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Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 807
Registered: 03-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 10:16 pm: | 
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Not by what you see on BET...but in real life, do you feel black women are not as sexually liberated as other races?
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Moonsigns
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Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1349
Registered: 07-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 10:19 pm: |
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Like women of other "races", I think some black women may have issues with their sexuality, but they are still having sex --and a lot of it. |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 809
Registered: 03-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 10:25 pm: |
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I'm not. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 1166
Registered: 08-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 10:30 pm: |
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Not all other cultures are sexually liberated. I think it's more a "woman" thing than a race thing. Hindu women, for instance, are forbidden from ever having sex after their husband dies....which is why so few of them remarry.
They're also no longer allowed to eat onion soup after the death of a husband. I don't know what the hell that has to do with anything, but it's true.
I guess it all depends on what one feels is "liberated". |
Brownbeauty123
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Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 810
Registered: 03-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 10:41 pm: |
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Why was it for so thought that giving head (perform oral sex) was something white women did and not black women? |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 331
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:11 pm: |
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Very good topic, Beauty. Thanks for bringing it up. I strongly recommend that you read "Black Sexual Politics" by Patricia Hill Collins. It's one of the best books to date about black sexuality in general plus much more. Here's a little something that I found on the net by Pat Collins (from her book BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT) which gives some background on this topic and is (unsurprisingly) an outstanding read.
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Sexual Politics And Black Women's Relationships
Patricia Hill Collins
In Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987), Sethe tells her friend Paul D how she felt after escaping from slavery:
It was a kind of selfishness I never knew nothing about before. It felt good. Good and right. I was big, Paul D, and deep and wide and when I stretched out my arms all my children could get in between. I was that wide. Look like I loved em more after I got here. Or maybe I couldn't love em proper in Kentucky because they wasn't mine to love. But when I got here, when I jumped down off that wagon--there wasn't nobody in the world I couldn't love if I wanted to. You know what I mean? (Morrison 1987, 162)
By distorting Sethe's ability to love her children "proper," slavery annexed Sethe's power as energy for its own ends. Her words touch a deep chord in Paul D, for he too remembers how slavery felt. His mental response to Sethe expresses the mechanisms used by systems of domination such as slavery in harnessing potential sources of power in a subordinated group:
So you protected yourself and loved small. Picked the tiniest stars out of the sky to own; lay down with head twisted in order to see the loved one over the rim of the trench before you slept. Stole shy glances at her between the trees at chain-up. Grass blades, salamanders, spiders, woodpeckers, beetles, a kingdom of ants. Anything bigger wouldn't do. A woman, a child, a brother-a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire-well, now, that was freedom. (Morrison 1987, 162)
Sethe and Paul D's words suggest that in order to perpetuate itself, slavery corrupts and distorts those sources of power within the culture of the oppressed which provide energy for change. To them, freedom from slavery meant not only the absence of capricious masters and endless work but regaining the power to "love anything you chose." Both Sethe and Paul D understood how slavery inhibited their ability to have "a big love," whether for children, for friends, or for each other. Both saw that systems of oppression function by controlling the "permission for desire"--in other words, by harnessing the energy of fully human relationships to the exigencies of domination.
African-American women's experiences with pornography, prostitution, and rape demonstrate how sexuality is socially constructed within the sex/gender hierarchy on the social structural level of social institutions. Equally important is how the sex/gender hierarchy pervades Black women's interpersonal relationships and infuses the consciousness of Black women and those closest to us. When people "protect them selves and love small" by seeing certain groups of people as worthy of love and deeming others less deserving, potential sources of power as energy that can flow from love relationships are attenuated. But when people reject the world as it is constructed by dominant groups, the power as energy that can flow from a range of love relationships becomes possible.
Political economies of domination such as slavery and the ideologies that justify them aim to thwart the power as energy available to subordinate groups. The sex/gender hierarchy and the sexual politics that Black women encounter within it represent a powerful system of repression because they intrude on people's daily lives at the point of consciousness. Exactly how have ideologies of domination, like the sexual politics of Black womanhood, infused relationships Black women have with people around us? More important, how might an increased understanding of these relationships fostered by an Afrocentric feminist analysis empower African-American women?
Black Men And The Love And Trouble Tradition
In her ground-breaking essay, "On the Issue of Roles," Toni Cade Bambara remarks, "now it doesn't take any particular expertise to observe that one of the most characteristic features of our community is the antagonism between our men and our women" (Bambara 1970a, 106). Exploring the tensions between African-American men and women has been a long-standing theme in Black feminist thought. In an 1833 speech, Maria Stewart boldly challenged what she saw as Black men's lackluster response to racism: "Talk, without effort, is nothing; you are abundantly capable, gentlemen, of making yourselves men of distinction; and this gross neglect, on your part, causes my blood to boil within me" (Richardson 1987, 58). Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and other classic Black women blues singers offer rich advice to Black women on how to deal with unfaithful and unreliable men (Harrison 1978, 1988; Lieb 1981; Russell 1982). More recently, Black women's troubles with Black men have generated anger and, from that anger, self-reflection: "We have been and are angry sometimes," suggests Bonnie Daniels, "not for what men have done, but for what we've allowed ourselves to become, again and again in my past, in my mother's past, in my centuries of womanhood passed over, for the 'sake' of men, whose manhood we've helped undermine"(1979, 62).
Another long-standing theme in Black feminist thought is the great love Black women feel for Black men. African-American slave narratives contain countless examples of newly emancipated slaves who spent years trying to locate their lost loved ones (Gutman 1976). Love poems written to Black men characterize much of Black women's poetry (Stetson 1981). Black women's music is similarly replete with love songs. Whether the playful voice of Alberta Hunter proclaiming that her "man is a handyman," the mournful cries of Billie Holiday singing "My Man," the sadness Nina Simone evokes in "I Loves You Porgy" at being forced to leave her man, or the powerful voice of Jennifer Holliday, who cries out, "you're gonna love me," Black vocalists identify Black women's relationships with Black men as a source of strength, support, and sustenance (Harrison 1978,1988; Russell 1982). Black activist Fannie Lou Hamer succinctly captures what a good relationship between a Black woman and man can be: "You know, I'm not hung up on this about liberating myself from the black man, I'm not going to try that thing. I got a black husband, six feet three, two hundred and forty pounds, with a 14 shoe, that I don't want to be liberated from" (Lerner 1972, 612).
African-American women have long commented on this "love and trouble" tradition in Black women's relationships with Black men. Novelist Gayl Jones explains: "The relationships between the men and the women I'm dealing with are blues relationships. So they're out of a tradition of 'love and trouble.' . . . Blues talks about the simultaneity of good and bad, as feeling, as something felt.... Blues acknowledges all different kinds of feelings at once" (Harper 1979, 360). Both the tensions between African-American women and men and the strong attachment that we feel for one another represent the both/and conceptual stance in Black feminist thought.
