Romance vs. Seduction

In this day and age of instant gratification, people often confuse romance with seduction. Romance has to do with evoking feelings of emotional attraction; seduction involves getting a person into bed. Romance benefits both partners and can certainly lead to intense love making, while seduction, without emotion, only really fulfills the needs of the person doing the seducing. The seduced might be physically satisfied at the end of the evening, but if the seduction was based merely the pretense of emotion in order to manipulate a person into a sexual encounter, that satisfaction is purely superficial and very short lived. Men are often socialized to think that being romantic is a sign of weakness and that to be manly is to seduce as many women as possible. What many men fail to realize is that they are craving intense emotional connection in their live but trying to achieve it by jumping from bed to bed, hoping the sex will lead to the euphoric feelings of bliss.

In order to redefine romance and shift the perception of sexuality, we must as women, start learning how to ask for what we want, we have to redefine what it is in a man that is important vs. what we’ve been socialized to expect that may be detrimental to our relationships. Black men must start having discussions that start exploring how to redefine what manhood consists of and how best to have their emotional needs met while being better partners in their relationships.
1. How do you communicate to your lover if they don’t meet your needs without making your partner feel inadequate?

2. How open are you to exploring different fantasies with your partner or are you determined that there are certain roles that a man and woman have and there’s no room for deviating from those roles?

3. Where do you get your ideas for romance and seduction in your life?

4. How do you keep the romance alive in your relationship?

I AM my hair

If you ever watch that show "Yo Mama" on MTV, every show, they crack on someone for having nappy hair and everyone in the audience rolls with laughter. They aren't anything more than slaves on the plantation. Nothing's changed from 200 years ago. It certainly isn't debatable that any time you tell a child that there is something inherently wrong with them, they are going to compensate for that with low self-esteem. Women with straight hair think that because they think they are beautiful, because society tells them that they are beautiful with straight hair, that means that they don't have issues of self-hatred. If I offered women $50,000 to give up straightening their hair, I wouldn't get two women to take my offer. If I said, I'll buy you a house and you can live there mortgage free for the rest of your life, all you have to do is wear your hair in a natural style, women wouldn't do it. They are terrified of their natural hair, they hate it. They'd rather be in debt and wearing a weave than natural and financially secure.


The hair issue is unique to Black women because we are the only race of women who was kidnapped from our homeland and enslaved by a different race of people who used our color and our physical features to ridicule. Slavery in Africa wasn't based on race. It's impossible to denigrate someone for their nose, their lips, for their hair, if they have the exact same features as you do. White people used their diseased sense of superiority to tell enslaved Africans that everything about them was ugly. There is no other race of women who has had to endure such psychological torture.


Black hair care is a multi billion dollar business. I've always said that if white people wanted to effectively disable the black community, all they would have to do is stockpile all the relaxers, straightening combs, fake hair, etc. Within six weeks, Black women would be selling their souls and selling out the race for their straight hair fix.


Think about who we consider beautiful. Beyonce has a blonde weave. Every time I see her on a magazine cover, I say, "Who is that white woman?" We don't love our Black skin, we don't love our thick full lips, we don't love our wide noses, and we sure as hell don't love our natural nappy hair. That's fucked up we don’t' see ourselves as beautiful. Is there any wonder why the state of Black relationships is so poor? We have Black men trying to get women who look as white as possible and Black women denying that changing their hair to look white has anything to do with jumping through hoops to distance themselves from their natural blackness.


