no strings

i thought that i

could be brave enough

to make love to you

with

no

strings attached

but your arms around me felt like strings

your fingers, like strings

when you used them to massage my neck

and caress my back

and my legs

felt like strings

when i

held them around your neck

& squeezed and scratched your back

leaving marks that looked like strings

i thought

we could be happy together

laughing before, during, and after

wrapped up in damp sheets

and avoiding each other’s eyes so that we can pretend that it wasn’t that deep

all that touching and holding and moaning

we just did

because we are f’cking without strings

attached

but it felt like a string

pulling and luring me back to you

tying your hands above your head

torturing you with my eyes

because the strings would not allow me to look any other way

or place

as I straddled you and rode you to perfection

but it’s cool because

i never promised to love you

and you never promised to love me back

and i don’t need you to love me

i just want you to want me. . .back

but these strings in my heart

won’t let me

my pride

won’t let me

hold on to false strings

yet somehow i got attached

© R. Boylorn, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

This poetic response offers an extension of Crunktastic’s Birthday Sex post on March 1, 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Joy(s) of Being A (Black) Woman

I taught a class of Black Women’s Stories this semester and it culminated in a moment of clarity and a recognition of joy. When speaking with a black woman scholar whom I both admire and respect, I shared some of my concerns about the course and how while the stories are certainly powerful, many narratives of black womanhood concentrate on pain, including my own.  I shared that I was excited about the class because it allowed me to collect all of my favorite black girl/woman stories and teach them—teach myself—but that I did not want anyone to walk away feeling like black womanhood is an altogether negative experience/reality.

After acknowledging the importance that such a class exist, particularly in an institution that might otherwise render black womanhood invisible and insignificant, my mentor asked a poignant question: “What about the joy of being a black woman?”  She said, “With all the struggles attached I have never wanted to be anything other than a black woman.  I have never wanted to be a man.  And I have never wanted to be white.”

While I had escaped penis envy all my life, as a child I did wish for whiteness—though my memory does not distinguish if it was the skin or the privilege attached to it that I most longed for. 

My mentor challenged me to have my students read a story about the deliciousness of black womanhood and not just the struggle/s and oppression/s.  When I asked what book she was talking about she had no answer, but I realized that every book written by a black woman about being a black woman contains this bliss—even though it is sometimes hidden and tucked around survival and sacrifice.  I realized that the things and women we read, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Joan Morgan, Cheryl Clarke, Ntozake Shange, Rebecca Walker, Meri Danquah, Patricia Hill Collins, Marita Golden and others, were writing about being (fully feeling/loving/embracing/learning) black and female.  An acknowledgment of the discrimination is not a rejection of all that we are.

While there was a repetition of pain fostered in an inability to not break (resisting or embracing strongblackwomanhood) stereotypes, ambivalence about love/relationships/life, witnessing  loveless partnership, experiencing passionless sex, fearing forced celibacy and loneliness, the inner workings of incest, anger, secrets shared, abandonment, mama and daddy issues, and depression…we read a range of pieces from my life.  “Strongblackwomen” “in search of our mothers’ gardens” with “home girls” fighting “the myth of the superwoman” and declaring “a black feminist statement” while “using anger to respond to racism” and finding the need to face ourselves in our sisters, “eye to eye.”  Dreaming of “blue eyes” and “the days of good looks” when “lesbianism was an act of resistance.” “Lusting for freedom,” pouring balm on “wounds of passion” while the “willow wept for me,”…with me, I found myself in “Sula” because she wanted to make herself, not somebody else, just like me– and fought off “whitegirls” “shifting” through “bone black” ashes on my brown black skin and fighting with and for “endangeredblackmen,” realizing finally that this experience was “For Strong Women” and “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”

From Barbara Smith’s Introduction to Home Girls to Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought to Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider to Joan Morgan’s When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost we analyzed black women’s experiences of discrimination but also her experiences of joy.  Pleasure.  Power. Love.

I asked my students to go back to every thing we had read and pull out the joy!  The joy of being a black woman.  And we assembled in a classroom circle calling out how the stories teach black girls to be unapologetically themselves and find joy in friendships and relationships with other black women, even unconventional black women.  How romantic relationships begin with hope and anticipation, anxious waiting and “good love” and good lovin even if it sometimes ends.  About sisterhood and friendship and moments of escape and dreams—finding love, inspiring love, writing love, loving yourself, being erotic in every endeavor and enjoying life. Finding power, yes power, and loving black men (and women) as friends (and lovers) and the good side of mothering—and art as an escape and poetry as a medium and being sexual and sexy “like a grown woman” before you are grown and how blackness defines blackness and there is pride and purpose in being a black woman feminist revolutionary. Being free and beautiful in your own self. Moving to music and making love through song, we found black women to be innovators, spiritual healers, inheriting creativity and security and using tears and each other to move forward and on.