Understanding this love and trouble tradition requires assessing the influence of Eurocentric gender ideology-particularly its emphasis on oppositional dichotomous sex roles-on the work and family experiences of African-Americans. Definitions of appropriate gender behavior for Black women, Black men, white women, and white men not only affect social institutions such as schools and labor markets, they also simultaneously shape daily interactions among and within each group. Analyses claiming that African-Americans would be "just like whites" if offered comparable opportunities implicitly support the prevailing sex/gender hierarchy and offer the allegedly "normal" gender ideology of white male and female sex roles as alternatives for putatively "deviant" Afrocentric ones. Similarly, those proclaiming that Black men experience more severe oppression than Black women and that Black women must unquestioningly support Black male sexism rarely challenge the overarching gender ideology that confines
both whites and Blacks (see, e.g., Staples 1979). As Audre Lorde queries, "if society ascribes roles to black men which they are not allowed to fulfill, is it black women who must bend and alter our lives to compensate, or is it society that needs changing?" (1984, 61). Bonnie Daniels provides an answer: "I've learned ... that being less than what I am capable of being to boost someone else's ego does not help either of us for real"(1979, 61).
Black women intellectuals directly challenge not only that portion of Eurocentric gender ideology applied to African-Americans-for example, the controlling images of mammy, the matriarch, the welfare mother, and Jezebel-but often base this rejection on a more general critique of Eurocentric gender ideology itself. Sojourner Truth's 1851 query, "I could work as much and eat as much as a man-when I could get it-and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?" confronts the premises of the cult of true womanhood that "real" women were fragile and ornamental. Toni Cade Bambara contends that Eurocentric sex roles are not only troublesome for African-Americans but damaging: "I have always, I think, opposed the stereotypical definitions of 'masculine' and 'feminine,' . . . because I always found the either/or implicit in those definitions antithetical to what I was all about-and what revolution for self is all about-the whole person" (Bambara 1970a, 101). Black activist Frances Beale echoes Bambara by identifying the negative effects that sexism within the Black community had on Black political activism in the 1960s:
Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion in the Movement today as to who has been oppressing whom. Since the advent of Black power, the Black male has exerted a more prominent leadership role in our struggle for justice in this country. He sees the system for what it really is for the most part, but where he rejects its values and mores on many issues, when it comes to women, he seems to take his guidelines from the pages of the Ladies' Home Journal. (Beale 1970, 92)
While some African-American women criticize Eurocentric gender ideology, even fewer have directly challenged Black men who accept externally defined notions of both Black and white masculinity (Sizemore 1973; Wallace 1978). The blues tradition provides the most consistent and long-standing text of Black women who demand that Black men reject stereotypical sex roles and "change their ways." Songs often encourage Black men to define new types of relationships. In "Do Right Woman-Do Right Man," when Aretha Franklin (1967) sings that a woman is only human and is not a plaything but is flesh and blood just like a man, she echoes Sojourner Truth's claim that women and men are equally human. Aretha sings about knowing that she's living in a "man's world" but she encourages her man not to "prove" that he's a man by using or abusing her. As long as she and her man are together, she wants him to show some "respect" for her. Her position is clear-if he wants a "do right, all night woman," he's got to be a "do right, all night man." Aretha challenges African-American men to reject Eurocentric gender ideology that posits "it's a man's world" in order to be a "do right man." By showing Black women respect and being an "all night" man--one who is faithful, financially reliable, and sexually expressive--Black men can have a relationship with a "do right woman."1
Black Women And Abuse
The importance of developing a comprehensive analysis of Black heterosexual relationships cannot be overstated. Much of the antagonism African-American women and men feel may stem from an unstated resentment toward Eurocentric gender ideology and against one another as enforcers of the dichotomous sex roles inherent in that ideology. Eurocentric gender ideology objectives both sexes so that when Black men see Black women as nothing more than mammies, matriarchs, or Jezebels, or even if they insist on placing African-American women on the same queenly pedestal reserved for white women, they objectify not only Black women but their own sexuality (Gardner 1980).
Some African-American men feel they cannot be men unless they dominate a Black woman. Alice Walker's The Color Purple portrays Mister, a Black man who abuses his wife Celie. Invoking the both/and conceptual orientation of an Afrocentric feminist standpoint, Alice Walker offers one explanation for the coexistence of love and trouble in African-American communities generally, and in Black men specifically:
At the root of the denial of easily observable and heavily documented sexist brutality in the black community-the assertion that black men don't act like Mister, and if they do, they're justified by the pressure they're under as black men in a white society-is our deep, painful refusal to accept the fact that we are not only descendants of slaves, but we are also the descendants of slave owners. And that just as we have had to struggle to rid ourselves of slavish behaviors we must as ruthlessly eradicate any desire to be mistress or "master." (1989, 80)
Those Black men who wish to become "master" by fulfilling traditional definitions of masculinity-both Eurocentric and white-defined for African-Americans-and who are blocked from doing so can become dangerous to those closest to them (Asbury 1987).
The emerging efforts by some Black feminists to assess that danger by analyzing Black women's experiences as victims of physical and emotional abuse stem from this effort to rearticulate Black heterosexual relationships (E. White 1985). Black feminist analyses are characterized by careful attention to how the system of race, gender, and class oppression shapes the context in which African-Americans construct gender ideology. Angela Davis contends, "we cannot grasp the true nature of sexual assault without situating it within its larger sociopolitical context" (1989, 37). Author Gayl Jones concurs: "It's important for me to clarify . . . relationships in situation, rather than to have some theory of the way men are with women" (Harper 1979, 356). In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970), Pecola Breedlove is a study in emotional abuse. Morrison portrays the internalized oppression that can affect a child who experiences daily assaults on her sense of self. Pecola's family is the immediate source of her pain, but Morrison also exposes the role of the larger community in condoning Pecola's victimization. In her choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, Ntozake Shange (1975) creates the character Beau Willie Brown, a man who abuses his lover, Crystal, and who kills their two young children. Rather than blaming Beau Willie Brown as the source of Crystal's oppression, Shange considers how the situation of "no air"-in this case, the lack of opportunities for both individuals--stifles the humanity of both Crystal and Beau Willie Brown.
Investigating the problems caused by abusive Black men often exposes Black women intellectuals to criticism. Alice Walker's treatment of male violence in works such as The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) and The Color Purple (1982) attracted censure. Even though Ntozake Shange's choreopoem is about Black women, one criticism leveled at her work is its purportedly negative portrayal of Black men (Staples 1979). Particularly troubling to some critics is the depiction of Beau Willie Brown. In an interview Claudia Tate asked Ntozake Shange, "why did you have to tell about Beau Willie Brown?" In this question Tate invokes the bond of family secrecy that often pervades dysfunctional families because she wants to know why Shange violated the African-American community's collective family "secret." Shange's answer is revealing: "I refuse to be a part of this conspiracy of silence. I will not do it. So that's why I wrote about Beau Willie Brown. I'm tired of living lies" (Tate 1983, 158-59).
