Controversial Woman

It’s definitely an easier task to avoid taboo topics and maintain a clean reputation free of controversy and negative discourse. It’s also a boring way to live…. if you can call that living.

Coming from a single black woman in my late 20s, I’m sure I’ll get some backlash from the circles of sanctity and ideas of purity I was raised in for these next few posts… but it’s time for me to break free and live the life of being unapologetically me that I deserve to embrace. Can’t preach self confidence and the power of being a black woman if I’m still afraid to address topics that could be perceived negatively and place labels on who I am.

People love to judge and think they know who you are from what they pick and choose to hear and see of you, based on their views and values. We as women are taught at a young age to be a “lady”, respect ourselves, and shy away from our sexuality. While the media uses us as sex symbols, creating misleading examples of what we should look like, how we should feel, how we should talk, and most importantly what we should think about ourselves. Then the church tells us to save it for marriage because no man wants to take a wife that every man before him has already had in an intimate manner.

We’re raised in boxes created for people that don’t look like us, with no input from us, and they’re extremely self destructive and demeaning… it’s sickening.

There are two specific couples in the limelight today that I truly admire and love to learn little tidbits about self discovery as well as married life and tackling those obstacles from; Mr. and Mrs. KevOnStage and the Ellises. They recently did an episode on the “Dead Ass” Podcast together called “You’re Not The Person I Married” and Melissa (Mrs. KevOnStage) shared a bit of her backstory growing up in a purity movement, which has sparked so much conversation about being women and how we’re raised, compared to men, in my personal sister circles. The entire episode is D.O.P.E as well as their respective podcasts (“The Love Hour” and “Dead Ass”), you can check out the full episode if you click on the title above or search for “Dead Ass with Khadeen and Devale Ellis” on whatever app you choose to stream your podcasts of choice.

The gist of what Melissa explains is how she was raised to be pure and not indulge in any sexual cravings or conduct because her body was a temple and how sex before marriage is a sinful act. Her and Kev speak on their obstacles with sex in their marriage due to her being raised in that purity movement and how, even after 13+ years of marriage and 2 children, she still struggles with being completely comfortable with the sexual being that she knows she is as a human.

I found comfort in her transparency because I’ve battled with the virgin vs sex before marriage conversations internally for as long as I can remember. I remember being taught all of the things we can’t do or shouldn’t be comfortable with when it comes to our natural sexual desires and physical appearance very vividly. I even recall a very uncomfortable encounter with an Elder in my church while I was with my two cousins, where we were told if we ever popped up pregnant he would cut any type of communication with us until he felt we were fit to be interacted with again. Needless to say there wasn’t much surprise when he kept his word after a pregnancy occurred and he was no where to be found after being considered a “father” figure in the church to us as young women.

These ideas effect how far we can actually go to “discover ourselves” and who we really are, because we’re always confined to those boxes created to “preserve” us. The idea is quite archaic when you think about it, considering the double standards that come into play with gender roles, slut shaming, femininity vs masculinity, and so many other misconstrued topics centered around raising/influencing the roles of man vs woman. How could we ever find comfort after making a mistake while we grow (because mistakes are inevitable as we are human) when we’re expected to fail and treated like we’re not worth the care when we do, but boys can make mistakes and they’re given the pass of “boys will be boys”.

If you’ve forgotten…. failure is a part of the equation for success, but that’s not what we’re here to speak on this good day.

For starters, (and this comes as a shocker more to me in my adult years because I wasn’t raised around brothers) the idea of guys being in a competition to determine how many women they can “have” compared to their peers. How is that even a real thing when we’re being raised to keep it tight and locked up… as Madea would say “klink, klink”? I didn’t even know that was a thing until I began watching these videos of men explaining how they had to get their minds right to prepare for their wives and correct their thinking because they were taught wrong in their earlier years. They were exposed to being “lady’s men” and racking up “bodies” to be considered “the man”.

But this isn’t about men… This is about us having the FREEDOM to embrace our own sexual identities and not feel ashamed because WE’RE HUMAN TOO! Go figure…

Ever since listening to Melissa tell her story, so many things have started to connect in my brain about just how much we are controlled and how long it takes us as women to knock the “brainwashing”, as she refers to it, out of the forefront of our minds. We’re admired for our beauty and men are told to “chase” us and rack up as many women as they can, but just as much as we’re put in the spotlight as sex symbols we’re not allowed to appreciate our sexuality? We’re body shamed and told we should look certain ways and if we don’t meet those standards of “beauty” we’re not beautiful… so we can’t even believe a man when they tell us they think we’re beautiful just the way we are (something I’ve battled with accepting ALL throughout my 20s) let alone believe we don’t need the validation of a man to confirm our beauty in the first place.

Control over MY body is what I want as an independent black woman… no matter what age!

I also caught wind of the shenanigans known as T.I. and how he supposedly accompanies his daughter to the gynecologist each year to ensure her hymen is still in tact while I was writing this post… I’m thoroughly disgusted. Let that baby be! For your information, and this is a fact, the hymen can fade away with time if a girl is active, she DOES NOT have to have sex for that to occur. I’m genuinely disgusted by the fact that he thinks this is okay for his daughters but the same energy is not placed on his son’s. Makes you wonder how a man can attempt to “lock” things down for his daughter but allow his son to go out and “violate” someone else’s daughter…

This is the kind of nonsense that controls us from youth into adulthood and can genuinely make us afraid to attempt to live life. Instead of telling us all the things we shouldn’t do to be shunned and looked down upon treat us girls as equals to boys; give us the tools to be safe and protect ourselves. Knowledge is power… fear will only control somebody for so long.

I found Melissa’s insight on feeling she was brainwashed and finding it hard to be sexually free once she got to a space where it was “allowed” the most intriguing part of her testimony. How does one turn off the mindset that sex is bad, physicality and intimacy isn’t appropriate for a “lady”, and if you let a man do x,y,x to you you’re “damaged”? Especially if you choose to marry and then you’re expected to be this temptress and (for intensity sake) “porn star” for your husband after being pure, untouched, and afraid to even explore what turns you on your entire life before marriage!

That sounds so extremely destructive to me. The level of panic and fear that comes with living up to “standards” is already high for us, to add another layer to those expectations with no guidance or encouragement to explore yourself before committing yourself to a life with somebody else that essentially will expect you to please them as a requirement of your lifetime contract to one another… that sounds terrifying! Coming from me as a people pleaser in general with the desire to be a wife and mother, I can imagine what it would feel like being in her shoes.

I’m an advocate for freeing girl’s like me from the standards that are draped over their lives before they can even develop the confidence to fight for themselves and not be controlled by how society dictates they should talk like, walk like, look like, feel like, love like, embrace like, and what type of woman they are EXPECTED to be for acceptance.

I’ll get into that more next week though… YUP! Part 2 loading as we speak, LOL!

Be D.O.P.E. Queens!