I can borrow their words or use my own but we realized in that moment that all along we had been reading about joy, hidden beneath pain, in the everyday experiences of being a woman of color.  It was beautiful and telling. And above all JOYFUL!

I Will Follow – A Movie Review

My bestie Yolo and I decided to see the movie I Will Follow after hearing rave reviews from friends.

We were a bit taken aback because the movie was well… good!

There were queer characters not caricatures, complex family dynamics, and emotional tenderness. We liked it so much we made a video blog  documenting our reations!

**Spoiler Alerts***

We’ll have the transcript up real soon.

We were so delighted with our impromptu review we tweeted it to the Film Maker Ava DuVernay and she actually watched it and had this to say:

“I enjoyed this wildly. @IWillFollowFilm video review by @quirkyblackgirl. “Thou shall not swing.” http://tinyurl.com/4pvlxxr @AVADVA

Though it may seem improbable that in a 14 minute clip there were a few things we forgot to mention, its true!

Two things that we wanted to add were that:

• Color(ism) matters- While generally the film had a cast of many colors, or hues of blackness, we did find it interesting that the characters with the most screen time were the lighter ones. No shade (pun intended) to the casting directors but  complexion in film does a lot of implicit signaling and we thought it was something to think about.

• We loved the beautifully untied ending- We almost fell out of our chairs when the film did not end with the typical she-got-a-man-all-is-right-with-the-world ending! Her relationship with her husband remained unresolved; she didn’t run off to build a new life with Troy. We were left wondering but assured that life must go on, even in the face of uncertainty. It left us with the possibility that a black woman could be ok, and could carry on without the fictional security that “having a man” supposedly brings. Yolo said it was reminiscent of the final scenes in the Zora Neal Hurston classic Their Eyes Were Watching God

This month at the CFC we’ve been doing B sides to post from the last year. I’d like to offer this post as a “B” side to my For Colored Girls review as I think this film speaks to the amazing possibilities of black cinema just as Perry’s piece was illustrative of so many limitations.

Single, Saved, and Sewn-In: The Gospel of Getting Your Hair Done

* To celebrate our anniversary month, some of us are revisiting previous posts from the past year and reflecting on them. I have chosen to reflect on “Single, Saved and Sexin’: The Gospel of Getting Your Freak On” because it was one of our most popular posts. Crunkashell’s truth telling and well-written argument inspired me to think about another Biblical edict that has shaped my life. I hope this frees you too.                                                            

Unapologetically sewn-in.

 

Like most conservative, fundamentalist, literalist Christian folks, I grew up believing that getting your hair done was a sin—the only sin, in fact, that ever made God tell an angel to go to hell. For years, my grooming experiences were laden with guilt. I routinely went years at a time without getting my hair professionally done, until societal pressure would push me to give in to my urges. I couldn’t even enjoy all of the shocked faces at my high school prom because I just knew that if Jesus came back during the middle of a Luther song, I would burn in hell from the tips of my toes to the top of my perfectly coifed hair. I was caught in a continual cycle of high maintenance cuts, low maintenance care, trim, condition, rinse and repeat, topped off with five years of home hair care (if you can call what I did care). I treated hairstyling as if it were a bad habit that I desperately needed to break.

 

Is this the man of God who is supposed to be attracted to a woman whose head is a wreck? Or is he a sinner because he has dyed his hair, permed it, and drawn in his edges?

All of this is a prelude to a confession: I’m single. I’m saved (as in a born-again, my-name-is-on-the-list, goin-up-a-yonder Christian). And I have a sew-in. Unapologetically.

At my former church, I spent Saturday mornings (the time that many women spend in the hairdresser’s chair) with beautiful, dynamic, educated women whose heads were wrecks. We didn’t consider ourselves self-righteous; we were easy to be around and non-judgmental of each other. Together we prayed for the fallen sisters among us—the ones who missed a Saturday in sinful preparation for a Monday job interview. We also prayed for those who, in frustration, committed the most heinous sin of all: braids—the only hairstyle that the Bible explicitly denounces TWICE. We realized that they weren’t evil-hearted for their refusal to live by Christian standards: we prayed for an evil world that calls everyone to a standard of vanity that Paul and Peter both found appalling for women. More than anything, we prayed for the heterosexual men of God that our savior promised to send—men who would judge us by the content of our characters rather than the hair on our heads.

Isn't she holy? Isn't she also fried, dyed and laid to the side?