This "conspiracy of silence" about Black men's physical and emotional abuse of Black women is part of a larger system of legitimated, routinized violence (Benjamin 1983; Richie 1985). Because of its everyday nature, some women do not perceive of themselves or those around them as victims. Sara Brooks's husband first assaulted her when she was pregnant, once threw her out of a window, and often called her his "Goddam knock box." In spite of his excessive violence, she considered his behavior routine: "If I tried to talk to him he'd hit me so hard with his hands till I'd see stars. Slap me, and what he slap me for, I don't know.... My husband would slap me and then go off to his woman's house. That's the way life was" (Simonsen 1986, 162). Ostensibly positive images of Black women make some women more likely to accept domestic violence as routine (E. White 1985; Coley and Beckett 1988). Many African-American women have had to exhibit independence and self-reliance to ensure their own survival and that of their loved ones. But this image of the self-reliant Black woman can be troublesome for women in violent relationships. When an abused woman like Sara Brooks believes that "strength and independence are expected of her, she may be more reluctant to call attention to her situation, feeling that she should be able to handle it on her own; she may deny the seriousness of her situation" (Asbury 1987, 101).
Abused women, particularly those bearing the invisible scars of emotional abuse, are often silenced by the image of the "super strong" Black woman (Richie 1985; Coley and Beckett 1988). But according to Audre Lorde, sexual violence against Black women is "a disease striking the heart of Black nationhood, and silence will not make it disappear" (1984, 120). To Lorde, such violence is exacerbated by racism and powerlessness such that "violence against Black women and children often becomes a standard within our communities, one by which manliness can be measured. But these woman-hating acts are rarely discussed as crimes against Black women" (p. 120). By making the pain the victims feel visible, Black feminist intellectuals like Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, and Ntozake Shange challenge the alleged "rationality" of this particular system of control and rearticulate it as violence.
An Afrocentric feminist analysis of abuse generally, and domestic violence in particular, must avoid excusing abuse as an inevitable consequence of the racism Black men experience (Richie 1985). Instead we need a holistic analysis of how race, gender, and class oppression frame the gender ideology internalized by both African-American women and men. By deconstructing violence as a seemingly inevitable outcome of racism and sexism, other alternatives become possible.
A good part of the foundation for such an analysis exists. One of the best Black feminist analyses of domestic violence is found is Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). In the following passage, Hurston recounts how Tea Cake responded to a threat that another man would win the affections of Janie:
Before the week was over he had whipped Janie. Not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. Being able to whip her reassured him in possession. "Tea Cake, you sho is a lucky man," Sop-de-Bottom told him. "Uh person can see every place you hit her. Ah bet she never raised her hand tuh hit yuh back, neither. Take some uh dese ol' rusty black women and dey would fight yuh all night long and next day nobody couldn't tell you ever hit 'em.... Lawd! wouldn't Ah love tuh whip uh tender woman lak Janie! Ah bet she don't even holler. She jus' cries, eh Tea Cake?" (Hurston 1937, 121)
Hurston uses the love and trouble tradition to lay the foundation for a Black feminist analysis of domestic violence. Tea Cake and Sop-de-Bottom see women as commodities, property that they can whip to "reassure their possession." Janie is not a person; she is objectified as something owned by Tea Cake. Even if a man loves a woman, as is clearly the case of Tea Cake and Janie, the threat of competition from another male is enough to develop an "awful fear" that Janie will choose another man and thus deem him less manly than his competitors. Whipping Janie reassured Tea Cake that she was his. The conversation between the two men is also revealing. Images of color and beauty pervade their conversation. Sop-de-Bottom is envious because he can "see every place" that Tea Cake hit her and that she was passive and did not resist like the rest of the "rusty black women." Tea Cake and Sop-de-Bottom have accepted Eurocentric sex roles of masculinity and femininity and have used force to maintain them. Furthermore, Janie's uncommitted transgression was the potential to become unfaithful, the possibility to be sexually promiscuous, to become a whore.2 Finally, the domestic violence occurs in an intimate relationship where love is present. This incident shows the process by which power as domination-in this case gender oppression structured through Eurocentric gender ideology and class oppression reflected in the objectification and commodification of Janie-has managed to annex the basic power of the erotic in Janie and Tea Cake's relationship. Tea Cake does not want to beat Janie, but he does because he feels, not thinks, he must.3 Their relationship represents the linking of sexuality and power, the potential for domination through domestic violence, and the potential for using the erotic, their love for each other, as a catalyst for change.
Relationships With Whites
"White men use different forms of enforcing oppression of white women and of women of Color," argues Chicana scholar Aida Hurtado. "As a consequence, these groups of women have different political responses and skills, and at times these differences cause the two groups to clash"(1989, 843). For Black women the historical relationship with white men has been one of rejection: white men have exploited, objectified, and rejected African-American women. Because white male power is largely predicated on Black female subordination, few delusions of sharing that power and enjoying the privileges attached to white male power have existed among Black women. In contrast, white women have been offered a share of white male power, but only if they agree to be subordinate. "Sometimes I really feel more sorrier for the white woman than I feel for ourselves because she been caught up in this thing, caught up feeling very special," observes Fannie Lou Hamer (Lerner 1972, 610). Thus "white women, as a group, are subordinated through seduction, women of Color, as a group, through rejection" (Hurtado 1989, 844)
This historical legacy of rejection and seduction frames relationships among Black and white women. Black women often express anger and bitterness against white women for their history of excusing the transgressions of their sons, husbands, and fathers. In her diary a slaveholder described white women's widespread predilection to ignore white men's actions:
Under slavery, we live surrounded by prostitutes.... Who thinks any worse of a negro or mulatto woman for being a thing we can't name? God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system.... Like the patriarchs of old, our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines; and the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think drop from the clouds. (Lerner 1972, 51)
If white women under slavery could ignore actions of this magnitude, grappling with the subtleties of contemporary racism must present even more of a challenge for many white women.
For many African-American women, far too few white women are willing to acknowledge-let alone challenge-the actions of white men because they have benefited from them. Fannie Lou Hamer analyzes white women's culpability in Black women's subordination: "You've been caught up in this thing because, you know, you worked my grandmother, and after that you worked my mother, and then finally you got hold of me. And you really thought ... you thought that you was more because you was a woman, and especially a white woman, you had this kind of angel feeling that you were untouchable" (Lerner 1972, 610).
White women's inability to acknowledge their own racism, especially how it privileges them, is another outcome of the differential relationship that white and Black women have to white male power. "I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege," argues white feminist scholar Peggy McIntosh, "just as males are taught not to recognize male privilege" (1988, 1). McIntosh describes her own struggles with learning to see how she had been privileged: "I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious" (p. 1).
One manifestation of white women's privilege is the seeming naiveté many white women have concerning interracial relationships with Black men. In Dessa Rose, Nathan, a Black slave, and Rufel, a white woman on whose land they all live, have sexual relations. Even though Dessa, a Black woman, is not romantically attracted to Nathan, she deeply resents his behavior:
White folks had taken everything in the world from me except my baby and my life and they had tried to take them. And to see him, who had helped to save me, had friended with me through so much of it, laying up, wallowing in what had hurt me so-I didn't feel that nothing I could say would tell him what that pain was like. And I didn't feel like it was on me to splain why he shouldn't be messing with no white woman; I thought it was on him to say why he was doing it. (Williams 1986, 186)
Like many African-American women, Dessa sees Black male admiration for white women as a rejection of her and as an acceptance of Eurocentric gender ideology and aesthetics. She asks, "Had he really wanted me to be like Mistress, I wondered, like Miz Ruint, that doughy skin and slippery hair? Was that what they wanted?" (Williams 1986, 199).
