A “Loc” on Intimacy

        

         “I WISH A NEGRO WOULD TOUCH MY HAIR AFTER I GOT IT DONE! “ is heard being yelled from a gaggle of African-American females at a brunch. “He better go get a white girl for that” is the follow-up by the freshly done, mohawked co-signer giving cliché snaps and hi-fives in my imaginary scenario. Yet, imaginary or not….at least ONE African-American sister reading this nodded her head in agreement at the reality of such statements before reaching the sentence about it being a made up scenario. We live here. Somewhere between I Wish A Nigga Would Blvd and Madame CJ Walker Ave where it has become okay for our crown and glory to remain nothing more than a show piece head-dress to be paraded in front of our kings like an artifact in a museum; on display but not to be touched. How’d we get here?

        Did we get to this point from the hours upon hours of sitting next to the stove in the kitchen smelling dinner cook as your mom threatened to burn your neck if you didn’t lean your head all the way to the side as Blue Magic sizzled in your ear? Or was it the reoccurring echo of your mother yelling, “Dont let anyone play in your hair while you are at school” that has somehow follow you into adulthood, long after the threat of lice were gone?  Or was it the old wives tales that your hair carries energy and not just anyone should be playing in your hair like it is recess? Whatever the case may be, if your man is good enough to play all up and through your candy land….why can’t he play in your naps? It sounds so silly once I put it that way doesn’t it? You can sleep with me, but don’t touch my hair. I mean, if we told inner city girls that they needed to care for their bush as much as they do their…well..bush, we may have more virgins in the world and cut down on the world population. Why can a man have sex with us… but can’t touch our hair? Strange…..very , very , strange.

        Knowing the Black woman better than she knows herself ( yes, I’m black), I know for a fact that no matter how liberal she may think that she is… she would rather vote Palin in office with Bush as her VP and McCain as Secretary of Defense before she would ever want to see a Black man with a White woman. It is fact. Even the liberal ones cringe at first sight, evaluate a flaw in her, compare it to the flaw in him and then become okay with it. It’s because we wonder…..what in the hell does she have to make him cross melanin lines and date outside of the cotton field. It is not racial. It is a direct example of confusion between Black males and females personified and in the flesh and we are left to face it.  When not in “mixed company” we share derogatory statements like nigger jokes at a country club amongst ourselves about how the White woman will do the stuff that we wont do , never seeing it as a negative for us but rather a negative for her. This isn’t intended to be racial as it is informative. Its Lisa Lamponelli , Carlos Mencia, Paul Mooney and Richard Prior on stage being copy/pasted into the privacy of our own homes. They say what we think…and even reveal what we have yet to understand.

        I’m not a freak by any stretch of the imagination, but I often wonder what do people get out of the whole “pull my hair” segment of sex, I mean who does that? If this were a question on Jeopardy the answer would be “What is Shit that White people do?”. I’m tender headed. I don’t like to comb my hair when I HAVE to yet alone allow a guy to grip and cause alopecia traction baldness in a heat of passion. So what do people get out of that? I am soooooo serious when I ask this question. Outside of kinky violence, I can’t see much else being received from it. Or can I?… Nope, I can’t. But I do have a serious question to ask, a few actually.

        Black ladies…..do you think that we lose a huge portion of our intimacy with our Black men because we often refuse to let them touch our hair? I mean… think about it. To a guy, touching your hair is a subtle way of him sending you a signal that he is feeling you. Swimming or sexual encounters in bodies of water or the shower is on the top of many men’s fantasy lists; seen Baywatch Lately? Men go crazy as a woman does a slow walk out of the water and pushes her hair out of her face. The slow hair blow as a woman gets out of the car was designed by a man, for a man as a way to seduce him via Yaky 1b natural. Yet, ladies…. most of us do not partake in any of these activities. I don’t care if a woman is natural or creamy cracked out…. several will not let her man touch her hair. WE have built up this impermeable wall of Pink Oil Moisturizer and Jam that most black men have learned before they were able to pee directly into the bowl that they do not touch a black woman’s hair. We have unconsciously trained our future kings that they can touch everything on his future queen’s body but her crown. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this?

