I was recently introduced to Black erotic fiction by a friend of mine at university and it started off a chain reaction of thought processes. I was curious. As a writer, I feel I have a responsibility to know what’s out there, so I read a chapter. She was reading The Sex Chronicles, and was so impressed by it that she ordered four more titles off Amazon when we went into the library to study. While this is in no way a criticism of people who enjoy this sort of literature, or indeed, of the genre’s authors, I think we have to think very carefully about the significance of such books.In the library, she showed me the corresponding website, Erotica Noir, where a prominent author of Black erotic fiction interacts with her readers, answering their sexual queries and also creates a forum where they can share their own real life erotic experiences. Although, admittedly, there was only one sexual image, the descriptions were vivid, each detail of every sexual act minutely described. And for all the protestations by the author on the sexual repression that women have suffered over the years needing to be challenged, I couldn’t help but think that this erotic fiction, while it may be liberating Black women sexually, also corroborates the historical (and media) image of the Black woman as a solely sexual being, a wench, a whore.
There is a fine line between sexual liberation and impropriety. Personally, there is nothing wrong with sex, except when it is turned into an exhibitionist movement. As I read the chapter of my friend’s book, it struck me that this was the textual cousin of traditional pornography. She was quick to assure me however, that this wasn’t porn at all. It was merely an expression of alternative creativity, linking her argument back to the concept of erotica as art. But how far can this go? Would that mean then, that such stories, or other images of the said erotica, if they were to involve children, would be absolved of all accusations of paedophilia? Also, how does the production and consumption of these stories stand up against what we would call our moral fabric? Are they a good behavioural manual for young Black women? What attitudes and mindsets do they sublimally assimilate from repeatedly reading these books? What ideas do they form about themselves, their sisters, their mothers and aunties within the greater context of society? Are these books not creating a multi-faceted dichotomy - a mass confusion between sexual liberation and endorsed baseness.
Black women everywhere are constantly fighting for respect, and are attempting to distance themsleves from the sex crazed image I mentioned before, which we see perpetrated mostly in music videos, but also deeply embedded in media semiotics. But how far are we actually getting?Are we not shooting ourselves in the foot by voicing our video-vixen dissent, and insisting on our respectability, only to write, publish and endorse this type of fiction? What image are we giving ourselves, especially as these books are plentiful in the Black Interest sections of book stores. If the adage about figuring someone out by the books they read were to be applied, then what should people deduce from looking at our shelves? What statement is our literary sub-culture making about us? Why should rampant sex be key to our literary manifesto?
This is not to say that all Black fiction is erotic, nor that all erotic fiction is Black. Neither is it to say that sex, or thinking through sexuality is wrong, but I find it hard to accept that erotica is any less objectionable than pornography. We really need to think about this, and make sure that our professions of decency are congruent across all areas of our lives.
It is entirely possible to say that I'm placing too great an importance on the image of Black women from the perspective of our reading material, and that after all, it's just sex; everyone does it as some point or other. What I'd like to know is this: what exactly do we mean by sexual liberation, and are we not, in all our methods of achieving this, overstating the point? What would sexual liberation look like? Even this erotic fiction which claims to libearate Black women plays charmingly into the very image we're trying to fight i. e. Black people don't read, but when they do, all they read is sex. Isn't true sexual liberation being a sexual being, among, not over and above, other things? Would true liberation not discredit the current definition of Black women as one of the synonyms of the word sex? I am not advocating censorship, I'm not accusing the Black eroticists of ruining society. I'm just saying we need to think, really think about what it means.
Comments and insights very welcome.
7 comments:
Fantastic commentary on semantics, subtleties, double standards and extremes...I loved reading it. It's funny how so many fine lines have been crossed to make the point about 'we're free from whatever-it-is that is behind the line we just crossed', and what just happens is we go overboard, just in the opposite direction than we were at first.
Girl, this is way...... too sexy for me but I get your point. There is indeed a thin line between vulgar and acceptable.
Imagine your mind travelling your 100 miles per hour.
Well that's me for now and I still love Alice Walker.
btw Minjie I read that menu thing while I was starving in bed with no food in sight...thanks a lot! And I fully agree with you obligatory comment comment lol, lurkers drive me crazy with unfulfilled feedback.
