ode to the slut who doesn’t fuck but still a slut for not letting him hit. Remember there are always two ways of looking at a condom in a wrapper, open your pussy and you won’t find freedom. Close your legs and you won’t find purity. – Alysia Harris, This Woman
On Friday I was on Facetime with my sisters catching up and watching one of my sisters try to twerk. In that moment I realised the deficit runs in the family. Later driving, I was listening to Dane Baptiste’s podcast Dane Baptiste Questions Everything and I remembered I hadn’t quite uploaded part II of the how to build a woman blog post. On the podcast he had the comedian Judi Love and they covered the kind of women (physique) heterosexual men are said to be attracted to. Side note, Dane said men are full of shit so don’t listen to them (about what’s attractive) and if you take nothing else from this post remember that bit. Anyway, if you haven’t read the first post, please do so here.
This was the one that was meant to be about perceived sexiness and my relationship with the title “sexy”. In summary, I have never felt sexy and I am not sure if I would even consider it an ambition now. I have my insecurities, but I have and am working hard for those not to be linked to whether another person thinks I am attractive or sexy. The world has bigger problems to deal with. End of blogpost….
Let’s go back a bit, a few years ago the TV show The Real did a segment of the emotional baggage/ insecurities that still haunt them. There were a lot of tears and vulnerable moments. Tamera Mowry-Housley shared the comparisons she got as a twin and how she was always the goofy one and not the sexy one. She said how she carried those comparisons from the age of 16. Her story resonated with me the most. At around the same age, I had done my fair share of comparing myself with my older sisters. My sisters are beautiful women and by African beauty standards, they are the gold standard. They had curves while I was still petitioning God to kick start puberty late into my teens. The things I did in hope that I would stop being thin (embarrassing more than alarming) I still cringe at.
Watching my sister try to twerk brought home to me that nobody leaves unscathed with this thing. Insecurities will have you believe you’re the only one. Thinking only you feel the pressure to be Rihanna sexy (p.s. I will accept no slander against Robyn) and to possess what ever body shape is in vogue. Tamera in a different show segment said the way she overcame the weight of those comparisons is she refused to come into agreement with the statements. She learnt to separate herself from what was said of her and instead to accept and internalise the more positive statements (and more importantly what her creator said). Most times our harshest critic is in our head, but the same principle still applies. Stop being a front row cheerleader for those deprecating comments.
Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself. – Oscar Wilde, A Woman Of No Importance
I finish this by saying, my crisis/ questioning of what makes a woman, coincided with a spiritual deracination. Ironically the thing that saw my walk away from Christianity was the same thing God would use to bring the prodigal back. See back when, I believed what the chorus said – Paul said women shouldn’t speak in church so women are second class citizens and should shut up. My feminist self needed no other reasons to pack my bags and say sayonara to Jesus and them lot. Then Jesus. The creator of time and space took time out to meet me at high noon near a well (yes I am referring to the biblical story of the Samaritan women at the well). See all my insecurities about beauty and being a good enough woman led me to shame’s door. Know who else was influenced by shame? The woman who chose to fill up at a well when the sun was at its highest (and its hottest). Gossip says she had one too many husbands. For me it was a mixture; some things I am not ready to share and others are the contents of my last two posts. Life gets like that sometimes.
This was meant to be about “sexiness”, but it’s taken a tangent (according to some, I do that a lot, but honestly who doesn’t like a commercial break). I share all of this to say insecurities lead you to shame and shame paralyzes (which is then kind enough to metastasise the insecurities). My advice, fight with your demons now. Find a well at high noon and sort through and decide what is good for you to come into agreement with.
Twerk, don’t twerk, post thirst traps, make modesty you jam…It doesn’t matter; everyone is full of shit (and working through their own shit). Just live your life how you would like to live with it.
THE WEEK THAT WAS:
Words of note –
Most of my life, I would have doubted myself and backed down. Having public standing as a writer of history helped me stand my ground, but few women get that boost, and billions of women must be out there on this six-billion-person planet being told that they are not reliable witnesses to their own lives, that the truth is not their property, now or ever. This goes way beyond Men Explaining Things, but it’s part of the same archipelago of arrogance. – Rebecca Solnit
Thankful for –
- Jessie Ware: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
- mi madre et soeurs
- my Lunga
after the wilderness 