the word

today's reading comes to us from the candamaharosana tantra. when a devotee asks, "my darling, my joy, how shall the yogi know your form?", Mama answers:

I come in the form of women of all classes and trades,
And I am mother, sister and wife,
Aunt and niece,
Great-aunt and mother-in-law,
And every other kind of female relation.
And I am every tantric practitioner and yogini,
And widow and ascetic.
I take the forms of all these women
Who now live to serve all sentient beings.

the black love crisis (8)

over at the black youth project, fallon had a thing or three to say about the state of the single black woman.

read on...

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.”

doesn't get much plainer than that, y'all.

the black love crisis (3)

YAAAAASSSSSSS!!

whew...sorry, y'all. had to let that out.

the crunk feminist collective broke that fully down!  thanks, y'all!

the black love crisis*

we came across this gem on single black male via twitter**.

first, we'd like to applaud "veronica" and "bahama" for their comments. right on for illustrating the possibilities of a partnership model!

but the main question the blog raises is this: with all the things black folks have to work through in their intimate relationships - from within and without - is operating within these rigid gender roles really the ultimate way to repair our hearts and homes, particularly when those roles are not necessarily reflective of our original culture, values and history?

in this 21st century world where women are {blessedly} able to educate themselves to their heart's delight and pursue their ambitions while single or partnered, is it a bad thing that we need more in a partner/mate than the ability to bring home the bacon and "wear the pants"?  why aren't men doing more questioning around who they were taught to be? 

furthermore, when entering what we hope is meant to be an egalitarian, intimate relationship between two consenting adults, why are we ever concerned with who's leading who instead of discerning who has the necessary skills, gifts and life experience in a particular area, and working out their lives around that?

in case you missed the memo, sexism hurts us all.

when we subscribe to these sorts of rules, standards, and assumptions without question - and, even accounting for humor, the level of assumption here is simply astounding - followed by disdain for those who question that acceptance, we turn women into barefoot, pregnant portraits of intellectual and emotional frustration destined to couple with  preening, self-important peacocks of men convinced they have the right to the big piece of chicken {we kid} and to rule with an iron fist {not so funny}.

wouldn't it be a joy to couple with a focus on aligning minds, hearts and destinies? what would happen if we were allowed to be our whole selves, regardless of gender?

why not a world with nurturing, intellectually brilliant working mothers who will raise equally brilliant babies?  and there's certainly nothing wrong with a man who can routinely cook, clean, change a diaper and still put a righteous cap in someone's ass for stepping to his fam.

now, we are not denying that men and women are different. however, we do question the way these differences have been upheld and reinforced in societal contexts to the detriment of women and children, the unearned privilege inherent in maleness and masculine identification, and the artificial imposition of these {largely western european} norms on people of african descent.

beloveds: do what works for you. know what you need. learn to be the best partner you can be.  how much of a "woman" or "man" you are in the eyes of a culture with a dysfunctional lens in such matters should be the least of your worries.

if we can let the arbitrary notions go, maybe we'll all get a little closer to the love we deserve and make the world a little better in the process.


*considering all the recent lamentations around the state of black womanhood and the dismal prospects for {a particular definition of} black love in general, this may will become a series. every friday, we'll be posting "alternative" viewpoints on black love.  follow us on twitter to get the latest & greatest.

**this is not a blog we frequent, so this commentary isn't meant to be a damning indictment of all their content.  e.g., a quick search yielded this, so obviously the brothas have a sense of humor about themselves, too {questionable criteria for the "simp" and the "effeminate" notwithstanding...}.

the insanity of rape culture

although we mentioned it very briefly, we didn't want this gem to get lost in the shuffle.

the insanity report practically drips testosterone on a normal day {not that there's anything wrong with that}, but this analysis of jason whitlock's dangerously inept defense of a football player accused of sexual assualt is spot on.

the sugar shack gives props to brothas who get it, especially knowing that sometimes they're the only voices folks like whitlock listen to.

thanks, y'all.

for more on rape culture, see here, here and here

well, beloveds...

if you needed a sign, this could be it.

we adore examples of holistic masculinity. if you know some, holla! could be a new sidebar in the making...

the word

bell hooks' sisters of the yam should be part of our personal scriptures. today's word is among the reasons why:

clearly, if black women want to be about the business of collective self-healing, we have to be about the business of inventing all manner of images and representations that show us the way we want to be and are. within white-supremacist patriarchal society, it is very difficult to find life affirming images of black femaleness.