       I mentioned this to my big brother on Sunday, and I promise you that if he had wings he would have jumped off the sofa in agreement and flown away. For a moment it looked as if he had caught the Holy Ghost, but it was just frustration releasing. He wasnt even paying attention to my side conversation with his wife…. but I ‘ll be damned if he wasnt fully listening now! lol. I wish I had recorded it just so that women could see the amount of energy and excitement he expressed to finally have a black women expressing his same sentiments. He said, “I would even go as far as to say that THIS (not touching a black woman’s hair) is why SOME black men date outside of the race.” There you have it… straight from the horse’s mouth! Ladies, here you have a black man telling you that he could understand why a black man would date outside of his race….just to feel someone’s hair/scalp… than to stick around and not be able to express his silent form of affection to you. I’ve even posted this question on Twitter and got blocked from tweeting because I ran out of my daily allotted tweets by responding to the sea of guys who said that they wished they could touch their girl’s hair/head. I posted it again today and will see what happens.

        So in closing, Black women… we’ve got to do better when it comes to allowing our kings to touch our hair. Maybe let him touch it for the few days leading up to a retouch, or right after you get it washed. Maybe this is the connection that we need to re-establish in order to allow intimacy to flow from a natural place, unrestricted by social taboos and norms. Maybe, and just maybe this will cause Mr. Lynch to shake in his grave if we can get one woman to allow her man to run his fingers through her hair. Would it hurt us to share this portion of ourselves? Would it kill us to open of a gateway to intimacy that hasn’t been there since the invention of a hot comb? Can we learn that there are things far more important than our hair? I hope so……your relationship is counting on it. And I am not asking you to let everyone touch your hair… just your man. SO yes, if the complete stranger (white woman) standing behind you at the Reagan National Airport decides amongst her friends that you have beautiful hair and decides to reach out and run her fingers through your hair…..(This happened to me)…..just breathe before you commit a felony. Everyone is not as restrictive as we are about our hair….and this is the day that you may need to examine why. It is my suggestion that we ask ourselves if this is the cause of why black love has a “loc” on intimacy.

Sincerely,

~*My Mother’s Daughter*~

….She’s Skinny…Standing Next to Your Mama!

NOTICE: If you read this.. LEAVE A NOTE DANGIT!!! W/ your rude behind!

 Yes….another blog entry about weight… get over it.

        So, one of my personal assistants, Andrew, and I have had long and drawn out text messages over the issue of weight. I hate to admit it…. but he brings forth some very good points….at very few times (lol). Yet, on some of his other points I need to know why he thinks that way because its hard for me to see a guy with amazing abs and body (did I mention his eyes?) hold a legit, equally balanced, and unbiased conversation about a person’s plight for being overweight. lol. [Wait, I hope that doesn’t constitute as sexual harassment since he is technically my employee…lol. Oh, hell, he’ll get over it. lol. ]Maybe that is a bias that I need to change within myself; the fact that you don’t have to be overweight to know where we’re coming from. Well, long story longer than the shorter version but shorter than the longest version….in response to my blog  “Yes, I’m Fat… Thanks for Noticing” he made a good point that reminded me of an idea that I’ve had for years; Why are plus size people looked at as weak? Shouldnt we be viewed as the stronger persons in society for walking daily with our issues on our shoulders? Shouldnt we be the sought after ones for surviving through all of the ridicule?

If you havent read the other blog entry… CLICK HERE and read it to catch up, you slacker.

 

        In the aforementioned blog I made the mention of how other people can hide their weaknesses and personal habits but that plus size people wear their issues on the exterior. We may eat in secret, or swallow pain and resentment covered in mango curry sauce…but everyone can still visually see our issues. Shouldnt the outward appearance of our issues be enough to say, “Here I am world. You know my problems now what are yours?” It would be like Intervention’s version of “You show me yours & I’ll show you mine.” Fear Factor for the dysfunctionally senile in denial! Those who are willing to walk to the closet of their issues and drape them with a beautiful umpire waisted belt and walk into the world the very same way that we do every day. See, walking to the closet every day , for the plus size woman who has accepted her plight and is not in denial, is more like preparing for a final exam or your thesis statement (just got another blog idea). What will this outfit say about me as it wraps itself around my already pronounced issues? I mean, there are tons of things that go through our mind as we get dressed, but in the end we walk out of the house with our heads raised high….some of us… and we face the world.

        How ironic is it that the world would make the people who carry the most weight the physically weakest? Shouldnt my carrying these extra 70 pounds make me stronger? Well, yes, technically it does…just not in the same physical manner as the gym buffs without necks. We become emotionally stronger and self-sufficient in our lives. Many of us have the very things wrapped up in our post-Christmas dinner wrappings that several other people look for but aren’t willing to unwrap.

