Illustration for the Bushwick Daily by Jeremy Nguyen Illustration for the Bushwick Daily by Jeremy Nguyen

Winter’s bearing down on us, and everyone’s already battening down the hatches and getting ready to cuddle up against the cold. So how can you make sure you’re giving and getting the best cuddles of your life? Well, here’s 10 hot sex tips for y’all!

#1 Have The Talk…About Polyamory

One of the hardest things about sex and dating in 2014 is how easy it is and how limitless your options are: there’s no thirty-minute long waltzes in which you negotiate town politics and an implicit dowry with your two step. Instead, just swipe right. But how many tinder dates does it take to make a romance? And how many times can you insist to friends that you are ‘just hanging out’ before you’re moving in together? Suddenly, the boundary between total strangers and fuck buddies and engaged-to-be-married seems a lot less big and bold. And nothing ruins a good lay like not knowing where you stand with somebody. (Can I get some self-loathing and confusion with my orgasm?) So TALK IT OUT!!! And it’s especially easy to get yo’ communication game on in Bushwick, land of the sexually liberated. Just look at the polyamory house and Dr. Lisa’s stellar advice for some examples of people who figured out what they wanted, and then went after it.

#2 Submit a Homemade Porno to the New York Porn Film Festival at Secret Project Robot

If you’re looking for a way to kink things up a little, this is a great entry-level maneuver. Just keep doing what y’all are already doing: but prop up your iPhone and hit record. Plus, the New York Porn Film Festival is on a mission to bust open the discourse on sex and sexuality, which is a cause worth the embarrassment of seeing what you look like while you fuck. Send submissions to nycpornfilmfestivalATgmail.com!

#3 Watch a Burlesque Show at Bizarre to Get Your Inner Vamp On

A good burlesque show can be utterly transformative: suddenly, the streets seem to glisten with sexual possibility. Watch these lovelies strip down with style and elegance, and some of that incredibly vivacious confidence might get a little contagious. And you don’t have to wait too long: Darlinda Just Darlinda and Scary Ben will be strutting their sexy stuff at Bizarre on November 18th, at 10 PM. Suggested donation of $7

Photo by Lucia Reed for Bushwick Daily

#4 Let Go of Your Ego @ One of Our Seven (!) Yoga Studios (Humility Being the Ultimate Turn On)

Yeah, in case you weren’t paying attention, Bushwick is now home to seven absolutely fantastic yoga studios, all with their own brand of achieving self-actualization: from the cozy after-class tea times at Jai Yoga Arts, to the spaced out good vibes at Body Actualized, to the revitalizing precision of GoodYoga, to Daya and Loom Yoga and Otion Front and Bhati. There’s seriously no shortage of places to let a little humility into your life, and then, your bedroom. Shed your ego, lose that ice-cold exterior, and gain the deep soul confidence that will make you a rockstar in the sack.

#5 Have Your Partner Do Shots of Switchel off Your Naked Body

Bushwick is chock full of sexy food and drink, but nothing revs a person’s engine more than these fiery little vinegar concoctions. Switchel is Vermont’s take on the ginger beer, and it’s having something of a moment. You can find jars of Up Mountain Switchel (manufactured in Bushwick!) all over the place, and they also sell shots of it at the Trailhouse, but you’ll probably want to get them to go.

#6 Get Tested For STI’s and Pick Up a Ton of Free Condoms @ Wyckoff Heights Medical Center (374 Stockholm St)

This year, the CDC reported that cases of syphillis and gonnarrhea were both on the rise. You know what’s a major turn off? Not knowing whether or not you have a sexually transmitted infection. And many STI’s cannot be seen or felt, especially in women, so the only way to know is to get tested. Experts recommend getting tested once a year, or anytime you change sexual partners. Besides, thoughtfulness is sexy, and having to dig an expired condom out of the back of your medicine cabinet because you didn’t expect to get laid tonight, is not.

#7 Start Doing Kegels Anywhere/Anytime, But Especially While You’re Waiting Hours For a Table at Roberta’s

There’s nothing more rewarding than getting in touch with your pelvic floor. Call them kegel exercises, call it awakening your kundalini, call it your daily orgasm regimen: whatever. Strengthening these muscles can cause stronger and more frequent orgasms (in both men and women), increase the size and intensity of erections, and prevent urinary incontinence in old age. So, win-win-win.

#8 Rev Up Your Dirty Talk…And Your-Not-So-Dirty-Talk (Openness and Honesty Being the Other Ultimate Turn Ons)

So you know you have an STI, but you’re gonna use a condom, and you are almost done with the antibiotics, so you don’t realllllyyyy have to tell her, right? And yeah, you’re grabbing drinks with your ex, but you’re totally over him, so it doesn’t matter if you happen to mention it to your new guy. Okay, so you know you want your girl to wear a white corset and spit on your dick before you watch Jeopardy, but it’s too weird and she’ll never go for it, so why say anything? Bad attitude! Just check in with our resident Sex and Love Expert, Dr. Lisa, for a word on how valuable communication can be: “There are no boundaries here. You have the gift of being able to ask anyone anything you want. People understand you can’t take for granted someone’s innate sexuality.”

#9 Cruise Bushwick Craigslist Missed Connections

Browsing some of these gems will definitely light your romantic fire (“I think you and me had a moment at the LA Burritos tonight” and “I was eating an ice cream snickers candy bar and I bought u a pbr”) but it’s also a great opportunity to introduce a little spark into your long term relationship. Leave a sexy note in broad internet daylight for your lovah, with clues that only he or she’ll get, then arrange to meet for a drink at a bar you never go to.

#10 Have Sex in the Bathroom of Kings County Saloon

After a burlesque show, or a dating contest, or too much fish bowl: this bathroom is clean and spacious, but still has the spirit of a dive, making it the Best Bathroom in Bushwick to Get Laid In.