One of the most unhealthy,
dysfunctional behaviors that is crippling the Black community today is the
practice of women selling pussy. It’s so
common, so accepted, we don’t even blink an eye when we hear songs like Erykah
Badu’s Tyrone suggest that ass in exchange for cash is not only perfectly
acceptable in a relationship but it’s to be expected. “Bill collectors at my door. What can you do for me?” The last decade of Black erotic books has
cemented in the minds of young women that what’s between their legs is
something men will pay for and they market their pussies like a commodity on
the stock exchange.
Almost without exception, every
single solitary show on television that has Black women depicted bringing
nothing more to the table than their beauty in various stages of hot pursuit of
men with high incomes. There are some
sex educators who will tell women that if they don’t sell pussy, if they don’t
demand money from their sexual partners, that they are disadvantaged and stupid. They will tell you that women who don’t have
sex for money are petty, jealous, and envious of the women who sell pussy; that
women who sell pussy are empowered and masterful manipulators of men. Rather than telling women to develop and
evolve their intellects, their employment skills, and their relationship
skills, they tell women to hone their sexual skills in order to do more tricks
in bed and get men to pay more money. It’s
well-known by athletes, artists, friends of athletes, and anyone even remotely close
to someone famous that any major sporting or music event becomes a mecca for
Black women all over the country to sell their goods and services. Capitalism, greed, and the insane need for
things, not just things but offensively and outrageously expensive things, has
created a culture where sex and money go hand in hand.
For many Black women, the advice
to exchange pussy for payment, the belief that selling sex is a viable
employment option comes from our foremothers.
It is, very much so, a legacy of oppression, patriarchy, and sexism
being internalized and passed down from generation to generation. Born during the Great Depression, raised
under the oppressive weight of Jim Crow, surrounded by racism, sexism, bigotry,
and poverty everywhere, Black women during our (great) grandmother’s time had
little options given to them. They were
not just women during that time, they were BLACK women. They had less opportunities for survival than
white women. It’s easy to see how a
Black woman during that time came to the understanding that having sex for
money was a viable and valid option. She
couldn’t get employment making the same wages as white women, she couldn’t get
an education, she had to rely on her own devices to earn money. For many Black women of the time, being
molested and abused by their fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, grandfathers,
Pastors, and just about everyone else was the norm. Many black women internalized that abuse,
accepted that it was just the way things were supposed to be and internalized
the messages that went along with it, that they were only good for one thing,
what was between their legs. For a woman
of that era to come to the understanding that it having sex with men for money
was a legitimate and reasoned thing to do was understandable.
Unfortunately, what women of that
era didn’t understand were the larger implications of giving their bodies to
men for money. They didn’t understand
that they were actually devaluing themselves.
They didn’t understand that they were creating monsters in the men whom
they got paid to lay with who would think of women as things to be purchased
and not ever want to honor them as real women but just whores they paid for the
night. They relegated themselves to
being holes to be used, receptacles for men’s unhealthy lust and they got no
love, respect, or concern for their well-being in return, just a few bills on
the nightstand.
It’s understandable that women of
that era who had to take that route, who lived in impoverished areas and who
weren’t members of large sororities and mega churches and who didn’t have
access to libraries to provide them a window to worlds that were emotionally,
psychologically, and mentally healthier how they might teach their daughters to
“be sure he pays the bills before he drills.”
I don’t want anyone to think that for a fraction of a minute that any
woman expressing or espousing sentiment that to her daughters, or her granddaughters,
was sexually empowered or enlightened in any way. She was a victim of her circumstances and her
environment and she did what she had to do in order to survive. There’s no shame in that whatsoever.
If a woman raised during that
era, or even the 60s or 70s, passed down her “words of wisdom” and beliefs to
her daughters and granddaughters that pussy has value and that she should sell
it in order to keep the lights on, it’s understandable to some degree how women
could grow up thinking that it’s right, never questioning it, believing that
there is inherent truth in it. We are
all byproducts of our parent’s belief systems and it takes an incredible amount
of introspection to be able to say that what we were taught was wrong. Teaching girl children that spreading their
legs for undeserving men who bring nothing to the table but a few twenty dollar
bills is, unquestionably, misguided.
