The 21-year-old shuttler, who is beloved in Thailand and remains the kingdom’s best chance for a medal in Rio, tested positive for a banned substance in May after a tournament in China.
But the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Monday cleared her after ruling that the substance had been administered to treat a tendon injury and was allowed.
Thai Badminton star Ratchanok Intanon cries during a press conference regarding recent doping allegations Lillian Suwanrumpha (AFP)
“I was confident in my innocence and I am glad that I received justice. I will practise and hope to bring a medal back for Thais,” she told reporters at a press conference in Bangkok.
“The Olympics is my dream,” she added, before bursting into tears.
Rumours of the positive test result first surfaced in the Thai media last week, leaving fans on tenterhooks.
In a statement published Monday, the BWF said Ratchanok tested positive for triamcinolone acetonide, a corticosteroid which is banned in most circumstances.
However if administered directly into a muscle tendon for medical reasons it is allowed under the BWF’s rules.
“The panel concluded that because the route of administration of the substance in the medical treatment process was intratendinous — an authorised administration route — no violation of the regulations was committed,” the BWF said.
Patama Leeswadtrakul, president of the Badminton Association of Thailand, said doctors had been treating Ratchanok for pain in her right hand and back.
“We said it was used honestly to cure her injuries,” she told reporters.
The 21-year-old star has charmed the Thai public — who affectionately call her Nong May — with her girl-next-door demeanour despite the fame and riches of sporting success.
In 2013 she became the youngest ever world champion. She was briefly ranked number 1 after winning Singapore Open in April but has since slipped to fourth.
A medal favourite in Rio, she will carry the Olympic hopes of a country with few top-class athletes.
She has caught the imagination of Thais as much for her rags to riches back story as on-court heroics.
Her parents are migrants to Bangkok from the country’s poor northeast who worked in menial jobs at a badminton centre on the outskirts of the city.
While they worked, Ratchanok played badminton unlocking her talent at the age of six.
In a recent interview with AFP in Bangkok she said she was “100 percent confident” of bringing home a medal from the Rio Olympics.
Fans congratulated Ratchanok on her Instagram account where she had recently posted a picture of the stars with the cryptic caption “I’m faded” as the doping rumours swirled last week.
“The sky after a storm always shines,” one fan wrote.
Another added: “You’re not faded, you are now brighter.”
Thousands of New Yorkers and tourists gathered to photograph a natural phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge. This is when the setting sun is perfectly aligned with the east-west numbered streets of New York City’s grid system. Manhattanhenge occurs twice a year either side of the summer solstice, around 28 May and 12 July. The phenomenon gets its name from the way that Stonehenge is aligned with the setting sun on the summer solstice.
The sun sets behind Times SquareMark (Kauzlarich/Reuters)The sun sets along 42nd Street during Manhattanhenge, as seen from Hunters Point South Park in Queens (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Instagram and Twitter have been flooded with fantastic Manhattanhenge photos. IBTimes UK publishes some of the best in this gallery.
Every year thousands of worshippers with phones flock to #Manhattanhenge to pay respect to the summer solstice.
People stand in the middle of 42nd Street in Times Square to take pictures as the sun sets over Manhattan (Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)People take photographs of the Manhattanhenge sunset from Hunters Point South Park in Queens (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The Manhattanhenge sun sets along 42nd Street (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Portugal was a big underdog against host-nation France in the final of the European championship and their hopes took a huge blow early in the match as Cristiano Ronaldo had to be replaced after injuring his knee.
The injury came in just the eighth minute of the match as Dimitri Payet’s hard challenge on Ronaldo resulted in the players’ knees colliding. Ronaldo immediately went down grabbing in his left knee.
Replays showed that Ronaldo’s knee seems to buckle during the collision.
Ronaldo tried to stay in the match, at one point going to the sideline for treatment. But in the 24th minute, he finally succumbed to the pain, calling for a substitute.
Ronaldo had to be consoled by teammates as he could be seen breaking down into tears.
He was finally taken off on a stretcher and is officially out for the rest of the match.
Peaches have long been compared to backsides. Because, well, peaches look like tushes! And now, thanks to some fruit venders in China, they really look like butts. Sexy butts.
These peaches are apparently being sold to capitalize on the the upcoming romantic Qixi Festival. They’re a novelty present! And should be taken as such. But, they aren’t cheap: A box of nine panty fruit is 498 yuan or US$80.