        Picture this: (And this is not Skinny Chick Bashing but this is blunt Anti-Skinny Chick…lol.. I use to be one, so I can speak on it) A guy sees a fine, thin woman from across the room. He loves the way her curves appear, her assets are ripe for the picking and her womb is playing peek-a-boo behind a nicely Golds Gym ripped set of abs. This is what he loves. Now, as soon as she gets a little thicker, the birthing hips have now given birth to stretch marks and indent lines from the too tight panties she has suction cupped to her butt in hopes that this physical change will soon go away, he (not all but some) will no longer find her attractive. Phrases like, “Baby you’ve changed”, “You’re not the same woman I met” or “You’ve let yourself go” find their way into their relationship.  Was he there for the woman’s personality or was he there for her looks? Because a woman will stay there when she is in love and watch his waist grown and learn to love that there is more of him.

        Picture this #2: You have the hoodrat with the big booty, 2.5 kids or 5 abortions deep…which ever will make this more disgusting for you, living at home with her mama striving to be a model who SOMEHOW manages to get the business man who one would THINK had enough common sense to know that he needs a woman who is more on his level. Standing from my previous skinny chick position, even I would say that he was in it for the booty and he’d never marry her in his right mind. Some would say why would any woman want him in the first place? It is not necessarily that we would want him… we want his eyes to be opened to what he could have and is missing out on all for the love of booty. (Sounds like another VH1 Reality Show, right?) You have beautiful plus size women who would make sure that the home was taken care of, the man was head of household, a companion in both business and personal decisions who are intelligent beyond their years being passed up on a daily basis just because a guy can’t see himself with a full-figured woman. He is passing up the very qualities that a man is supposed to findth in a wife….not wifey…but a wife. See, something is not right with either of these pictures….. these scenarios are in need of a new photographer.

        I say this, fellas…. in a plus size woman, if you look at the qualities that she has: is she intelligent, is she mentally stable, she doesn’t have 7 different baby daddies, does she have goals in life, etc…then you will begin to see what we see. Instead of worrying what your size 4 girlfriend is going to look like in 7 years…you’ll already know what we look like when we gain weight…lol. The surprise will be what will we look like should we ever decide to lose the weight for ourselves, but the surprise will never be that you have possibly gained a beautiful woman who is created from your dreams and crafted to suit your needs as she conquers her own world as well.

        I understand that everyone has a preference that they are entitled to pursue, if you truly arent attracted, then you are exempt. I’m here to speak to the brothers that creep behind closed doors with the plus size sisters but wont take her out in public for one reason or another (all of the reasons may not be weight….but I see y’all taking the crazy as hell skinny chicks out in public while she shows out). You like who you like, and you don’t like who you don’t like, but I want guys to stop treating plus size women like the white girlfriend cooking bacon for a black muslim; a taboo. We exists, we are sexy, and we go through a lot just to fight to be treated less than equal. We run businesses, we dress to the nines, and we love life just like any other person because we are human as well……we just want to be treated as humans. We can put it on our husbands, whip up a meal and push out some gorgeous children too…all while being the true trophy on your arm. People will see our size, but they will also see the courage that it took for you to tell them all  to fall face forward with their mouth opened wide on to the lap of the status quo and commence to Super Heading.

Super Heading- (verb) created by 2Deep on Sept 7th. Intended to suggest the actions perfected by Karrin Stefans aka Super Head. Filacio.

        Fellas, can you imagine being a trendsetter?! Joining the brotherhood of the thousands of men who stopped being so friggin self-centered and shallow and finally found a woman who would have his back… who also happened to be plus size? Every size woman has her issues….but you’ll never know until you try. Stop asking if there are any real good women out there if you are only looking at 12 percent of the female population, whether it be size, skin tone, creed, or length of weave. There are some very attractive women out there who could be exactly what you are looking for…..the problem is that you’re not looking in her direction. She wears majority of her issues on her exterior…so if for no other reason to date her…. you know what you are getting into. You know that she managed to walk through the day exposed and may need a hug from you. But deep down she is still strong, not a victim, and not to be judged…she is human. At least treat her as such, and if all you see is a plus size woman who is unattractive,lazy, and not worth your time because she’s let herself go…think this….”at least she’s skinny standing next to your mama!” LMBO!!! (Thanks KaNikki!)

Sincerely,

Mother’s Daughter