Black Sexuality: Homosexuality By Cornell West

1. In a culture driven by sexual and racial imagery, very few honest conversations about race, gender, and sexuality actually take place. In their absence, commonly held perceptions of black people as teenage parents, welfare recipients, no good baby daddy’s, or sexual play toys remain. Due to the ever-present fear that telling our stories will somehow fulfill society’s unspoken expectations about our sexuality, most black people have recoiled into silence in order to service the outside world with the comfort they desire to believe that they control our sex, sexuality, and lives. Truth is black sexuality cannot be controlled by those who are not black. “Our bodies are all we really have.” –Bacari Black sexuality has long been defined …show more content…
In my own attempt to solidify what it is I personally believe “black sexuality” to be I must admit I was afraid. Coming from a home where sex itself was a taboo subject I didn’t quite know if I had it in me to dig deep into my personal catacombs where I too placed black sex and sexuality, in order to fine some acceptable attempt at cracking the code. But…there is no code there just seems to be ambivalence regarding the black body and what pleases it. But why so? In his article “Black Sexuality” Cornell West exclaims how black sexuality is known to be disgusting, dirty, funky, gay, and somehow less acceptable in the American society. Dehumanized and distorted body images of African Americans are common when researching the black body but so are images of black women with large hind parts and big breasts or black men with large penises. So the question transpires, does the American society idolize these images or are they being mocked? And if so, how does the black community take back control of what should be considered beautiful? In a society where sex …show more content…
West and Patton propose the idea that perhaps it is our own refusal as a black people to discuss black sexuality that has led to its nonexistence in scholarly conversations. In her article “Who’s Afraid of Black Sexuality” Stacey Patton talks very much about racism, oppression, and addressing the denial we all see permeate amongst society. Patton explores the “queer” more raw side of black sexuality and offers a feminine approach. Her findings although they complement Cornell West’s forces readers to dig deeper into black sexuality especially the homosexual side. Patton writes about the power struggle within the sexual community, the fear that our bodies have some untapped power that can only be released when we are at peace with our homosexual desires, hanging penises and chocolate pussys. If we ourselves are not comfortable openly discussing our bodies then the same will go for our spectators. The white man’s gaze is mentioned as a potential reason for the absence of black sexuality in academic settings and society. White supremacists degrade black bodies to control them, by using