Sometimes in life your greatest enemy isn't the world - it's your own damn insecurities. Actress Aisha Tyler (Ross's sexy paleontologist ex on Friends and author of the new book Swerve) wants to change that, one woman at a time.

I am an advocate of women getting what they want, when they want it.

Guys as a gender have one giant collective delusion of grandeur. No matter how lumpy and misshapen, no matter how few teeth or hair follicles, no matter what unholy smells emanate from their personage, they twirl the vision of themselves in bed with the Coors Light twins around in their heads like a giant mental jawbreaker, sucking feverishly on a fantasy that is never to be.

We, as the more rational sex, will have none of it. "Better make the best of it!" we chirp gaily. Guys aspire, we concede. I, for one, think it's high time for that to end.
I'm not suggesting we all become wanton, with no regard for our physical and emotional health, indulging every urge and impulse. I'm just saying that you are entitled to be happy. You are entitled to be satisfied - whatever that word means to you. You are entitled, to coin a very dog-eared phrase, to be all that you can be. You are entitled to be a badass.

What does that mean? Well, I'm not going to tell you how to start a bar fight with a broken bottle. Being a badass is more about living your life without all the esteem-killer thoughts, the self-doubt and obsessive behavior, the kooky-crazy awful stuff we do that makes us wake up the next morning and go, "Oh, my god, what was I thinking?" Trust me, we all have those moments. I've had plenty. Learn from me, grasshopper.

Get over…hating your body
Too many of us are still caught up in the idea that women have to be rail thin. Don't get me wrong, that whole beauty standard exists, and it's real. But there are all these luscious, hippy, puffy, thick women running around, being sexual and commanding and free and oh-so-cool, and we admire them. We admire Missy Elliott and Natalie Maines and Macy Gray and Pink and Beyoncé Knowles. We think they are cool and beautiful and talented and taking care of business and completely and utterly fly - so why do we still want to have a body like a 13-year-old gymnast's? Why do we still think it would be better to look as if we just recovered from a six-month bout with an intestinal parasite?

I was in New York once, visiting with a couple of male friends of mine, and one had recently gotten in shape for a movie role. The guy was super cut, no joke. You could see his liver converting sugar to energy right through his stomach, the guy was so fat-free. I was duly impressed and began grilling him because I wanted to lose some weight and get really cut too. And both guys began yelling at me, interrupting each other, their words tumbling out in a panic. And what they both said was, "Noooo! Don't do that! Don't lose weight! Guys like curves!"

Guys. Like. Curves. So why is it that girls don't?

I think there are strong and lingering ideas of what we think we should be that fight every day in our heads with what we know we can be. I think we still believe being super thin is being powerful, is being in control, is being smarter, more creative, more productive, better. But as Missy and her curvy cohorts so deliciously prove, it's not. Not even a little bit. You can be fly as hell without being a size 6.

Which is not to say that you shouldn't take care of that luscious body of yours, and make it as healthy and strong as it can be. I'm not advocating that you be razor thin, pencil thin or even dill-pickle thin. Hell, you can be meatball-hoagie thick if you like. You should be whatever feels good to you. But liking and using your body, this incredible, sexy, goddesslike body, is your birthright, mamacita. Working out makes you healthy and gives you the kind of physical strength you need to make it through a long night of partying without fainting like a Brontë heroine. And it gives you the self-confidence to tell all the people around you - when they are telling you there is no way you will ever be a multiplatinum hip-hop artist, or great chef, or cat fancier, or whatever floats your junk - to go screw themselves.

Get over…being a love martyr
I once liked a boy. A lot. This boy liked me OK, and eventually we got together, and the sex was fine. In my mind it was mind-blowing sex, mainly because I liked the boy so much. But really it was just OK - a bit too much time spent arguing over directions, if you know what I mean.
But we started dating and I was happy, despite the fact that this boy still couldn't seem to find his way around, despite my patient and quite detailed directions. If you know what I mean.

Then, for reasons out of our control, this boy and I had to be separated for a time. I was devastated. And I vowed that I would never look at another boy while we were apart, that I would live the life of an ascetic until the boy's safe return.

True to my vow, I wore the same pair of awful overalls every day and stopped going to parties, wearing makeup or brushing my hair. I suppose I believed that by not wearing mascara, drinking beer or wearing any clothing that broadcast the true shape of my figure to others, I was sending a message to the universe that this was the boy for me - in hopes that the universe would get him back to me quickly, safely and with a new-found knowledge of the female anatomy.

