Welcome to Yoniland
Get Your Lube On and Avoid Cellular-Raisins
Advanced medical technology allows doctors to effortlessly explore the intricate workings of the body with tools such as 3-D body images, brain function scans, and genomic testing. Even so, the yonii remains shrouded with little medical study. This information-limitation fortifies the blushful whispers and silences that envelop the mystery and the mission of Yoniland. The anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of female sexual responsiveness and mind-yoni connectedness still confound medical doctors, psychologists, and researchers… as well as many of our partners.
Setting blushfulness aside, let's delve deep into the elegant and glorious yoni to assist her bliss and liberate the flow of her inner and outer nectars.
Yonicology
The vagina, including all the surrounding sexual tissues, is a naturally moist environment. The tissue lining the vagina is similar to skin, though much more delicate and highly innervated. The thin lining allows naturally occurring moisture to pass through it, and with arousal, blood flow to the area increases and additional fluid flows into the tissue for lubricating protection. The Bartholin's glands, two pea sized glands just inside the vagina, may also secrete a few drops of lubricative fluid.
Vasoactive intestinal peptide, or VIP (a Very Important Peptide!), is also considered by biologists to be part of the sexual arousal process. VIP, part of the endocrine system, is a genetically encoded neuromodulator and neurotransmitter produced in the brain, the gut, and the pancreas. It is an abundant vasodilator that regulates biophysical responses including smooth muscle activity, dilation and constriction of veins, heart rhythm, blood flow to the gut, and secretions from skin cells. The ribbons of nerve cells that weave through the vagina and regulate the vagina's engorgement with blood and the amount of lubrication produced in arousal are responsive to VIP. Recent research discovered that when a woman engaged in intimate activity had VIP in her blood stream, her natural lubrication doubled! This field is still very new, and there is still much to be learned. One thing is certain, chronic stress hampers the endocrine system and can lead to low VIP levels.
The quantity, consistency, and viscosity of the yoni's lubricating fluids vary from woman to woman, and vary by the degree of her arousal, phase of menstrual cycle, medications, epigenetics, diet, and overall health. The biochemical composition of the fluid makes it perfectly slick, similar to raw egg whites. Its complex chemistry includes water, pyridine, urea, acetic acid, lactic acid, ketones, and aldehydes. It also contains sebum, or skin oil, that has a slick, waxy consistency.
Joussiance Juice
Jouissance is a French word that is without an English equivalent. Jouissance means pleasure without opposite and without equal. It is the rapture of all the senses. Jouissance juice is how I define the exquisite internal and external lubrication that lubricates the yoni, life, creativity, and health.
Research suggests that 40% to 60% of women experience vaginal dry spells with daily dryness or insufficient lubrication during arousal. Insufficient moisture can be painful and make love play uncomfortable. When persistent, dryness can damage sensitive skin. Hormonal challenges and dips in estrogen, such as menstrual phases, menopause, pregnancy, and breast-feeding, are the leading causes, yet the physical complexity of the female system as well as the deep mind-spirit-yoni connection make us vulnerable to dryness and drought. A few physical causes are: dehydration, creams, body washes, soaps and foams. Some medications can hinder jouissance juice flow, as well: contraceptive pills, antihistamines, motion sickness, anti-nausea/anti-diarrhea, cough suppressants, anti-depressants, and heart medications.
The feminine interconnectedness of mind and body, soul and yoni, make us susceptible to emotional and spiritual jouissance-block that leads to soul-dryness. Soul-dryness can certainly contribute to physical dryness as a reflection of deeper life-issues. Some of the sources of jouissance-block include:
negative emotions or anxiety about physical intimacy
unresolved relationship issues
a depletion in the juiciness of daily life
overwhelming or chronic stress
sadness, grief, depression
insufficient mental, emotional, and physical stimulation for arousal and lubrication
Simple self-care strategies may boost the amount of your natural lubrication. A rainbow diet full of variety and juicy fruits and vegetables is vital. Unrefined dietary fats, especially those rich in omega-3 fatty acids, support healthy cells and mucus membranes and may help rebalance hormones. B vitamins to stabilize overworked adrenal glands and help cope with daily stresses that affect mood and health. Also, the body requires a lot of pure water for optimal function, and improved hydration will increase the amount of fluids available for internal vaginal moisture. Drink lots of pure, fresh spring water and herbal teas.
Mother Nature is always pregnant.
Fruits, nuts, grains... sex and food. Flowers... sex and beauty.
If it were not for the sex life of plants, we would have no sex life of our own.
~ Michael P. Garofaloii
There are also a few herbal supplements that have helped women recover some moisture. Black cohosh, wild yam, and evening primrose oil help with hormonal dryness by balancing estrogen levels during normal menstrual cycle dips and menopause.
