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Afroerotik
Newbie Poster
Username: Afroerotik
Post Number: 6
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 4 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 11:06 pm: | 
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It pains me desperately to see the pain Black women suffer because we fail to see our own dysfunction. We are so steeped in the very human disease of seeing ourselves as flawless, of validating everything that we experience as healthy, that we are killing ourselves, literally and figuratively, in an effort to hold on for dear life to the very belief systems that are destroying us. I see it around me daily. Women that are suffering from clinical depression, that are being eaten up with unhappiness, perpetuating destructive patterns and being unable to see how to get out of them and never questioning the core issues that keep us unhappy. I’m ever amazed at the numbers of black women that complain that their life isn’t what they want it to be, that they can’t seem to move forward or find a place of peace in their life and continue to repeat the behaviors that made us feel devalued with our children.
There are a lot of things in life I don’t get. I’ve never understood the process involved in breaking the patterns of one’s life other than to know that there are functions of the mind that exist beyond my comprehension. Some people are able to move past their negative patterns in life with relative ease, others become slaves to addictive patterns and never move forward. What do I get? I get that people can’t grasp their own dysfunction. I understand fully that whatever circumstances one is surrounded by as a child; one accepts as normalcy in their life as an adult and sees everything else as wrong. Everyone believes in their heart that they way they see the world is right and that every one else is wrong if their experience contradicts with what we know. Every single person is guilty of that. That’s why it’s virtually impossible to have a conversation with a black woman involving the relaxed vs. natural hair debate because Black women really and truly believe, deep in the very fiber of their being, that their natural hair will make them unattractive. It’s so deep in their subconscious mind, so ingrained in their belief system; they can’t conceive of or comprehend that their natural hair will make them more beautiful; they refuse to even acknowledge that altering their natural hair is a sign of low self-esteem and dysfunction. I got that. I got that Black women think that they don’t need a man to raise their children because that’s just the way it’s been for so long, that it’s been accepted as the standard for so many generations, that questioning it seems ridiculous. Hell, if we admit that raising a child in a single parent household is dysfunctional then at least 80% of us have to admit that we are flawed. And that ain’t gonna happen. (I’m not suggesting that the other 20% of us that were raised in two-parent household are healthy by any stretch of the imagination.)
It makes me sick that the things that hurt us as children are the things that we are repeating with our own children. We are a race of women suffering from depression and we make excuses for it by calling it being moody. Our daughters suffer because we yell at them, shame them, and try to embarrass them to make them feel bad about themselves because we feel so bad about ourselves. We make them our Barbie dolls, internalizing that their beauty gives us more value. We raise them in the exact same way our mother’s raised us, justifying it by saying, “Hey, I turned out fine.” Did we? We seek validation from men who don’t deserve our time. We erupt in violent bursts of anger when things don’t go our way rather than setting healthy boundaries and communicating our needs in a rational manner. We validate our pain by saying we are strong black women and making that the cure-all excuse for all our pains rather than truly loving ourselves and admitting that we are aching. We spend our lives trying to be attractive on the outside and we neglect our own emotional needs.
My mother used to beat the hell out of me because she was so angry at the world. She would take out her frustrations with being a mistress, being unhappy with her job, her frustrations with the world. She would beat me until she was exhausted and physically drained. What she was doing was releasing the pain she felt on the inside. There are women reading this now, they know they do the same things to their children; they know they use beating their children to make up for the emptiness they feel inside. Black women will justify beating our children out of rage rather than loving and nurturing them and then be quick fast to boldly say, “I’m not going to raise my child like white people do, letting them say or do whatever they want.” There’s a difference between buying your child a gun, letting them do drugs, ignoring the swastika on their bedroom wall, then wondering why they shoot up a school and talking to your child rather than yelling at him or her for every single little thing under the sun. We use yelling and hitting as a way to control a child. I can say as an introspective adult, the most painful memories of my life were my mother trying to degrade me for natural expressions of childhood. What would it possibly hurt to let our children make decisions for themselves, to let them voice their opinions, to hug and kiss them more than we hit and yell at them?
When are we as black women going to say to ourselves, “I want love and nurturing and I’m hurting inside, I want encouragement and support”? When are we going to take off this façade of perfection and strength and admit that we feel insecure and inadequate? Black women can’t see the correlation between what happened to them as children, to the pain that we suffer as adults. How many times have I felt ineffectual, afraid, or insecure and KNOWN that it had to do with messages my mother told me as a child that I carry deep within me? I can look at all of the pain in my life and recognize how some fucked up pattern of dysfunction that happened as a child has created it.