Relationships among Black and white women are framed by the web of sexual politics that seduce white women with an artificial sense of specialness and vest them with the power to sustain that illusion. When white women come to accept Fannie Lou Hamer's analysis of the interlocking nature of race, class, and gender oppression, groundwork might be laid for better relationships:
In the past, I don't care how poor this white woman was, in the South she still felt like she was more than us. In the North, I don't rare how poor or how rich this white woman has been, she still felt like she was more than us. But coming to the realization of the thing, her freedom is shackled in chains to mine, and she realizes for the first time that she is not free until I am free. (Lemer 1972, 611)
The relationships among Black women and white men have long been constrained by the legacy of Black women's sexual abuse by white men and the unresolved tensions this creates. Traditionally, freedom for Black women has meant freedom from white men, not the freedom to choose white men as lovers and friends. Black women who have willingly chosen white male friends and lovers have been severely chastized in African-American communities for selling out the "race," or they are accused of being like prostitutes, demeaning themselves by willingly using white men for their own financial or social gain.
The pervasiveness of this legacy of sexual politics can infect the relationships of Black women and white men far removed from their daily American expressions. In Andrea Lee's novel Sarah Phillips (1984), Sarah, a middle-class, light-skinned woman who "came out of college equipped with an unfocused snobbery, vague literary aspirations, and a lively appetite for white boys" (p. 4), moves to France, never intending to return to the United States. In Paris she lives with her white lover, Henri, and his two friends. After the following exchange among Roger and Henri, Sarah realizes how sexual politics intrude on even the most basic of relationships. Roger states:
"Sarah, ma vielle, you're certainly pretty enough, but why don't you put your hair up properly? Or cut it off. You have the look of a savage!" Henri giggled and grabbed my frizzy ponytail. "She is a savage!" he exclaimed, with the delighted air of a child making a discovery. "A savage from the shores of the Mississippi." (Lee 1984, 11)
The playful dialogue soon turned ugly. Henri continues:
"Did you ever wonder, Roger, old, boy," he said in a casual, intimate tone, "why our beautiful Sarah is such a mixture of races, why she has pale skin but hair that's as kinky as that of a Haitian? Well, I'll tell you. Her mother was an Irishwoman, and her father was a monkey." (p. 11)
Images of bestiality linking Black sexuality with animals and degeneracy pervade Henri's words. Henri's attraction to Sarah occurs in a context in which her pale skin signals her closeness to a white woman's beauty but her "look of a savage" resulting from her "kinky hair" links her to Eurocentric notions of unrestrained Black sexuality. All of this spills out in the foregoing exchange. Even though Sarah cooly observes that she "wasn't upset by the racism of what Henri had said," because "nasty remarks about race and class were part of our special brand of humor," she realizes that no matter how much she wants to cut off ties with the "griefs, embarrassments, and constraints of a country, a family," she cannot do so. Sarah Phillips realizes that she is a member of a community infused with sexual politics.
In spite of the powerful restrictions imposed by the sex/gender hierarchy on interpersonal relationships, many African-American women refuse to "protect themselves and love small," and manage to form close, loving relationships with whites. But given the legacy of the sexual politics of Black womanhood, for large numbers of African-Americans, fully human relationships with whites remain out of reach.
Homophobia And Black Lesbians
One of the most important challenges from and to Black feminist thought has come through the voices of Black lesbians. One major contribution by Black lesbian theorists and activists has been to illuminate homophobia and the toll it takes on African-American women. "The oppression that affects Black gay people, female and male, is pervasive, constant, and not abstract. Some of us die from it," argues Barbara Smith (1983, xlvii). By making the effects of homophobia on Black lesbians visible, Black lesbians have furthered theoretical analyses of the links between sexuality and power.
One theme raised by Black lesbians concerns the extent of homophobia in African-American communities. Cheryl Clarke explains that homophobia among African-Americans is "largely reflective of the homophobic culture in which we live" (1983, 197). For Black lesbians homophobia represents a form of oppression that affects their lives with the same intensity as does race, class, and gender oppression. "What I think many heterosexual Black people don't know, and don't want to know," observes Barbara Smith, "is the toll homophobia takes on a daily basis. Too many pretend that lesbian and gay oppression is an inconsequential matter, not a real oppression"(1983, xlvi). African-Americans have tried to ignore homophobia generally and have avoided serious analysis of homophobia within African-American communities.4 And yet, counsels Cheryl Clarke, African-Americans cannot "rationalize the disease of homophobia among black people as the white man's fault, for to do so is to absolve ourselves of our responsibility to transform ourselves" (1983, 197).
Black feminist writers, especially Black feminist lesbian writers, have begun this transformation by investigating Black lesbian relationships in Black women's literature. Ann Allen Shockley's 1974 novel, Loving Her, provides the first book-length depiction of a Black lesbian as a central character. The 1980s saw increased attention to Black lesbian relationships. Black feminist critic Barbara Christian (1985) points out that while Black women writers have always written about Black women's friendships, their writing in the 1980s explores relationships between women who "find other women sexually attractive and gratifying" (p.189). Using this working definition of lesbianism, Christian proceeds to examine contributions made by four books in examining the "buried lives" of Black lesbians: Audre Lorde's Zami, A New Spelling of My Name (1982), Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place (1980), Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo (1982), and Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982).
In spite of than catalyst of Black women's writings, achieving transformation within African-American communities concerning homophobia and Black lesbians has been difficult. Especially troubling to Black lesbians has been the reluctance on the part of Black heterosexual women to examine their own homophobia. "I am more than a little tired of Black women who say they are political, who say they are feminists, who rely on Black lesbians' friendships, insights, commitment, and work, but who, when it comes down to the crunch and the time to be accountable, turn their backs," deplores Barbara Smith (1983, xlvii).
Why have African-American women been strangely silent on the issue of Black lesbianism? Barbara Smith suggests one compelling reason: "Heterosexual privilege is usually the only privilege that Black women have. None of us have racial or sexual privilege, almost none of us have class privilege, maintaining 'straightness' is our last resort" (1982b, 171). In the same way that white feminists identify with their victimization as women yet ignore the privilege that racism grants them, and that Black men decry racism yet see sexism as being less objectionable, African-American women may perceive their own race and gender oppression yet victimize someone else by invoking the benefits of heterosexual privilege. Barbara Smith raises a critical point that can best be seen through the outsider-within standpoint available to Black lesbians-namely, that within a system of interlocking race, gender, class, and sexual oppression, there are few pure oppressors or victims.
Another reason Black women have been silenced about Black lesbian relationships concerns the traditional treatment in Eurocentric thought of the lesbian as the ultimate Other. Black lesbians are not white, male, or heterosexual and generally are not affluent. As such they represent the antithesis of Audre Lorde's "mythical norm" and become the standard by which other groups measure their own so-called normality. The sex/gender hierarchy functions smoothly only if sexual nonconformity is kept invisible. "By being sexually independent of men, lesbians, by their very existence, call into question society's definition of woman at its deepest level," observes Barbara Christian (1985, 199). Visible Black lesbians challenge the mythical norm that the best people are white, male, rich, and heterosexual. In doing so lesbians generate anxiety, discomfort, and a challenge to the dominant group's control of power and sexuality on the interpersonal level (Vance 1984).
