AfroerotiK

Erotic provocateur, racially-influenced humanist, relentless champion for the oppressed, and facilitator for social change, Scottie Lowe is the brain child, creative genius and the blood, sweat, and tears behind AfroerotiK. Intended to be part academic, part educational, and part sensual, she, yes SHE gave birth to the website to provide people of African descent a place to escape the narrow-mined, stereotypical, limiting and oft-times degrading beliefs that abound about our sexuality. No, not all Black men are driven by lust by white flesh or to create babies and walk away. No, not all Black women are promiscuous welfare queens. And as hard as it may be to believe, no, not all gay Black men are feminine, down low, or HIV positive. Scottie is putting everything on the table to discuss, debate, and dismantle stereotypes in a healthy exchange of ideas. She hopes to provide a more holistic, informed, and enlightened discussion of Black sexuality and dreams of helping couples be more open, honest, and adventurous in their relationships.

Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Saturday, April 06, 2013

I’ve Got a Secret





I’m going to let y’all in on a little secret.  I’ve been keeping it for a long time. Now, when y’all hear my secret, the sistas will hiss and boo and think of me as a weak traitor, the brothas will say, “I told you so, I knew it all along.” I’ve wrestled with this secret for a long time, feeling guilt and shame for harboring these thoughts. Living my life in the closet, afraid to express myself, living a lie. In public, I deny my true feelings, crossing the line, extolling the sentiments exactly the opposite of how I feel. What is my secret? My badge of shame. Come close. Don’t tell a soul. I need a man. There I said it. It’s out in the open. I need a man.  

I grew up being told that a woman needed a man for survival, to be the provider and protector. The man was the breadwinner and the woman stood behind him. I was told that men could lie and cheat and treat you like shit and as long as they paid the bills and eventually came home, that’s all you could expect. Women were never supposed to argue or disagree with a man. “Oh, you are so funny.” “Stop, don’t say that,” in a coy and docile manner.  You had to have a man in your life. Even if that man was somebody else’s. A borrowed man was better than no man at all. I was raised to believe that all a woman could hope for was to play stupid, never have an opinion and to do whatever it takes to make a man happy. Which included spreading your legs, cooking, cleaning and being passive.  My momma never said outright, ”You have to have a man to make you complete,” but actions speak louder than words. There was never a day when she didn’t have someone’s husband calling her. She would fix them gourmet meals and offer them her dysfunctional mind and sexual body. And of course they took it and went home to their wives, bellies full and balls empty, egos enormous.   

I grew up knowing deep inside that there was something wrong with this ideal. I knew I didn’t need a man like that, in that way.  I’ll admit. I stumbled once or twice, forgot the truth as I like to put it. I’ve been known to put a man’s feelings above my own.  But then I got strong. I’ve been by myself for almost 14 years now. I wish I could say 14 long, hard years, but I don’t want to use those words to describe anything in my life over the last decade. I’ve decided I don’t want no lying, cheating, unemployed, good for nothing, game playing, self-centered, immature, passive aggressive, dick slinging man in my life (or any combination thereof). I have avoided relationships with men whose egos were grandiose and intellects miniscule. I chose not to get involved with men who have had other lovers or insincere motives. I’ve had sex more than a few times, maintenance dates, yes. But I’ve not had a man in my life.  I need a man.  I don’t need a man to pay my bills or rescue me. I don’t need a man to make me feel attractive or make me feel complete. I don’t need a man to fuck me because I’ve become quite proficient at that my damn self.

What I need is someone to be there for me when times are hard. I need a man to give me unconditional love and support. I need the comfort that comes from laying my head on that strong, secure shoulder when my head is weary. I need a man, a lover, a friend, and a partner. I need a relationship where I can me encouraged to grow as an individual and be a member of a team. I need a man to share my secrets with and my dreams. I need a man that will not make me feel bad about my fears and shortcomings.   Should I be able to fill up this void from within myself? Yes, and find the love that I so desperately need inside myself. But I can't. I should be able to find support from my family and friends, but it ain’t the same. I go to bed at night alone. There is emptiness, a void, a painful abyss. It is physical, it hurts. I don’t have human contact.