Black men don’t suffer with depression in the same ways as Black women. Men are obviously affected in different ways because they seem to internalize and rationalize in different ways. It’s more than apparent that black men don’t have the same ability or potential to be as introspective as women do so they appear to live rather contently with their refusal to look at their own lives. They’ve mastered the art of displacing any sense of personal responsibility onto the backs of black women and seem pretty content with rationalizing how faultless they are in the process. Black men are depressed, but they show it by numbing the pain with adrenaline, women, drugs, and denial. Rather than facing responsibility, they run away from it. Women are tied to our depression through our umbilical cords, through our wombs. We can’t hide from the sexual abuse that has scarred us emotionally. We can’t run away from the pain of rape and the abortions and the children that are our daily reminders of the accomplishments we didn’t achieve, our dreams deferred.
Dear God, lift this veil of dysfunction from our eyes. Allow us to see our diseased thinking. Allow us to recognize that our value as women does not lie in the length of our hair nor the roundness of our behinds. Allow us to know deep within our hearts that we don’t have to tolerate cheating and abuse from a man just to give us validation. Dear God, open our eyes so that we may see that we hold no more value in life if we have perfectly pedicured feet or a Coach bag for every day of the week. Creator of all, allow us to recognize that all the things we’ve been taught have been from a distorted and unhealthy place and that we must grow in consciousness where we stop praying to a male God, thinking that we are responsible for every sin in the world and that we must forever be subservient to men. Remove the illusion that we have to live with pain as a daily reality. Dear God, fill us with joy, self-love, peace, and many blessings.
Scottie Lowe fantasies@afroerotik.com
Tired of seeing black women being portrayed as ghetto bitches, freaks and whores, and black men as barely literate thugs, bulls, and pimps, Scottie Lowe decided it was time to show black people in a positive sexual light. Ms. Lowe is the sole owner and founder of www.AfroerotiK.com, a company dedicated to eradicating the negative and stereotypical depictions of Black sexuality and providing customized, personalized erotic stories for and about people of color. Her innovative approach to writing Black and interracial erotica is shattering misperceptions and opening the doors to dialogue about subjects long considered taboo.
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Lil_ze
Regular Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 47
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 11:57 pm: |
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ANOTHER POST BY SOMEONE WHO PRODUCES PONOGRAPHY FOR A LIVING. TRYING TO MASK THE CHEAP GARBAGE YOU PRODUCE, BY CALLING IT SOMETHING OTHER THAN PORNOGRAPHY, IS A JOKE. YOUR SOAP BOX RAVINGS ABOUT THE "PLIGHT" OF BLACK WOMEN, DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT YOU ARE A PORNOGRAPHER. WHY NOT JUST PUT UP A POST THAT SAYS,"HEY, IM LOOKING TO GET FREE PUBLICITY FOR MY PORN WEBSITE". THIS WOULD BE MORE HONEST THAN TRYING TO USE A BOARD MEANT FOR DISCUSSION ABOUT THE ISSUES THAT EFFECT BLACK-AMERICANS, AS A WAY TO TRY TO GAIN FREE PUBLICITY FOR YOUR ERO-CRAP WEBSITE. YOU ARE A WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING. ATTEMPTING TO EXPRESS SYMPATHY FOR THE CONDITIONS OF BLACK PEOPLE. WHEN YOU ARE JUST TRYING TO GET RICH, PRODUCING TRASH. I ATLEAST CAN SEE THROUGH YOU'RE FAKE, PHONY POSTS! STOP WITH THE B.S. POSTS, THAT JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE THE ADDRESS FOR YOU'RE DUMB WEBSITE. |
Kos
First Time Poster
Username: Kos
Post Number: 1
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 09:46 am: |
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Lil-Ze. I hope your ignorance will be replaced with wisdom over time. That is all I'm going to say.
What is really trash? You find on descent site that actually doesn't fetishize black people (which is what many Europeans used to and STILL do), and you call it trash. Trash is what the mainstream is feeding you my friend. Do your reading first brotha or sista, and you will understand. |
Roxie
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Roxie
Post Number: 784
Registered: 06-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 09:50 am: |
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That was beautiful, Afroerotik. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 948
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 10:02 am: |
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That was beautiful. |
Libralind2
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Libralind2
Post Number: 353
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 07:13 pm: |
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That is me Afroerotik..thank you
LiLi |
Shyfox
Regular Poster
Username: Shyfox
Post Number: 46
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 11:03 pm: |
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The irony isn't lost on me either, Lil_ze. |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 1968
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 12:52 am: |
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Afroerotik,
we've chatted before, and you know how much I appreciate and respect your work in erotica...it's much needed...but I had no idea that you had so much to say (and say so eloquently) about black women's inner lives and inner pain.