The peaches are getting mainstream coverage in China. Online, some people have been delighted by the peaches, while as Sina explains, some think they are rather vulgar! They look kind of cheeky to me.
Inspired by the controversy, four Google employees have suggested a plan to rectify the imbalance. They include a prince, a dancing man, a man dressed in a tuxedo, as well as men wrestling and playing handball. Other emoji portray a pregnant woman, a gymnast and Mother Christmas.If accepted, they will be released in June 2017.Have something to add to this story?
Spend any time tapping out emoji and you’ve probably noticed that women are confined to three principal roles: bride, princess and dancer.
While these are lovely things to be, the limited selection grows tiresome quickly, especially in contrast to emojis that show men as a police officer, cyclist and weight lifter.
The disparity was recently the subject of a new Always advertising campaign and a New York Times op-ed. Inspired by the controversy, four Google employees have suggested a plan to rectify the imbalance. A proposal released by the company this week suggests adding 13 new female emoji to “better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world.”
“No matter where you look, women are gaining visibility and recognition as never before,” the Google employees wrote. “Isnt it time that emoji also reflect the reality that women play a key role in every walk of life and in every profession?”
The transit of the planet Mercury is seen is a tiny dot on the sun disk at the bottom right, the bigger dot closer to the middle is a sunspot, pictured in Munich, Germany, 7 May 2003.
Mercury is set to pass in front of the sun on Monday, a cosmic occurrence that only happens about a dozen times per century.
Scientists will be keeping a close eye on the planet as it moves across the face of the sun from Earth’s perspective over the course of about 7.5 hours May 9, and you can check out the transit too either online or in person.
The event takes place from 7:12 a.m. to 2:42 p.m. ET, and millions of people around the world with clear skies should be able to see it using the right eye protection and magnification.
Do not look at the sun with your naked eyes, even during a planetary transit.
If you plan to watch the transit in person, get either a pair of high-powered binoculars or a backyard telescope, both with proper solar filters, to see the transit of Mercury.
But if you can’t see the transit safely in person, you can watch it happen live online thanks to multiple webcasts.
NASA will host a live broadcast from10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. ET on NASA TV and the space agency’s Facebook page with experts on-hand to discuss the relatively rare transit. You can also watch the webcast in the window embedded below:
People can ask questions in the comments of the Facebook Live page and by using the#AskNASA hashtag on social media.
Scientists will also post photos of the transit from NASA’sSolar Dynamics Observatory, a sun-observing satellite that will keep an eye on the transit of Mercury.
Slooh, a community of astronomy enthusiasts, will also host a webcast featuring live images of the transit of Mercury fromthe Middle East, United States and a new solar telescope in the Canary Islands.
The Slooh webcast starts at 7 a.m. ET, and you can watch it directly through the organizationor in the window below:
“The Transit of Mercury reminds us that all of the planets, including Earth, are in rapid and perpetual motion,” Slooh host, Paul Cox said in a statement.
“As we gaze together at this majestic astronomical event, we will appreciate that it is similar planetary transits around other stars that have allowed us to discover a multitude of strange and exotic exoplanets.”
Sky & Telescope Magazine will also host a webcast from7 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET. You can watch it below or directly through the magazine.
Telescopes in space and on the ground will watch the transit in order to observe Mercury’s very thin atmosphere illuminated by the star’s light.
Warning: This story contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Captain America: Civil War.
Elizabeth Olsen, Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan in Captain America: Civil War. Marvel Studios
Captain America: Civil War features one of the largest principal casts ever assembled for a Marvel Studios film, especially one centered around a single titular superhero. And, unlike every other movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date, these superheroes are not battling with an external enemy, but among themselves. On top of that, two significant new superheroes to the MCU set to launch their own movie franchises in the coming years — Black Panther and Spider-Man — are introduced in Civil War, the latter after an unprecedented and frankly miraculous negotiation between two rival movie studios.
Which is to say that making Captain America: Civil War was a Hulkulean task for directors Joe and Anthony Russo. In late April, BuzzFeed News sat down with the brothers — who came up in the industry directing comedies like 2002’s Welcome to Collinwood and 2006’s You, Me and Dupree, and TV shows like Arrested Development and Community — to understand how they pulled together one of the largest and most challenging superhero movies yet.
