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.