Manayo...too lazy to login lol
Hear hear!! This is a very salient, yet under-discussed issue (and here I am assuming that under-discussed is a word). I am thinking of two "literary" works as I digest your post. The first is prestigious Somali writer Nuruddin Farah's novel "Secrets." There is a lot of sex...pedophilia, bestiality, homosexuality, underage heterosexual copulation etc. But this is a celebrated work by a writer who is strongly tipped to be the next African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (and then Minj and then Annie, in that order). I comment on this work because sex does very important things once you are able to recognize his images as a critique of the state of Somalia: the clans, the warlords, the fighting. Sex here is symbolic of certain political relations in Somalia, as well as what happens to families in war, and how questions of paternity can be relevant or not. The next work I think of is Adichie's "Half of a Yellow Sun." Again, think wartime, think Biafra, and then think...sex? There is a lot of sex in this novel also, but I would be hard pressed to explain its role to you in any meaningful way. And so the text becomes a rather thinly veiled attempt to challenge a certain Nigerian conservatism and show oneself to be liberal/open-minded and able to talk about sex. This is my opinion for now, until I can figure out what sex does in that novel.
So, as writers, but mainly as readers, here is my $64,000 question: when is erotica acceptable in literature and when is it not? Because let's face it, lots of highly acclaimed black novels in academia are full (very very full) of sex...we buy the bullshit that prize winning authors feed us about sex and black bodies as literary devices...why not these Erotica Noir authors?
Btw, Erotica Noir? Rofl!!
Thanks for the comments guys. I've never read 'Secrets' but going by your description, it doesn't sound like he's writing about innane sex and trying to pass it off as art, literature or culture that is just as legitimate as leisure reading as anything else. And as for Adichie...that's another debate.
Farah's work sounds more like historical reportage than random fiction, and if that's the case, I'm reluctant to slate it (although you might argue that his focus on the sexual perversion and bestiality rather than other details was a choice he made which still makes the sum total of his work tantamount to Black eroticism/sex obsession).
I know that in many war and domestic situations, sex is used as a weapon in acting out power tussles i. e. through rape, where the taker takes sex(can I say that?) from a victim forcefully to reinforce their 'almightiness' at that time. Fair enough. Like you said, this has political undertones etc.
I'm not saying that once a work wins awards and comes from an acclaimed author under some quasi-political guise then it's okay, but my main problem with this Erotica Noir is its insistence that it liberates Black women. This is what I fundamentally (that word again, sorry Annie) disagree with.Liberates us from whom? From what? How? If it's liberation from the Black woman as the slave girl who gets raped by her master, then I suppose taking the sex into her own hands and deciding that actually, she can choose to do it (and read it) as and when she pleases is a victory. If it's liberation from societal pressure to be a good girl and serve your virginity to your husband on a tray with a flourish, then maybe, this new brazeness about it, turning it into a ubiquity is a form of freedom from that chaste confinement (or whatever). If it's liberation from the above two scenarios, then I think it's a hoax, because for whatever claims it might make, the fact is that it still reinforces the idea that Black women having one track minds. Like a drunk drinking more to forestall a hangover, we all laugh and call it pathetic, but why do we have to consume so much sex to heal from it? Isn't that just as pathetic. Drunks aren't allowed to come up with literary significance and fancy allusions for their addiction, so why should we come up with fancy explanations (like liberation, please?!).
I think it's more honest to decide that Erotica is a taste thing, and acknowledge that it might not be for the best, but whatever, we'll read it anyway i. e. be upfront about it than to hide behind broad topics like sexual liberation.
In my opinion, it is a form of entrapment because sex often makes people myopic - unable to see much further than the next 'high'. This Erotica...is it not filling people's brains with well, erotic stuff to the (gradual) exclusion of everything else? That doesn't sound liberating to me...
Unless I have royally misunderstood what Zane meant by liberation...
Interesting!
Yesterday I was thinking about writing a post on something like "my stance (as a black woman)on porno"... and today I found this. Well it's not exactly about "porno", it's "erotica" (I'm still to work out all the differences...) but it comes very close to my own opinions on this subject.
I'm a relatively new blogger and for the first time in my life came across a series of vicious attacks from a "blogger" pornographer trying to impose themselves on me(s/he claims to be a woman but I lately found out that s/he might in fact be a man)... I felt like I was being raped and, based on a number of facts associated to those attacks, I argued that the only reason that creature was so "fixated" on me and my blog was the fact that I am black!
But, of course, all this took place in the "lusosphere", where most people tend to think that "race has nothing to do with it" and if you use this line of reasoning you are the racist one...
Anyway, it was good to find your blog and I particularly liked your introduction to it, from which I've extracted a phrase to quote on my blog... hope you won't mind.
All the best!
Thanks Koluki, I saw that you referenced my quote nicely :). I'm glad you enjoyed my blog, and that other women out there are beginning to thinking seriously about those issues.
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