more deeply rather than evaporate. So it’ll actually help the water-based product to work better.

So give a glance to the ingredients of your skincare and play around with the order in which you apply the products. If you’ve been putting oil on, then water, switch it up and see if you notice a difference in the effectiveness of what you’re already using. 💖

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💸 SALES – Again, I sold sex toys for 12 years. In the direct sales industry. I was fucking good at it. I earned a ton of incentives. And I trained hundreds of other women how to do the same thing. Now, I’ve taken my experience from that career, my experience with a brick-and-mortar massage practice with massage membership sales, and from building my coaching practice to develop a sales and business membership community to help other entrepreneurs redefine their relationship to sales, systems, and strategy so they can grow in a sustainable way. In this segment, I’m offering all my entrepreneurial love bugs a sales tip. Skip this part if it doesn’t apply to you. And if it does? Get my free 7-day course to find and hone your authentic sales voice at KeliLynJewel.com/voice.

Pleasure, fun, and ease can be an effective foundation for a business plan.

Granted, there are parts of entrepreneurship that are hard. Which parts are hard is not universal. Sometimes it’s mostly mindset. Sometimes it’s mostly skill set. Sometimes it’s a combination of both.

But if you’re MAKING things hard for yourself, on top of what’s going to be hard already about entrepreneurship for you, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

Struggle cycles are often self-generated, and it’s not always possible to break them (or even see them) from the inside.

This is why hiring a business coach is such a valuable investment.

Having someone skilled at holding space for your struggle cycles, seeing the patterns, and holding them up to you for you to see is useful in every area of your life. And in your business, it’s one of the places the transformational effect of such work can be really tangible.

So when you’re considering your next business move, if you’re doing it from within your habituated struggle cycles, I encourage you to reconsider.

Hire a coach.

Though the doors are currently closed for SellingU, I do have a couple of spots open for my 1:1 list. And I’d love to talk with you about working together.

Email me or book a consult call to see if we’re a good fit. 💸

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✨ SPELL – Because this newsletter is sent out in conjunction with the lunar cycles, this segment offers you a moon ritual. Prior to all the stuff listed above, I studied art history as a way to develop an understanding of world religions. Since childhood, I’ve been on a spiritual journey to develop my own relationship to the divine. In no way do I have any interest in telling you what to believe or not believe. That’s for you. It’s personal. And for me, it’s cyclical. My spiritual practices have changed my relationship to time in such a beautiful way that I want to offer you a bit of that shift here by recognizing the cycles of the moon in order to hand you an opportunity to incorporate cyclical time into your experience of life. I work with many spiritual mentors, and ritualized practices are incorporated into the foundation of Project Reclamation—my equity-centered membership community—as well as the Reclamation Weekend retreats I host. And when you joined this email list, you received a Reclamation ritual from me. Again, I don’t care what you believe in or don’t believe in. Paying attention to the moon will help repair your relationship with time, which capitalism has fucked up for all of us. If you’d like to dive deeper into esoteric spirituality, I recommend checking out the Magical Mentoring program offered by Tandy, who I mentioned in blue above, for her Pilates work. That info is HERE. 

Across time and culture, the moon has often represented our inner world of emotional connection, spiritual journey, and relationship to self. Aligning myself with the cycles of the moon has offered me the added bonus of shifting my relationship with time. When we allow ourselves the space for rest and renewal, rather than keeping ourselves stuck in the constant hustle & grind mentality of late-stage capitalism, our perspectives on what’s influential, what’s valuable, and what’s worthy of our energy have space to become deeper and more personal. 

We’ve got a new moon bringing about a solar eclipse on Monday, April 8.

Many astrologers and esoteric teachers will tell you not to ritualize the eclipses. They say it’s chaos energy and will only bring chaos to whatever spell you’re trying to cast or whatever you’re trying to manifest.

I don’t subscribe to that, personally. (Nor do I subscribe to the notion that god/the universe ever tries to “test” us in any way.)

But for this eclipse, I’ve eliminated the ritual from this email.

Why?

Because I want to encourage you to go outside, and go within.

If you’re anywhere remotely close to the path of totality, the suggestion to go outside (preferably with a pair of eclipse glasses to protect your eyes) is to offer yourself a novel experience. As humans, we crave novelty. So get outside and check out the darkness and shadows in the middle of the daytime!

