If you’re ever looking for an easy way to display your casual racism, here’s a tip: just start talking about positive stereotypes! You know, like joking around about Asians being good at math or Jewish people being good with money. Some people think discussing stereotypes with positive attributes is not racist racist so we should all just chill the fuck out.
As a black woman, I’m not really the recipient of too many positive stereotypes, but the notion of a black woman’s amazing sexual prowess is the closest thing I have seen for us. Yes, with the power of thick thighs, ass and a sense of rhythm, we black women have to power to entice even the squarest of squares. This is the image that keeps video vixens employed, demonizes Beyonce in the eyes of feminists and pearl clutchers alike for daring to move her ass cheek and convinces our culture that young black girls are adults before they even reach puberty. But that’s also an image that I haven’t really had experience with on a personal level. I’ve never felt oversexualized for my black skin so I thought people just didn’t apply that stereotype to me.
Well, that was until a recent party where an Asian woman asked my white boyfriend, “So, what’s it like to fuck a black girl? Is it freaky?”
My boyfriend didn’t dignify her question with a response, leading her to implore: “It’s a legitimate question!”
Luckily I was not within earshot when this exchange—inspired by a few drinks but by no means excusable—occurred. I only know that it happened because my boyfriend almost immediately told me about it. When he first relayed the conversation to me I laughed a little, out of disbelief and embarrassment. Then I just got really angry because on what universe is that sort of question acceptable?
It didn’t matter that this woman literally just met me a couple of hours prior. It didn’t matter that my boyfriend and I hadn’t even had sex yet. None of those details were relevant because she already had me figured out, apparently, the second she saw me. That’s all it took for the stereotypes to bubble in her brain and gush out of her drunken little mouth. I’m the Jezebel because of my skin color. I’m a freak in the sack, a Trina song come to life. I’m wild, I’m animalistic, and I gobble cock like it’s going out of style. Oh, and I probably like butt stuff, too, because this woman heard “My Neck, My Back” by Khia once or twice.
I’m not a woman who happens to be black and happens to date a white guy. I’m racial tourism, an adventure for my white boyfriend to try out and explore. Yup, my boyfriend has a craving for some jungle fever and I’m fulfilling his needs.
Maybe it was my naive women-of-color-united-against-
I’m not sure how I would have reacted to such a fucked up question if I had actually heard it. I’d love to think that I would have gone Bad Girls Club on her but I have to be honest with the fact that I’m much more invested in talking shit about people than fighting them. Plus, what if she yanked on my box braids in the middle of our trashy TV level catfight? That shit cost a lot of money and I have edges to maintain. So I just did what I did best: Complained about it to my friends at the party, glared at her whenever she passed by and ranted about the incident on Tumblr because I’m a teenage girl at heart.
While having a bunch of Internet friends concur about how fucked up that girl’s line of questioning was works as an instant pick-me-up, it doesn’t really address the deeper problems at play. I already have a lot of weird feelings about being in an interracial relationship in the first place and this incident did nothing more than put that weirdness under a magnifying glass.
For the record I fully support black women having sexual agency, exploring and depicting their sexuality in whatever way they feel is empowering, comfortable and fun. What I don’t like is the fact that the idea of black women’s sexual prowess is forced onto us in a way that we have no control over. I don’t like the fact that my sexuality is being approached like some sort of commodity in house party conversation. I don’t like the fact that my sexual history was determined for me by a woman of color who knows absolutely nothing about me.
At the end of the day, I’m mostly disturbed that someone thought that making an assumption about my sexuality based on my race was appropriate party talk. In theory I’m all for people showing their ass and making it known that they’re the worst from the jump, but this might be one incident in which I truly believe that ignorance is bliss.
But there's more. Check out these bussin stories:
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