...i was shocked by how difficult it is to find representations of us where our features were not crudely distorted or exaggerated. i was dismayed by how many paintings showed us without eyes, or noses, or mouths. and i began to wonder if these body parts are "forgotten" because they takes [sic] us into the realm of the senses. the problem that i encountered was not a dearth of imagery, but a lack of appealing imagery. [emphasis added]

blaming the victim in dubai

disclaimer: we understand the sun is essentially britain's equivalent to the new york post, and that the reporting here is filled with almost as many "-isms" as the story itself.

but this incident is so indicative of the ways in which kyriarchy and the repression of full and healthy sexuality hurts everyone while simultaneously empowering dangerous, pathological behavior that we had to share.

A British [cis] woman on a break in Dubai went to police after being raped - but SHE was arrested for having illegal sex.

The 23-year-old Londoner was attacked by a waiter in a hotel toilet after celebrating her engagement to her boyfriend with drinks.

But after she admitted boozing and sharing a hotel room with her fiancé, cops in the strict Islamic state arrested her for "illegal drinking" outside licensed premises and having sex outside marriage.

Her 44-year-old fiancé, also from London, was charged with the same offences. And both were thrown in police cells by officers who paid little heed to the rape. [note added - presumed due to noted fear of pregnancy]

plus, you'd think people of faith would be more compassionate to the suffering of others, not to mention fully devoted to the overall uplift of those who carry the future of the culture, i.e., the feminine principle.

but that's a whole other conversation.

new treats!

beloveds, allow us to draw your attention to the sidebar...

new to the goodies list is hips and curves--sexy lingerie for full figured ladies.  just in time for the gift-giving season!

you might also be interested in some emerging erotica at ancestral carnal rituals, queen huney's words and wares, or the delicious kinky courtesan, all of which are listed in the more love section.

finally, in the interest of inclusion and consciousness raising, there are a couple of new woman, wtf questions and the girl effect now has a place in the serious side.

for a full breakdown of these features, feel free to revisit the grand tour.

enjoy!

quickie!

beyond marriage.org.  because it's time to shift the paradigm.

{thanks to nueva_voz for the link}

the essence of a jump off

recently, essence magazine had a brotha by the name of jozen cummings blog on their it's a man's world site.

a greek 9.com forum post thankfully retained the original text before it was removed from essence's site:

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.

now, while the term "jump off" is pretty lame in and of itself, where does he get off making the rules for everyone?  is this a college primer, or is this for grown folks?

the whole tone of the post implies that the woman is cluelessly getting off, while the man is jumping through all sorts of hoops to maintain the air of casual sex--since everyone knows we're wholly incapable of initiating, maintaining, or controlling that sort of relationship on our own terms, right?  right.

one of the strengths of the ethical slut is its near-mantra that productive, healthy sexual freedom is all about everyone being on the same page. that involves real communication and understanding, no matter how basic the interaction. invite someone to bed more than once, and some conversation's gonna have to come in there somewhere.

put another way, there's nothing wrong with jump offs, friends with benefits, and the like. but no one needs or deserves the sort of blatantly patronizing mess jozen is upholding here.

...and that's just the sex part.

how about the fact that this is essence magazine, which is supposed to provide inspiring, loving messages and images to sistas who rarely get them anywhere else.*  to have this posted in a space where it is presumed that our men would be speaking to us as loving, conscious partners, lovers and brothers makes it all the more unforgivable. 

if these are the "unfiltered perspectives on dating and relationships" of 20-30something black men, then i see why they're single.

i'm not angry at jozen, per se.  i am not aware of any of his other work and never heard of him until now.  but if he could write this with a straight face, then he's clearly doing what he's been taught to do when it concerns women who are perceived as being less valuable sexually. conversely, he's also keeping the fellas dancing around all the intimacy and emotional issues they are already forced to deny and suppress in so many ways.

it's an upholding of the status quo.

still, i would love for him to learn a little more about womanist/feminist theory and the fullness of deeply actualized, total womanhood before he deigns to comment on such matters.


addendum: jo nubian has chimed in on this as well...