Interestingly, there has been a curious linking of the image of the lesbian with that of the prostitute and with images of Black women as the embodiment of the Black "race." Christian notes that Black women writers broadened the physical image of lesbians: "The stereotypical body type of a black lesbian was that she looked mannish; ... she was not so much a woman as much as she was a defective man, a description that has sometimes been applied to any Negroid-looking or uppity-acting black woman" (1985, 191). Note Christian's analysis of the links among gender roles, race, and sexuality. Lesbianism, an allegedly deviant sexual practice, becomes linked to biological markers of race and looking "mannish."
Another perspective on the links among gender, race, and sexuality is provided in Sander Gilman's work on images of Black women and prostitutes in nineteenth-century Europe. Gilman describes how European scientists thought that Black women and prostitutes possessed physical abnormalities that set them apart from "normal" women. Note Gilman's observations about how aging prostitutes were portrayed in European science and art: "What is most striking is that as the prostitute ages, she begins to appear more and more mannish ... here, the link is between two further models of sexual deviancy, the prostitute and the lesbian. Both are seen as possessing the physical signs which set them apart from the normal" (1985, 226). Gilman's work suggests that the pornographic images of Black women as sexually animalistic, the role of prostitutes in maintaining dualistic conceptions of good woman/bad woman based on a comparable chastity/promiscuity duality, and the depiction of lesbians as a challenge to the woman/man dichotomy all depend on notions of deviant sexuality for sustenance. All of these social constructions of sexual deviance stem from comparable biologically deterministic roots, and all become central to the functioning of the overarching structure of race, gender, and class oppression.
African-American women inhabit this conceptual terrain and have not been immune to its assumptions. For Black women who have already been labeled the Other by virtue of our race and gender, the threat of being labeled a lesbian can have a chilling effect on Black women's ideas and on our relationships; with one another. In speculating about why so many competent Black women writers and reviewers have avoided examining lesbianism, Ann Allen Shockley suggests that "the fear of being labeled a Lesbian, whether they were one or not" (1983, 84), has been a major deterrent. June Jordan contends that the male bias in the Black intellectual community has used the notion of Black lesbians as the ultimate Other in discrediting Black feminism: "Evidently, feminism was being translated into lesbianism, into something interchangeable with lesbianism, and the taboo on feminism, within the Black intellectual community, had long been exceeded in its orthodox severity only by the taboo on the subject of the lesbian" (1981, 140). To Jordan the Black intellectual community has done a disservice to African-Americans because "the phenomena of self-directed Black women or the phenomena of Black women loving other women have hardly been uncommon, let alone unbelievable, events to Black people not privy to theoretical strife about correct and incorrect Black experience"(1981, 140).
Black women's silence about homophobia and the treatment of Black lesbians reflects another, equally important dimension of Eurocentric masculinist thought. "I think the reason that Black women are so homophobic," suggests Barbara Smith, "is that attraction-repulsion thing. They have to speak out vociferously against lesbianism because if they don't they may have to deal with their own deep feelings for women" (Smith and Smith 1981, 124). Shockley agrees: "most black women feared and abhorred Lesbians more than rape-perhaps because of the fear bred from their deep inward potentiality for Lesbianism" (1974, 31-32). In the same sense that men who accept Eurocentric notions of masculinity fear and deny the dimensions of themselves that they associate with femininity--for example, interpreting male expressiveness as being weak and unmanly (Hoch 1979)-Black women may suppress their own strong feelings for other Black women for fear of being stigmatized as lesbians. Similarly, in the way that male domination of women embodies men's fears about their own masculinity, Black heterosexual women's treatment of Black lesbians reflects fears that all African-American women are essentially the same. Yet, as Audre Lorde points out, "in the same way that the existence of the self-defined Black woman is no threat to the self-defined Black man, the Black lesbian is an emotional threat only to those Black women whose feelings of kinship and love for other Black women are problematic in some way" (1984, 49).
Love And Empowerment
"In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change" (Lorde 1984, 53). The ability of social institutions such as pornography, prostitution, and rape to infuse the private domain of Black women's love relationships with Black men, with whites, and with one another typifies this process. The parallels between distortions of deep human feelings in racial oppression and of the distortions of the erotic in gender oppression are striking. Analysts of the interpersonal dynamics of racism point out that whites fear in Blacks those qualities they project onto Blacks that they most fear in themselves. By labeling Blacks as sexually animalistic and by dominating Blacks, whites in actuality aim to repress these dimensions of their own inner being (Hoch 1979). When men dominate women and accuse them of being sexually passive, the act of domination, from pressured sexual intercourse to rape, reduces male anxiety about male impotence, the ultimate sexual passivity (Hoch 1979). Similarly, the suppression of gays and lesbians symbolizes the repression of strong feelings for members of one's own gender, feelings this culture has sexualized and stigmatized in the overarching sex/gender hierarchy. All of these emotions-the fact that whites know that Blacks are human, the fact that men love women, and the fact that women have deep feelings for one another-must be distorted on the emotional level of the erotic in order for oppressive systems to endure. Sexuality and power on the personal level become wedded to the sex/gender hierarchy on the social structural level in order to ensure the smooth operation of race, gender, and class oppression.
Recognizing that corrupting and distorting basic feelings human beings have for one another lies at the heart of multiple systems of oppression opens up new possibilities for transformation and change. June Jordan (1981) explores this connection between embracing feeling and human empowerment: "As I think about anyone or any thing-whether history or literature or my father or political organizations or a poem or a film-as I seek to evaluate the potentiality, the life-supportive commitment/possibilities of anyone or any thing, the decisive question is, always, where is the love?" (p. 141).
Jordan's question touches a deep nerve in African-American social and ethical thought. In her work Black Womanist Ethics, Katie G. Cannon (1988) suggests that love, community, and justice are deeply intertwined in African-American ethics. Cannon examines the work of two prominent Black male theorists-Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr.-and concludes that their ideas represent core values from which Black women draw strength. According to Thurman, love is the basis of community, and community is the arena for moral agency. Only love of self, love between individuals, and love of God can shape, empower, and sustain social change. Martin Luther King, Jr., gives greater significance in his ethics to the relationship of love and justice, suggesting that love is active, dynamic, determined, and generates the motive and drive for justice. For both Thurman and King, everything moves toward community and the expression of love within the context of community. It is this version of love and community, argues Cannon, that stimulates a distinctive Black womanist ethics.
For June Jordan love begins with self-love and self-respect, actions that propel African-American women toward the self-determination and political activism essential for social justice. By grappling with this simple yet profound question, "where is the love?" Black women resist multiple types of oppression. This question encourages all groups embedded in systems of domination to move toward a place where, as Toni Morrison's Paul D expresses it, "you could love anything you chose-not to need permission for desire-well, now, that was freedom" (1987, 162).