Slippery Elm Bark tea is worth trying. Its primary constituent is mucilage, which is what makes the bark so slippery. It also contains trace amino acids, manganese, and zinc, which are important for reproductive system health. The ground bark has been used for hundreds of years to heal slippery, juicy tissues like the stomach, esophagus, and vagina. Slippery Elm is safe for all and well tolerated.
If bothersome dryness persists, consider looking deeper with the assistance of a doctor or therapist. The research cited in Vagina, by Naomi Wolf, provides strong correlation between a flourishing yoni and a flourishing, confident, and creative life.
Avoid Cellular Raisins
Before you put *anything* near, around, or in your sacred yoni, read the ingredients of the product first. Just like garden soil needs good bacteria and appropriate pH to be bountiful, the lady garden's pH and bacteria is very sensitive. Normally, vaginal fluid is slightly acidic with a pH of between 3.8 and 4.5. It is important to not disrupt it!
A modern practice, and a silly marketing scheme, has sold us slathering on parabens and petroleum products in the name of "feminine hygiene.” Images of flower filled meadows and cool streams parlay that the vagina is less than fresh and clean. In reality, a healthy yoni is self-cleaning, and feminine sprays and washes disrupt this beautiful process and contribute to short term and long term dryness. Many of these products irritate delicate cells and kill off the good bacteria, like lactobacillus, and this can quickly lead to an overgrowth of yeast. Play it safe and side-step all synthetic products including deodorizers, moisturizers, bubble baths, colored bath-salts, feminine washes, and lubricants. The same ingredients that you avoid in your skin care are to be avoided here: perfumes, colorants, PCBs, alcohols, propylene glycol, parabens, and silicone.
All synthetic lubricants contain chemicals that can irritate, dry, and inflame the delicate yoni. There are five main types of lubricants: petroleum, water and glycerin, silicone, and botanical. We have all witnessed what an oil spill can do to oceans and their inhabitants. Petroleum has no place in body care. There is not a single cell in our body that longs for petro-chemicals. Take a pass on the petroleum lubes.
While water-based lubes appear to be safe, the glycerin (or carrageenan) and the preservatives added to them are toxic. Glycerin, as well as carrageenan, are heavily processed and contain residual chemicals that are unsafe. Also, glycerin, which is a sugar, contributes to the development of infections since the sugar feeds non-native yeasts and bacteria.
Synthetic lubricants are momentary petal-plumpers, offering only a very temporary lubrication with the consequence of long term drought. Researchers have demonstrated that the ingredients of OTC lubes dehydrate and disorganize cells. Think back to your high school chemistry class on osmosis: our cells seek a state of equilibrium. The synthetic ingredients increase osmolality. To maintain equal states on both sides of the cell wall, the cells release water to dilute the sugar or other synthetic substance outside of the cell and this causes cellular and epithelial damage.iii One scientist reported osmolarity makes the “cells shrivel up to the point that they look like little raisins under a microscope.”iv Cellular raisins! It is nonsensical to use a so-called moisture providing product that actually results in cellular raisins in the yoni.
When the cells dry up, they die and exfoliate from the epithelium, weakening the yoni's defenses and making the vagina vulnerable to disease and infection. In one experiment conducted with h rats, K-Y Warming Jelly increased herpes transmission. vRichard A. Cone, a biophysicist and researcher at Johns Hopkins has stated that "virtually all sex lubricants need to be reformulated.”vi
Dew for Your Petals
It is a good practice to only use yoni-care products that you can also eat. Pure plant juice and oils like aloe, cacao, jojoba, and coconut oils, will add dew to your petals, and you probably already have them on hand.
Fresh aloe vera is a beautiful first option to improve day to day moisture or to provide a little extra lubrication. It is moisturizing, healing, and it cleanly absorbs into the lining of the vagina with no drips or mess. Skip the bottled aloe and opt for juicing your own living aloe plant. They are a breeze to grow and require very little attention. Break off a small piece of the plant, squeeze out the juicy pulp and apply.
All organically grown fatty plant oils and butters are edible and super emollient. The sensual and rich oils from cacao, coconut, and jojoba saturate tissues with deep moisture for long lasting, slick lubrication. All three are beautiful for anywhere and anytime moisturizers:
Sweet coconut crème embraces the skin with a protective coating and its super thick consistency provides lubrication that is slicker than silicone for extra glide.
Cacao butter, with the delicate aroma of chocolate, ignites the senses with amorous inclinations. Made with certified, raw heirloom cacao beans, cacao butter delivers velvety smoothness and protects the skin as it enhances every tantric tingle.
Lustrous jojoba oil is slick, light, and highly absorbent. It is the most harmonious oils for human skin.
Saturating and Stimulating Botanicals
Perfume, fundamentally, is the sexual attractant of flowers... Squeezed from the
reproductive glands of plants and creatures, perfume is the smell of creation, a
sign dramatically delivered to our senses of the Earth's regenerative powers – a
message of hope and a message of pleasure.