*although it's worth mentioning that the heterosexist, euro-aesthetized {where are the clearly nappy headed sistas vs. the straw set/good hair "naturals"??} and judeo-christianized environment leaves out a lot of sistas, too. many of us have either never expected essence to speak for us or left that mold long ago.

yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

you must read this!

baby makes me

the woman who brought you the black./womyn. project and fly poet staceyann chin are collaborating on a new project, baby makes me.

here is their call for participants and support, as seen on sparkle's blog...

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

the too much

...by christa bell

quickie!

yet another way internalized oppression rears its ugly head.

thank you, dr. klein.

celebrate, love and honor your cycle

would have labeled this a quickie, but it really is so, so much more.

it is essential that all of us--women especially, but also the men that love us--reopen to the fact that our menstrual cycle is just as important and powerful as the changing of the seasons and the phases of the moon, including recalling the true intentions around menstrual "taboos" and seclusion.



you owe it to yourself to check out diva mama tonya and her you tube channel.

sexism hurts us all.

at first, your dear proprietress was quite skeptical about the delights of twitter, but she's discovered that people are always posting the most thought provoking things...

tonight, there was this list.

now, while there were some cringe-worthy moments {see: #9's quote and most of #10} it's not too bad. much of this list details the basics of just about any healthy relationship between two people.

that said, *unsheathes claws*...

it's understood that the blog is geared towards women, but targeting this list solely at the wife raises an eyebrow. why not just "how to superglue a marriage", period?

it also would have been nice to find something in the introductory paragraph like, "...and, husbands, don't forget to do this with your wives!" vs. the straight-outta-cosmo, "Below are 20 ways to help you superglue your marriage, and to stay your man’s number one choice." hell, if more men learned to do those same 20 things, more marriages would indeed be superglued, right?

this whole thing put us in mind of this list, which some of you may have seen floating around the internet. there are glimmers of it within the "20 ways", but let's give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that even she would find the postwar do's and don'ts a bit extreme.

however, both raise similar issues.

at worst, making women the primary scapegoats for what happens in their marriages and other intimate relationships--covertly or overtly--is one of the most salient ways sexism/sexist ideology harms those relationships. it can also serve as a justification for intimate violence.

given the social and cultural cues that most men are raised with and/or absorb in this culture, adding the idea that men are infallible pillars of authority and dominance is dangerous. and for anyone who knows what anti-oppression work looks like, the whole shebang is full of questionable power dynamics {refusing sex "works both ways", but this list doesn't??}.

at best--which, in this case, basically amounts to the non-abusive manifestation--men act out a false sense of superiority and wind up alone, wondering why they can't find a "good woman". women that tire of being single can often shut down and stifle significant parts of themselves to "make it work".

no one is always right.
no one is always wrong.

if the "20 ways" work for you and yours, great! goodness knows we've used a tactic or five. plus, the whole site is obviously targeted towards a demographic a bit dissimilar {ok. probably on the other side of the street...} from the one we cater to here at the shack. we can agree to disagree.

but, ultimately, love's gotta be a 2-way street, and any relationship lacking reciprocity is an unnecessary drain of energy, light and bliss.

sexy news: special edition - amazon fail

everyone's suddenly twittering about this amazon.com situation.

apparently "adult themed" books no longer have their sales rankings posted. the problem is, even glbtq lifestyle/family-oriented titles are getting caught in the net.

hm.

cnet has some more detailed information. feministe is talking about it, too.

according to urbantantrika, you can call 1-800-201-7575 if you'd like to speak to amazon directly about this action.

update: it seems this could have been the result of an overzealous computer program or human error.

quickie!

did you know that may 6th is international no diet day? me neither!

also, for east coasters, the fat girl flea market is happening on april 4th.

thanks to bianca laureano for twittering about this!

mark your calendars! steak & bj day!

now that valentine's day is over, we have steak and blow job day to look forward to...

*record scratch*

hey, look, we're just the messengers.

there's all kinds of analysis going on there, but occasionally it's nice to let the readers do the work. so if you blog about it, let us know!