“We knew that we had to surprise the audience in some way, and to subvert the standard structure, which was tiring us.” Producer Nate Moore, screenwriter Stephen McFeely, director Anthony Russo, screenwriter Christopher Markus, and director Joe Russo on the set of Captain America: Civil War. Zade Rosenthal / Marvel Studios
The Russos’ first Marvel Studios movie was 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which is widely considered to be among the very best of Marvel Studios’ movies (if not the best). Months before it opened in April of that year, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige was so confident in The Winter Soldier that he began preliminary meetings with the Russos — along with producer Nate Moore, and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely — to discuss a third Captain America movie.
“[It was] a very soft conversation of us sitting down and just discussing generally what we could do with the character moving forward,” said Joe Russo. “We batted around a bunch of different big ideas. He’s a tricky character, because he’s very stoic and moral. However, we felt like if we kept pushing him, and deconstructing him, we could end up in a place that was very interesting.”
“We knew that we had to surprise the audience in some way, and to subvert the standard structure, which was tiring us.”
The team circled the idea of basing their story on Civil War, a 2006 Marvel comic series by Mark Millar that pits Cap (Chris Evans) against Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as ideological opposites after the government attempts to place superheroes under its expressed control. The dilemma for the Marvel Studios brain trust was whether Civil War — in which a vast number of superheroes align either with Cap or Tony — was more of an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie.
“The way we answered the question was, of course it could be made into Captain America film if the story is told from his point of view, and if the plot is incredibly resonant with his world,” said Joe. “What’s interesting about Cap is that he had two family units, one from the past, and one in the present. What would happen, we thought, if you took those two family units and we smashed them into each other, and he was forced, on a very elemental level, to choose?”
For Cap’s original family from the 1940s, there was only one choice: his best friend and surrogate brother, Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s transformation into the brainwashed Hydra assassin the Winter Soldier made him a wanted man across the globe, but by the end The Winter Soldier, Cap had dedicated himself to finding Bucky and helping him to reform.
Sebastian Stan in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Marvel Studios
“Cap’s devoted to the idea that there is still a human being inside the Winter Soldier that he knows and loves,” said Anthony. “And he’s going to find that human being in there, no matter what it costs him. How do you put an equally compelling idea up against that?”
The answer: What if Bucky, under orders from Hydra as the Winter Soldier, had secretly killed Tony Stark’s parents, Maria and Howard Stark, who was one of Steve’s closest allies during World War II? “You wind up with a very combustible situation,” said Joe. “In fact, that’s why we decided to do Civil War, because of that idea.”
By setting two of the MCU’s biggest heroes against each other in a third-act battle about a deeply personal conflict — rather than averting yet another global cataclysm — the Russos saw the potential to shake the movie free of an all-too familiar superhero movie trope. “As filmmakers, you have to look to how crowded the marketplace is becoming,” said Joe. “As a fan, there are the things that I’m growing weary of about the [superhero] genre. We knew that we had to surprise the audience in some way, and to subvert the standard structure, which was tiring us.”
There was just one catch. “Kevin [Feige] was like, ‘OK, you guys gotta get Downey!’” said Anthony with a laugh.
Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans in Captain America: Civil War. Zade Rosenthal / Marvel Studios
Wooing Robert Downey Jr.
Making a Captain America movie was not part of Robert Downey Jr.’s overall contract with Marvel Studios, so the Russos were tasked — with Feige’s support — with persuading the actor to sign on to the project. The stakes were high: Without Stark, Civil War was a no-go.
According to the Russos, it turned out that what had so excited them creatively about Civil War excited Downey, too. “I think he loved the fact that we were going to deconstruct the genre by having a third act where the two heroes are having in essence a life-or-death battle with each other,” said Joe. “He was really attracted to the fact that we were going to make his character much darker in this than he had been in any other film up to this point.”
Indeed, while Downey’s face is as prominent as Evans’ in the Civil War posters, the fact that this was a Captain America movie afforded Downey an unusual opportunity, one the Russos first experienced at the onset of their career. “[George] Clooney had a small role inWelcome to Collinwood, and he kind of helped the movie get greenlit by doing that,” said Anthony. “We said to him, ‘Oh, thanks so much for doing this role, sorry it’s so small.’ And he goes, ‘Look, guys: This is the most fun for me. Playing the lead kind of sucks, because your job as a leading man is to show up and let everybody else steal the scene. Now I get to steal the scene. That’s really fun for me.’ I think Downey had a bit of that. Because Chris was the titular lead of the film, he had license to go off the rails a little more than he would as a typical lead.”