Tom Robbinsvii
Flowers are the sexual tissues and receptacles of plants, and their oils are the love liniments of nature. The petals, sepals, stamen, pollen, nectar, and aromatic molecules are attuned to one objective - attracting pollinators into the flower to revel in the pollen. Plants have evolved alongside us and in many ways their needs reflect our own. It is beautiful and sensible that the essential oils of flowers and berries can release our inner and outer jouissance juice, igniting our sex lives and opening us to life's seductiveness.
Distilled from the petals of flowers, many aromatic aphrodisiacs, like jasmine, jasmine will help us to relax, melt muscles, and unwind the mind. Sensual ylang and rose oils uplift our hearts and heal our tissues. Some oils, like cinnamon, heat us up, while peppermint makes us tingle.
A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile,
available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar.
We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages,
we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.
~ Diane Ackermanviii
Botanical oils will inspire you with a fragrant garden of ways to stay up and play. When your world is aflame with desire, here are a few intensely stimulating, igniting, and delighting oils for yoni-care perfection and encounters of the most intimate kind:
Saw palmetto, Serenoa repens, is a small palm tree that is endemic to the southeast US. American Indians and Mayans ate the berry-like as a tonic for an assortment of reproductive issues. The essential oil is highly lipophilic so applying it topically is very effective. Saw palmetto is an aphrodisiac and helps kindle natural lubrication production.
The fragrant, tropical Jasmine flower, Jasminum Sambac, “releases inhibition, liberates imagination and develops exhilarating playfulness.”ix Jasmine essential oil gives us a sense of well-being.x It cools stress and prepares the body and mind to relax and receive.
The luscious red schizandra berry is one of the most nutritive fruits. It is a powerful antioxidant and enhances sexual endurance. Traditional Chinese Medicine employs schizandra to build up body fluids, so it may help to invigorate natural lubrication. Eat a drop in honey or tea or mix a drop with your favorite lubricating oil and apply it internally.
Cananga odorata, or ylang, is also called Perfume Tree as the prolific yellow flowers have an exotically floral and intoxicatingly sexy scent. The tree, an evening bloomer, releases its scent into the night air to attract evening pollinating visitors. The oil from the ylang flower promotes euphoria and increases attraction to your partner. In Indonesia, the bed of a newlywed couple is draped in Ylang flowers. You wear it as perfume or a perfume for your bed, diffuse it, or mix a drop with a buttery, lubricating oil.
Ginger, Gingiber officinale, and cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylanicum, are naturally warming and stimulating. Spicey cinnamon applied internally will give you the warm tingles inside. Spiritually, ginger dilates the sacral (sex) root chakra to ignite its energy and to encourage interaction, pleasure, and flow. Superbly potent, cinnamon and ginger oils must be diluted before use.
Consecrate the Divinity of Your Desire
The flower is the poetry of reproduction.
It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
~ Jean Giraudoux
Celebrating tantric lips and entangled hips, Libations Love Butters and Love Lotion combine long-lasting lubrication with elixirs of floral essences for euphoric love-play. Absolutely edible, our alluring mixtures compose the chakras, ignite desire, stir the juices, and bliss the senses. They can be used as moisturizing massage crèmes, daily moisture boosts, and non-latex lubricants. These Love Butters will glide, slide, and smooth your desirous skin.
Celebrate and take extra special care of your sacred center. Allow the flowers to inspire your play and convey the jouissance to your days… and nights.
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Nadine Artemis is author of Renegade Beauty: Reveal and Revive Your Natural Radiance and Holistic Dental Care: The Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums, a frequent commentator on health and beauty for media outlets, and her products have received rave reviews in the New York Times, the National Post, and the Hollywood Reporter. Described by Alanis Morissette as “a true-sense visionary,” Nadine has formulated a stunning collection of rare and special botanical compounds. Her healing creations, along with her concept of Renegade Beauty, encourages effortlessness and inspires people to rethink conventional notions of beauty and wellness.
i Yoni is a sacred Sanskrit word that means "vagina" and/or "womb". It is also means the origin of life, the divine passage, or sacred temple according to Tantric tradition. The yoni both embodies and exemplifies the creative force that moves through the universe. The yoni’s Sanskrit counterpart is the lingam which represents the transcendental source of all that exists. Together they represent connectedness and boundless potentiality.
ii “Pulling Onions”
iii Gorbach, Pamina M. et. al. "The Slippery Slope: Lubricant Use and Rectal Sexually Transmitted Infections: A Newly Identified Risk." Journal of American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association. January 2012. Volume 39. Issue 1. 59-64
iv http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i50/Studies-Raise-Questions-Safety-Personal.html
v BMC Infectious Diseases 2010, 10:331
vi https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201710/are-sexual-lubricants-safe
vii Jitterbug Perfume, 281.
viii A Natural History of the Senses, 1990, p. 13
ix Lavabre, M., Aromatherapy Workbook. 1990, 69
x Lawless, J., Aromatherapy and the Mind. 1994,165