I hear sistas saying that they don’t need a man but I sure as hell do. And tell me this, if men were so damned unnecessary, why is it that successful sistas who have got a man are not trying to give them away. All these women out here talking about I don’t need a man. I tell you what I don’t need. I don’t need panty liners with wings.  I don’t need low fat chocolate ice cream. I don’t need 36 pairs of shoes. Seems like to me, if men were so damned unnecessary, there would be a lot more hairy-legged lesbians around.  

I need a man who has dealt with his issues and is ready for a mature adult relationship. I need man who has outgrown sticking his dick in anything without regard for pregnancy, disease and hurting someone’s feelings. I don’t need a man who is trying to get into my panties three minutes after meeting me. What I need is a strong, African-centered, evolved, emotionally mature man.  Whew, my secret is out. I feel better! It’s a tremendous burden off my shoulders. If there are others like me out there, stand up and be counted. I NEED A MAN!

 

Saturday, May 05, 2012

The love I share is with a Black man.




The love I share is with a Black man.  A strong, beautiful, talented, intelligent, wonderful, Black man.  Not just as in the color of his skin, but Black in his heart: proud, confident, and secure.  A man that knows that keeping it real does not mean getting blunted or that he is a nigga.  He strives for excellence and looks to lift up and enlighten others along the way.  The Black man I love is my friend, my lover, my partner, my advocate and the father of my Black children. 

I believe in him and he believes in me.  I never have to ask, “Do you love me?” because the evidence is there is word and in deed.  Every morning we get up and share time with one another.  Sometimes we shower together, bathing in the closeness and love that we share.  Other times we make love until we are both late for work.  It’s passionate and fulfilling, not borne of a morning hard on, but of genuine passion and respect.  The time we spend together in the morning makes it easier to face the petty annoyances of the day.  I can reflect on his love and nothing seems to bother me.  I can face every challenge assured.  Assured that he will never call me a bitch or raise his hand to me.  Assured that the first woman with a big butt and no panties won’t lure him away.  Assured that our fights will not be with each other, but against racial and societal ills.  I’m assured that we are fighting for a future together. 

Do I love my Black man?  More than words can say.  When I speak of him, my eyes light up and I tell everybody about his talents, abilities and accomplishments.  (He gets so embarrassed sometimes.)  And I show him I love him every chance I get.  My love is there for the long haul, I’m down for whatever.  I’ll stand beside my man ready to face any challenge given to us. 


Why do I love my Black man?  When I’m afraid, he doesn’t make me feel inferior, he allows me to cry.  When I succeed, he doesn’t feel threatened, he rejoices in my accomplishments.  He deals with my faults and shortcomings.  I’m not perfect but he thinks I am perfect for him. He helps me to be a better person.  He doesn’t put undue pressure on me to be Superwoman: holding down a job, fixing dinner in high heels and a tight dress, ready to suck his dick and spread my legs, right after I do the laundry and put the kids to bed.  When I feel down, who do you think is my biggest cheerleader?  He stays awake through the entire ballet, and he only complains a little.  That’s OK, I make sandwiches and snacks for him during the game, cause that’s what makes him happy. 

Our time alone together is just that, alone.  Away from the pressures of a day to day existence.  Words are not necessary.  Our deepest communication is nonverbal.  Our dreams are the same, our hearts beat in the same rhythm.  It’s a good thing we get to spend time apart occasionally.  When I’m away on business or he’s having a boy’s weekend, we get a chance to reflect on how much we mean to one another.  There is never any insecurity or jealousy between us.  I smile when I see his head turn at the sight of a beautiful Black woman.  He jumps to the defense of sisters when they are being dissed by less enlightened men.  He takes the time to spend with young brothers, providing a positive role model for them to aspire to.  How could I not love this man?