When we were teenagers making non-vanity pledges, we couldn’t have guessed that these promises would have such an effect on our romantic lives 10-20 years later. In fact, according to our worldview, our (lack of) hairstyles wasn’t the problem; the problem was with the sinful men who were attracted to the very vanity that God despised—the men who preferred long hair, short hair, natural hair—any style at all. We were convinced that we were doing the right thing and the rest of the world, though beautiful by man’s standards, was wrong.

I still respect the sisters who believe that and I believe that we serve the same God; I just no longer believe in their ethics of care. It is hard to live and thrive in a world that you know is gawking at your head. It’s hard to take the Bible as the gospel truth when black women are already policed in this society that is built on the fact of our deplorability. Do black women get a pass on the Bible’s vanity clause when they live in a society that demands it? Were not Paul’s words written to a people for whom “get up and go” hair was not a cause for consternation? What should black women do with their hair when we can neither cut it, style it, perm it, or God forbid, braid it? And were our ancestors living in sin for the hundreds of years that nimble fingers weaved intricate braids in the heads of women and men? I cannot serve a God who would turn someone away from His heaven for a hairstyle.

Holy hair.

After all of these years, I’ve realized that the perfectly humble, holy hairstyle is not what I needed. I needed a bigger view of God.

For so many women, the biggest faith struggle is believing God for a male, heterosexual life partner. The women pray, serve, and refuse to apply makeup or comb their hair in hopes that God will send a spirit-filled, Word-educated man who was wildly attracted to their piety. Black women especially are attacked from both “the church” and “the world” about all the things we are doing that keep us single. The church says take off that makeup; men will think we are sex workers. The world, with the help of Queen Latifah, says we’d better not; men will think we are not nice or fun. The church says stay away from those demonic braids because they were a sign of sex work in Paul’s day. The world says get a sew-in—a style that requires braids—because real men dig Beyonce.  

God is bigger than our understanding of Him. I have learned the limitations of my previous belief in the inerrancy of a text. Words, like any sign, are infinitely interpretable. Trying to nail down the single truth of a sign is an attempt by man to control a world that has always been out of control. Running from the hairdresser’s chair in a fit of guilt when she’d only finished half my perm felt better than coming to terms with cancer’s attack on my family.  Walking the halls with my afro flat on one side made me feel righteous and important in a school that didn’t value us enough to give us new books. Shouting out of our hastily-done ponytails in church gave us joy in the face of the poverty we faced all week long. There are so many things that we cannot control; refusing to change my hair does not change this fact. It only blinds me to world-problems that I’d probably have the confidence to effect if I weren’t so caught up on this head of mine.

So hairstyling is back on the table for me. I have a sew-in. It’s luxurious. Underneath my sewn-in hair is a set of braids that would make my former Sunday School teacher speak in tongues. When my stylist patiently parted my tangled hair and gently braided it close to my scalp (but not too tight), I fell in love with her and refused to feel bad about it. My sew-in hides the sin of my braids, but one day I will feel bold enough to rock a fro-hawk or some other style that shows the extent to which I have “back-slid.” And that’s ok. I believe in a God who will love me anyhow.

That’s why I’m unapologetically single, saved, and sewn-in.

The Game Rewind (and Revise)

Last night, CF Asha and I chatted about BETs The Game. We discussed our overall opinion of the series as a whole and the Tuesday (3/1/11) episode specifically. As Crunk Feminist we pay particular attention to the linkages of race, gender, and popular culture and ask for the writers and producers to do better. We posted the edited transcript of our conversation below.  (Note: It’s a bit long, but its a chat so should be a quick read).