The universe paid no attention. Neither did the boy, who neglected to call. Finally my stricken (and disgusted) friends threw me, dungarees and all, into the a cold shower. After I called them many curse words, and hit one of them in the head with a bottle of conditioner, they set me straight. It didn't take long. That I hadn't heard from the boy in three weeks was pretty telling. That he was sleeping with the cousin of a friend of one of my roommates was a bad sign as well.

I promptly burned the overalls, brushed my hair, did three shots of Jägermeister and went out to party. Eventually I forgot about the boy. But I never forgot what I learned:

1. Get a life. Slavish devotion is creepy and not so sexy. Guys - like everyone - are attracted to a person who has her own interesting and complex existence.
2. Take care of yourself. Not for guys and not for other women - for you. Being sexy is all about being confident, feeling good about what you've got going on and secure in the knowledge that the package looks as good as its contents.
3. Don't waste time obsessing about a guy who doesn't follow directions.

Get over…thinking sex=love
Sex is not love. Sex. Is. Not. Love. This is the single greatest mistake young women (and men) make in their lives. We sleep with some dude we find mildly loathsome, have what turns out to be whiplash sex and then suddenly conjure up mental tableaux of our three-bedroom, two-bath split-level ranch with a koi pond and sandstone kitchen flooring. Disabuse yourself of this notion. It is a path of destruction.

Sure, you should be able to have sex on your own terms, without commitment if you want it that way, without that sickening feeling you get in the morning after you sleep with a guy and realize you don't even really like him that much, except…

Except, you got attached. Now starts four months of gut-wrenching confusion as you try to (a) push him away out of disgust and (b) pull him toward you out of some genetically programmed mechanism that has imprinted him onto your psyche through the act of intercourse. When all along you could have been having a great time with your friends, not wasting one little bit of brain matter thinking about this knucklehead and why he told you he would call and the seemed, somehow, to disappear, taking his phone line, apartment doorbell and close circle of friends with him.

Sex is not love. Love is chocolate. And puppies. And TiVo. Get it straight.

Which is why you should get over the one-night stand. It is rare that a one-night stand is ever good. And let's say, just for kicks, that the sex was good somehow. It is almost a certainty that you will not get to enjoy it again. Regardless of how ravishing you are when you wake up in the morning, he will think to himself: That was too easy. What's wrong with this broad? To add injury to insult, a one-night stand gives you no time to assess his psycho-dom. You do not want to let a strange guy in your home, let alone your body, without vetting him first. Let's be clear: Your body is a temple. A nice, clean, hot, curvy temple, and none shall pass without proper clearance.

Get over…marriage mania
Matrimony is all the rage these days, as evidenced by such morality plays as Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? and The Bachelorette. According to reality television, we women are all just dying to get hitched, no matter how bizarre the context or how creepy the guy (Evan Marriott? Yeesh!)

Your life should not be about trapping a man, getting a man, snaring a husband. Yawn. That will come. You don't decide to get married and the find a husband. You meet and interact with a bunch of interesting and intelligent men, and then if one suits your requirements, you consider hitching your wagon to his for eternity. You discover a husband - you don't scrounge one up.

Yes, family and children are great, no doubt. But how can you be a good wife and mother if you're not a good person all by yourself? You don't see guys limping all over God's green earth weeping about how they've got to scratch up a wife by 30 or they'll be a failure. No. They are blissfully drinking carbonated malt-liquor beverages and squeezing into tiny, shiny shirts and ogling women far too hot to ever consider dating them. They are living their lives.

Get with it, mama. You're a hot, young, intelligent woman with interests, goals and needs, and you are entitled to have those needs met to your complete satisfaction. Men have felt and understood this entitlement for years, which is why they spend their children's college funds on European convertibles shortly before leaving their wives for models with the medically augmented lips of a baboon…but I digress.

Wanting a husband before you've learned to live and love your life on your own terms is like trying to walk before you try to crawl, or better yet, trying to win a marathon without training for it. Marriage is something you arrive at, a moment when you look at each other and just know you're both ready to do whatever it takes to stay together. It's snot a thing you plan out in your Filofax. If you see it that way, I know a couple of good divorce lawyers.

If you see it the other way, congratulations. You're halfway there. Whether you're single, dating, married or cat-obsessed, I wish you the best of everything.

As printed in the February 2004 issue of Glamour magazine. Retyped without permission, but I tried to find it on their site with no success, and it was just too good a message to not pass along.