In August, we lit the candles, pulled the chairs into a circle and invited a room full of women to say the things we usually save for our closest friends. Girl Dinner, our first evening co-hosted with LOLA, the organic cotton period care brand, was part dinner party, part theater and part Q&A with a doctor. It was one of the most honest rooms we've ever been in.

How the night worked

Every guest got a card with a prompt about sex, periods or their body, and filled it out anonymously. The cards went to the front of the room, where sex writer and creator Dare Moreno drew them one by one and acted each one out, in a nod to The Vagina Monologues. First times, period mishaps and the questions nobody had ever asked out loud each got a scene, a big laugh and then a real conversation.

After each scene, Sela's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Sophia Lubin, answered the health questions behind the stories, from period care to the feminine health concerns so many of us put off asking about. Laughing first made the questions easier to ask, and having a doctor in the room meant they got real answers.

Why we did it

Sela exists because so many women, and especially Black women in a city that never slows down, push their own health to the bottom of the list. Conversations about our bodies shouldn't only happen in a 15-minute appointment, or not at all.

The idea came from creative strategist Tahirah A'sha of O + o STUDIOS, who had co-hosted an event with our founder, Kayalin Akens-Irby, in LA. As Kayalin put it, "There will always be more women that need to be impacted around these types of topics."

LOLA powered the evening and sent every guest home with a goody bag of its period care and sexual wellness essentials. Guests snacked on bites from woman-owned brands.

More from the night

In the press

ESSENCE Senior Beauty & Style Editor Akili King was in the room and wrote about the night in her column, The Ritual Report. Read her piece on ESSENCE.

What's next

We've already promised each other there will be more. Join the Sela list to get the invite to the next Girl Dinner and our other community events in Harlem. You can also watch the Girl Dinner recap on Instagram.

If the night stirred up questions about your cycle, hormones or reproductive health, a Wellness Exam is a good place to start: 60 minutes with our team and 60+ biomarkers, so you get answers based on your own labs.