Ashaf: Where should we start?
Chanel: well i think the Meagan Good (Parker) thing is a good place
Ashaf: But the season begins with Parker slapping the hell out of Malik. Sometimes I’m not sure whether I should take umbrage at the violence or accept it as part of kink culture. Are there lines? Am I being provincial?
Chanel: I don’t remember the context of the first slap. Was it sexual?
Ashaf: They were having sex on a toilet I think.
Chanel: lol. But they’re doing a lot of slapping this season. Didn’t Mel slap the shit out of Derwin last night?
Ashaf: Yes. Melanie got her slap on a few times last night
Chanel: That’s some lazy ass kink writing. The way they participated really wasn’t in a way that disrupted any kinds of sex norms, which is what I think is interesting about kink. This kink was on some Usher shit.
Ashaf: On some Usher shit!!! Bwahaha!!!
Chanel: what’s that song where he wants her to be the man for the night? Trading Places. Anyway in that song he does this whole thing about how he wants her to take control and give it to him like he usually gives it to her, but then in the end he takes control back. And some kind of way this kind of kink is similar because it seems to be controlled by male sexual desire.
Ashaf: Male desire definitely controlled Melanie’s attempts to liven things up last night. Did you see her face after the other woman kissed her?
Chanel: That whole thing was a shitty ass mess and did nothing for the overall goal of the season
Ashaf: What is the overall goal of the season? PLEASE clue me in
Chanel: i feel like this season really wasn’t thought of when Mara conceptualized the show.
Ashaf: I think they’re just trying to stay on television by cramming in as many stereotypes, booty shots, and pseudo-dramatic scenes as they can.
Chanel: I think that what we saw at the end of The Game’s run on the CW was supposed to be its ultimate ending that would have taken several seasons to get to. Now that it came back they have to try to create drama. But it would be much more useful if they were highlighting some Other Side of the Game (shoutout to Badu) that we didn’t know about. They are really pulling straight from the ESPN headlines and not even doing anything interesting with what they portray
Ashaf: Yes. The same formula won’t work here– especially when the show picks up two years later…
Chanel: They are using the headlines as a measure of authenticity as opposed to actually being authentically relevant to the lives of the viewers
Ashaf: I read an article that suggested that the Game was ahead of its time because the things that they were portraying eventually actually happened on reality television… Now they are behind those headlines, and it looks a little cheap, not cheeky.
Chanel: That’s so true. But it’s sad because these are the only places we have any form of representation. We are not on regular TV at all
Ashaf: But that’s why I’m so thirsty!
Chanel: i mean i feel like through the realm of cable television we have the power to really take some kind of power in our own hands and control the African American cultural representations. Cable television has a little more freedom than regular television because each channel tries to cater to a particular audience as opposed to a broad audience—so BET to black audiences
Ashaf: Yes!!!! And I thought The Game would be really powerful because it was OUR show– brought back by popular demand, not a major Network’s decision.
Chanel: but then that makes me wonder, what the game is saying to a largely black viewing audience, especially about male/female relationships and about black women. So for me, it’s largely becoming a disciplining project for black women. It’s providing a sort of measuring stick for us to adhere to.
Ashaf: Yes. Another way to tell black women how to get, keep and treat a man. Still, I wonder if the changes were the network’s decision or if they really just had less money and fired the good writers. The show looks like the writers meet in a living room and don’t belong to a union.
Chanel: yes! We totally need to know about the production
Ashaf: what about the rape scene last night?
Chanel: omfg. The rape scene
Chanel: that shit pissed me off on so many levels
Ashaf: Level one: Did she really “cry rape”- as in take a saying literally? Is that what people do? I wish that somebody came knocking on the door every time a woman cried rape…
Chanel: As if that what’s rape looks like though- screaming and throwing things. Sometimes sure. But that stereotyping of the reaction to rape is deeply troubling and leads a lot of women to blame themselves or wonder if it even happened because that wasn’t their reaction
Ashaf: Even if we give that horrible performance by Parker a pass and believe that she coerced Malik into sex with that move, what does it mean that the coercion was glossed over? He cried a few tears on a naked model before the show ended. But that was all. Coercion and rape were both jokes last night.
Chanel: Because certain bodies are unrapeable. Men and black women- these bodies can never be raped. So Malik wasn’t raped because men can’t be
Ashaf: Yes yes yes
Chanel: and for Parker, that just perpetuates the idea that black women cannot be raped because they either asked for it or are lying.
Ashaf: Especially those who claim to be raped by those with a great deal of power. We all know that powerful men have hearts– just like Malik. And golddiggers will try anything to make them fall.
Chanel: and speaking of the connection to the headlines, was that not that whole Kobe thing?
Ashaf: Yes, it was the Kobe thing. Recycling some questions from the public about Kobe’s rape trial: Why would Malik have to rape her when women throw themselves at him all the time?
Chanel: [difference being on the body of a black woman. and that connects to the history of the jezebel. the black female slave couldn’t be raped because she was hypersexual and was always already desiring and wanting some dick. Parker wanted sex so bad that she threatened rape to get it. I wonder if they’ll ever show that on the show. A football player actually raping
Ashaf: They lightweight showed one form of sexual exploitation last season when Malik revealed that he had a room full of videos of women, and that some of them didn’t know he was taping.
Chanel: oooooh yeah. I remember that shit. Surveillance at its finest
Chanel: i just worry about the implications of such representations. We’ve been blogging about this in the way that first black women’s experiences of sexual violence are never talked about and second when they are talked about they are deeply problematic. So in this case, she uses rape as a tool of manipulation and unlike a golddigger that wants his money she is hypersexual and only wants sex. But it’s still contributing to these archetypes of black womanhood that keep getting reinscribed and fed back to us (shout to Patricia Hill Collins)
