The minute you stop caring what other people think; the minute you stop trying to control outcomes; the minute you decide to adhere to your core beliefs; the minute that other folks' constructs have no bearing on your life; the minute you realize that you are the prize...is the minute that you are free. Are you free?
Perhaps, someone who has a glimmer of common sense Hill Harper, Steve Harvey, or Kevin Powell should write a how-to-book with colorful pictures teaching black men how to become unconventional/atypical black men . . . the kind of man who allows a black woman to be herself . . . the kind [of] man who does not mentally masturbate with black feminist heterosexual women, but who wants a lifetime of memories with her (yep, that’s my personal gripe). . . the kind of black man who believes “iron sharpens iron, she will make a better black man out of me” . . . the kind of man who will endure many years of psycho therapy to understand his emotions so that he can be an emotionally available father and husband...
However...this blog is about black men and Nightline understanding why some black women “choose” to be single because we are not willing to acquiesce to the cow dung—black male privilege. We are not willing to settle for black men who are not emotionally available irrespective if he wears a “blue collar,” a “white collar,” or a “green job collar.”
...why is it that while Black women have used these new media outlets as the opportunity to be self-reflective and discuss Black female issues, while our brothers seem more willing to write over and over again about what’s wrong with Black women or tell us how we can be good enough for them? I’m certainly not discounting the necessity of guy advice for women on dating men; girlfriends often give the worst “wisdom” to other women about what men want or need. But why does it seem that most online writings about the challenges facing Black love seem to have to do with what Black women are doing wrong? And while sisters are pushing back at Nightline, why aren’t we asking a little more from the brothers we interact with on a regular basis? Why aren’t we asking Black men to confront their demons, their issues and the things they have done that have contributed to the decline in Black love. [hyperlink added]
And let's examine the high-achieving black woman marriage 'crisis,' the narrative that chafes me the most. This narrative harps on the fact that some professional black women have trouble finding partners, which puts a willfully negative spin on what could actually be a positive story. We're talking about high-achieving black women with academic and professional success, who also happen to be single and child-free. We could be wondering what's right with these women that allowed them to find success in a society where the odds are stacked against them. What can we learn from black girls, for instance, that can help us raise black boys to equal rates of education and success? Instead, we devote ink and film to discovering what's wrong with these women that they don't have an Mrs. to go with their PhDs.would love to hear what y'all think, beloveds. see y'all in the comments section!
The Talk: Women of Color On Sex is an exploration of how self-identified women across the Diaspora came to learn about sex and what it meant to have a sexual relationship. Did your mom, aunty or tia sit you down? Were your homegirls or hermanas responsible for giving you the blow by blow? Was Cinemax After Dark, Youtube or a telenovela your sex ed instructor?
Super Hussy Media seeks fresh and daring writers who can coax the reader into an intimate understanding of not only how they learned about sex, but how that knowledge impacted their sexual exploration. We want submissions that are funny, sad, enraging, and transformational.
The Talk is ultimately about our testimonies regarding how we were taught or chose to learn about our sexuality. How we are continuing to learn, lessons we wish we could share with other women of Color, introspective activities of reflection. This is all about us.
The Truth About Jump Offs
[original url: http://blog.essence.com/itsamansworld/2009/09/the-truth-about-jump-offs.html]
Welcome to ESSENCE.com's new blog where real men sound off on dating and relationships. Writer and editor Jozen Cummings kicks things off.
It may seem like there is no easier arrangement than the one between a man and his jump-off. Friends with benefits always have to be friends first. Ex-lovers we sleep with from time to time, always come with the drama of a relationship past. But jump-off is the burden free title; there are no ex-jump-offs, no friends-as-jump-offs. Just the jump-off, a woman we sleep with until we’re tired of sleeping with them, or, God forbid, they’re tired of sleeping with us.
Yet, here’s the truth: A jump-off situation takes as much maintenance as any other relationship we have with women. There are things men must do to keep our jump-off happy, and though it may seem like we don’t care about a jump-off, ladies, we care. You’re our jump-off and we wouldn’t want to do anything to mess that up, now would we? In order to ensure this doesn’t happen, I’ve written a list of things men must do to keep a jump-off, well, a jump-off and though it may seem short, it’s no less difficult.
Put It Down: In order to have the privilege of being able to just have sex with a woman — to not have to take her out to eat, or even in public for that matter — we must, at all times, fulfill all her sexual desires. A woman doesn’t want to be a jump-off, even when she knows she is, so how do we change her attitude? We make love to her so good she feels like she’s in an R&B video.
No Favors: Even if a man has a flat tire and a dead cell phone right in front of his jump-off’s residence, he knows he cannot, under any circumstances, ask his jump-off to use her phone. If she notices we’re stranded and asks if we need help, we must lie and say we don’t. It should be said, I hate this rule.