And just when you think things can’t get any better.  He gives me that long, hard, hot, wet, sticky, Black love.  He eats my pussy till my eyes are rolling back in my head and I’m babbling incoherently. We have made love for days at a time, only stopping to open the door for the Chinese food deliveryman and wash off a healthy sheen of “love.”  I can share any erotic fantasy with him and know that I’m not going to be ridiculed or shamed.  He takes the time to make every time special: music, candlelight, poetry (his own).  I get wet just thinking about him. 

Sometimes problems do arise.  We face them as a challenge to greater heights of understanding.  We hardly fight, we playfully disagree, and if I have to pick up one more pair of dirty socks……Yeah, he works my nerves once in a while, but I never forget that I love him, nor that he loves me.  His family is mine, mine has become his.  Our children, planned and beautiful, created or adopted, are reflections of our love.  My eyes fill with tears sometimes when I see him reading them a bedtime story or giving them a bath.  Our sons, respecters of Black women, are political, street smart and fine.  Our daughters not dictated to by any stereotype, have beauty and charm as well as intellect and ambition.

Most importantly, I share my love of God with my Black man.  Every morning, every night, we thank God for the blessings we have received.  We worship, meditate and pray together. Our relationship to God defies traditional definition.  We make God first in our lives.  We face the world knowing that our love is a Divine gift from God. 

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

My Twin Flame




Dear kindred spirit, my divine right partner,

I am writing these words to you without even knowing your name.  So sure am I that you are my other half, the yin to my yang, that I have no fear that our destinies have brought us to this very place and time.  I knew you in a remote village in Africa when we made love under the stars without care.  You kept me alive when we were shackled and dying, in the bowels of a slave ship with just your eyes to comfort me.  I nursed you back to health from wounds that the slave master inflicted because you were too defiant, too strong.  Our souls have been black for a very long time.  I have been your mother, your father, you daughter and your son.  I have been your sister and your brother, you lover and your enemy.  I have known you as both my husband and my wife.  Now is our time to be those things to one another again.

We have come to each other, fragmented parts of a whole, to be reunited as a manifestation of the One Most High.  We have been chosen to give voice to a shift in consciousness.  We have been gifted with a vision that seems a curse without one another.  Come to me, my beloved, so that we might unite and fulfill our souls’ mission.  Separately, we are ineffectual.  Together we can give birth to Gods and Goddesses. 

I come to you today, flawed and damaged, far from perfection.  This journey has taken a toll on my being.  Share you dreams with me as we fight to restore a holistic and spiritual paradigm.  Read poetry to me until the wee hours of the morning.  Hold me in your arms so that your heartbeat serenades my soul.  Allow me to love you from the very depths of my being with a love that transcends definition.  Dear lover, I come to you empty and alone.  I have no fear, no shame in my plea.  You can see past my flaws and insecurities to the visionary and prophetic wisdom that is waiting to be born inside me.  Impregnate me with your inspiration, your serenity, your love. 

Fear not, my love.  These are not the ramblings of the insane.  You have been tortured with dreams that seem unobtainable at times.  You dream of penetrating you lover for the very first time with the knowledge that you will never be with another woman again.  You dream of nursing from your wife at the same time as she feeds your baby.  You dream of raising a family at the foothills of Kilimanjaro with nothing but an organic garden and Divine Love to feed you.  These are my dreams as well. 

I AM putting the universe on notice that I AM open, ready and receptive to receive my divine right partner, my twin flame, right now.  I invite you into my life to embark upon a journey like none other.

With all my heart and all my love,

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Learning to Love



I am, what I like to call, emotionally retarded.  You see, I did not receive love from the first, most important source every child experiences love, my mother.  I have to struggle to love, to receive love, to feel deserving of love every single day of my life. 