Ashaf: It is strange that violence against women has never been addressed in this show that is all about athletes and their wives and fans… So why is it Malik’s character that gets used for all the “deep” stuff– absent fathers, tolerance of homosexuality, now coercion, rehab…? Is he supposed to be the most hypermasculine?
Chanel: He is supposed to be the representation of stereotypical black male athletes. The problem is they don’t really problematize this representation. Like it could be done really differently and good by pointing more closely to the structures that create such a representation. But instead they just drop that shit in and it sounds so familiar (single mom, drugs…) that it doesn’t call us to be critical. I’m thinking of a show like The Wire that did that particular well (though still left women and girls invisible and marginalized at best)
Ashaf: Right! I was going there. Earlier, they were doing some interesting things with his character… The Michael Eric Dyson guest appearance, the big girls episode… even the (hastily written) homosexuality episode. Now there’s no snark left.
Chanel: yes. That episode was good. It was one of the only times we saw black gay men on TV that weren’t there for comedic fodder
Ashaf: But even the gay episode was kinda comedic, right? Like is that really how gay men get down? They just read some signs then rub up on somebody from behind? That was kinda about heterosexist phobia that all gay men really want is to sleep with straight men…
Chanel: o yeah. I didn’t really remember the details of the episode. But you’re right. It was very flat representation. Even the model saving him provides a binary opposition for Parker and we get another good girl/bad girl thing happening where we are told to view one as evil and one as good. They ain’t slick with their constructions.
Ashaf: Yes– definitely the good girl/ bad girl shit going on. And what does a good girl want? To help the suffering man– even if it means jeopardizing her own sobriety by messing with another addict. What does the bad girl want? To satiate her own desires by any means necessary– cheating on her husband, crying rape-literally-, and coercing Malik into sex and cunnilingus. What was that “cat got your tongue AGAIN?” shit?
Chanel: I also want to touch on the threesome thing. I think it really showed (while not problematizing) the way that we as women continue to see ourselves as projects to be worked on. So even when our partner isn’t expressing dissatisfaction we go off and work on ourselves. Derwin didn’t ask for any of that, but she felt that she had to be better to keep her man. I feel like she’s having to do a lot of changing to keep him in ways that she didn’t have to before.
Ashaf: Yes. Harveyism. The message is that the marriage’s upkeep is up to the woman. I mean she literally dropped everything to “take care of” her husband. What does it look like to take care of a millionaire?
Chanel: how the hell he gon make her go to church?
Ashaf: Right! And when did he become the “head” of the household? He was so corny for all those seasons, but they were more like equals… both focused on doing their own thing and trying to figure out how to love and coexist.
Chanel: yes! How to love and coexist. I hate that Mel lost a part of herself to become one with him. I don’t believe that marriage is about two halves becoming whole. It is about 1+1=2
Ashaf: That is good addition, but in popular culture, love begins with subtraction. Black women need to take away a lot of things before they find “the one”– their attitude, their independence, their high standards and aspirations…
Ashaf: Last night, the women in competition trope was so loud!
Chanel: yes. Too loud. Where is the sisterhood?
Ashaf: Melanie’s competing with unknown groupies, with Derwin’s former lover, with the random woman at the club… She didn’t go through with the threesome because she felt jealous.
Chanel: *snaps*
Chanel: seriously. Melanie’s character has changed drastically
Chanel: she was always messing things up but i feel like before she was searching for self
Chanel: I’m not sure what she’s doing now
Chanel: it’s all out of fear of losing him. So really you’ll do ANYTHING to keep your man?
Chanel: you can miss me with all that. Seriously
Ashaf: I wish the producers would figure it out. The Janae thing is old (more competition!), Mel should have got used to it by now, and should even love Derwin’s son. Med school was a space for tension in the previous seasons– now she’s done. Her hair was sassy before. Now she looks like Weavonce.
Chanel: I feel like she’s become Kelly Pitts’ former character. The way she conducts that Sunbeam stuff is so unlike her. I also didn’t like that Melanie’s measure of progressiveness was tied to having a threesome. She told the woman something like “i thought i was the progressive woman but I’m not.” sooooo [not having a threesome] discounts your progressive politics?
Ashaf: Progressive is following your own desires, sweetheart, not fashioning your desires after what you imagine men will like.
Chanel: i mean i don’t think she’s progressive (well the show hasn’t shown that) but what does that have to do with that scene? And i feel like in some way it ties sexual activity to feminism. I mean they didn’t say feminism but i know they were lumping us in to that
Ashaf: I think it has to do with boiling down discussions of sexualities to discussions of tolerance. I am all for the no-bullying campaigns, but discussions of sexuality have the potential to queer lines… when we only talk about tolerance we are really talking about being politically correct (I don’t see sexuality. We’re all the same)
Chanel: but i know I’ll keep watching and hoping for it to get better
Ashaf: So what do you say to the person who asks why we don’t just change the channel? Why is it worth writing about? I gotta have something to tell my parents:)
Chanel: because we believe in it its potential and we have previous seasons to back up our beliefs. If we really felt that it was too far gone, we wouldn’t write about it. There is so much power and necessity in talking about sports
Ashaf: I think it’s also because pop culture is a form of education. People don’t want to criticize what they enjoy, but they are learning all along. This show will educate the jurors on future rape trials and that’s scary to me.
Chanel: so true! Pop culture matters in so many ways. I just really want complex representations of blackness in all its forms
Ashaf: Yes… crying for complexity
Chanel: depending on how this is received we can think about briefly talking about The Game every Tuesday