Notes
1. Black women's efforts to encourage Black men to rethink their gender ideology have encountered often serious opposition. Black literary critic Calvin Hernton describes how this antagonistic posture by some Black men operates in Black literature:
"Too often Black men have a philosophy of manhood that relegates women to the back burner. Therefore it is perceived as an offense for black women to struggle on their own, let alone achieve something independently. Thus, no matter how original, beautiful, and formidable the works of black women writers might be, black men become "offended" if such works bear the slightest criticism of them, or if the women receive recognition from other women, especially from the white literary establishment. They do not behave as though something of value has been added to the annals of black literature. Rather, they behave as though something has been subtracted, not only from the literature, but from the entire race, and specifically, from them." (Hernton 1985, 6)
Margo St. James offers an interesting connection between domestic violence and prostitution: "I feet that the stigmatizing, the whore stigma, is what legitimizes violence, even in the home, because when the husband slugs his wife, he precedes the abuse with, 'You slut!' 'You whore!'" (Bell 1987, 130).
Michel Foucault refers to this phenomenon as a "network or circuit of bio-power, or somato-power, which acts as the formative matrix of sexuality itself" (1980, 186). To Foucault, "power relations can materially penetrate the body in depth, without depending even on the mediation of the subject's own representations. If power takes hold on the body, this isn't through its having first to be interiorized in people's consciousness" (P.186). This particular dimension of power as domination is extremely effective precisely because it is felt and not conceptualized.
The degree and shape of homophobia within African-American communities needs to be determined. Cheryl Clarke suggests that the Black intellectual community is more homophobic than the larger Black community: "Since no one has bothered to study the black community's attitudes on . . . homosexuality ... it is not accurate to attribute homophobia to the mass of black people" (1983, 205). Clarke contends that a history of racial oppression has made African-Americans more empathetic, but "as it stands now, the black political community seems bereft of that humanity" (p. 206).
References
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hill Collins, Patricia. "Sexual Politics and Black Women's Relationships". In: Collins, Patricia Hill, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 181-198.
Copyright © 1990. From BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT by Patricia Hill Collins. Reproduced by Permission of Routledge, Inc. To learn more about this book or to order, visit Routledge on-line (http://www.routledge-ny.com)
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/WoC/sexualities/collins9.htm l |
Lil_ze
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 344
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:17 pm: |
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black feminist=angry black lesbian |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 813
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:20 pm: |
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"Black women who have willingly chosen white male friends and lovers have been severely chastized in African-American communities for selling out the "race," or they are accused of being like prostitutes, demeaning themselves by willingly using white men for their own financial or social gain. "
Yep. I know a male, who would call everyone Black woman who dated a White man a "whore", and that she was only with him for "money".
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Lil_ze
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 345
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:25 pm: |
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black women who date and/or marry white men ARE whores. |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 815
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:26 pm: |
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Why???? |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 816
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:29 pm: |
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I would be a *whore* if I let him bang me? |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 817
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:30 pm: |
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I need a cigarette after that one! |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 1171
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:35 pm: |
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LOL...sorry BB, but that guy is SO not all that. |
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 1172
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:36 pm: |
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Djimon Honsou and Takeshi Kaneshiro are the hottest men EVER....well, ever in show business anyways. |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 819
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 11:38 pm: |
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You need to see this man in motion. That picture really doesn't do his beauty any justice. I *heart* him.
I'm still waiting for Lil_ze's reponse to why Black women are whores for sleeping with White men and not vice versa?? |
Lil_ze
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 346
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 12:37 am: |
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well brownbeauty, during slavery white men always had sex (raped) black women. but white women were never allowed to have sex with black men. black men who have sex with white women are just being men. black men who date and/or marry white women maybe they are "crossing a invisible line" (i don't think i would date a white female).
but women of any race who date, have sex with, or marry men of other races, are whores. why? because any woman who would willingly lay down with a man who is not racially similar to their father is openly saying to the men of their race, "you are not good enough".
also white women don't have a history of raping, robbing, and murdering black men. white men did these things and the white woman came along for the ride. any black woman who dates, marries, or has sex with white men are basically playing the role of a "slave bed wench", for the (white) men who are responsible for the hell our people went through. black women who have sex with are full of diseases, because white men have cancerous sperm. white men are also the chief spreaders of disease on the planet earth. a white woman who sleeps with a black man, is a WHITE WHORE. any time you see a white woman with a black man, this is a white woman who has declared, "to hell with my white forefathers". a white woman who marries a black man is slapping her white father, brother, cousins, and uncles in the face. the same is true with a black woman who dates or marries white men. the women of the other nations (arabs, east indian etc) don't for the most part deal with men of other races. sure you see a handful of arab women or east indian women dating other races, but for the most part they stay amongst thier own. men have ALWAYS used women of other races for sex. but the women of a nation have NEVER been allowed or have been given the "green light" to have sex with men of other races. the slavemaster always had black women for his bed wench. but the white man NEVER allowed his women to sleep with black men. the same principle exists today. that is why black women who date or marry white men are whores. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 129
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 01:14 am: |
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Brownbeauty, something just for you. 
A pic of Wentworth. My personal favorite, actually.
http://tinypic.com/k35h5c.jpg |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6034
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 08:16 am: |
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BB123,
I don't think Black women are inherently more repressed than other women. Hell. From what I've heard, there ain't too much repressing down amongst alot of your Black girls and women these days.
I think, though, the penalties of a Black female sexuality (e.g., high rates of STD's, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, abortions, etc.) are often considerably greater than those of other women. Thus, by comparison, many Black women might appear more guarded.
It's been my experience that if/when Black women feel secure about what's going down, they can be every bit as sexually liberated as other women.
Btw: You'd only be a whore if you had sex with Wentworth primary for money.
Lil_ze,
You are such a fuhking hypocrite. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1352
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 11:46 am: |
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Brownbeauty,
Don't even entertain the notion that you'd be a whore if you slept with Wentworth Miller or a man who looks similiarm --that's utter nonsense!
Lil_ze is an idiot --the same idiot who, in another thread (10 Ways a Sista Can Get Some Money), wrote this:
"I love giving these dirty black whores a few dollars...........there is no better feeling than giving some young black whore a few bucks, and then getting my rocks off."
Then, in the same thread (10 Ways a Sista Can Get Some Money), went on to ask this question:
"what the hell is a nikka? is that like a nigger? im sure it is."
Now, tell me, what BLACK MAN doesn't know what a "nikka" is? Even black men who don't use that type of slang know what the term "nikka" means.
I peeped that ignorant cats game a long time ago! That's why "he" follows me all over these boards. "He" hates white women who are with black men, but will PAY to "get his rocks off" with "dirty black whores". It's typical behavior of a white racist.
Ignore "him", Brownbeauty.