If Black women woke up tomorrow, and they all said, "No more chemicals," I love myself the way God intended me to be, white people would be terrified. They would be terrified that we don't aspire  to be look like them anymore. They would be terrified that we are defining our own standards of beauty. They would try to enslave us again, they would lose their fucking minds. They wouldn't be able to deal with an empowered people that didn't think the world revolved around them. They need to feel superior and they do as long as we are frying our natural hair, trying to mimic them. That gives them their power. If we were to stand up in mass and say, "I don't think long blonde hair and blue eyes are attractive, I think that big thick lips and wide noses and nappy hair is gorgeous white people would start a war against us. (Don't worry.  Black people can't even think like that we've been so brainwashed but it's a nice thought)


I've heard a many a brotha tell me that he refused to have his daughter get her hair cut. Little black girls don't have a chance if their mothers and grandmothers are telling us how nappy and unruly our natural hair is and our fathers (absentee most of the time) are telling us we are only lovable if we have long hair. Is there any wonder we are fucked up? (Damn, I just saw a commercial for the All Star Game and there was a shot of Beyonce and for a split second, I said, "Who is that white woman?") Black men HATE nappy hair more than Black women. That's why they go after the Latina, White, Asian woman. Those women will give them children with "good hair" and light skin. Let's not be naive. Black women have to have straight hair or they are afraid Black men will never look at them. Add to the fact that slavery told us to be submissive to our men and you have women terrified to show their blackness.


The fear of being seen as gay is sooooooo pervasive in Black women. They might not mind being seen as bisexual but they sure as hell don't want to be seen as masculine. And everyone knows that short hair means you are a butch, right? Once again, we are allowing other people to define us. I tell little children who ask me why I don't have any hair that there are a beautiful people in Kenya that all wear their hair like mine and that short hair is a sign of beauty. They look at me like I'm crazy and their mothers usually tell them that I'm gay when they think I can't hear.


I can’t support India Irie and that song. She’s got women with weaved-out, blond, straight hair running around saying, “I am not my hair.” You know what? I AM my hair. I am my naps. I am my African wooly hair. I am every African woman who was beaten and told that she had to cover her hair or lose her life. I AM every slave woman who loved her nappy hair and who had to see white women and mulatto slaves get preferential treatment for having straight hair. I will NEVER as long as I live let straight hair define my beauty.

You’s a punk mother fucking bitch

Yeah, you punk mother fucker, thinking you all that. 
You ain’t shit bitch, that’s right I called you a bitch. 
You talk shit all fucking day about how you all this and that and you ain't got shit to show for it ‘cept halitosis. 
You stand on the corner, grabbing your dick, but everybody know you ain’t packin. 
All that hot air you blow is just mental farts to compensate for the fact that you ain't jack. 
Whaaa, whaaaa, whaaa, you bitch and moan how everybody is trying to keep you down. 
You keeping yourself down by spending 18 hours a day fucking with XBox when you should be getting a job. 
You got babies over here and babies over der, not taking responsibility for any of em. 
And you cry how you are such a good black man and you can’t find a woman who will support you when you don’t do anything worth supporting. 
You’re lazy, dumb, broke and black, you ain’t good for nothing but a roll in the hay and sometimes not even that. 
You can’t eat pussy, you don’t last long, all you do is pump a few times to get yours and you’re gone. 
You smoke weed all day and you live in your mama’s basement.. 
You’re a loser bruh and it’s fact, you ain’t nothing but a punk ass little bitch mother fucker and there’s no doubt.

These are the lyrics to a new song I’m working on. It’s for all those men who defend offensive rap lyrics by saying that it’s not about ALL Black women. For all the men who don’t speak up about the offensive rap songs that degrade Black women, this goes out to you. It’s not about ALL Black men, just the ones that refuse to defend the honor of Black women by defending misogynist (c)rap. Put a beat to it and I got a platinum single right der. Now you know how it feels.

Defining Love

We can't be in loving relationships if we can't define love. Most people assume that if they enter into a relationship, they have to protect themselves, look out for themselves, stay in the relationship as long as it makes them happy. Most people proudly proclaim that they will never put the needs and wishes of their partner above their own because they don’t want to be used or taken advantage of. There's a huge difference between putting the needs and wishes of your partner above your own and being weak. In loving yourself, you are selective in waiting for the right person who matches you; you don't just find someone attractive who meets your superficial desires. In loving yourself, you work out your issues first and heal yourself from the patterns of dysfunction that have plagued your family for generations. 