In her defense, my mother probably never really learned how to love from her parents.  In fact, she probably learned that love is strict, mean, violent, oppressive, and very conditional from her parents.  That’s not to say that her parents, my grandparents, didn’t love her or were abusive to her, I’m saying that loving, how to love, isn’t something that’s taught in Black families.  My grandparents loved their children but didn’t know how to show it with affection, hugs, reading to them, spending quality time with them, or even saying, “I love you.”  To my grandparents, descendents of slaves born during the depression, raised under the oppression of Jim Crow, and who became parents on the eve of the civil rights movement, loving your children meant putting a roof over their head, clothes on their backs, food in their stomachs and enforcing enough discipline to keep them from being identified as “a nigger.”  Their parenting skills, while probably exceptional when being measured in terms of their providing stability for their children, left much to be desired.  They raised three completely dysfunctional children. 

I have one uncle who is an alcoholic, wife abuser, and the most “niggerish” of the bunch.  All that discipline and structure created a rebellious, stagnated soul who buries his pain in a bottle, makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like the poster boy for marital family values, and who has raised his own two sons to try to single-handedly attempt to repopulate the planet.  Every year, if there isn’t a new grandbaby by a different baby mama, there’s an adult, coming out of the woodworks, identifying themselves as a long, lost offspring who wasn’t acknowledged or raised by his very fertile sons.  He sees nothing wrong with his sons’ behavior and loves them unconditionally  which usually takes the form of him praising them, even when they do something wrong. 

My other uncle stopped maturing at about the age of 10 years old.  While there is absolutely nothing about him that could be considered niggerish, he throws hissy fits and tantrums when he doesn’t get his way.  His entire life is based on superficial perceptions.  Whenever he walks in a room, he has to have the most beautiful (light-skinned) woman on his arm, be the best dressed, and the most charming.  His conversations, however, are limited to celebrities, music, and the most publicized politics of the day.  If there is a task to be done, responsibility to be taken, or manual labor to be performed, he can only, will only do it if there is someone there to see him do it.  Otherwise it will NOT get done, EVER, no matter how pressing, urgent, or important that task is.  He is the epitome of narcissism.

My mother SEEMS the most balanced of the three but in many ways she is the most unbalanced.  Her great dysfunction is in her need to control, dictate, manipulate, and lie.  She got pregnant with me in her senior year of college which brought shame to her very prominent family.  The shame was actually all in her head, constructed from her own internal dialogue, not an indisputable fact.  The fact that my grandfather more than likely didn’t say anything to her made her construct a reality in her head where he hated her for her “mistake”.  Combine that with the fact that my biological father (look up the definition of absentee father in the dictionary and you will see his picture) dumped her and married another woman before I was even born, coupled with the fact that she and I have different RH factors which made her sick for her entire pregnancy, means she resented my very existence before I was even a person.  My mother never loved me.  She never bonded with me like most mothers do; she never thought I was a special and unique gift, she never felt the genuine love a mother feels for her child.  She felt burdened and shamed by being forced to be my mother.  She took out her frustration and hatred on me, and still does to this very day.    

I remember my mother would go for WEEKS without speaking to me.  Some people think that’s rather benign, not so bad in the scheme of life, no big deal.  It is, however, emotional abuse of the most extreme sort and sets a child up for a life of isolation and feelings of being disconnected.  It was always in response to some minor infraction, some insignificant slight she perceived I had done wrong to her.  Not hanging my coat up after school, setting the table without napkins, or GOD FORBID, not performing some chore to her impossible standards of perfection, all resulted in violent, abusive physical outburst followed by weeks of emotional withdrawal.  Any way I deviated from what she wanted, from how she expected me to behave was interpreted as me disrespecting her, resulted in her withdrawing her “love” from me as a form of punishment.  Love, for her, was providing me with educational and cultural opportunities and had nothing whatsoever to do with her feelings for me. 

My mother didn’t know how to love me, even if she had actually loved me.  Her concept of love is based on people doing exactly what she deems appropriate.  Unfortunately, her perceptions of what she considers reality are based on elaborate lies she constructs and then believes them to be the truth and her fear of going to hell for the hurt and dirt she has done to far too many wives and people she no longer considers friends.  She alienates and ignores anyone from her past who knows the truth and she sets out to hurt, destroy, and demonize anyone who threatens to expose her for who and what she is.  She has an irrational need to be right (as do most people) and she justifies her actions without an ounce of guilt, remorse, or regret, no matter how heinous, manipulative, or just plain wrong she is.  She feels justified in treating me like I’m evil, like I’ve done something wrong to her, because I’m not rich and successful.  She NEVER apologies because in her mind, she’s never wrong. 