But that did not mean that Downey was content to coast through the making of Civil War. The actor’s involvement was officially announced at a Marvel Studios media event in October 2014, and right up through production, Downey met regularly with the Russos and screenwriters Markus and McFeely — none of whom had worked on a film involving Tony Stark — to develop the character of Iron Man in Civil War. “There’s a process you go through with Robert where you work on the scenes the week leading up to shooting them,” said Joe. “Whatever scenes are coming up, we’d go over to his house on a Sunday, we’d all have lunch together, and work on the scenes. We would rewrite them based on ideas that Robert had about the character, because he knows the character better than any of us ever will.”
Black Panther Marvel Studios
Introducing Black Panther
As the Russos were busy nailing down Downey in mid-2014, they were also developing theCivil War script with Markus and McFeely, and they soon realized that while pitting Captain America and Iron Man against each other was creatively exciting, it also came with its own set of complications. “We knew the movie was going to get binary,” said Anthony. “It’s Cap versus Iron Man, and the two sides versus each other.”
“We wanted to avoid getting in a rut,” added Joe.
“We thought a nice way to shake up that dynamic as the movie progress is if we had this, like, third-party radical, who was tied into the plot in a very propulsive way, but didn’t give a shit about either side of the argument,” continued Anthony.
Chadwick Boseman in Captain America: Civil War. Marvel Studios
Enter T’Challa, aka Black Panther, Marvel’s first black lead superhero. “At that point, Black Panther was a movie that Marvel probably wanted to do, and we were like, ‘Well, if you are going to do it, here’s why Black Panther would be really valuable in this movie [too],’” said Anthony. For Civil War, the filmmakers decided that T’Challa would initially believe that Bucky is responsible for the death of his father, and cautiously side with Tony, but his methods — and mere presence — would disrupt the dynamic among the established Avengers. “We loved how he could mess everything up as the story progresses,” said Anthony.
Casting Chadwick Boseman — known for his terrific performances as Jackie Robinson in42 and James Brown in Get on Up — in the role was something of a no-brainer. “He has that great combination that you always look for: He has leading man looks and presence, but with character actor chops,” said Anthony. At that October 2014 press event — at which Feige also announced a Black Panther movie — Boseman stood between Evans and Downey, a visual cue representing his ambiguous role in Civil War.
In the comics, a different character finds his loyalties torn between Cap and Iron Man. But getting him in their film at all plunged the Russos into a most tangled web.
Spider-Man. Marvel Studios
Capturing Spider-Man
Even with Black Panther playing the free radical in Civil War, the filmmakers still felt their movie needed to avoid getting too weighed down by the personal baggage Cap and Tony were bringing to it. “Especially when you’re making movies this expensive, you have to hold a large audience,” said Anthony. “You’ve got to make stories that are well-rounded. We knew how dark we wanted to take the storyline between Cap and Tony, but how do we balance this movie so that it’s not, like, just a brutal experience? We needed some people in this movie who are not invested in the conflict that is tearing this family called the Avengers apart. And we needed one on each side. That’s how we circled Ant-Man and Spider-Man.”
Ant-Man, of course, was already a part of the MCU; Paul Rudd debuted as the character in the eponymous Marvel Studios film in July 2015. The movie rights to Spider-Man, however, were held by a completely different film studio, Sony Pictures — and in the spring of 2014, Sony was gearing up to release The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the first weekend of May. And yet, according to the Russos, that was also around the time they first floated the idea to Feige of somehow getting Spider-Man into Civil War.
“He was like, ‘Uhhhh, I don’t know? Maybe there’s something there,’” recalled Anthony with a chuckle. “It was like the smallest door was opened to a road forward potentially.”
“We had to behave in such a manner as if there were no other options for the movie than to have Spider-Man in the film.”
Thus began a nearly yearlong creative process for the Civil War filmmakers, in which they had to craft their film on the (at first) faint promise that two rival corporations might somehow figure out how to share an enormously popular and lucrative superhero character in a deal unheard of in Hollywood since Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny shared a scene in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And yet, by the summer of 2014 — after The Amazing Spider-Man 2opened to tepid reviews and less-than-stellar box office — the Russos said they were given enough of a sense that including Spider-Man in Civil War was genuinely possible. So, they forged ahead as if it was a fait accompli.