That was so touching.
I'm so busy and miss everyone here, but I'm glad to see you've dropped by. Bless you, sis, and keep up the good work.
KOLA
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Grind
Newbie Poster
Username: Grind
Post Number: 3
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 12:17 pm: |
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Lil Ze, you are way the fuck out of line. |
Afroerotik
Newbie Poster
Username: Afroerotik
Post Number: 8
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 12:53 pm: |
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Do not blame Lil_ze for his unjustified rage at me. He feels animus towards me because I don't fit in his tiny box of what a black woman should be. He has no choice but to hate me. It's okay; his words don't deter me from my mission. He will never accept me, he will never embrace me, but that just inspires me to keep writing, to keep trying to heal us as a people. |
Afroerotik
Newbie Poster
Username: Afroerotik
Post Number: 9
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 01:08 pm: |
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Just for the record . . . Pornography hurts PEOPLE of color. As a woman of color who has a black erotica business, I know of what I speak. Pornography degrades women of color, specifically Black women, to the lowest common denominator. Asian women are dolls, Latina women are exotic, Black women are ghetto whores. The word ghetto has become synonymous with black people. The perpetuation of black women as stereotyped objects leads black men to think that we are things to be used for their pleasure, not as human beings. The perpetuation of black men as Mandingo thugs that live to fuck white women leads many brothas to believe that its somehow a position of power to be the nigger buck that fulfills white people's racist fantasies. It's impossible to form a healthy relationship if intimacy and communication are foreign concepts and achieving the ultimate "freaky" experience becomes the goal. Pornography is detrimental on so many different levels and it’s eating away at the very foundation of our interpersonal relationships.
As hard as I try to show black sexuality in a positive light, I'm repeatedly accused of having a porn site. We fall into extremes: we either swallow these degrading pornographic images hook, line and sinker without questioning their detrimental effects or we reject any notion of healthy sexuality at all. There has to be a happy medium. There has to be a way to express our sexuality without the degrading images that demean us as people of color. I invite you to sign my petition that demands the end of stereotypical depictions of people of color in the adult industry at http://www.petitiononline.com/Afro4321/petition.html.
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Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 110
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 03:36 pm: |
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Well, while I'm not big on porn..
I agree with her views on Black mothers..
as a child I was not 'beaten' but mild forms of mental and physical abuse (mostly mental) were used as a tool to make me 'stronger' and to keep my head on straight to get through life. Little did my mother know, all it did was weaken my self esteem and self worth. |
Va_sis
Newbie Poster
Username: Va_sis
Post Number: 2
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 04:04 pm: |
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Hi all! Been lurking for years, now it's time for me to come out & join the discussions.
AfroE:
You do what you do, girl! A lot of people are ignorant to the fact that there is a difference between erotica & hardcore junk. And they don't understand that you can be a purveyor of erotica and still be concerned with the plight of our community.
I am. |
Va_sis
Newbie Poster
Username: Va_sis
Post Number: 3
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 04:06 pm: |
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Correction:
I am right along wit'cha! |
Lil_ze
Veteran Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 58
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - 04:21 pm: |
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can a person be a purveyor of "hardcore junk" and still be concerned with the plight of our community? and what is "hardcore junk"? one persons "hardcore junk" is another persons "erotica". a producer of gangbang movies, said, "my films are not hardcore junk, they are erotica". my point is who is the judge of what constitutes "erotica" or "hardcore junk". there is no judge. some people feel so-called "erotica" is "hardcore junk". others feel so-called "hardcore junk" is "erotica". its all just opinion-none of it is fact. |
Va_sis
Newbie Poster
Username: Va_sis
Post Number: 4
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 08:34 am: |
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I don't even know why I'm responding to you, because all of it sickens you, supposedly. But I'll play along nonetheless.
Most of what you say is subjective and there is no judge, but, like most other things in life, you can't lump everything in one category. Boundaries and limits exist even in adult material...unless you are entrenched of all its facets, you wouldn't know what they are.
I'm not "entrenched", but I enjoy in what is known as "EROTICA and soft porn".
