“Ya’ll stupid! Why’d ya’ll wait so long?” My aunt’s friend asked me over sushi in a trendy restaurant in my home city, St. Louis, on one August night. I had finished up my internship in Singapore and come to St. Louis for a few weeks before heading back to Princeton to begin my junior year of college. My aunt and her best friend enjoyed taking me for a meal whenever I was home from college, and tonight’s topic of discussion was my sex life.
I had just told her that yes, my boyfriend and I had begun having sex, but not before waiting a little over a year. They both seemed happy I had some news to share besides my latest research interests, how excited I was for classes in the fall, and whatever else I was interested in as a very nerdy over-achieving college student who spoke on and on about Black feminist thought and literature to whomever would listen.
“I could give myself permission to live whenever I wanted to, and that whatever anxieties I’d picked up about what it meant to be a sexually active woman would not serve me. ”
“Are you having sex yet?” is the age-old question for young girls and women as soon as they begin having romantic interests, often asked with a sense of panic, and usually preceding a scolding or obsessive warnings not to become a “slut,” like the ones in Jamaica Kincaid’s short story, “Girl.” This conversation was different, though. My auntie and her best friend wanted to know if my boyfriend, who I’d been dating all through college, (and am still with) and I were having good sex. They wanted to know if I came every time. They asked if I was comfortable with sex during my period. They inquired about how often we had sex, and if we usually made love slowly for hours or if we were into quickies. They weren’t asking because they were worried I’d given it up to soon, to the wrong person, or was doing something dirty and shameful. They wanted to know if I was fucking often and well simply because they thought if I was doing it, it should be enjoyable.
“I was glad, though, that these aunties approached my sex life without the heaviness often put on a younger family member becoming sexually active. ”
So much of the dialogue about younger members of our family, whether it is little sisters, nieces or cousins, is informed by the panic that Black girls might engage in too much sex, too soon, and with the wrong person or people. Many of us know that reality, but here I am interested in the liberation that comes with that first conversation about sex with an older woman who doesn’t subscribe to that panic. Aunties, especially for Black girls, play the roles of the older homegirls you sometimes wish your mama could be. They are important because they hold our secrets and because (for those of us raised by our biological parents) they often have enough distance from our lives and from the work of raising us that they prioritize our pure and unadulterated joy in their relationships with us.
I answered their questions, and was glad to discuss sex with women who were older than the friends I usually discussed sex with. I did not want to hear my aunt’s stories, as hers were about her sexcapades with my uncle; too much information. I was glad, though, that these aunties approached my sex life without the heaviness often put on a younger family member becoming sexually active. While I thought they might be happy to learn my boyfriend and I had waited over a year to experience sex for the first time together, my aunt’s friend wanted to know why I hadn’t jumped in to one of the most fun things about being an adult as soon as I had the chance. I did not read her question as a lament on my choice to wait, but rather, her telling me that there was nothing wrong with enjoying good sex and not to miss out on the opportunity to have it often. She was telling me I could give myself permission to live whenever I wanted to, and that whatever anxieties I’d picked up about what it meant to be a sexually active woman would not serve me. I was (and still am) in love with a man who cheers me on, learns with me, laughs with me, and looks at me (clothed and naked) like he’s never seen anyone more wonderful—she wanted me to enjoy it.
“My auntie and her best friend wanted to know if my boyfriend, who I’d been dating all through college, (and am still with) and I were having good sex. ”
Growing up, much of my sex education came from literature, whether it was the sex scene between Stella and Winston in Terry McMillan’s How Stella Got her Groove Back, which I read at 13, or the stories in Zane’s Chocolate Flava, which I read at 11 on the days my mother worked too late to notice what I’d brought from the library. I had even come across scenes in novels from some of the African American literary giants, like Toni Morrison, that hinted at or full out described sex that felt magical. There was an element of mystery and secrecy that came with reading about sex in my bedroom. There was a sort of secrecy that also came with having conversations about sex with friends over chips and cheap wine in our dorms. Yet, talking about it in a restaurant with aunties pushed sexual conversation to dance out of the corners of secrecy and into dialogue that felt sophisticated and still kept my pleasure at the center of it.
“So much of the dialogue about younger members of our family, whether it is little sisters, nieces or cousins, is informed by the panic that Black girls might engage in too much sex, too soon, and with the wrong person or people. ”
All my aunties have always doted on me, whether it was telling me how pretty I am in the comments of my Facebook pictures, or telling me how brilliant I am for academic and professional accomplishments. It’s only fitting that for me, it was aunties who were the first elder figures I gushed to after becoming sexually active. I don’t have a niece yet, but I hope if I ever do, I’m as interested in her getting her orgasm as I am in her practicing safe sex, should I be privileged enough to be the one she chooses to tell about her first exciting sexcapades.
THE F.U.Q.S
Dialogue about sex with older people in your family can be freeing, if they have the right intentions and ask thoughtful questions.
People who talk to young people about sex should strive to center conversations on pleasure as well as safety.
This isn't a push for the tropes of Black aunties that have flattened Black the personalities of 40+ year old Black women into caricatures, but rather an appreciation for the extension of a sort of friendship between auntie and niece.