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Doberman23
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 503
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 03:16 pm: |
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moonsigns ... lol! you have to admit lil-ze is funny though. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1353
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 03:22 pm: |
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Doberman,
His thought-pattern is so irrational and he seems to be the only one who doesn't "get it" -- and that is what is so funny! |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6056
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 03:50 pm: |
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Moonsigns,
I'm hoping Lil_ze is just some troll. Otherwise, mofo's got some fairly SERIOUS mental issues that require immediate attention. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 337
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 05:27 pm: |
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Abm,
The only reason he's been handed a seat at the table is 'cause most of the light-skinned members of this forum, who clearly approve of his offensive rhetoric, handed it to him. Had he been a white guy making the same racist assertions (referring to Africans as monkeys and whatnot) he would've been shamed by every member by now, ESPECIALLY the most multicultural and/or conservative ones--because when a white guy says it, it means light-skinned folks as well. So, so much for the solidarity. So much for us “all being brown.” |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6059
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 05:49 pm: |
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Tonya,
So to be honest, I totally missed Lil_ze's "Africans as monkey" thing. I stop reading his posts after the first 10 or so. The shyt was just too dayam crazy for me to waste neurosynaptic energy on'em. |
Lil_ze
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 348
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - 09:26 pm: |
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moonsigns, my comment about "young black whores" was a tounge n'cheek response to a post that actually entertained the idea of black women "selling pussy" (being whores for money). i don't hate white women who are with black men. i really don't care about them. if some white trash female wants to marry our people its of not matter to me.
i also NEVER referred to "africans" as monkeys. that is a lie. tonya is lying.
of course i know what a "nikka" is. i again was being tounge n' cheek. why didn't brownbeauty just refer to black men as niggers? that is what she was really calling us.
moonsigns, nobody is "following" you anywhere. you are the one who is following our people. where does some white trash like you get off telling me about anything involving our people? i love how you use the phrase, "i peeped this cats game along time ago". how badly do you want to be black? how on earth could i hate white females who are with black men? self hating white trash females like yourself make it very easy for black men to find EASY sex partners. so white trash self hating scum like you do have a place amongst our people. you get to play the part of the blackman bed-wench. i love how some of the black people on this board are quick to find solidarity with some white dog who has NO place on this board. i see some of our people are still easily decieved by a wolf in sheep's clothing.
moonsigns, you can come to this board,and put in your 2 cents about issues that have nothing to do with you. you can screw and have black babies by every blackman you see and lust after. you can also try and try to get in amongst our people amd have some kind of vicarious existense with our people. but you are not fooling anyone. you are marked with skin color that says you can NEVER be one of our people. i can go to any place where our people are, and nobody looks twice. you on the other hand standout and are marked as an outsider, because you are not one of us. i know this must eat you up inside, but its the truth. you can have 50 black babies, when you are amongst our people nobody accepts you. sure our people, because we have good hearts, will not tell you to your face. but none of our people like seeing white women trying to "slide-in" amongst us. so keep up your "i wanna be black" lifestyle. in the end you are just another piece of white trash who hates herself.
i challenge tonya or anyone on this board to site where i referred to "africans" as monkeys? i never did. i did refer to moonsigns as a "wanna be black" piece of trash, because thats what she is. any white women who wants to be something she's not, and wants to be around people who she has no place amongst, this is a person with irrational thought patterns. but of course some of the simple people on this board won't recognize this fact. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1354
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 11:03 am: |
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Abm,
I hear ya--and, btw, regarding this situation, I do appreciate your ability to see things for what they are worth.
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Misty
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Misty
Post Number: 310
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 12:35 am: |
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"I don't think Black women are inherently more repressed than other women. Hell. From what I've heard, there ain't too much repressing down amongst alot of your Black girls and women these days.
I think, though, the penalties of a Black female sexuality (e.g., high rates of STD's, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, abortions, etc.) are often considerably greater than those of other women. Thus, by comparison, many Black women might appear more guarded.
It's been my experience that if/when Black women feel secure about what's going down, they can be every bit as sexually liberated as other women."
i think when they tlak aobut blakc women beign sexually repressed they're tlakign aobut how you have black women in the media who wont take certain roles in movies....black women are less likely to pose nude and are also less likely to be seen nude in movies than white women. This is because black women are afraid of promoting the stereotype of being nymphomaniacs.
plus i also think they're tlaking aobut the dick sucking thing......jsut ten years ago in the blakc community a person who sucked a dick was considered to be a freak...sucking a dick was seen as a "white thing" and it still is seen that way to some extent although this has started to die out over the past 5 years.....but for a long time there were certain things that black women sjtu didnt do in bed.
so when they refer to sexual repression they're tlkaing about how the jezebel image forces alot of black women to become prudent or to not take control of their own sexuality.
plus from what ive seen african american women tend to be more sexually free than foreign blacxk women (black women from africa, europe and the carribbean)....shooth, women form africa can be some of the most prude women you ever want to meet. So if they're not jsut focusing on american black women and including blsakc women form all over the world, i can DEFINITELY see what they're talkign about. But even american black women are sexually represssed no matter how many babies they have out of wedlock...i still feel black american women fail to take control of their sexuality.
p.s., ABM i responded to you and kola's comments on the thread about brown/ tan beign the beauty standard. that thread did kind of get buried though...but jsut letitng you know so you will see it.
http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/179/14545.html?1155667456
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Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 132
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 02:33 am: |
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Misty: plus i also think they're tlaking aobut the dick sucking thing......jsut ten years ago in the blakc community a person who sucked a dick was considered to be a freak...sucking a dick was seen as a "white thing" and it still is seen that way to some extent although this has started to die out over the past 5 years.....but for a long time there were certain things that black women sjtu didnt do in bed.
This is one of the most pervasive myths that is constantly, consistently trotted out. I can say with assurance that almost every sista I know was performing fellatio during the 70's, 80's, etc.
And the brothas they were involved with were "reciprocating"... |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 595
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 03:48 am: |
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"This is one of the most pervasive myths that is constantly, consistently trotted out. I can say with assurance that almost every sista I know was performing fellatio during the 70's, 80's, etc. And the brothas they were involved with were "reciprocating"..."
Here...here..here......!!! Don't tell that's true now is it..?? Ha! Ha! Ha! |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6111
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 10:13 am: |
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Misty,
I concur that many Black women more tightly guard their image for fear of being perceived as lusty sex fiends.
I don't know whether American Blacks are any more or less inhibited than non-American Blacks, though I'm sure, with like all other human phenomena; social, cultural and religious differences apply.
PS: The sistahs not suhking dyck thing I find kinda comical. Because I've never known a woman - Black, White or Yellow - who did NOT enjoy suhking the dyck of a man who's PLEASING her.
Hahahahaha!!! |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6112
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 10:20 am: |
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Misty,
I had read your response to my last on the http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/179/14545.html?1155667456 thread. You made some strong arguments. And since I was not inclined to offer any credible rebuts to them, I felt that it was appropriate for me to concede to you the last word on the subject.
I guess the only thing I might add to that topic is as follows: If you are right about racial ambiguity proffering the true apex of human beauty and if the darker, more South Saharan African one appears the less social, political and economic power one usually possesses (which is a worldwide phenomenon), then, I suppose, blacker men SHOULD want mate with whiter & lighter women and black men SHOULD want to BE whiter & lighter.
Would you agree? |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 846
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 10:42 am: |
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"plus i also think they're tlaking aobut the dick sucking thing......jsut ten years ago in the blakc community a person who sucked a dick was considered to be a freak...sucking a dick was seen as a "white thing" and it still is seen that way to some extent although this has started to die out over the past 5 years.....but for a long time there were certain things that black women sjtu didnt do in bed"
I've noticed this too, Misty. The new generation seem to have no hang-ups about it, but the older ones do. Growing up, my mom NEVER acknowledged oral sex, and when she did she told me it was disgusting and to "never" do it, because it's disrespectful. |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 847
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 10:43 am: |
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"PS: The sistahs not suhking dyck thing I find kinda comical. Because I've never known a woman - Black, White or Yellow - who did NOT enjoy suhking the dyck of a man who's PLEASING her."