And the go-within piece? Notice what you experience while you’re outside. Notice the physical sensations — does it get chilly for a moment? Notice the emotional sensations — do you have fun, or feel awe or wonder?

Using moments of novelty to be present with yourself can be a lovely gift. Give this one to yourself on Monday, if it’s available to you. ✨

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✊ STATECRAFT – Politics is a not-so-secret passion of mine. I used to run a couple of political organizations here in Kansas City and lobby at the state level in Missouri with Planned Parenthood. The 2016 election is what led me into coaching after I lost my mind and a therapist told me I had “excellent coping skills” because I was focusing all my time and energy on political volunteerism. And in this segment, we might get a little petty. But we’ll always be aiming to reclaim our power from the cis-heteronormative, puritanical, white supremacist patriarchy we currently live under in this hellscape of climate change and late-stage capitalism. Here, I’ll offer suggestions on candidates to donate to, people to follow, podcasts to subscribe to, and answer the question of WHO ARE WE HEXING? (Josh Hawley is always on that list.)

This week, we’re hexing Chris Richards.

Don’t know who he is? That’s fine. He’s not a politician and probably has no impact on your life.

He’s a pop music critic for the Washington Post. He’s a mediocre white man. And he reviewed Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter with all the nuance one would expect from a mediocre white man criticizing a brilliant, wildly successful Black woman.

Let me be clear about this: I give zero fucks whether or not you enjoy Beyoncé’s previous music. I give zero fucks whether or not you enjoy country music. And I give zero fucks whether or not you enjoy this album.

In fact, I’ve shared nothing of a personal opinion on the album. Why? Because my perspective on it is irrelevant. And, as a white woman, my opinion about anything a Black woman does is tinged with my own internalized white supremacy, as well as the active work I’ve done for years now to dismantle that socialization.

Where all my fucks are directed on this topic is toward the white supremacy that we all (yes, including you) have internalized due to the socialization we’ve received within a white supremacist culture. And how that internalized white supremacy impacts our knee-jerk reactions to the work of all Black artists.

My fucks go to misogynoir — the combination of white supremacy and misogyny that specifically impacts Black women in both direct and indirect ways, in both subtle and overt ways, in both individual and systemic ways.

My fucks go to every single time a white person has said, “I just don’t like it,” with no reflection on whether that vague notion is rooted in their own internalized misogynoir.

Like how every time someone said, “I just don’t like her” about Hillary Clinton running for president, without a reason they could really put their finger on, that vague notion of dislike was rooted in the undercurrent of patriarchal oppression and misogyny. But nobody would have said, “I just don’t think a woman should be president for these very specific reasons…”

And this week, I invite you to examine your own opinions of Cowboy Carter — the fact that it exists, how it’s presented visually, what you’ve heard (or have avoided hearing). Where do those opinions stem from? How are they related to your own socialization or intentional work to dismantle that socialization? 

*This segment is not intended to promote harm to anyone in any way. I don’t hex people in real life. ✊

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That’s it for this week, lovely! I appreciate you offering me space in your day. And I look forward to seeing you fuck some shit up today! ❤️‍🔥

-xoxo-

Keli

P.S. I want to invite you to Project Reclamation, a private, equitable, self-coaching community, to explore the most expansive version of yourself. Inside, you’ll receive tools for nervous system regulation, emotional processing, and cognitive self-coaching. Plus, you’ll have access to Master Certified Coaches to receive written coaching as well as live coaching via group calls. And you’ll be able to join in on an integrated book club, as well as both virtual and in-person community celebrations. 

Maybe life coaching has felt out of reach for you in the past, as it’s often relegated to those hoarding enough wealth to be bored. But self-discovery doesn’t actually come in Tiffany boxes, and it is my goal to make healing and growth accessible to everyone. 

Inside this space, we’re committed to reclaiming our bodies, our time, our joy, and our lives from all the cultural conditioning that has left us feeling less than. And we’re doing it in a vibrant, supportive community that is truly open to everyone who shares these values. (Though cis-het white Christian men may struggle a bit.)

Registration is now open, so click the link to join. See you on the inside!