I count hardcore junk as stuff that you could go to jail for, like beastiality (sp?), child porn, rape (though it's staged, I can't think of the name of the genre). So, people that produce that kind of crap would be hypocrites to be concerned with the plight of their community....in my opinion, but how many could actually argue that?
Now.
The erotica that AfroE and I allude to is bedroom and couple action...soft stuff. The kind of action that any sexually active person (including you, maybe) experience day in & day out. Why should you villify her for putting in print what you do on the regular?
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Afroerotik
Newbie Poster
Username: Afroerotik
Post Number: 15
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 01:48 pm: |
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It's absurd to debate the difference between porn and erotica with someone who is intent on defaming me. Black sexuality has been so corrupted, so bastardized, that even when people like myself (and I don't know of anyone else who is doing what I'm doing but I'd like to hear from other people who are) are trying to restore a healthy sense of communion and beauty to Black sexuality, we get lumped into the category of pornographers.
Erotica is art or literature intended to arouse the senses. Porn is words or images intended to arouse the genitals. Not only do I create erotica, literary works that titillate, I do so from the perspective of showing Black people in a positive light and dismantling the stereotypes that continue to plague us as a people. Does a gangbang producer do that? I'm afraid not.
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Afroerotik
Newbie Poster
Username: Afroerotik
Post Number: 16
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 01:53 pm: |
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There seems to me to be some confusion about what I stand for and endorse so I feel I must map out and define EXACTLY what the guiding principles and governing rules are for my erotica.
1. AfroerotiK is committed to the healthy expression of Black sexuality. That includes any and all sexual expression that is SAFE, sane, and consensual. AfroerotiK will NOT promote, condone, endorse, or defend any expressions of homophobia, patriarchy, sexism, or any other limiting and oppressive belief that narrowly defines sexuality or places restrictive guidelines on collective erotic practices.
2. AfroerotiK looks to foster the intimate, communicative sexual expression of couples. The backbone and foundation of a community is in the health and stability of its relationships. Honesty and open communication are key to building a great sex life. While every individual has the right to choose what fits their needs best, AfroerotiK supports sexual expression that is based on truth, introspection, and interconnectivity of partners. AfroerotiK will NOT promote, condone, endorse, or defend any expressions of sex in exchange for money or fulfillment of selfish sexual desires that disregard the emotional needs of one’s partner.
3. AfroerotiK will NOT promote, condone, endorse, or defend any perpetuation of use the word nigger, any phonetic spelling thereof, or the word slave in relation to a sexual fetish. There is never an occasion or opportunity in which Black people should be referred to as niggers, the term is NOT a term of endearment, and it is extremely disrespectful to those that bled and died at the base of the word. Similarly, sexual submission is completely voluntary and not in any way indicative of the extreme abuses that people of African descent endured from which they derived no pleasure.
4. AfroerotiK sees sexual expression optimally as an avenue to transcendence and a connection to the Divine. Because Africans had very valid, enduring, and complex spiritual systems prior to their kidnapping and enslavement and because there are many, many avenues to access the Creator, AfroerotiK will NOT promote, condone, endorse, or defend any expressions of Christianity as being the only, right, or valid religion.
5. One of the primary concerns of AfroerotiK is to dismantle the negative and stereotypical depictions of Black sexuality. While there are many instances of interracial sexuality, AfroerotiK asserts that the healthiest expression of sexuality between the races is based first and foremost on a holistic and integrated love of self, history, and identity for people of African descent. Conversely, admiration, respect, and adoration of Black people should be based on far more than genitals, skin tone or some perceived image of sexual savagery.
6. The spread of HIV and AIDS in the African American community is rampant and crippling. There is an absolutely huge propensity to demonize and vilify bisexual or gay black men as the sole perpetuators of the transmission of the deadly disease. An individual’s HIV status is completely their own responsibility and AfroerotiK will not assign blame to or deflect culpability away from partners that choose to engage in unsafe sexual practices.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 4525
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2006 - 06:37 am: |
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7. Afroerotik makes me giggle as she refers to herself in the third person. |
Afroerotik
Regular Poster
Username: Afroerotik
Post Number: 28
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2006 - 06:49 am: |
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I am refering to my company, not myself personally. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 4526
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2006 - 06:54 am: |
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Oops! My bad! |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 4527
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2006 - 06:56 am: |
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I think I got confused by your "There seems to me to be some confusion about what I stand for and endorse so I feel I must map out and define..." |
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