There is something I have been meaning to tell you.
I grew up in mostly white communities. And while that is common for a minority of my age in the United States I don't just mean mostly white, I mean nearly all white. Hunterdon County, during my teen years, was 97.3% Caucasian.
Which means all the 'others' took up a measly 2.7% of the human space.
I tell you this to make it clear that I have heard just about every racist, xenophobic, dismissive and minimizing stereotype you can think of. (Now the one about Blacks and Asians not trusting each other didn't reach me until my late twenties. I was totally bemused, I guess I missed that memo.)
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| Shu-Fen & I (She's Asian - so far, so good;-) |
Attempting to categorize and define what we see in order to help our minds comprehend what our Hearts are feeling about what we are seeing.
What this has to do with me is that while I survived the experience, I have also spent a lot of life energy attempting to become living proof of its evolutionary backwardness.
This has been both conscious (I spent many young years avoiding watermelon at picnics) and unconscious.
Unconsciously it has appeared in various arenas. The desire to not ever need help (a 'hand out',) to dampen down my successes ('don't be too flashy',) to get educated but not act too smart ('don't get all uppity') and the list goes on.
You can see that my unconscious reaction has been evolutionarily backwards too. So, whenever I discover a new spot where this pattern is playing out I attempt to exorcise it immediately.
After Really Pretty For a Black Girl, I began to notice how many older men, and by older I mean 55+, wanted to ask me about my dating experiences. (Mind you, these were men I had never met before.) They wanted to know what it is like for a 'single, childless, thirty-something, Black woman dating in this day in age.'
As I went in to explain how it is for this "single, childless, thirty-something, Black woman" I was taken aback to find out that what they were really asking was, "How's the sex?"
Now these were appropriately lecherous older men. Nothing criminal or creepy about any of them. So, I had to know why they wanted to know this about me, a total stranger.
It turns out that in every case they admitted that their earliest memories of sex talk with their buddies and father figures included something of a report on how each race of women were known to behave 'in bed.'
You know, that Asian women were sadistic pleasure givers, ball busting tigresses. Nordic women? Nurturing Madonnas and what man doesn't need that? Life can be very cold at times. Speaking of which, Anglo Saxon women are known to be frigid but at least you can bring them home to meet your family. Italian women are irresistibly fiery. A good fight makes for great make up sex. The Latinas? Passionate and crazy which can be a really good time.
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| That's right. |
And doing a Black girl? It's like fucking a wild animal, boys. Taming the untameable - a virile man's dream.
Oh shit, right. I 'forgot' about that one.
Now, I give you the most base version of these stereotypes in hopes that you recognize them. I also hope that they will trigger that knee jerk defensiveness with which any educated and sensitive human would respond to such awful generalizations.
I myself responded that way to these beliefs in the past for certain. (The 'once you go Black you never go back' expression always got my dander up - I've heard much more explicit versions from the mouths of non-Black men.)
But, after these conversations with well meaning, curious men I had to look a bit deeper.
I started asking my younger male friends (from all over the world, not just the US) what sort of stories they heard about sex, women and race growing up. And it appears that these ideas persist.
Best story collected was one from my friend who grew up in Alaska. His introduction to the Black girl sex stereotype came from the mouth of his 9yr. old, female, African American class mate! Alaska, is not exactly teeming with Black folks. This must be a rather loud and long time belief to have reached that baby's consciousness.
One friend, after sharing his memories and experiences on the subject, pointed out, "The real question Kimberly is, does the stereotype apply in your case? Is it True?"
Oh man... I think, that in this case... no, I know that in my case, it is. It's True.
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| Ms. Mae West - 'Diamond Lil' |
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a minute! You mean that a huge piece of repressing my full sexual expression may be an unconscious avoidance of this stereotype?
Damn.
In the end, it doesn't matter why I'm great in bed or how I learned to do it well.
Regardless of how many terrible sexual experiences healed it has taken for me to feel Free in this regard, it looks like it's time to own my Truth on this one.
I have Magic in this arena and it's one of the gifts I was put on this planet to share.
Watch out boys, watch out world, the Mae West in me is primed and totally ready to roll.
I want to ask you all to please voice your opinion on this one! Share your race impacted sex beliefs and stories below!