It is that mentality that can allow her to believe that she is perfectly justified in telling me that I wasn’t raped, because, as she said, “You didn’t act like you had been raped to ME.”  When I needed her support the most, when I needed a mother’s unconditional love at my lowest point, she not only withheld it, she falsely accused me of lying to cover up my alleged promiscuity.  You see, my mother refused to accept that I had gotten pregnant from being violated from a man who took what I would not give him.  No, my mother assumed that my pregnancy was because I was fast and loose and that I refused to accept responsibility for my actions like she had so nobly done.  She has defended her actions, justified her behavior and continued to deny that I was raped over the subsequent decade and a half that has passed since that day because she refuses to acknowledge that my pregnancy wasn’t like hers. 

I could write a list of egregious and offensive things my mother has done to me over my lifetime for which she has never and will never apologize.  Some people reading this will inevitably offer their apologies to me, uncomfortable with my level of honesty and needing to say something to me to show that they empathize with my pain.  Some others will find my openness about mother offensive, suggesting that I’m too sensitive, ungrateful, or just plain fucked up and trying to blame my mother for things that are my fault.  It is most often those people who will flat out tell me that I am undeserving of love because they are similarly hurt, struggling with their own feelings of inadequacy, and they will strike out at me for daring to be unashamed of my emotional wounds. Others still will offer advice, tell me what I need to do in order to heal, tell me to pray and forgive my mother in order to release my pain.  The vast majority of people who will offer advice, critique, or words of solace have never thought to examine their lives as I have done, never thought to explore their issues, and are most certainly not brave enough to share their pain with the world. 

My healing comes through loving.  Well, writing and loving.  For almost two decades, I wasn’t in a relationship.  Certainly, nothing that resembles anything healthy and nothing that would facilitate my healing.  I have learned that through loving, and allowing myself to be loved, that I experience my true, divine purpose.  It’s a process, and not one that is particularly easy at that.  Sometimes, I don’t feel worthy of love, other times, I find myself withholding my love from people because they don’t love me the way I want them to love me.  More often than not, I have given my love to people who don’t deserve it or who make me feel inadequate. 

There will never be a day when I don’t have to struggle with the gift of love.  It is a burden I will carry with me until the day I die.  I can never be completely healed of something that is so deeply embedded in my psyche, in my subconscious mind, that is can’t be accessed.  The best I can hope for is that I continue not to be afraid of telling my truth so that I can face my demons head on and that I continue to recognize when I am playing the broken tapes in my head that tell me that I’m not deserving of being loved.  I’m quite assured that it will get easier for the more I love, the more I want to experience giving and getting true, unconditional, L.O.V.E.

Scottie Lowe Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved


Saturday, April 30, 2011

Is it a Question of LOVE?

    I was asked to answer the following questions on love because, supposedly, I’m a thinker.  Here are the questions and my responses.

    1.    What is love (to you)?
    Love is a feeling, an emotion, a state of being where you care for someone else’s well-being, you care about their feelings, you want to make them happy, see them happy, you don’t mind sacrificing for them.

    2. What is IN love (to you)?  I don’t differentiate the terms love and in love simply because I don’t think there’s any quantifiable way to define how much one loves another person.  We use the words love for family and friends and people we don’t want to have sex with and we use the words in love for someone to whom we are romantically attracted.  I don’t love the little boy I baby-sit for any more or less than I once loved his father.  Most people would get upset if I were to say that I was in love with a child but my level of emotion, concern, and the depth of my feelings is on par with the love I’ve felt for grown men.  I want to see him smile, I look forward to seeing him, I miss him when he’s not here, I think of things to do for him that will make him happy.  Those are the exact same things I once felt for his father.  Because I have no sexual feelings for him, society says I’m not “in love” with him.  I say society needs to separate romantic love from “other” love because we are so sexually repressed, because we don’t teach people how to love, only what it is to be loved.  I LOVE my sister and I don’t think I’ve seen her more than a half a dozen times in my life.  I still remember the first time I laid eyes on her, she was a grown woman .  The feeling of wanting her to be happy and healthy, of wanting to protect her . . . it still brings tears to my eyes.  I’m in love with her.  My love for her is active and growing and alive.

