Patrice “Tricey” Brown is a baddie. She’s educated, beautiful and has a personal style that is trendy and cute. She’s humble enough to be a 4th grade teacher (if you know how much the average salary range is for elementary school teachers, then you know I’m right). She’s already been dubbed the sexiest teacher alive and assigned the moniker #TeacherBae. But onlookers who have caught wind of her now-viral Instagram photos are waging a debate about whether or not she is dressed appropriately, all the while asking and answering the wrong questions.

I grew up in a family of elementary educators. I have homegirls who are elementary educators. My girlfriend is an elementary educator (yes, I have my own personal #TeacherBae). Here is what I know about how they choose what to wear to work: They wear what is comfortable. Teachers don’t often get labeled as “baddies” because comfort is always their priority, even within the constraints of their dress codes.

None of the folks I mentioned would wear stilettos to work, because they’re not comfortable in stilettos. I’m going to step out on a limb here and say that Ms. Brown is (God bless her), but I’m less interested in whether or not Ms. Brown is dressed appropriately than I am in what some of us think it means if she is in fact “too sexy” to teach. What Ms. Brown’s critics have to say about why she shouldn’t be in the classroom reveals how misinformed we are about sexuality, desire and attraction.

4th grade desire is the exact same as adult desire?

Contrary to what you might hear on Twitter, attraction and desire work on multiple levels, not just the aesthetic. Factors like past experiences and memories, socialization and most importantly, relationship to the subject all play a part in who we are attracted to. For example, many of us have moms who are also baddies. We’ve seen them get dressed up in attire that may have been more revealing than anything on #TeacherBae’s Instagram, and yet by some magic, we’ve never wanted to sleep with them, or found ourselves unable to finish washing the dishes because moms is just so thick. This doesn’t happen because we usually associate our mothers with nurturing, discipline and familiarity, which are traits that don’t usually lead us to want to choose up.



The same thing is true for fourth graders and their teachers. After spending a good 35 hours per week with the person whose job it is to teach, discipline and keep them organized, the chances aren’t likely that your fourth grader is being sexually aroused by their teacher. In fact, most 9-year-olds are probably oblivious to whether or not their teacher is attractive. They’re too busy trying not to get any more check marks by their name so that they won’t have to sit recess out for the second time this week, figuring out how to cheat without Ms. Brown noticing, or making sure she doesn’t find the “Will you be my girl/boyfriend” note that they wrote to someone their own age.



Fourth graders should not and are not on the same sexual wavelength as grown adults. If your 9-year-old is actually trying to bag his adult teacher because she has a big butt, you have bigger fish to fry.



Let’s just say that, hypothetically speaking, a couple of Ms. Brown’s students were actually like “Hmmm…Ms. Brown is pretty.” The great thing about us being human beings and not wild animals, is that from an early age, we are able to use judgement, common sense and restraint when it comes to this kind of thing. Sexuality is not an all-consuming power that prohibits us from thinking clearly or being productive. I had a crush on someone EVERY year of my elementary school career and I still made straight As for the most part. If having a crush (on a teacher or otherwise) knocked you off the path to education, schools would literally be extinct.



This might be an oversimplification but I feel compelled to ask: Is a fat ass really a threat to our children when black women have been slugging since the dawn of time?



Women can never be attractive and….

Moral of the story: no one is discrediting her, jus saying fine or not a bodycon is unprofessional attire for a teacher!

— 🍓🍾🔌 (@drickaaaaaa) September 12, 2016

Women’s bodies are always sexualized, especially black women’s bodies. It’s one of those things we grow up fighting against at places like work or school. Our bodies are never ours to adorn as we please, for our own sense of satisfaction and being cute. Everything we do to our bodies is evaluated through a male gaze. As I’ve already mentioned, we think that gaze is monolithic from 8-year-old males to 80-year-old ones. Black women’s intentions are constantly called into question because we are assumed to have internalized the idea that everything we do is sexual.



This is so true that when we assume different roles throughout our lifetime, our sexiness becomes null and void. It’s hard to recognize women as both sexy and moms, teachers, leaders, etc. Don’t believe me? Consider the cliché porn scenes. The sexy teacher, librarian or corporate executive have become the realm of highly arousing sexual fantasy because in real life, we are conditioned not to think of women in those professions as sexy.



Furthermore, we never have these conversations about men. Has anyone ever worried about students catching a glimpse of their male gym teacher’s d*ck print in his sweats? Have you ever heard anyone question whether or not a male teacher was too sexy to teach? “I think Mr. Smith is too tall and too bearded to be in the classroom,” said no one ever.



It appears that we’re not only poorly informed, but sexist enough to think that policing women is good parenting.

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