“We had to behave in such a manner as if there were no other options for the movie than to have Spider-Man in the film,” said Joe.
“[We] worked Spider-Man into the story in a way that is inexcisable, or else the house falls down and you’ve got to rebuild it again,” added Anthony. “We were very exposed on a creative level of needing him. … Even after the preliminary agreement was made to share Spider-Man, there were tons of deal points that still needed to be worked out. So even though we got permission to keep proceeding as if Spider-Man was in the movie, it was always like, don’t talk about it, keep quiet about it, because it was still very sensitive.”
The Russos give full credit to Feige for hammering out the Spider-Man deal with Sony, which was officially announced in February 2015 and includes a new Spidey film, Spider-Man: Homecoming, produced by Feige and Marvel Studios and released by Sony on July 7, 2017. “Kevin loves Spider-Man, and he’s always been looking for a way to [use] him,” said Anthony. But the brothers were not above exercising their own leverage to keep the deal alive. “Certainly there’s a lot of pain in executing a deal like that, and when people feel pain, they go, ‘Ah, is there a way to relieve this pain by just not doing this deal?’” said Joe. “They would come to us and say, ‘Are you sure we can’t make this movie without Spider-Man?’ We would say, ‘You absolutely can’t do it without him.’ And then we would cite the tone.”
“‘The whole movie falls apart!’” added Anthony. “But it was true.”
“It was absolutely true,” said Joe. “The movie, I think, does become a much more dour affair without the addition of Spider-Man.”
In Civil War, Tony Stark visits Peter Parker (played by Tom Holland following an exhaustive casting search) after catching YouTube videos of the teenager exercising his powers for the first time. “It made sense to us that Tony wanted to recruit this kid because he’s incredibly strong,” said Joe. “But he always has an amazing nonlethal way of stopping people, which is he webs them up. So in Tony’s mind, he’s like the perfect nonlethal weapon to bring to a fight.”
“The other thing we loved about Spider-Man is that he’s a kid,” added Anthony. “Everybody else was so experienced; they’d been through adventure after adventure. So we were like, let’s take the greenest version of Spider-Man — the kind of kid who’s just starting to use his powers, but he wasn’t the whole package yet. So that let Tony really become a mentor for him. We loved that relationship.”
Sebastian Stan and director Anthony Russo.
Director Joe Russo. Zade Rosenthal / Marvel Studios
Subverting expectations and preparing for Infinity War
The actual villain in Civil War, Zemo (Daniel Brühl), drew his name from the Marvel comics, but was otherwise radically transformed into a grieving Sokovian soldier who holds the Avengers responsible for his family’s death during the events of 2015’sAvengers: Age of Ultron.
“Zemo is not necessarily anything other than a conduit in the movie. He’s an allegorical villain. He doesn’t really do anything, other than, at a very crucial moment, open a can of worms in front of them when tensions are high,” Joe said, referring to Zemo’s reveal to Tony that Bucky killed his parents, sparking the wrenching climactic fight between Cap and Iron Man. By keeping the antagonist in Civil War so comparatively mortal and low key, the filmmakers hoped to further upend what audiences have come to expect from a superhero movie.
“We knew that we could give people a movie that is like, oh, Captain America, who’s the lead of the movie, isn’t going to fight the bad guy in the end of the movie,” said Anthony. “Even Iron Man, who’s the second lead, isn’t going to fight the villain. In fact, the guy who’s going to fight the villain, Black Panther, isn’t even going to fight the villain — he’s just going to keep the villain from killing himself.” (As for the obvious narrative parallels between Civil War and the recent Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Russos pled ignorance. “We knew nothing about the project,” said Anthony. “I think it was dangerous to our process to try to guess about what they might do.”)
Did you know Prince was the star of his very own (sort of) video game? It was a secondhand purchase, since the game isn’t produced anymore. Instead, I pulled a 14-year-old Sony VAIO out of my closet.
Did you know Prince was the star of his very own (sort of) video game?
Prince Interactive surfaced in 1994, right when the introduction of CD-ROMs was changing the world for PC users. It launched after Mystand The 7th Guest, along with a flood of other “Myst-alike”puzzle game knockoffs.
