I began writing in the third grade. My mother would punish me to no
television and I had to do book reports on a certain number of books
before I could get off punishment. My reading list consisted of Nancy
Drew books at the time and she quickly realized that they were pretty
much the same story so she relegated me to doing book reports on Black
History. (I was also made to memorize Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech
which I WISH parents made their children do today). Reading became my
escape and I would read all the time. Writing was an extension of
that. I loved words. I loved how they could transport me.
I
started writing erotica in the 10th grade. The boy I had loved from
afar for 5 years sat in front of my in my typing class and I wanted to
impress him with my newly budding sexuality so I would write stories
like I had read in my mother's extensive porn collection hidden in her
closet. I would sell the stories I had written to boys for $5.
In
college, I had a boyfriend and I loved writing him erotic stories. I
loved writing erotic letters. I loved writing. My degree was science
and technology based but I took liberal arts classes whenever I could
that would allow me to write. One professor BEGGED me to go to law
school after I wrote a paper about defending women's right to choose.
As fate would have it, upon graduation, I got a job based on my artistic
and creative merit and not my scientific accomplishments. I would show
people my portfolio and they were more impressed with the aesthetics
than the content. For years, I did very little writing. I was married
and we alternated years of being outrageously happy and unbearably
miserable, off and on.
It wasn't until I got divorced that I
started writing again. I would buy expensive journals and write about
my spiritual and emotional evolution and write erotica simultaneously. I
loved writing on crafted papers (still do) and telling stories. I
would try to seduce men with my writing. It was the very beginnings of
AfroerotiK even though it was a decade before I would come up with the
concept. I would buy lingerie and lotions and cassette tapes and make
sexy recordings while I masturbated and recite my stories. I would
create these packages and give them to men as my indication that I
wanted to be intimate with them. (I don't think it worked one time if I
recall correctly)
Fast forward to 2001 and I went to grad
school to study African and African American Studies with a
concentration in psychology. I got As on all my papers and I thought it
was just because the standards for the school were so low. It wasn't
until I started writing my thesis and working with Dr. Linda James Myers
at OSU that I realized that I was really far more exceptional at
writing than I had previously acknowledged or comprehended. I was asked
to speak at a conference in England. I presented my paper and
professors from all over were asking me to travel to their countries and
teach classes at their various universities. I hadn't even gotten my
Masters. It was then that I realized that I had a gift that not a lot
of people had.
Meanwhile,
in my personal life, I had started writing erotica again. I had
created my perfect life at the time with academic and cultural pursuits
but I was single and I wanted an outlet that was different than the
emerging erotica market offered me. I was not at all aroused by
rappers, drug dealers or basketball players so I started writing erotica
to appeal to my desires for a transcendent, Africentric love with my
intellectual, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, and sexual equal.
I didn't want to write about ghetto behaviors because I wasn't from
the ghetto and the ghetto ain't as fabulous as Black people want to make
it out to be. I wanted to write about the complexities of Black folk,
the ones that weren't shown on TV or in music videos. So, I would
write. I would write and when I was finished, I wouldn't be aroused
because I was so invested in the sentence structure, the character
development, the grammar that the stories were more like projects and
when I was finished, I would post them online and people would say, "Oh
my God, that was the best story I've ever read. Write one about XYZ."
And I would. And more people would ask me to write stories for them
about topics and fetishes that aroused them.
It was around
that time that Zane started showing up on the scene. I've been pretty
vocal about saying that I don't think she's a good writer. That's not a
secret. I've told her so personally. I don't have anything against
her personally and I'm sure she's a nice person but I think what she's
done to millions upon millions of Black people is eroticize incredibly
unhealthy and dysfunctional behaviors to the point that Black people, an
entire generation of Black people now think that selling pussy,
cheating, and casual sex is normal and right. Our collective need to
see ourselves depicted in sexual situations was met by her willingness
to use the words dick, pussy, and fuck in poorly-written stories of
dysfunction and it sold.
So, AfroerotiK was born. I have
never written about Black people cheating (I have written about white
people cheating but they don't have a lack of positive images of
themselves so I couldn't give half a fuck about portraying them in a
positive light. I'm far more concerned with exposing their inherent
racism.) I do not use the N word in any of my stories, I do not refer
to women as bitches or other derogatory terms. I don't write about
perfect characters but beautifully flawed characters who are working on
themselves, who are committed to their evolution as a people. I fill my
stories with lessons about life and love and communication and intimacy
. . . you know . . . all the stuff dangerously lacking in any
depictions of us as a people.
I tried, a
decade ago, to get a book deal. I thought surely that agents would read
my work and fall to their knees begging to represent me. Rather, they
said they weren't interested. I went to publishers who surely would see
that my writing was far superior to the newly emerging urban lit with
its fifth grade level writing skill. In academia, I was touted as an
exceptional writer. In publishing, people didn't like what I had to
offer. Meanwhile, I'm writing more stories and posting them online, I'm
building a following, people are telling me that they LOVE my work,
that it touches them in ways nothing else has.
Today,
I am dedicated to my mission to show Black people that love, intimacy,
commitment, and emotional maturity are not bad things and that they can
exist inside of a relationship that is sex positive, that explores more
than vanilla sex. I'm dedicated to rid people of African descent of
their oppressive, sexist, misogynist, homo and transphobic views. I'm
dedicated to making Black beautiful again.
And so, I write.
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