If Jezebel Came Out
Nov. 12th, 2020 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cinnamon_possumLately, I have had to give a lot of thought to my other identities and how they intersect with my asexuality. Sometimes I wish to parse them out as separate from each other, but I mostly wish that in some time I grow more comfortable with the reality that they all inform each other. Especially as I have been in some mostly white spaces lately, I have been thinking of how my asexuality is distinctly black - not by my active choice or interest in having an "asexuals of color pride flag" or anything, but due to the sexuality that has been foisted upon black people by colonizers for a very long time. For any black person to assert a sexuality is to assert agency over an aspect that black people have not been allowed to have agency over. The sexuality of black people has been defined by oppressors as compulsorily heterosexual, out-of-control, and all-encompassing. Colorism also plays a role, as the images of "black man who threatens white woman" and "black woman who is salacious" are often very dark skinned, and in the second instance of a certain body type deemed voluptuous.
I will give some background on colorism for unaware readers - colorism should be considered an extension of racism, and it is an ideology that is also quite vivid inside the minority communities themselves. While you will be negatively treated and construed because you are black, certain presumptions are worse or slightly different if you are dark skinned. Other traits that often get wrapped up in colorism are tightness of curls, width of hips, thickness of lips, and speech dialect*.
I do not want to downplay the privileged status my light skin gives me. I see from the articles and statistics above that, while it is horrific to live in a racist society, I am fortunate to not endure as much as my darker skinned counterparts. In this writing, I wish to discuss how this imagination of the specifically light skinned black woman interplays with my asexuality. add here
Sexuality for black women is generally dictated by the figures of Jezebel and Mammy - either you are always lusting, always willing, or you are non-sexual due to matronly characteristics. In both instances, the sexuality of the black woman is decided by what white people can commodify her as - if she will not be a housekeeper, then she will be a concubine. When sociologist K. Sue Jewell originally described the Jezebel stereotype in the 90s, she described Jezebel as light skinned and with European features, due to the preference that white slave owners had for light skinned slaves and light skinned free black women. Light skinned women were not the only black women to have been raped and made concubines by slave masters and their male family members,and thus I find it interesting that Jezebel was originally meant as a light skinned black woman specifically.
There is a history of mixed-race/mulatto women being a colonial threat, as they would "lure" white men away from white women and interfere with the reproduction of the white race. Colonial interests required white children, not mixed children, so mulatto and light skinned women who had children with white men were both a threat to the racial hierarchy and a threat to the construal of the European nuclear family. This history suggests that light skinned and mixed black women's sexuality may have been more threatening to whiteness than the sexuality of dark skinned black women, even though both were assigned a sexuality that was negative and out-of-control.
With regards to a non-interracial sexuality, light skinned black women are considered high status partners for dark skinned black men. They are "wife material". It has been a long running issue in the black community that black men do not value black women and will frequently pursue women of other races instead, or women that are mixed. Whereas light skinned women are considered a threat to the white family, light skinned women are considered a prize to the black family. In all of these scenarios, the dark skinned black woman is still deemed hypersexual, but she is considered at the fringes of desire. Her threat is not as looming, and she is not valued.
Both in the historical and contemporary sense, black women of all tones have been construed as hypersexual beings who cannot be victims of sexual violence due to their innate, uncontrollable sexuality. This imagined hypersexuality has been commodified and exploited by men of various races - particularly white men when addressing Western colonial history. The sexuality of light skinned and mixed women, specifically, is threateningly juxtaposed to the purity and desirability of the sexuality assigned to white women. It is ideally juxtaposed to the undesirable and unvaluable sexuality assigned to dark skinned women. Asexuality has been theorized in the figure of Mammy, but I have yet to seen discussion of what happens when Jezebel comes out as asexual.
What happens when the body that is both sexually desired and denigrated wears a black ring on its right middle finger? It seems almost treasonous. Jezebel is defined by her insatiable lust, a sexual desire that overwhelms her character and leaves her with no other traits besides her blackness. She is lascivious, she is seductive, she is incapable of saying no, she is always implicitly saying yes, and when she is light skinned she is both valuable and threatening. Hollywood allows dark skinned black women to be prostitutes, and allows light skinned black women to be love interests. Whiteness is threatened by the possibility of an interracial sexuality. Jezebel does not have an identity beyond an object of acceptably exotic desire.
When she comes out as asexual, it is instantaneously more than a word. By now she has embodied her black identity for years, and knows that she is expected to be overcome by sexual desires, knows that she is no more than a hypsersexualized body, knows that she is desired by black and white men in a way that her darker skinned sisters are not. By asserting an asexual identity, she is declaring that she is not overcome by those desires, that she has thoughts beyond sex, that the attention she has been taught to crave and be thankful for is not something she plans on returning.
This does not mean she is free. I have said no to men a few times, black and white, and the shackles have not been cast off - sometimes, it feels like they are drawn tighter. Too many times I have been told that I am being closed off, introverterd, that I am doing something wrong. I am asked why I say no to the man who pulls up next to me in a parking lot. It is a joke in my family that I was "too pretty" when a man followed me home. I am either failing or lying for not accepting my role as always lusting, always willing.
To not be the "tragic mulatto" Jezebel that Jewell describes, I am instead the lying Jezebel, or the confused Jezebel. May I amend the characterization to "tragically frigid mulatto"? Is it worse that Jezebel fails to be Jezebel, or is it worse that she is trying to amend what Jezebel is? Did she forget her name or is she trying to tell us that was never her name? How is she to be punished for these statements?
Being black means to be hypersexualized, often in an animalistic manner. Being a black woman means that you have no autonomy or assertion over this sexuality. Being a light skinned black woman means your hypersexuality has desirable value and threatening power. Asexuality is a rejection of what the light skinned black woman is supposed to be. This rejection might be punishable if it was believable, but my experience suggests that it is more likely to be seen as an overcomable character flaw, a misunderstanding, or a lie. My asexuality is treated like a barrier to me understanding my "true self", my "true self" being the figure of Jezebel that has been imposed on black women for centuries. Asexuality is sometimes vilified for being more modern and younger than other sexualities - it is a mere speck compared to the lifetime of Jezebel.
My asexual identity is not a magical answer or escape from the imposed identity of Jezebel. They are two identities, one chosen and one forced, and I embody both of them. This is what all asexual black womxn* must contend with in finding a way to accept and understand themselves. These identities flow together in my social interactions, and it is something that is traversed anytime I choose to come out.
To learn more about Jezebel, see here : https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/jezebel/index.htm. Major content warning for rape, sexual violence, and racism/misogynoir.
*I am uncertain if the phenonemon of prizing loose curls over kinkier afro hair would fall under colorism, but it is also a prevalent issue, and I think worth mentioning.
*I have used woman for the majority of this article, while I have mostly meant womxn, which is a linguistic signal towards those who identify with womanhood without necessarily identifying with cis-ness or binary gender. I was uncertain how to distinguish woman and women while using this format, so I chose not to for the majority of my writing. I wish to make it clear that I mean the more inclusive version throughout this.
If you are itching to see more writing by black asexual womxn, please see this post.
