As an almost 30-year-old millennial, I think back to how taboo it once was to openly talk about anything sex-related.
Thankfully, these days — with the help of social media — there are people like Milly (@itsmillyevans), who is an accredited sex educator and author. Milly uses her TikTok account as a place to break the stigma around sexual health by educating, informing, and simply talking about the topic in a digestible, friendly way.
After I went down a rabbit hole on Milly's TikTok page, a video that stood out to me, in particular, was her viral Fingering 101 two-part series. In a recent post, I mentioned how female sexual pleasure is not often talked about, so I was thrilled to see Milly giving the lowdown on it.
In the first video, Milly goes over fingering safety tips. "First, in terms of safety — clean hands. You must wash your hands before your hands go near anyone's genitals. If you don't, you're risking giving your partner infections like urinary tract infections," Milly explains in the video.
I spoke to Milly to learn more about safety regarding female pleasure. "You can’t really discuss pleasure without discussing safety, well-being, and vice versa," she told BuzzFeed.
In the video, Milly goes on to explain specific safety tips, such as the importance of keeping fingernails filed down and clean to avoid any possible irritation. "Do not cut your nails before initially fingering someone because there could be sharp edges ... which could hurt someone," she explains in her video.
Milly also mentions how on average, someone with a vagina needs around 14 minutes — if not longer, as this study explains — of stimulation with a partner in order to reach an orgasm. "That's on average — a lot of people will be faster or slower than that," Milly adds.
In Milly's Part 2 video, she goes into detail about how to actually pleasure a vagina with finger penetration. "Three key things I want us to be thinking about: consistency, going slow, and time," she says.
"Being consistent over a period of time is really important," she says.
Milly also mentions that communication is everything because different people like different things when it comes to female pleasure. "Even if both you and your partner have a vulva and a vagina, people like different things — so talk to each other," she says.
Lastly, she says, "Orgasm doesn't have to be the end goal. Your goal should be having fun, but if that is something you want, it's important to talk about clitoral stimulation. About 75% of people with vaginas need some sort of clitoral stimulation in order to have an orgasm," Milly explains in her video.
Both videos have a combined 21 million views and thousands of comments saying how helpful and informative Milly's videos are.
Some commenters pointed out how useful the videos were for everyone — whether or not they're a recipient of "female pleasure," as Milly notes in her intro.