no love

i don’t write love poetry anymore

or/poetry about love

my heart and bed are empty

my thoughts a distant memory

of/what love used to be

*

i once wrapped my life & legs around him

watched from the outside as i

lost myself in someone else

who didn’t lose himself in me

it was an out of body experience

& when he touched me, he moved me

mentally

his voice melted me like butter

& in his presence i was weak

when he would walk into a room

it was his eyes that would speak

saying, “Robin, c’mere”

& i would come every time

@ the drop of a dime

thinking if only he were mine

i would find a way to

love him longer/pull him in deeper/make myself sweeter i

often wondered how miraculous it would be

if he used his powers for good

when I would tell my friends about his swag

i was often misunderstood

but there was

healing in his fingers &

peace across his lips &

wonder in the rhythm

when he moved inside my hips

he had that voodoo

to woo, ah, & please

skills that could bring a grown woman to her knees

so imagine me, half grown

but mostly just an aged child

trippin’ off the way he had me

hypnotized/with his eyes

until I could hardly see

he offered me his love & i was a fiend immediately

wanting whatever piece of himself

he was willing to offer me

i wanted to give him a progeny

tattoo his name all over me

until my whole body was numb

i was trippin & his so-called love

left me mute, deaf, & dumb

i was paralyzed by the lull of his words

seducing me like poetry

i begged him to

speak to me

get to me

make me feel things were the way that they used to be

the days when he would stare at me with wonder & surprise

the 26 months before he got between my thighs

when we were friends & not lovers

when we would laugh & not fight

when we would sleep with no covers

& make love until the daylight

but

that was all an illusion

& all his back & forth kisses

brought me was confusion

it all began to make sense/eventually

loving him was becoming detrimental to me

i lost who i was & tried to be who he wanted me to be

& it took hours & years in front of the mirror to finally see

that that just could not be

light skinned & simple minded

i simply can’t be

submissive & open-handed?

paying a “love me” fee?

giving up my body & mind?

baby, that shit is NOT free

so you can stay with that other chick

but she can’t do it like me!

*

i was crossing over emptiness

building bridges with fences

& when he left, i finally came to my senses

seeking bliss from a fool when I should have been seeking princes

i had to put up my defenses

& honesty is a must

that wasn’t love that i felt

that feeling was lust

i don’t write love poetry anymore.

Living Single

I hate the term single. Despite the fact that most of us come in to this world by ourselves and leave that way there’s an expectation of partnering in the interim. And while you are granted a bit more of a reprieve from single shade* in queerdom, there’s still a palpable partner privilege that operates. Couples only hang outs, automatic invites to your partner’s friends’ functions, less unwanted amorous attention because you’re read as off limits, more respect for your time as it’s obviously being impacted by another person, etc. I’ve had the unfortunate but not uncommon experience of losing friends to relationships, only to be heard from again in the equally unfortunate but not uncommon instance of the break up. As a non-partnered person I also feel some pressure when hanging out with half of a coupled couple. I sometimes sense suspicion of my intentions. It seems non-partnered people are read as a roving threat to relationships. There’s always some pop culture plot point where a generally good person, usually man or masculine, is tempted by an evil single seductress who doesn’t give a damn about the existing relationship. Y’all saw Obsessed right?

As I age, I am curious about that moment when singlehood switches in peoples’ minds from the willfulness of youthful independence to tragic pathological existence. I think that timeline is too short maybe even non-existent for straight women and while there’s a bit more leeway in queer community, there comes a point when casual dating isn’t cute anymore or perhaps even possible because folks are booed up. It has me wondering if there’s room to maintain a single life as an older person, like still dating in your 50’s and 60’s? And how do you find folks to date if all your peers at that age are married or partnered? I mean the Golden Girls had it rough but they’d all been married before. I really struggle with this as someone who is ambivalent about romantic relationships, particularly as constructed in this society.

