Interracial Erotica

I asked the question yesterday if I was being hypocritical because I didn’t write my brand of erotica, focused on the relationship and the connection between lovers, for couples that include Black men and white women.  Since everyone seems to feel I did the right thing, I’ll play my own devil’s advocate.  I never want to be so arrogant as to assume I’m always right about a situation and something about this particular situation is nagging at me.  I created AfroerotiK for Black people to find a home where they could feel validated and secure in their sexuality, to see healthy examples of not just sex, but intimacy and communication, to perhaps give them the tools to form better relationships and thus, have better sex.   I was tired of the gutter/ghetto erotica that was so cliché and so poorly written and oh so very stereotypical. I was drained by the unhealthy, dysfunctional sex that was being made erotic.  I wanted something that spoke to me because I wasn’t aroused by what was available to me and I wasn’t as one-dimensional as publishers of Black erotica seemed to think I was. 

I wanted to create a space where dark skinned women, women with nappy hair, and larger sized women who are all too often relegated to fetishes saw themselves as beautiful.  I started AfroerotiK because I wanted gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people of color to find a place where they could be just as welcomed as hetero folk and not feel like their sexuality was fringe or different, but rather showed them, and more importantly showed the world, that it really doesn’t matter what is between your legs or who you are attracted to, that there is a sameness in our insecurities, drives, passions, and our desires.  It’s important to me when straight people say, “You know, I’m not gay but I really loved that story because I related to the characters.”  I wanted to start making sex beautiful and erotic and intense and diverse without it being degrading or vanilla. 

A funny thing happened when I started writing erotica.  White men started writing to me and telling me how much they couldn’t get enough of my stories.  There wouldn’t be a damn thing in my stories that related to white men; I’m not even sure most of them could even understand the verbiage in it because it was academic and Afrocentric and “conscious” and unapologetically Black in a way that most white people have never ever been exposed to in their lives.  But as their following grew increasingly larger I saw an opportunity to teach white men that Black people weren’t just fetishes or objects or stereotypes and that we are complex people and far more nuanced than they see in porn or on TV.  My interracial erotica grew out of their voracious appetite for my writing and I saw it as an excellent vehicle to teach them about their racism, our history, and use it as a teachable moment.  What we experience when we are aroused leaves an imprint on our psyche so I had an opportunity to teach white men about their privilege, their racism, and to divest them of some of their bigoted views by appealing to their desires. 

What evolved was my hardcore interracial BDSM erotica.  Unfortunately, white women got the short end of the stick because sooooo many white men fantasize about seeing their white wives and lovers degraded by Black men.  And when I say degraded, I don’t mean just being slapped and called names.  I’ve never written a story with a white woman being degraded that any white man has said, “Wow, that was a little too extreme.”   But, I wasn’t writing to appeal to white women, and I was painfully aware that all of heaven and earth bends to exalt the unparalleled beauty of the magnificent white woman, so, I didn’t feel bad at all.  White women would always have outlets that sang their praises and put them on a pedestal.  It wasn’t my job to make them feel validated.

Yesterday, a white woman asked me why I don’t have more loving depictions about Black men and white women and my response was, because it’s not my responsibility to create erotica that caters to white women and nor should I have to as a Black, super Black, Blackety Black BLACK woman.  Now, I’m questioning my motives and trying to evaluate if I need to push myself to grow.  I want Black people to see themselves in a healthy light.  Shouldn’t that include Black men who date/love white women?  I do very strongly believe that the vast majority of real life BMWW interracial relationships are based on 1. Black men’s conditioned slave mentality that tells them that white women are better, prettier, sexier etc., and 2. white women’s racist fetish of Black men’s sexuality.  But, as a true facilitator of social change, I think it might be my responsibility to show healthy examples of Black men and white women for several of reasons.  

1. Not all interracial relationships are formed out of diseased mindsets even if they are few and far between.  There are Black men who are self-aware involved with white women who are not objectifying Black men who are in relationships.
2. Black men, even if they don’t recognize how their preferences were formed, even if they can’t articulate why they prefer white women over Black women, should have at least one place where they aren’t made out to be the Mandingo, ghetto thug, big black cock, hypersexual stud that white society makes them out to be, and that’s ultimately why I created AfroerotiK.  It shouldn’t matter if they are attracted to Black women or not, they are still deserving of erotica that doesn’t perpetuate negative stereotypes about them.
3. I think if I write erotica that features white women and Black men in healthy relationships, it just might cause Black men to reflect on their sentiments and white women to examine their motives and biases and I can use this as a teachable moment as well. 

I’m still on the fence about my final decision but I’m leaning towards changing my perspective.  I’d like to think that my writing is strong enough that whomever decides to read it will be able to see something of themselves in the characters even if it doesn’t relate to them directly.     If I’m really about shifting consciousness and this might be my next challenge.