I still know some.
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Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 848
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 10:47 am: |
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"This is one of the most pervasive myths that is constantly, consistently trotted out. I can say with assurance that almost every sista I know was performing fellatio during the 70's, 80's, etc.
And the brothas they were involved with were "reciprocating"...
I think it was one of those things that black women often did but never, ever confessed to doing. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6113
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 12:15 pm: |
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BB123,
They're either lying or not getting their cQQchie popped the RIGHT way. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6114
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 12:17 pm: |
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BB123,
Is it true that 20-something (and YOUNGER) chicks these days will suhk dyck QUICKER than they will screw a dude? |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 133
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 12:58 pm: |
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Brownbeauty: I've noticed this too, Misty. The new generation seem to have no hang-ups about it, but the older ones do. Growing up, my mom NEVER acknowledged oral sex, and when she did she told me it was disgusting and to "never" do it, because it's disrespectful.
I had to chuckle at your statement, Brownbeauty. Let's just say I came of age during the 70's and we thought the same thing about OUR mothers' generation---that they were vehemently anti-oral sex, that it was taboo, "nasty", "only white folks did it", etc.
What I'm telling you is sistas in the 70's and 80's were not hesitant to reveal among close friends that they engaged in oral sex. Unfortunately, there is often a veil of secrecy cloaking the sexual mores of one generation from the next. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6121
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 01:21 pm: |
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Savant,
With all those drugs and hippy free-love talk floating around. Can't NOBODY convince me there weren't PLENTY sistas giving head back in the 70's. |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 850
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 02:16 pm: |
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ABM, they have nothing to lose by lying. I don't know why you find it so hard to believe that there are women out there that don't give head. Some people get more satisfaction by having intercourse than any other sexual act. Different strokes, different folks.
"I had to chuckle at your statement, Brownbeauty. Let's just say I came of age during the 70's and we thought the same thing about OUR mothers' generation---that they were vehemently anti-oral sex, that it was taboo, "nasty", "only white folks did it", etc.
What I'm telling you is sistas in the 70's and 80's were not hesitant to reveal among close friends that they engaged in oral sex. Unfortunately, there is often a veil of secrecy cloaking the sexual mores of one generation from the next."
Considering my mother's upbringing, and her telling me "not" to do it, I beg to differ. Why did she tell me that if there was no anti oral sex during her time?
"Is it true that 20-something (and YOUNGER) chicks these days will suhk dyck QUICKER than they will screw a dude?"
The teenagers are far more notorious for this one. |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 852
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 02:22 pm: |
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Savant, I just disagree with you that oral sex was not taboo. I've spoken to too many older women that thought of it as something "whores" or "white women" did. Maybe it has to due with my age and they were fronting? I don't know. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 134
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 02:55 pm: |
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Brownbeauty, what age brackets are you talking about when you say "older women"? I've had too many conversations with women over 45 who didn't just start giving head within the last 5 years, ok? lol
Black folks generally tend to be a bit discrete about their sexual proclivities and often older black women, when talking to younger sistas, find it difficult to be as forthcoming as they should be about their sexual experiences and histories. Let's just say that sistas in the 70's might not have been shouting to the rafters that they gave head but it was known to be a common practice among almost everyone I knew.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6129
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 04:01 pm: |
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BB123,
Chicks lie to everyone - including their own dayamselves - about engaging in certain things they believe they might be made embarrassed by. But I've been around long enuff to know that when a man manages to make a woman's love come down, she's capable of getting off in to all kinds of shyt she's NOT going to be sharing with her girlfriends and sorors.
I can Cajun Gairuntee THAT one, Young Stuff.
Savant,
Young foks always think shyt started with them. As if foks - Black ones included - throughout the centuries and millennia were not as interested in exploring new/exciting things to do with their genitals. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 135
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006 - 04:33 pm: |
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Abm,
You got that right, brotha.
Sometimes I just have to smile knowingly... |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 861
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006 - 10:38 am: |
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"Chicks lie to everyone - including their own dayamselves - about engaging in certain things they believe they might be made embarrassed by. But I've been around long enuff to know that when a man manages to make a woman's love come down, she's capable of getting off in to all kinds of shyt she's NOT going to be sharing with her girlfriends and sorors. "
that's still not true for everybody. You just want to believe every woman does it--when they don't. Some men don't even care for oral. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 147
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006 - 09:42 pm: |
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Brownbeauty...
What man do you know that doesn't like oral sex? lol
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Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 872
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 19, 2006 - 10:06 pm: |
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They're out there Some ppl prefer intercourse over oral, or vice versa. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 153
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 01:07 am: |
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I'm not talking about "preferences", Brownbeauty. You said "some men don't even care for oral", not "preferences".
I'm talking about the fact that men, pretty much across the board, ENJOY oral sex.
There is not a man out there that doesn't enjoy his dick being sucked, if a sista is doing it correctly.
Hell, the majority of them enjoy it even if a sista ain't doing it correctly...lol |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6144
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 02:35 am: |
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I think the only time a man might sincerely dislike receiving oral is if the woman is hurting him (usually via biting) or if the woman herself demonstrates she fears or detests blowing him. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 154
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 09:51 am: |
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Exactly, Abm.
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Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 885
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 11:52 am: |
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"I'm not talking about "preferences", Brownbeauty. You said "some men don't even care for oral", not "preferences".
I'm talking about the fact that men, pretty much across the board, ENJOY oral sex."
Why are you trying to over rationalize this? You can "prefer" something over another because you simply DON'T LIKE SOMETHING AT ALL AND/OR because you might like one "better than the other"...
"I'm talking about the fact that men, pretty much across the board, ENJOY oral sex.
"
Unless, you blew every man's dick across the board, I don't see how you would know this for sure. I speak from my own personal experience, and I don't care what anybody else may THINK about it.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6148
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 12:34 pm: |
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BB123,
Pardon me, but if I recall correctly, you've said (within another thread) you've only had sex with TWO men.
Baby. You HARDLY have enuff "personal experience" to accurately discern what it is that men like. |
Savant
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Savant
Post Number: 155
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 03:00 pm: |
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Abm: BB123,Pardon me, but if I recall correctly, you've said (within another thread) you've only had sex with TWO men.
Baby. You HARDLY have enuff "personal experience" to accurately discern what it is that men like.
Abm,
I was trying not to go there but since you did....hehe
Brownbeauty,
If you would stop being so defensive, you might LEARN A LITTLE SOMETHIN' from an older sista...
You done slept with how many men?
Been married HOW many times?
You don't know the first thing about men and ain't willing to learn...hehe |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6176
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 06:30 pm: |
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Savant,
I TRIED to avoid it to. But she has been so gotdayam adamant in her ignorance on this subject, I felt enuffs-enuf ALREADY.
Hahahahaha!!! |
Brownbeauty123
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Brownbeauty123
Post Number: 886
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 09:50 pm: |
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Whatever. Sex is overrated anyway. |
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