Sex. There I said it. The word that’s been on everyone’s mind since the first time we heard it or saw it in an R-rated movie. We’ve clutched our pearls, covered our eyes, and even wished we could trade places with some of the folks indulging in the seductive epilogues. But for a lot of Black folks, our sexuality has been placed on a pedestal too high to come down from and so a policing of its nature took place.
We subdued ourselves in an attempt to curve the way we were seen by the masses only to realize that it’s not about our behavior or lack thereof, Black people are just sexy. And in the last few years, we’ve decided to reclaim the way we do sex and reinvent the way we talk about sexual healing.
Black folks haven’t just started enjoying sex, as with most people, we’ve always been inherently sexual beings. The problem is we were taught to be ashamed of our bodies and made to believe that they weren’t fit to be tools of pleasure through processes like “buck breaking.”
The strategy involved slave owners in the Caribbean who intimidated enslaved men to lower their pants and bend over a tree stump to ensure that their buttocks were propped up. The enslaved man would then be thrashed severely before being raped.
The act would be done in full view of other enslaved people, including their families and friends. In an addition to being sexually assaulted, the enslaved male would also be publicly belittled to deter other enslaved people from rebelling.
Men weren’t the only ones taken down a peg. The sexual nature of Black women was dismantled by the constant criticism of our bodies while being raped by male slave owners. The Black femme body was often gawked at by folks who didn’t have our natural curves which proved to create a space for us to be seen as objects of secret sexual conquest rather than actual people.
Black women’s bodies created so much conversation that Sarah Baartman became a literal circus act. In 1810 she was forced to sing, dance, and walk barely clothed for white folks who would poke and grope her a for the price of two shillings.
Sarah suffered even beyond her death as her body became a display piece in Paris for just about 150 years until Nelson Mandela requested her body be returned home.
Our bodies couldn’t be our own and so neither could our sexuality.
The conversation around Black sexuality for both men and women has shot up in popularity with podcasts like “Whorible Decisions” and “Hard or Soft.” We are now beginning to understand the need for safety and preservation of the conversation around Black bodies, sex, kink, and fluidity.
With every new year, we are seeing Black folks find new ways to repopulate the world of sensuality. From everything to classes to retreats, podcasts, and social groups we are more comfortable with talking about sex than before especially when it comes to topics that used to make even the most liberated people blush.
Topics like toys and self-pleasure are among the conversations that have us on fire in a major way and Black adult toy companies like Erotic Boudoir of Philly say that “toys are being purchased more than ever.” And with memes of the ever-so-popular sex toy rose taking over social media, I believe we will only see new sexual interest pique and more Black bodies engaging in sexual liberation through kink, sensuality, and self-exploration than before.