    3. Have you or anyone you know, mistaken LOVE for IN LOVE?  If the assumption is that being “in love” is somehow real and true and that to only “love” someone means that the love is superficial or doesn’t have as much substance or validity as being “in love” then I reject the terms.  I have fallen in love with men who I’ve later been repulsed by.  I’ve loved men who have not deserved my love.  I’ve loved men who have fooled me into thinking they were someone that they were not.  I love men whom I once cared for deeply but have no romantic feelings for currently.  Love can grow and evolve, the depth of one’s feelings can change and transform.  Love is real.  The baggage we apply to it is what makes it appear false.

    4. Is conditional love natural or can it be inherited? I think conditional love is a manifestation of selfishness.  Conditional love is only loving someone if they love you a certain way, if they only fulfill your needs in a way that is pleasing to you.  That is a creation of a society that teaches people to love themselves, to only look out for number one.  I think we teach our children conditional love by beating them, by withholding love from them when they misbehave, by not showing them healthy examples of love.  I think conditional love is a sickness we’ve inherited from a society that is spiritually bereft.

    5. Why is love so complicated when it suppose to be the most simplest of all acts and feelings?  We live in a society of fear.  We fear that if we love someone and we don’t get that love returned, that we have to hurt them back.  We live in a society that teaches us how to be loved, to enjoy the feelings of someone treating us special but we don’t learn how to make someone else feel special.  Love is complicated because we are taught models of love from our mothers and fathers, who most often were not together, who fought, who didn’t love each other, and who brought a whole host of other emotional issues to the table when they did.  Love is difficult because it leaves us vulnerable and that is scary. Love is difficult because it takes work.  Love is difficult because we fall in love with money and looks and superficial things that have nothing to do with true emotion and feeling.  It’s hard to find love because first we need to love ourselves, and  to do that, we have to take the bandage off our emotional wounds and really heal them and that hurts.

    6. Is 'material' love a bad thing? If yes, then how can we 'de-love' it?   If by material love, you mean love of things, I think that is purely a manifestation of Eurocentrism.  Almost all indigenous, brown people loved the land, they loved their people, and they loved the Creator more than they loved things before the influence of Europeans.  The importance of things, outside trinkets, stuff, money, belongings that give people a false sense of worth seems to stem from the people who think that they can take land, kidnap and kill people, steal possessions as their god-given right.  The only way I can imagine to de-love material things is to see ourselves as truly spiritual beings, the way God intended us to be.  If God is love, then all we are is love.  If love is truth, then material things are the lie.

    7. Is there really such a thing as self-love? (take your time on this one)  I have to wonder why this question was posed as such.  It seems to indicate that self-love is perhaps fictional or delusional.  Self-love is not needing validation from someone or something else, it is holding yourself to a higher standard than others around you would.  Self-love is making sure you don’t put yourself in harmful, dysfunctional situations.  Self-love is very real.  It is knowing yourself, your triggers, your weaknesses, it’s knowing everything about yourself, the good and the bad, and being comfortable in your own skin.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

My Beautiful Ex

I was chatting with an ex of mine and he found some images I took of him.  Photographer I'm not.  His obvious assets aside, and it's much larger than it seems in the pictures, I'm awed by the fact that he's brilliant, beautiful, and not at all, not in the least little bit, defined by his outrageously gorgeous and gigantic penis.  He's kind and thoughtful, introspective, generous and just a sweet, wonderful man.  For all the white people who ask me why I love black men, all I have to say is, what's not to love? I'm very proud to say that I love and admire him and I know that he feels the same about me.