Did you ever wish you could be a fly on the wall in a barber shop, or maybe in the locker room so that you could hear for yourself?

There are a rare few places that a woman can catch unfiltered male conversation. It is where men congregate without the presence of women around to chastise, criticize or question them. The absence of women isn’t literal, there are some women around, but these women aren’t ‘real women’, as in, these women are powerless to do anything about these men’s point of views.

It’s no surprise that men behave a certain way among each other; they think women would not be receptive to certain behaviors and opinions so these are whispered words among ‘insiders’ only and in safe environments (without women).

When men aren’t allowed or are unwilling to be honest and open then women are left to presume certain beliefs about men or they create their own version of what they think men feel and believe.

Of course, as you can see, I am a female, and so some of these conversations went on because the men either A) didn’t think me a ‘real woman’ worthy of polite conversation or B) maybe I wasn’t seen as someone who is ‘uptight’ because I didn’t argue back with them regarding their opinions or C) maybe they didn’t give a fuck what I thought and said what they said because that’s how they felt and I should report back tog Woman Land with my new knowledge or D) they could/would fire me, or cut my throat and dump me behind a warehouse if I had an opinion on their opinion of women.

Not all unfiltered male conversation is derogatory and bad though. And what was derogatory had nothing to do with class, race or education, the most educated on down to the ignorant have their specific feelings about Black women.

Some of what I learned about men came from platonic male friends who were just happy to have someone to listen to them and not judge them for their honest feelings.

Some of what I know came from lovers, married, separated, taken, single and otherwise, as they discussed the many, many reasons they found themselves seeking the comforts of a woman in a non-traditional sense.

What do Black men say about Black women when we women aren’t around?  

She doesn’t like to have sex and/or fellatio/cunnilingus…they never really use those terms but you get the idea.

If I had a nickel for each time I heard this one, baby, I’d be so rich!

I’m not sure how to go about taking a head count on who gives head behind closed doors but I will say I think the younger girls are over the stigma of oral sex and so this point becomes moot the younger you are.

However, there’s something strange brewing in the bedrooms of younger Black men, I’ll need time and space elsewhere to go into details. For now I’ll say that BW are rumored to dislike oral sex on the receiving and the giving end.

I’m presuming this is related to the slave master/rape/chaste/respectability mind fuck that make some BW feel they are dirty and that no man would enjoy being ‘down there’ or that their vagina’s are only for thrusting and birthing babies and not for the sexual pleasure of themselves or their mate. There are also those men who don’t want their wife and mother of their kids to do ‘that’ but they have no problem paying a toothless whore $20 to do the same function. There’s another story in there somewhere, but I digress…

Either way, men, of all races. enjoy oral sex. And I’m not saying that BW don’t do the do, I’m saying theses are the complaints of Black men whose wives don’t.

Many BM seek to give and receive and wish to feel that they are pleasing and giving pleasure to their mate and not that they are forcing a certain sex act on her.

I feel bad for those guys who are married and can’t get their wives to meet them in the bedroom the way they desire. If and when he does voice his preference he may be met with a reaction that is intended to shame his wants and that really sucks.

Some women use shame as a control tactic, when you signed up for ‘all that’ too bad for you that you didn’t know it included Lego pieces, popcorn and toe nail clippings, eh?

He may be faced with a woman who is not on the same level as he when it comes to comfort and an experimental nature. If I could tell you about the amount of Black women who have sex with their husbands like they are rape victims. Or those who offer themselves only under certain conditions like only at night, on a holiday or special occasional  only during a meteor shower, only when the kids aren’t in the house, or only on the very rare occasion.

She may be ashamed of her body and hide it during sex, and while she’s focused on her own dislike of her body she’s not mentally present in bed with her man.

I hear all type of things, often from curiosity, I don’t think its an intention to compare as one better than the other but rather a man’s attempt to understand that not all women are like the woman that he has at home.

More times than not, he wants to know how to make her be like me, and not wishing that I would take her place.

Most men, who have this complaint would like to have all of their business handled by the woman he chose to marry/be with.

I encourage my male friends to vet their women according to their wants and needs. It’s the same exact thing I tell females to do.

A woman can claim to be willing to do ‘marital’ things in bed once married but any man who greatly values sex will want to work out details of sex before marriage.

There are many, many, many sexually unfulfilled couples (men &women) who are in sexless marriages. They may have love but when he starts stepping out to get his needs met, or if he’s got a physical brick wall up to protect him from your emotional wall and sexual distance, don’t be surprised when he leaves or cheats.

Black women rope men into marriages but then drop the ball and hold him to the standard ‘of death do us part’ while both parties are no more than roommates who share a last name.

Your husband does not want to have to convince and beg you into having sex with him. Grown folks will want to do grown people things and if you aren’t willing to do certain things you will find that the need gets repressed but it does not go away.