Of course, this one starred Prince, meaning it was inherently weirder than any of its contemporaries.
After his unexpected passing on Friday, I went looking for Prince Interactive. Even at a time when game streaming has turned “Let’s Play” videos intoa big business, there’s almost nothing to be found online. So I did what any other bereft Prince fan might have done: I ordered Prince Interactiveon Amazon.
It was a secondhand purchase, since the game isn’t produced anymore. What’s more, the 22-year-old CD-ROM is ancient enough that it can’t run on any Windows version more recent than XP.
If you have a registration key for any of the earlier Windows versions, it’s possible to set up a virtual drive using software like DOSBox and install Old Windows from there. That wasn’t an option for me. Instead, I pulled a 14-year-old Sony VAIO out of my closet. It still ran, and it had Windows XP.
Perfect.
Popping the CD-ROM in the drive which spun as loudly as you’d expect I loaded the setup executable and was greeted by this image:
A dizzying gauntlet of “OK” prompts followed as the setup process copied the files to their destination and advised me about editing my autoexec.bat(!!).
Before it finished, the installation app warned me in two consecutive pop-up messages to reboot my computer.
The whole thing was a welcome reminder that, nowadays, computers work for us (most of the time) and not the other way around.
Last year, I decided I was going to learn everything there is to know about love.It was almost summer, and the weather was getting warmer every day. After a string of dead-end “things” with guys throughout the previous year, I decided I was going to spend the next year studying love.
I wanted to ensure I’d be so knowledgeable when it came to relationships that I would never feel heartbroken again. It was a good thought, but what really ended up happening is something I could never have predicted. I discovered love cannot be learned, and that it has to be experienced.
In the beginning of my quest, I thought about the kind of person I wanted to love and how the person should love me. I read a lot of break-up poetry. I read books and filled the margins with notes. I wrote a lot about my own faults and how to fix them, convinced I couldn’t “reach” love until I did.
But, despite how much I studied, I found I was feeling more alone and less fulfilled with the relationships I had in my life than I ever had before. Not only had I not found love, but my friendships were suffering as well.By thinking so much about love, I forgot to love. I forgot how to give it and how to receive it. I had become really connected with myself and really disconnected with the rest of the world. It felt terrible.
Then one day, I came across a quote by Andrea Gibson, and I realized I had been approaching it all wrong. It said:
Before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.
That line became my new philosophy about love and relationships. It was like a light went on, and suddenly, I realized that in order to be someone’s safe place, you have to let down your walls and invite someone in. Love isn’t something you can take crash course in to ensure you’ll always succeed and never be hurt or disappointed.
It made all the sense in the world why in the last year, I had accomplished the opposite of what I set out to do. I had kept my heart closed. I had kept it locked away because it hurts when it’s broken. But, the result of locking something up is that nothing else can get in.
Sometimes, you have to put down the books, put down the pen and go live. People aren’t lists, and love cannot be planned or predicted. Love is a practice, and in order to experience all of its beauty, you have to immerse yourself in it. You have to give yourself over to the learning. You have to risk that it’s wrong. You have to risk that it’ll hurt.
Andrea’s quote will forever be one of my favorite reminders that being a lover and being loved requires vulnerability, something I’ve mastered behind a screen and hid from in the real world. I spent a year studying how to love, but until I lived every day intentionally experiencing it as a verb instead of studying it as a noun, I hadn’t learned a thing.
Now, I find that I see and experience love all around me. Love isn’t something that should ever be confined to describing just romantic relationships. In taking down my walls, the most meaningful and valuable friendships have enriched my life beyond anything I could have studied or prepared for.
Allowing myself to learn from experience and be open to the way love comes and goes has made me bolder in the way I live my life and love people.Last year, I viewed love as a destination, when it is a constant presence in our daily lives. It is being open and allowing your heart to grow, to flourish and to bloom.
You’ll find you learn so much along the way, and while getting hurt is always a possibility, so is a cosmic love. If you don’t want to miss out on that, let down your walls. Give it a try, and I’m sure you’ll find love has been there all along.
I’m a poet who loves to be unapologetically honest about the human condition. I love words, books, travel and enjoying this world.
There are some small moments in life that are really great. Turning on the television at the exact moment Robin Williams is giving his moving “Dead Poet’s Society” speech.