In loving yourself, you don't tolerate abusive or destructive patterns from your partner. In a healthy relationship, you can go grocery shopping and by the brands that your partner loves most because you know that they prefer Colgate and you prefer Crest but you know that making your partner happy is more important than what toothpaste you use and your teeth will get just as clean. It shows your ability to be in a healthy relationship if you let your spouse eat the drumstick because you know that he or she likes it the most when you can just as easily eat the thigh. If you had a bad day at work but your spouse had an even worse day, in a mutually supportive relationship, you can hold off on complaining until they have processed their situation. If you’ve really given yourself to a commitment, if you want to buy that ATV or big screen TV really badly but you know that you and your partner are saving for a down payment on a house and you can defer your wants for the needs of the family first. It's because you love that person, LOVE, that you put aside the little i for the bigger picture of US. If you have chosen wisely, you will have chosen a partner who will do the same and more for you as well. Your happiness together is more important than your happiness as an individual. That's love.


You can't know love unless you give up yourself. That's the whole thing. That's the whole deal. Love is losing yourself in someone, becoming one, where you have no end and they have no beginning. If you love yourself more than your partner you don't have it right. True love is a big leap of faith. It's saying, I'm joining with this person and I'm going to erase me and become us. We are a two headed being, one heart, one goal, one objective. Love is being able to say in every choice, how will this benefit us? Society tells us that it's all about me first, that you can't give up yourself, that you have to stay in control, separate and autonomous. Society is producing tons of unhealthy relationships as well.

Who’s Your Daddy?

I had a guy friend once who had two small daughters. He would take his daughters to work with him, he would pick them up from school, they loved their daddy and it showed every time they would see him. I was mesmerized by their relationship because he took such pride in knowing that his daughters could count on him for anything they wanted or needed. If they were having problems with children at school, they knew that their daddy would be there to resolve the conflict. If a man said something inappropriate to them, they knew that they could run to their daddy and he would defend and protect them at all costs.

I’m 40 years old and I’ve never known what it’s like to have a daddy. I’ve never had a daddy, I have a father I met when I was 16. The only interaction I have with him is him giving me a check on my birthday and Christmas and sending a few emails a couple times a year. I’m no expert but I know that parenting has to go much further than that. I’m not real sure I know all the intricacies of what having a daddy involves but I’m sure that it’s more than giving $400 a year and an email that says, “Hey kiddo.”

I have to wonder how my life would be different if I’d known the safety and security of a father’s love in my life. I have to imagine that my choices in men would have been vastly different if I’d had a daddy to help shape my perceptions. They say you can’t miss what you never had but that’s bullshit, complete and utter bullshit. I’ve missed out on what it is to know that there is a man that loves me unconditionally. I’ve missed out on what it is to know that there is a man in the world whose primary responsibility is to protect me and provide for me. If I’d had a man to love me, I sure as hell wouldn’t have begged EB to love me and spent so many years of my life trying to convince him that I was worthy of love.

My father isn’t some ex-con deadbeat. He’s a genius whose worked at the same high paying job for over 40 years and who is a daddy to two other daughters other than me. When I was growing up, the concept of “daddy” was something that set my mother off on a rampage so I dare not even bring up the subject. Now I realize how detrimental that was to me.

All too many fathers only want to be a daddy to their sons. Daughters are expendable, disposable and only sons have value in far too many men’s eyes. I know my mother resented me for not being a tiny replica of her and I grew up trying to compensate for being a constant disappointment to her. It’s only now that I’m realizing that I have been compensating for feeling unlovable to the men in my life because I never knew a father’s love. We as women have to start coming to terms with the fact that we’ve been handicapped emotionally by never knowing a father’s love. Moreover, we need to start ensuring that our daughters know a father’s love. This whole, “I can raise my child by myself, I can be the mommy and the daddy,” is noble, but it’s fucked up. Men need to be daddies to their girl children. Maybe then, when we let go of the fucked up beliefs that are so prevalent, that so many people want to justify, then we can have a community of women who, when some undeserving man who wants to use and manipulate us for sex asks, “Who’s your daddy,” we can know with assuredness to whom we belong.