The Complexities of Black Sex Positivity
As a Black woman raised in the conservative American Midwest, the conversation of “sex positivity” has always been elusive to me. The term originally became popular during the 1960s free love era. This movement, like its successors, was largely led by White women. The Ethical Slut, Sex & The City, and third-wave feminism put Gen X and Millenial Sex Positivity at the forefront of mainstream media. This didn’t just stop in the 90s. With the advent of social media, the 2020s have come in with a roaring bang of sex positivity. This isn’t without its criticisms, however. Radical Feminists and many young women within Generation Z have critiqued sex positivity as a movement against the best interests of young women. These debates aren’t exactly new as the “Sex Wars” was a pivotal moment in the 1980s for feminists. Adversaries of the sex-positivity movement claimed that widespread pornography furthered the objectification of women while their opposition believed that in order for the sexes to be truly seen as equal, women would have to adopt a shame-free attitude towards sex. Like many men have. While conversations surrounding the Sex Wars were influential, they centered on the experiences of White college-educated heterosexual women. The binary of “liberal” vs “radical” feminism doesn’t take the conversation of sex positivity outside of the White Protestant-influenced society we live in.
Due to this, the adoption of sex positivity looks quite different for Black women. Due to religion and misogynoir, Black American culture tends to exist in its own paradigm when it comes to social issues. Take a look at Instagram and other forms of popular media and it appears that Black women’s sexuality is everywhere. It is nearly impossible to name a popular Black female musician whose sexual prowess is not at the forefront of her media-crafted image. So it appears that Black women have got this whole sex-positivity thing down, right?
Not quite. For centuries, Black women, like White women, have had zero to little agency over our sexualities. However, like many other women of color, this lack of sexual agency looked quite different than it did for White women. The stereotype of hypersexualized Black women was integral to oppression. By pushing the narrative of Black women’s uncontrolled sexuality, society was able to further abuse us without recourse. Prior to the civil rights movement, the sexual assault of Black women was effectively decriminalized in many parts of the West. If mainstream judeo-Christian society pushes womanhood into the Madonna-Whore binary, Black women were always the Whore. Which meant we weren’t really women, we were beasts to be tamed.
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Issues of sexual abuses of Black women are not restricted to antebellum times. As of now, Black women still face intracommunity assault at a rate that was far higher than our peers. Before White Hollywood adopted it as a pet issue, the #MeToo movement was founded by a Black woman, Tarana Burke, in response to the high level of sexual assault within the Black community.
We are not portrayed as openly sexual because Black culture is sexually progressive. It’s the contrary. Dehumanizing Black women via hypsersexualization makes it easier to violate us. On the flip side, White women’s sexual purity, or rather repression, has always served as a symbol in the West. The sanctity of white womanhood has been one of the most effective tools in propaganda. Lynchings, genocides and wars have been waged in its honor. Protecting the chastity of white women in many cases serves as an allegory of protecting the safety of the Nation. Therefore the adoption of sex positivity by mainstream White culture was a movement to gain control over this oppression. To finally gain control over something that had been long repressed and embrace it as natural.
“For Black women, it means finally claiming our sexuality as our own. Not our churches, families, partners, or societies but rather solely for ourselves.”
While the portrayal of our sexuality is the inverse of White women’s, our oppression is not all that different. In Selling Hot Pussy, Black womanist writer bell hooks asserts that Black women’s agentless sexuality is being sold all around us. We are objectified nude bodies used as props in high fashion magazines. Headless asses used to sell and promote albums. We are nappy headed hoes and welfare queen baby mamas used to galvanize right wing bases. Although you can freely see Black women in sexual situations, society does not have a positive attitude towards Black women’s sexuality. It is both repulsed and enamored by it. Our bodies have been pimped out for public consumption and aversion for centuries. We have had no say in the process.
Although our sexuality is for society’s consumption, we largely live in regressive communities that punish us for having agency over it. Due to religious and sexist upbringings, many young Black women do not get proper sexual education besides shame. The shame of being called “Fast” for having an interest in normal things such as clothes, boys, or worse–girls. We also receive shame in the form of sex not being talked about other than in the form of warnings or endless excuses for familial abusers. So Black women have received mixed messages.
Black women teeter between societal sexual objectification and intercommunal expectations of regressive sexual purity. This is why sex-positivity is important for Black women to embrace, defined by our own terms. It does not have to be in the form of indiscriminate casual sex, embracing BDSM, or taking risks you otherwise would not feel comfortable with. Casual sex and BDSM aren’t necessarily bad, by the way, but you don’t have to embrace those things to be sex-positive. For Black women, it means finally claiming our sexuality as our own. Not our churches, families, partners, or societies but rather solely for ourselves.
There is understandable criticism that claims that Black women should get control of our images and be careful about our sexual portrayal. But having guilt-free sex is apart of being a human being. So bump Meghan Thee Stallion, get to know your body, have the power of saying no or yes because it’s what you want.
Words: Amina du Jean