Feeling obligated to have sex isn’t healthy either so if a woman feels she has problems in the bedroom she should address them. If there are things that can be done to increase her desire to have sex, then she should tell her husband, if it gets both of you to a happy medium there’s no reason to not try to work things out.

Sex is supposed to be pleasurable, and I think some women spend so much time focusing on the value of their lack of sex (virginity/chastity) prior to marriage that they forget to be prepared for the day when they do settle down into a marriage.

I also realize that sexual abuse can affect a woman and her ability to be comfortable in bed. If that is the case then there are therapists who specialize in such things. There is a huge amount of Black women’s sex literature being published online, there are images, stories, message boards and other places one can find resources if need be.

Any issue that is so  huge as to affect a woman’ s sexual performance should be addressed before attempting to settle down with a man, or at the very least, a woman should be willing to inform him of her problems so that he can be mindful of her needs and patient while she works on them.

Keeping information such as sexual abuse or sexual dysfunction from someone you are in a relationship with is another indicator that Black couples are partnering but they sure as Hell aren’t a healthy couple.

Not all couples have sex, so if you wish to have a marriage where sex is not a priority. then I suggest you discuss this ahead of time.

Society views Black men as disposable humans, worthless mates, scary monster and disgusting sexual predators. You married him and he should not have to feel that way when he turns to the woman who is supposed to want and desire him for who is.

It’s a train wreck of a situation for both parties.

Much of what was said to me was done because of my biracial ambiguous physical features, anytime I would defend or protest on behalf of Black women, I was reminded that I’m not really Black and/or that I was ‘different’ from other Black women.

And though it may sound strange to say, maybe I am different.

Rather than condemnation, I felt curious, sad and hopeful at what I learned from Black men of what they see, live and experience as they love Black women.

Next: What Black Men Say About Black Women and Her Kids

What comes first? The Mammie or her sister/evil split personality facet, the woman known as Sapphire?

Well, she didn’t exactly phrase the question like that, but, you get the picture. My response, which can be read here, was a surmise based on things I learned during the noble and necessary Women’s Studies classes taken during undergrad.

I drew the likelihood that within our popular culture timeline, Mammy came first. I say this because her position as a subservient ‘slave’ is much comforting and relevant to the history of those that whom created her than would her being a sexually and aggressive character.

Until…wait. Here is where we backtrack to that Women’s Studies class and our reading of a book called Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women by Susan Faludi.

In this book, Faludi does a historical break down of women’s place in pop culture and what these types of stereotypical presence in media mean to the self determination of women.

She questions the implications of the dialogue of women’s interest having been manufactured, financed and under the direction of White men without a thought of the consequences of the types of images these controlling forces promote on women and girls. Her strongest case, in particular, belonged to the motive Fatal Attraction and the several edits that were made to the lead female character in order that she appear less and less stable.

Glenn Close’s character Alex Forrest did not start out as a psychotic woman of lose morals, but who else but a crazy woman has affairs with married men. Her killing by the ‘noble’ and innocent wife and the lack of culpability for the male all reinforce that ‘boys will be boys’ and that its up to the women to uphold all that is decent in marriage.

It seems that men have always been suspicious of White women, or rather, I’d say, women in general. This nervousness in regard to the opposite sex has caused men to create these systems in which women are no longer feared. By controlling, and vilifying women, men found a way to silence and reduce the power of the big bad woman.

While on the pedestal of purity, White women came to be valued by society as the ‘highest form of decency’, White women became the poster child for all things good and pure, this dialogue is a very telling one if you have any knowledge of Madonna Whore.

Once placed on this pedestal by men, she lost her ability to be a full human being, to experience life, sex, emotions, anger and many other things that one would need in order to properly express their human experience.

She becomes a victim to male expectations that are wrapped into maternal frustration and experience as well as sexual. Men are attracted to those who remind them of their mother, whether she is just like her, or the total opposite. The mother plays a role in a male’s perception of females in general.

This superwoman heroine, created to be a measuring stick for all that represent the potential of White women was cherished, protected, fought for.

But since the Devil always needs an advocate it became the Black woman who would represent all that is evil. The aggressive, lour mouth, uncontrollable Sapphire will not be tamed.

She doesn’t want your man’s penis, she’s as big and as bad as any male could ever be,  she’s strong enough to work in the fields along side the Black man.

If you look closely enough, you’ll see that she was created as a focal point of fear, her mere existence immaculate these White males. He fears her beyond sexual presence (could this disconnect also be fear of Mandingo?)

Intimidated phallus strikes again!

He learned to control his mother, but what about the OTHER woman??? On the hierarchy of relevancy, the White man benefits more by re-creating his ‘mother’ into a suitable domestic for his children and a nonthreatening domestic.