Co-dependent love is constantly represented as the ideal.  “I can’t sleep/think/ live/function without you, romantic partner” leads to the inevitable crash of despair when things don’t work out because you’ve set up someone else to meet the impossible expectation of completing you. “Forsaking all others” doesn’t just imply sexual partners but in a nuclear model of family, seems to also speak to friendships and extended family. Why do mother-in-laws stay getting a bad rap?

And yet, there’s something really real about co-dependence in a culture that doesn’t value interdependence. A romantic partner is expected to be there, in “sickness and in health” in ways that we don’t demand of friendship. Subsequently, a spouse or partner has legal and social rights that a friend does not. For queer folks this is particularly important when unsupportive biological family can legally trump chosen family. Our legal system actively limits who we can call on which reflects and exacerbates social beliefs about relationships.

I have a more playful, flirtatious way of thinking about intimate relationships which usually rubs up against (and not in a good way) a social expectation for monogamy. I have romantic friendships that are not quite platonic, sexy time friends that aren’t quite lovers, close kindred spirits that should really be on my insurance before a romantic partner. And while pop culture flirts with poly possibilities, it never quite goes all the way. There are an endless number of songs that reference men cheating or women cheating on their boyfriends b/c of the supposed sexual prowess of whomever is singing/rapping the hit. So while there’s a tacit tolerance of cheating, intentional polyamory remains off the table. And even with an occasional “my girl’s got a girlfriend” and “ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none,” women are tools for male fantasies, heterofying homosocial sexual behavior.  Folks are more into the illicitness of affairs and the freakiness of multiple sex partners than building articulated intimacy with more than one person. I digress…

I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, where romantic love isn’t assumed to be more important than other kinds, where folks can center any relationships they want whether it be their relationship to their spiritual practice, kids, lovers, friends, etc. and not have some notion that it’s more or less important because of who or what’s in focus. I want to feel like I can develop intimacy with people whether we are sleeping together or not that I will be cared for whether I am romantically involved with someone or not.  I want a community that takes interdependency seriously that doesn’t assume that it’s only a familial or romantic relationship responsibility to be there for each other.

I didn’t just dream this way of relating to each other up. Other cultures and communities throughout time have had more options in terms of how they construct connection. And we are doing it now. Folks are creating interdependent relationships and community that disrupt popular perceptions of appropriate partnering. I just wonder what it will take to get more of us to honestly evaluate the realities of our love and determine whether we are actually getting what we want. Love is abundant, not scarce. Why would we ever want to limit or narrow its flow?

Asking for a Lift …From the Bathroom TOSD from Mia Mingus on Vimeo.

Sincerely,

Living single

Hat tip to Zachari C. for bringing her brilliance to the piece.

*Single shade – the general social derision of single people and singleness

Females: You Just Can’t Trust ‘Em and Other Lies Women Believe

Distrust among women is at epidemic proportions, especially among women of color.  I am always amazed at the number of women I encounter who declare proudly, that they don’t hang with other FEMALES, preferring the company of males whom they are quick to assert are less prone to gossip, back-stabbing, and emotionalism. Side Note: Y’all know dudes gossip! Stop frontin! For many women, it’s a badge of honor to be “one of the guys.”

Ironically, I have never heard a man declare that he doesn’t “kick it with other dudes, because men are generally not to be trusted.” In fact, such a notion sounds absurd on its face, doesn’t it?

I’m not trying to be clever or dismissive. I get it.  Many of us have been hurt by other women. Deeply. I certainly have. I have had girlfriends to smile in my face and then talk behind my back, sometimes while I was still in earshot. Because I’m more of a nerdy, home-body, I continue to be the friend easily left on the back burner when more glamorous, exciting people come along. I have had knockdown drag out arguments with homegirls, nursed terrible break-ups of what I thought would be life long friendships, and cried more than a few tears over unreciprocated acts of platonic love.

As one friend told me in the midst of hurting me deeply, “I’m not used to expending this kind of energy on girls. I only expend this kind of energy on men.” She was insinuating that my love for her, my commitment to our friendship, must have signaled that I was lesbian. The statement was insulting, not because it questioned my sexuality, but because it reduced my love to the sexual and suggested that women who love one another deeply must be sleeping together, as if sex is ever a guarantee that the love is good.  Lesbian sisters will tell you that it ain’t easy for them either. But it is precisely our homophobia, our fear that loving other women actively exposes the falsity of the strict boundaries of straight and gay identity that keeps many of us from loving one another with our full selves.

