Black Male Masculinity and Female Sexuality

1. Black Male Masculinity and Female Sexuality By: Courtney Connley LaToshia Butler Antonia Blair Jannora Cooper Imani Edwards

2. Discussion Question • How do you think slavery was used to define black female sexuality and black masculinity?

3. Redefine Black Male Masculinity and Female Sexuality Black Male Black Female • Desire to gain power through sexual conquest • Desire for the lesbian voice to be heard and visible

4. Origin of Black Masculinity

5. Conflicting Views of Black Masculinity Slave Narrative White Scholarship • Hardworking man • Provides for family • Protects family • To stand their ground and demand respect • Failure • Lazy • Dangerous • Sex Maniac • Psychologically “fucked up”

6. Impact of Advanced Capitalism

7. “In the old days, a man who didn’t have money could still assert tyrannic rule over family and kin, by virtue of his patriarchal status” - bell hooks

8. Closer Look: Patriarchal Status • Head of the household • Breadwinner • Wage earning power-determined the extent to which a man would rule over a household • Decision Maker • Disciplinarian • Authoritative Figure

9. A Closer Look: Phallocentrism • “A man was no longer a man because he could provide for his family, he was a man because he had a penis.” • Sexual conquest brought about status • A sexually defined masculine ideal rooted in physical domination and sexual possession of women that was accessible to all men.

10. Effects of Phallocentrism • Led to misogynist views of women • Destruction of male and female relationship • Idea reinforced in media

11. “In popular culture, representations of black masculinity equate it with brute phallocentrism, woman-hating, a pugilistic “rapist” sexuality, and flagrant disregard for individual rights.” bell hooks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGu_jtGQ8NI

12. Discussion Question • How do statements like in Eddie Murphy’s “Raw,” “fuck her good and you can control her,” affect the relationship between men and women?

13. “Black male phallocentrism constructs a portrait of women as immoral, simultaneously suggesting that she is irrational and incapable of reason. Therefore, there’s no need for black men to listen to women or to assume that women have knowledge to share.” - bell hooks

14. A Comparison of Female Sexuality White Female Sexuality Black Female Sexuality • Openness to explore their sexuality • Voice at the forefront of discourse about homosexuality • Restricted from exploring sexuality without judgment • Limited to heterosexuality

15. Themes • Black female sexuality can be explored through three themes: • Construction of black female as the embodiment of sex • The resistance of black women to negative stereotypes and the material effects of those stereotypes • Politics of silence by black women on the issue of their sexuality

16. “Black women’s sexuality is ideologically located in a nexus between race and gender, where the black female subject is not seen and has no voice.” Evelynn Hammonds

17. The Silence of Black Female Sexuality • Black women were silenced for multiple reasons: • Exposed and characterized by racial and sexual terms • Silence countered negative images • Deployment of power

18. The Double Silence of Black Lesbian Sexuality • No voice for the black female subject • Must first understand black female heterosexuality in order to understand black lesbian sexuality • Often associated with the experiences of white lesbians • Discussion question: How does double jeopardy and double silence relate and differ?

19. The Solution Black masculinity Black female sexuality • “Re-colonize their minds” • Realize that white patriarchy was socially constructed and not necessary to achieve • Open up more discourse about black female sexuality in academia