Unexpectedly learning that your entire purchase has been discounted 30 percent at checkout.
Glancing down at your phone to see a surprising text from a potential mate. All these instances make us feel like the universe is on our side.
The same goes for sex. While getting laid is always good, there are some choice encounters that qualify as really, really great.
In the morning haze, when you’re at your most vulnerable and still easing into the day, nothing beats the feeling of having someone next to you wrap his arms around you and make you feel wanted.
Morning sex is like eating chocolate cake for breakfast — it’s decadent, indulgent and comforting. Plus, who doesn’t want to linger in bed just a little longer?
The benefits extend to more than just being uncharacteristically nice to everyone for the rest of the day. Multiple studies have shown that individuals who engage in morning sex are healthier and happier people. Your post-coital glow that others are noticing isn’t totally bogus.
Waking up to an eager partner sure as hell beats waking up to an alarm clock.
Here are all the reasons morning sex is the best sex.
1. Because you’ll actually remember it.
This is a win for you and your girlfriends, who will appreciate the fully detailed recap later.
Normally you can’t recollect anything save a few fragments, “I think it was um, good?”; “He was hot, right? You guys saw him?” But now you’ll be able to fill in all the good stuff.
2. You’re guaranteed to wake up on the right side of the bed.
Sex in the morning gets you — and the day — off right. Researchers from the University of Cincinnati found that morning sex is a natural stress-reliever and these effects can last for at least seven days, meaning your early Monday romp could ease those Sunday Blues.
Morning sex also increases levels of IgA, an antibody that helps to fight against infection, according to Dr. Debby Herbenick, an American research scientist and author of “Because It Feels Good.” It’s like taking your daily vitamins… only way more pleasurable.
3. You can skip the gym.
It’s a way better alternative to a morning workout before hopping into the shower. Scientists confirm that an hour of sex burns almost as many calories as a 30-minute jog.
After an hour, men and women burn an average of 240 calories and 180 calories, respectively.
While that length of straight thrusting might be wishful thinking (unless you’re of the jack-hammer variety), like any good exercise routine, at least you’ll have something to work up to.
4. Who doesn’t want to begin the day with an orgasm?
It’s like Christmas morning — there’s a package waiting for you to enjoy. And everyone scores.
5. Because your clothes are already off.
This does make for a speedier process, which is key for weekday mornings.
Heed the advice of great philosopher and first man to state the obvious, Aristotle, ”If everyone is naked, it only follows then that we should have sex.” Wise guy.
6. You can carpool after.
Who needs to drive to work when you’re already riding dirty?
7. It’s more intimate.
The few minutes we have to ourselves after first opening our eyes are special. Most people who you’re in regular contact with have no idea what you look, sound, smell and feel like first thing in the morning. It’s a rare moment to others that’s all to yourself.
Fill that moment in with another person and it becomes a shared secret privy to only you two. That’s what makes morning sex so intimate.
It’s stripped of everything — clothes, makeup, the weight of a day’s events, toothpaste, priorities — and somehow leaves you feeling fuller.
8. Because shower sex just doesn’t cut it.
The water in your face, the slippery surfaces (especially where feet are concerned!), the soap in places that can’t support life with soap — shower sex is like the sh*tty water park version of intercourse you indulge in when you have nothing better to do over the summer.
Morning sex is the more fun, cooler theme park. Better than Disney.
9. It affirms that you two are still interested in each other sober.
Any sex that is not drunk and sloppy means there’s hope. When the lights are on, it’s even better getting off.
10. Because you love an excuse to gloat at work.
Coworker 1: How was your night?
You: I had amazing morning sex.
Coworker 2: I’m so stressed.
You: Morning sex could fix that. I would know.
Coworker 3: Where do you want to go for lunch?
You: Some place where they sell morning sex all day.
11. It’s a better replacement for coffee.
Sex gets you going first thing in the morning. A poke in the back jolts you awake in a way that caffeine can’t.
If you become addicted, we understand.
12. You leave on a high.
Morning sex is ending the night on a good note. Especially in more “foreign” bedrooms, post-morning sex acts as an inoffensive cue to exit. We f*cked. Now SCRAM!
13. There’s nothing like a good c*ck rooster to wake you up.
Exposed early breath, post-coital glow, natural daylight to contour your face — morning sex makes waking up early totally worth it.