The Black woman, on the other hand, can be no more than what White Patriarchy allows her to be, the angry anti-White woman.

PS…if you ever need to delve deeper in the WTF version of my writing, I am planning on discussing the frequency in which White males happily work out their mother issues with Big, Black expensive Dominatrix. That’s a discussion for another time, and another place. #NSWF

“This blog seems to focus on darker skinned black women, but it would be a nice balance to discuss all bw experiences sometime.  Maybe that discussion will be a learning experience when it comes time to deal with biracial or lighter skinned daughters issues. “

The second half of that comment was addressed in the link. But, the first half is a very interesting opinion, because I’ve seen it expressed regarding IRR and BW-centric circles in general: Once you stop being a certain shade of black or an accepted ethnicity of black, you stop being welcome and start being an other, or source of pain and suspicion.

This is an EXTREMELY touchy subject, because as I recently addressed: being a dark-skinned woman is not a walk in the park. And I strongly feel that the sentiments carried over from being verbally and even physically abused for being dark-skinned had an impact on how these BW-centric spaces were formed. Often, they are centered around and created by women who are dark-skinned. Added to that, I believe that many of the black women who are IRR-minded are also dark-skinned. So this combines to create a circle of inclusion for like-minded women who are very familiar with being ostracized for their skin-tone as well as appreciating the positive attention that skin tone brings from persons who do not share it (non-black men).

I say this is touchy, because dark-skinned women deserve a safe space. It becomes problematic when you get women who do not appreciate the particular issues that dark-skinned women have coming into a space and complaining about being excluded. The irony is very powerful if you aren’t paying attention. However, I do feel that while there are definite and valid concerns regarding the motives of some lighter-skinned women in IRR/BW-centric spaces (Part three, and I’m already looking forward to my inevitable baldness following that post…Assuming I make it out of this one with hair.), there is a danger in participating in behaviors that further complicate relations between black women across the color spectrum.

What I am referring to is the divisions between black women along color lines where dark-skinned women don’t trust lighter-skinned women because they feel they’ve some sort of motive and lighter-skinned women cannot ally or reach out because of this lack of trust, even if they mean well and are sincere.

As I stated in the post about dark-skinned beauty…discrimination against dark-skin affects all black women, no matter what the shade. Until EVERYONE is able to acknowledge and work together to fight this particular evil, it will continue to be a problem. There is no reason why that everyone can’t include non-colorist women on the lighter end of the spectrum.

Yes, there are indeed color-struck black women who say and do hurtful things towards other black women. And it becomes complicated when we discuss this in IRR/BW-centric circles, because even though everyone is supposed to be on the same page regarding wanting better for black women or being interested in dating interracially, depending on the topic, you may find people being divided along color-lines in their thinking and treatment of other people.

This is a problem, and I think it’s one of the elephants in the room regarding black women’s empowerment.  There are many demons that need to be exercised by women looking to empower themselves and connect with each other. Demons that can get in the way of empathizing with one another and fearlessly reaching out to each other to support and uplift each other as black women.

Question: Do you think BWE and IRR sites consciously/unconsciously discriminate against black women depending on their skin tone/ethnic identity/nationality?

What I have to come realize is that there is something in the black community that folks refuse to talk about, and that the class issue. Due to the fact that the Black Power Movement introduced socialist/Marxist ways of thinking, it is considered taboo to distance yourself from certain kinds of black people. It always angers me when people assume that just because I am black, that I share the same culture and values with ALL black people. That just because we share a heritage we share a total identity. That is as dumb as saying that every white person should be a neo-Nazi because neo-Nazi’s say so.

Not every black person shares culture. This is made more difficult by the fact that these low-lifes in the black community will take credit for individual blacks success even when that individual didn’t even grow up with community indoctrination. It get’s even stickier when you consider that outsiders, who unfortunately have historically held a lot of power over the black image, don’t really know how deep those differences are. They just assume there are good black and bad blacks just like everyone else, but don’t understand that they aren’t even on the same cultural plane.

As far as I am concerned, if you are not practicing my ancestors values and living worthy of your heritage, then you are not my people. And that’s just where I leave it. There is no way on earth that anybody can tell me that I share identity with some welfare queen, having baby after baby for a check and riding and dying for some no-good. No freakin’ way.

I have quite proudly opted out of the black community and I cut up my black card. The interest on it is just too high a price to pay.

This person makes an excellent point. Why can whites, Asians, and Hispanics be classist and separate themselves from their ethnic riff raff, and if black folks do it, they’re called “sell outs?”

Ralph Richard Banks, the Stanford Professor who wrote that controversial book (see BB&W post Mr. “Is Marriage for White People?” Himself Talks to BB&W), commented on one of our recent posts(That Awkward Privilege: Invisible Irony – The Mixed Power Status of Black Men). Here is what he had to say:

Can we get this engraved on a plaque?