Perhaps what is more troubling is that many straight women believe deep down that in matters of happiness women are as expendable as men are indispensable. Hence my friend’s conclusion that only men are worthy of her relational energy.  But a life without sister-friends is a miserable and unhappy life.

Why is it that when women hurt us, the entire lot of us ceases to be trustworthy? And yet, men daily commit humiliating, heart-wrenching, soul-gutting acts of insensitivity, inconsideration and violence toward us. And we get up again and again and commit to loving them. Something is wrong with this picture.

Our thinking must change.

Let’s revisit and revise the messages that we got from our personal experiences, men, and even the women in our families that told us not to trust other women. Adulthood demands that we deal with our daddy issues and issues with men in general; Grown womanhood demands that we unpack the bullshit that we have with other women, that we name it, process it, and begin to heal.

Every time we use the word “female” in a derogatory manner, we strip women of their humanity. Cats can be female. Dogs can be female. Women are people. And no woman, be she cis or transgendered, should be reduced to her biology or discredited because of it. And as female dogs go, surely we don’t need anyone else to refer to us as bitches. For those of you who think your use of the term is innocuous, consciously check to see if you are ever saying anything positive about women when you refer to them as “females.” (E.g. “I don’t associate with females.” Substituting women in this statement doesn’t really make sense; although substituting the term “bitches” makes the most sense of all. So what are you really saying when you call women “females”?)

And can we also just be honest? If you can’t trust “females” as a group, can we trust you? The notion that every woman including you is not implicated in her own sweeping denouncements of other women is just as faulty as the woman who tells herself that her favorite rap star, “ain’t talking about me,” when he refers to all women indiscriminately as bitches and hoes.  Trust is like respect. To get it, you gotta give it.

In the last few years, I have been blessed with many women friends, after many lonely years of wondering if I would ever have close girlfriends. These women have loved me fiercely, even in moments when I didn’t love myself. They have talked me through countless heartbreaks and romantic disappointments. They encourage me and challenge me to grow. I am a better me because of the women I (have) know(n,) love(d), and share(d) this walk with; without them, it would have been a spiritually truncated journey.

A friend’s blog post reminded me recently, “I’m not only my sister’s keeper; I am my sister.” That one is worth taking to the bank.

On Slim Thug

From news media pundits, comedians-turned-relationship experts, to a soulful singer speaking about his self-proclaimed white supremacist penis in Playboy, it would seem that everybody has something to say about the un/desirability of Black women. When I read the Vibe interview excerpt by Slim Thug and the response gone viral by Marc Lamont Hill, I opened my laptop to see my cursor just jumping on the electronic page amped for me to slam Slim and the keys, to throw my two cents into the blogosphere to make sense out of his deplorable depictions about Black womanhood.

And, then I heard the interview. He does recall harmful stereotypes about race and gender. No doubt. One of them includes the idea that white women possess and perfect femininity. He does recuperate dangerous discourses about the extinct black man and the emasculating black woman. No question. Trust, I could have written an entry without even reading the interview. But, I heard the interview. I heard the pauses. And, I had to pause and wiggle off the knee-jerk reaction to “read” him. I just heard him. I heard him searching for the word—the right words—to frame his analysis (however unconvincing). On a national stage, I heard Slim Thug trying to work through powerful race and gender scripts so ingrained in our culture that they appear commonsense to him and other folks in our community.

In the final part of the interview, Slim Thug describes a black femininity and masculinity tied to the performance of class, or to a wealthy lifestyle (a lifestyle that is, contrary to what Vibe writers summarize, is not exclusive to the hood). For him, a black man blowing dough on dro and syrup (i.e., cocktail mix that includes cough syrup) at home or at the club to attract women is as problematic as the black woman who incurs incredible credit card debt to buy luxury brands to attract men. Both are performing gender scripts from a hip hop dreamworld. While Slim Thug criticizes Black women for our “crazy way of thinking,” his examples speak to the craziness of consumer capital that seduces all of us to live out champagne fantasies. (We need only watch any television program to be reminded of the worldview we are invited to subscribe.) The hip-hop get-rich raps that Slim Thug profits from hinge on the very consumerism he deplores in other folk. He is right on when he suggests these cyclic performances adversely impact black relationships because they are rooted in artifice. He is dead wrong to levy his attack toward already vulnerable black women. Ultimately, the “50/50, fair exchange” that Slim Thug said he wants for successful black relationships and the black community can only materialize when he divests in his own narrow definitions of success—that is, capitalist economic power and patriarchal power over women (i.e., masculinity par excellence).

In peace & solidarity,
Aisha