Once I dated a loosely dated a Sigma. I wasn’t too well versed in fraternity life, but even I knew that Sigma’s were known to be freaks in the bed. All that tongue action they do while in stepping has to be good for something, know what I mean? He was chocolate and BIG in frame and girth. Just because of his large size, he couldn’t help but carry himself like a man*. I’d wasn’t fully sure what to expect when we got back to his place, but I just knew that some great rough sex was coming my way. I mean, here was was this huge, muscular black man, of course he would just take charge and put me in my place, in a way that I only allow in the bedroom (I am a black woman after all.)
And in some ways I was right. His tongue game was subpar because he was being too rough. Putting too much pressure on my clitoris, his tongue felt more like a Brillo pad than a suspenseful delight. So I initiated our move to the bed pretty quickly after that.
But that was tough too. He was too broad for me to straddle- I thought my hip bone was going to pop out its socket. So when relieved me and took over, I got so damn excited. Finally some rough sex with a fine black man. This was our first time having sex but I just knew that he would overpower me, make me say his name, slap my ass, maybe even choke me.
Nope.
Instead, he used his large hands to caress me, hold my hips steady and rock my body with a firm, intentional gentleness. He came, I didn’t. I was too confused to cum. Instead I was silent in the car ride home, just counting the minutes until I could complain on how wack the sex was to my friends. It just didn’t make sense. He was a large, strong black man and he wanted to be gentle the entire time? How could he not want rougher sex?
Naturally, with my friends, I complained about this man that seemed weak because he hadn’t assumed my desire for more intensity.
It wasn’t until, last week while I was a little tipsy and on a delayed train headed home, that I thought more about that night and so many more nights that have come after it. Here I was craving for my partner to yoke me up just enough to be sexy without creeping me out, and I have never considered what I was asking of him. He didn’t know me sexually, he barely knew me mentally but I’d expected this aggression from him to just come naturally.
How many times, have I just randomly demanded - sober, tipsy or drunk- for my partner to be less gentle, to take charge? I can definitely think of a few times that with very little patience I’ve just expected my partner to catch my vibe and treat me like a naughty school girl from our favorite porn. It’s true that I’ve never made these sexual demands for rougher sex with a one night stand but that does not mean that other men and women haven’t.
And it made me think about partners who have hesitated. The one’s I’ve complained to my friends as not “getting it” and not being “man enough.” What bullshit assumptions were me and my friends feeding into?
A writer for All The FUQs, Menelik, had mentioned this to me once. He had been asked, sometimes begged by women, to slap, grab, and act forcefully with them during sex. And with every request he has had a mental battle within. As a black man in this society, is it even safe for him to consider complying? How much is he risking everytime that he grabs a partner aggressively, how would know what was going too far? Or is it worse to leave his partners sexually unsatisfied? How could he comply without stressing out over the possible reactions? It would be he said/she said after all.
We have seen it a millions time. In heterosexual and homosexual relationships, we’ve all heard or witnessed domestic and sexual violence. In the black community, our men are often targeted as aggressors, quickly assumed to be scary and out of control. Women of other races, have admitted to dating black men, because of this assumed aggression and intensity.
We’ve seen it a million times. But how many times have we been complicit in feed these negative ideas? I can’t count how many times I’ve heard men bragging about how they overpowered their partners. As a black woman I know how many of my girlfriends have craved rough sex, how much it has turned them on. But I have also seen so many of our black men and women detest the assumptions made of them and the damage they’ve incurred when the sexual aggression was forced on them without their clear consent.
This is not a judgement on rough sex,kink or sexual acts on the spectrum that folk desire and verbally ask for, but rough sex while black can not be approached so lightly. So how can we enjoy rough sex while black while black?
Check back in next week for better, safer ways to engage in rougher sex while black.
THE FUQS
A part of supporting our own community, is realizing, admitting and abolishing the ways we have been complicit, purposefully or not, of feed negative ideas about our community.
Rough sex can be wonderful, exhilarating and even bring you and your partner closer, but only when done with both parties healthy and willful consent.
Sex is natural but is also always about learning. And learning how to have rough sex, if that is what you desire, is just something else we have to learn.
Negative stereotypes have always been feed about us and to us. So seeing the ways that we have not embodied them can be challenging. This is understandable, but does not mean it should be ignored and left without being handled.
*man is used here in a very superficial sense, of what our black men are boxed into. Big, strong, tough, and aggressive. Please note the author recognizes this as a juvenile definition and wishes to bring attention to this by using it in this text.