Let's Talk About Sex Positve, Part 2: Put It In Ya Mouth?

And here it is. The blog post I never thought I would write. The one about sucking dick.

Thank you for making this very hard for me, asshole.

If I can break the literary 4th wall a little more than usual and commit the sin of blogging about blogging, I am actually nervous about this topic. I've had other posts that made me a little uncomfortable, but this is the first time that I have experienced fear when writing. On the inside, I am alternately giggling and feeling a little weepy. This is hard.

Okay, I took off my cool, let me put it back on.

I was a little stuck on where I wanted to take the next part of the Sex Week journey and the homie JDantv suggested the head game and the notion that Black women are hesitant to give it, is it demeaning, etc. My first reaction- ME, Ms. Sex Positivity!- was "How do I look writing about sucking dick? Hell no!" But as I said yesterday, to get to the freedom, we have to destroy the chains. And with that comes pain. *Poetry just runs though me. I can't even help it. I don't even like poetry.*

So, let's talk about giving head, shall we? I am well aware that there is a school of thought that says that Black women don't do it as often or as well as White women. I am also aware that women of all races should run and hide in the presence of men who say things like this. Girl, he's just not that respectful of you. Admittedly without any scientific evidence, I am a firm believer that the idea of Black women not sucking dick is grossly blown out of proportion. I also don't believe that White women just spend all their time giving out blow jobs.

However, I DO believe that Black women may be more reticent to give head or to talk about doing it than our White counterparts. Here's why: the Black woman was made out by European racists to be an insatiable sexual beast. This notion of the Black female's animal like sexuality was used to justify rape and oppression for centuries. There were cases of Black women being unable to testify on their own behalf in rape trials because of their 'irrepressible sexuality' as late as the 1970's, while White women were campaigning for the freedom to freak as they saw fit.

According to writer Michela Angela Davis's comments at a recent panel, the rise of Hip-Hop culture dealt another blow to the sexual identity of the Black woman. Whereas Black music had formerly been a primarily "safe space" for sisters, Davis stated that we were now being "molested" by our music. I am inclined to agree. While Hip-Hop speaks volumes about misogyny against all women, it is sisters who are the primary targets of the nasty slurs and imagery used by rappers. When you grow up hearing all these emcees talking about sexual women like they are the scum of the earth, how many young women are gonna be comfortable talking about their sexuality?

Head in Hip-Hop is often described as an almost violent act. The giver is usually some lowly woman who is willing to barter her sex at best for some diamonds or cash and at worst, for the mere privilege of being in the presence of the rapper in question. Unsurprisingly, the vilest lyrics come from traditionally unattractive men who wouldn't have otherwise been able to pull many women. And yes, there are plenty of groupies out their willing to oblige in these acts.


Video "vixens": brought to you by low self-esteem, capitalism and a celebrity obsessed culture. How dreadful.

This isn't about blaming Hip-Hop or White oppression for destroying the ability for Black women to travel light when it comes to sexuality. But when critiquing Black women for this perceived sexual flaw or modesty or dishonesty, we must understand that Black women are not the architects of our own pathology here.* We didn't just land on this place with a bad attitude, a lot of baggage and a bunch of hangups. Like White women, like Black men, like everyone else...we done been through some real shit here, people.

I remember my conversations about sex with my girlfriends when we were in middle school and high school. The general sentiment was "I'm not ever doing it" or "Only for my husband". One other homegirl and I were always off to the side on that like "Um, I'm pretty sure you're gonna do it a lot sooner than that." I didn't perform oral sex until I was 18 and it took me more years than that to actually feel comfortable doing it or to know how to do it well. But I know a hell of a lot of other girls who started sooner than that. Sadly, few seemed to actually enjoy it or to be doing it for the right reasons back then. But teenage sex is another largely troubling subject for another day.

What's crazy to me is that I, of all people, felt more comfortable writing about being sexually assaulted than I do writing about my willingness to choose sex. I am nothing if not very, very human. While I do live life off the wall, dealing with judgement can be annoying, to say the least. But I ride or die for my girls and I'll be the one to stand up and say, yes, I give head. Why wouldn't I? I', 24, 25. I'm sexually active and if I'm sleeping with you...the dots should connect easily. We grown.


Fellatio is not a demeaning act, if it is performed by a willing participant in a safe space. If a man is using you simply for head, if you are attempting to barter it or any other sex trick for affection, then that's another story. If a man tells you that he refuses to return the favor, you shouldn't do it for him unless you just really enjoy doing it. And even then, there's something wrong about giving to someone who only chooses to receive. But the typical head performance- we sexing, you going down, I'm going down- is nothing to be ashamed of.

For many women, comfort with oral sex is something that has to be worked towards. I had a few highly traumatic experiences with giving head: one that occurred when I was still very new to my sexual life and the other when I was just starting to feel confident about my sexual identity and prowess. Oral sex is now just like anything else that can be exchanged between myself and a man: I'm prideful about my ability to do it and I am in complete control over when or why I would.

I reject the Cosmo-fication of sex, which asks women to alternately agonize over achieving some mind-blowing orgasm and making sure that your man is exposed to every possible iota of sexual gratification you can conjure. However, purchasing some books about giving head helped me to get to a level of comfort and skill that has both empowered my sexual choices and improved the quality of my sex life.

Nothing is wrong with modesty. Black women should not feel that they are failing in some way if they don't want to talk about the things they do in the bedroom. The problem is when we feel that we CAN'T talk about those things or that we shouldn't be doing them in the first place. The women who lie about certain acts or reject them create a hostile and unsafe condition for sisters who may otherwise feel okay about their choices. Women are no less guilty of 'slut shaming' than men and that sort of judgement often times hurts more coming from the group with whom you most identify.

However, you KNOW I wouldn't be me if I didn't engage the male culpability here. By publicly comparing us to White women sexually, we are once again given the meme that we just aren't what men want. This isn't the attitude of every man, but it's a conversation that has been repeated too many times. If the desire of our men is for Black women to feel comfortable with being sexual, there is a level of support we need from men to achieve that. The virgin/whore dichotomy that says a woman is either/or is oppressive to women of all races and needs to be dismantled. We cannot be made to feel like sluts when we fuck and prudes when we don't.

All that said, how do we get past this, people? How do we arrive at a place where Black women are sexually free? Where all women feel comfortable with being as sexually on or off as they please without feeling that they feel to meet a criterion? How do we destroy the attitude that sucking dick is some nasty woman's disease?

*I jacked that phrase, used in a different context, from a commenter at the same panel discussion.