I’m On Her Time: Sex with a jump-off is never scheduled in advance, that’s what dates are for. So when a jump-off says she can’t do it at say the reasonable hour of 10 p.m., but she can do it later, at the unreasonable hour of 2 a.m., oh well. Two o’clock am it is, which makes the next and last rule so difficult.
No Spending the Night at the Jump-off’s Place: If we do decide to roll in at 2 am, we must also be willing to roll out at 4 am (or in some cases, 2:30 am), which is hard because it’s late, and we’re tired too.
So you see, ladies? We care very much about those of you we call our jump-off. I know it may not seem like it, given the title, but trust, we know when a jump-off feels good, we feel good too.
PLEASE POST ON YOUR BLOGS, SITES, LISTS etc. Help us reach the folks we need.
Many of you have already heard about our film, Baby Makes me. For you, this is an update. But for the folks who have not heard Tiona and I are making a documentary together.
For years, I have wanted to become a mother. But the timing has never been quite right. Either my partners weren’t ready, or I was scared, or I couldn’t find a donor or something. There was always something. By the time I rolled into 35, I was tired of being afraid, tired of waiting for the right woman with whom it would be the right time, tired of watching every Christmas roll over another Birthday, tired of watching my peers get knocked up and months later appear with the most amazing little bundle of potential—I was tired of waiting and ready to make the leap, and I was ready to make it alone.
I began the research with great heart—only to discover that there were little no resources for women who either wanted to, or had to embark on the journey of motherhood in the solo. There were one or two essays and a few books on artificial insemination, and some were even directed at lesbians—but most, if not all assumed that the mother would be operating from inside of a partnership, be that partnership heterosexual or homosexual.
The idea for the film came out of a conversation with Tiona to film the pregnancy/labor, assuming that there would be one—because no one, least of all me, knows if my body will cooperate in doing such a thing as conceiving. I envisioned Tiona asking a couple of heartfelt questions and spinning the light to create a high-end home-movie I could show my child at eighteen. She agreed and we began to flesh out some ideas. That conversation, coupled with the lack of resource material out there spurred the project now known as Baby Makes Me.
Baby Makes Me, a feature-length documentary, will explore the challenges and triumphs of Single Motherhood, particularly in the lives of women of color, lesbians and women who make a conscious choice to be mothers in the absence of intimate/romantic partnerships with men.
The film will use as its narrative skeleton, the journey of activist/writer/performer, Staceyann Chin, as she navigates her personal choices with reference to motherhood. Author of the memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, Chin now brings her talents to the medium of film as writer and Executive Producer.
The Director, Tiona McClodden, is a champion of promoting positive images of women in media. Her last film, “Black./womyn.:conversations…”, garnered much respect in both accolades and awards. She now brings her attention to the issue of women and motherhood.
It is our intent to interview a series of women from all the demographic cross-sections. Issues of financial, ethical, medical, cultural, and political relevance will be fore-grounded. We hope that clinics, hospitals, families, children of Black lesbians, straight Black women who want children, mothers of gay women who lament the loss of grandchildren when they discover their daughters are gay, and anybody who seeks to have a clearer picture of the family that includes gay women will see that our lives go on, that women who are single, be they lesbian, or Black or poor, can and do have babies, and that we are simply another group of people who live and laugh and grow. We hope to paint the subjects in the film as human and likable characters who, though they are dealing with slightly different challenges than the women we traditionally see as mothers, are not very different from any other group of people considering parenthood.
We are going to need all the help we can get. We need help in reaching out to folks who would like to be interviewed; other single mothers, women who have been inseminated, women who are thinking about it, women who work in the medical field, women who work in the administrative world of policy etc. We are on the hunt for the all the voices that could represent our story in the film.
We have recently been awarded a grant from ASTREA Lesbian Foundation for Justice and are set to move forward. We write to you now, in the hope that you will want to be involved in this groundbreaking project in whatever capacity you choose: we need space to host fundraisers and screening and other events connected to the film. We need people to fundraise, to promote the film, to host community talks, to suggest topics for discussion in the film—we need to secure additional investors, we need the help of people who are experts in the business of making films, and we need the counter-perspective of people who have never made a film. We are hoping to make this a community effort; from start to finish we want the ideas to be representative of the various factions in our diverse village of the women who mother our children. If you are sure you are unable to do any of the above, we only ask that you make room for our fliers, questionnaires, invitations, and other promotional materials for the film.
We would be honored if you would join us as we attempt to break more ceilings, level more walls to make room those of us who are too frequently left out of the history and imagination of the world we live in. We look forward to a spirited journey with you, from the opening shot to the ending credits—complete with your name listed among the most stalwart of our supporters.
Thanks again to the women who have already offered assistance. We look forward to your being a part of our process.
Staceyann Chin
Executive Producer/Writer, “Baby Makes Me”
Tiona McClodden
Director/Producer, “Baby Makes Me”
Please send all inquiries and requests to: babymakesme@gmail.com