Our grandmothers should have been
taught by their mothers and grandmothers that they were priceless and that
there is no amount of money that a man could pay to earn her body, her heart,
and all that comes along with having sex.
Sadly, our foremothers weren’t taught that. Sadly, they were raised in a society that
didn’t allow them that luxury. But, that
does not mean that we must continue the dysfunction of allowing men with no
social skills, no valor, no honor, integrity, and no sincere motives into our
sacred spaces just for a dollar. And it
most certainly should not mean that we teach our girl children that.
We say, “Prostitution is the
oldest profession in world,” like it’s the truth when in fact it’s not even close
to the truth. Women didn’t start selling
pussy until money became a tool to control and oppress others, until men became
obsessed with objectifying women, using us, equating sex as a weapon, and sex became
something they did for recreation, not as a form of intimacy. The women who sell their bodies today, who “use”
men to pay their bills, who consider pussy a source of income get defensive,
offended even, if anyone suggests that what they are doing is detrimental,
unhealthy behavior. They will tell you that
there is nothing wrong with it, in fact, they will tell you that it’s an
informed, empowered, fiscally intelligent choice. What I would say in response to them, what I
would ask is, what price do you pay for men who don’t love you, care about you,
who wouldn’t lift a finger to help you in your time of need because they only
see you as a product, a hole to pump and dump?
I’m not saying the women who have been socialized to believe that their
greatest/only value lies between their legs are bad women, I’m not calling them
sluts, I’m not putting more blame on them than I am the males who are their “customers”. I am saying that we must evolve, heal, and
grow. We must escape the blinding
disease of materialism and place more value on who we are as women, as human
beings. We must understand that the
things our grandmothers taught us were based on flawed, misguided, and
unhealthy belief systems.
Sex for money isn’t going to go
away any time soon. The porn industry is
becoming bigger every day with women choosing sex as a career plan. Sex workers have been given a more
glamourous, less stigmatized status in society, completely ignoring the fact
that men pay to use sex workers in disgusting, foul, perverse and unspeakable
ways. Hook up culture is prevalent, our
youth aren’t even versed in the skills of forming a real, loving relationship; rap
music tells our young women that they have no value if they aren’t charging top
dollar to rent their vaginas. And the
women who only sell pussy in times of need, who only do it as a last resort,
who don’t make a career out of it but who know that they can call an old friend
when they are short on the rent will vehemently degrade and denounce other
women in public to hide the fact that they feel twinges of guilt and shame in
having to sell pussy. We live in a
society that tells women that they shouldn’t even enjoy sex, that it should
only be for procreation, that if you have sex with anyone other than a husband
that they are whores and sluts. Regardless
of how women defend or deny their actions, they will feel pangs of conflict
because their actions will be in conflict with society’s standards of virgin
and sexless women being the only women of virtue and value.
Victorian, conservative morality
is certainly not the solution to our plague.
Casual, meaningless sex should not be the goal we are striving for
either. Informed, empowered, intelligent
sex, with partners who care about us for more than the holes we have to stick
their dicks, men who help us out financially not because we let them climb on
top of us and do their business but because they are INVESTED in us as partners
should be what we are striving for.
To the women who sell pussy, to
the women who think they have no other options, who think it’s easier than
working a minimum wage, dead end job, I’m going to say that I hope that there
is some part of you that will see fit to look back on your life and your
choices, look back on the men who have paid for your body and if there is a
tiny bit of discomfort, if there is even an inkling of a sensation that your
daughter deserves better, teach her not what your grandmother or mother taught
you but that she has lots of options for income and that selling her sacred
pussy to undeserving men should not be one of them. Teach her to DEMAND that the men she invites
into her sacred yoni need to bring more than cash but they must respect her,
honor her, they must court her and win her affections with their efforts to
prove that they are worthy of her time and her energy and her body. Tell her that she can have as many partners
as she wants, but that they must not be simply for money or empty pleasure but
they must be men willing to get to know her, respect her, and value her
priceless gift to him. Teach her to own
the power of her pussy and the pleasure that it gives but I beg of you to never
have her put a pricetag on it.
NEVER.
Copyright 2014 AfroerotiK
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