Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape by Friedman, Jaclyn Friedman, Jessica Valenti Page B
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sought to penalize a community-based, volunteer-run radio station in the process speaks to mainstream refusal to accept that black women are something other than sexually deviant. More so than Janet Jackson’s misguided attempt to express black female sexuality in 2004 via her infamous “wardrobe malfunction”—and before she was unceremoniously left out to dry by her coperformer, Justin Timberlake—Jones’s willingness to challenge censorship demonstrated that black women are interested in sex, but on our own terms.
Similarly, in February 2001, African American photographer Renee Cox stood up to censorship of black female sexuality. Only this time, the censorship came from the local level: Then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to close down the Brooklyn Museum of Art and establish a citywide “decency commission” over the display of Cox’s self-portrait/homage Yo Mama’s Last Supper. Jones stands in the center of the tableau as a nude and unashamed Jesus Christ before his disciples. The disciples are all cast as men of color, except for Judas, who is white. Giuliani and New York City’s Catholic patriarchs denounced Cox’s display of her nude body as “anti-Catholic” and “disgusting.” Cox, rather than retiring, stepped up to the plate to defend her artistic vision, her black female body as beautiful, and her critique of Catholicism for its racism and sexism.
These black women’s sexual expressions in American popular culture are dangerous because they are not what we’re used to. It may not seem like much, but overcoming centuries of historical silence will create different perceptions about black women and sex that will reshape our culture, society, and public policies. In calling for heterosexual black women to queer their sexuality, I am expressing the fierce belief that, if we follow the example of women such as Sarah Jones and Renee Cox, we can dramatically change how black female sexuality is viewed in America. More important, though, I believe we can change how black girls and women live and experience their sexuality: on their own terms and free from a past of exploitation. Historians often refer to the “long shadow” that slavery has cast over African Americans. While it is important to acknowledge the reverberations of this human atrocity in black family structure, economic disadvantage, and especially black sexuality, it is just as critical that we push along a dialogue that reinvents black sex in ways that do not merely reinstate the sexual exploitation that was inflicted and that some of us now freely adopt.
Can black women achieve a truly liberated black female sexuality? Yes. If we continue to say no to negative imagery—but that alone has not been effective. In addition, we must create and maintain black female sexuality queerly. Only then can we say, and only then will society hear, both yes and no freely and on our own terms.
If you want to read more about HERE AND QUEER, try:
• Shame Is the First Betrayer BY TONI AMATO
• Why Nice Guys Finish Last BY JULIA SERANO
If you want to read more about MUCH TABOO ABOUT NOTHING, try:
• A Love Letter from an Anti-Rape Activist to Her Feminist Sex-Toy Store BY LEE JACOBS RIGGS
• Who’re You Calling a Whore?: A Conversation with Three Sex Workers on Sexuality, Empowerment, and the Industry BY SUSAN LOPEZ, MARIKO PASSION, SAUNDRA
If you want to read more about RACE RELATING, try:
• Invasion of Space by a Female BY COCO FUSCO
• When Sexual Autonomy Isn’t Enough: Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women in the United States BY MIRIAM ZOILA PÉREZ
7
What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life
BY LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA
What You See on Oprah
The common incest-survivor trope goes something like this: You run from it your whole life until you finally have to face it. But then you go to therapy. You make it to a support group,
Similarly, in February 2001, African American photographer Renee Cox stood up to censorship of black female sexuality. Only this time, the censorship came from the local level: Then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to close down the Brooklyn Museum of Art and establish a citywide “decency commission” over the display of Cox’s self-portrait/homage Yo Mama’s Last Supper. Jones stands in the center of the tableau as a nude and unashamed Jesus Christ before his disciples. The disciples are all cast as men of color, except for Judas, who is white. Giuliani and New York City’s Catholic patriarchs denounced Cox’s display of her nude body as “anti-Catholic” and “disgusting.” Cox, rather than retiring, stepped up to the plate to defend her artistic vision, her black female body as beautiful, and her critique of Catholicism for its racism and sexism.
These black women’s sexual expressions in American popular culture are dangerous because they are not what we’re used to. It may not seem like much, but overcoming centuries of historical silence will create different perceptions about black women and sex that will reshape our culture, society, and public policies. In calling for heterosexual black women to queer their sexuality, I am expressing the fierce belief that, if we follow the example of women such as Sarah Jones and Renee Cox, we can dramatically change how black female sexuality is viewed in America. More important, though, I believe we can change how black girls and women live and experience their sexuality: on their own terms and free from a past of exploitation. Historians often refer to the “long shadow” that slavery has cast over African Americans. While it is important to acknowledge the reverberations of this human atrocity in black family structure, economic disadvantage, and especially black sexuality, it is just as critical that we push along a dialogue that reinvents black sex in ways that do not merely reinstate the sexual exploitation that was inflicted and that some of us now freely adopt.
Can black women achieve a truly liberated black female sexuality? Yes. If we continue to say no to negative imagery—but that alone has not been effective. In addition, we must create and maintain black female sexuality queerly. Only then can we say, and only then will society hear, both yes and no freely and on our own terms.
If you want to read more about HERE AND QUEER, try:
• Shame Is the First Betrayer BY TONI AMATO
• Why Nice Guys Finish Last BY JULIA SERANO
If you want to read more about MUCH TABOO ABOUT NOTHING, try:
• A Love Letter from an Anti-Rape Activist to Her Feminist Sex-Toy Store BY LEE JACOBS RIGGS
• Who’re You Calling a Whore?: A Conversation with Three Sex Workers on Sexuality, Empowerment, and the Industry BY SUSAN LOPEZ, MARIKO PASSION, SAUNDRA
If you want to read more about RACE RELATING, try:
• Invasion of Space by a Female BY COCO FUSCO
• When Sexual Autonomy Isn’t Enough: Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women in the United States BY MIRIAM ZOILA PÉREZ
7
What It Feels Like When It Finally Comes: Surviving Incest in Real Life
BY LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA
What You See on Oprah
The common incest-survivor trope goes something like this: You run from it your whole life until you finally have to face it. But then you go to therapy. You make it to a support group,
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