Helen Gurley Brown, who edited Cosmopolitan Magazine for 31 years, died earlier this week at the age of 90. The internet is full of fraught discussions about whether or not her work was feminist, and there is not much I could add to the conversation that someone quicker hasn’t already said.

Toward the end of my teenage years, I stopped buying Seventeen and started picking up Cosmo to read on the long stretches between customers at the pizza shop where I worked the register. It was the first enthusiastically sex-positive literature I’d gotten my hands on, and it was exhilarating to read something that encouraged women to embrace their sexuality so unapologetically.

Now, there was, of course, a lot of laughably bad advice, the stuff for which Cosmo sex columns have long been lampooned on the internet. But, while there are arguments that Brown was, in her own way, a feminist icon, there were also Cosmo sex tips that were helpful rather than hilarious.

Some of the best sex advice I picked up from Cosmo:

1. Whether you have a super-model figure or not, spend time looking at your body naked, and take note of what you like. Body confidence makes sex better.
2. Masturbate in front of each other. It’s a turn-on. It’s an education. And, this sort of boldness makes you less self-conscious around each other, which will help you broaden the sexual menu over time.
3. Use pillows to prop up body parts or add needed padding to a variety of sex positions. That small change in angles can make a novel difference.
4. Make some noise! Getting audible in bed lets your partner know that you are enjoying yourself, and can make your own orgasms more intense.
5. Always pee after sex to avoid UTIs. Not sexy in itself, but, definitely a good way to keep the works open for business.
6. Bring sex toys into the bedroom to heat things up. Not a new tip, it’s true, but an idea that I first encountered in the pages of Cosmo.