Thots [Thoughts]

bluestocking[1] bitch

This is my thot manifesta. Ratchet, hood, glitter-rare, self taught, intellectual divas. Ugly-pretty bastions of rock salt truths and noble lies. Broken, wanna-be-bad bitches. Bitches who drown in their books or wine or comics or reality tv, who put on a full face of makeup to take a selfie, who wear leggings to show off their ass, or cover their bodies like sacred shrines. Who cam or strip at night, or stroll or take calls. Twerking, hoeish ballerinas doing nighttime perreo to Tego and Mystikal. Killin it. Slaying in Targét and Rainbow fashions, cashing in coupons like chips. EBT, welfare queens in faux fur with jeweled talons. Bleeding heart, too-trusting, insecure, damaged, crazy. Ghetto academic. Who aren't feminine enough, delicate enough, thick enough. Too tall. Too fat. Too short. Brown, black, indigo skinned. Stretch mark having, bucktoof, gaptoof, lacefront-wearing, protective styling, nappy headed, baldheaded, queer, revolutionary, backwoods, thirsty, city-country hoes like me. Simultaneously too much and never enough.

now that you're gone
i don't dream
and no matter
what you think
i'm not lonely
sleeping
all alone

--I'm Not Lonely, Nikki Giovanni

I am writing this as i sit in my car waiting for it to warm. My child is screaming. Wisconsin winter is coming, and he doesn't want to wear a coat. Life. I guess this is my blue period[2]. Having just gone through my second break up in life, my subconscious won't let me forget my first male muse[3], so even if i don't think of him at all when i am awake, i am dreaming of all the things we will never do.

I am writing about loss. At the same time i am writing about gender, misogynoir, heauxism, sex, and emotional labor. So i suppose i must be ironically grateful, my grief being the catalyst for this outpouring of thoughts that i am giving to you. Blue with melancholy and near-paralytic silence. Blue with the fear of being alone, of lostness, of abandonment.

I do what feels comfortable. That being said, i am also constantly critiquing the why's and how's of the things i do. A Buzzfeed quiz labeled me as a "Lawful Neutral." BULLSHIT. I am definitely Chaotic Good. I am half realist half idealist--i have to be in order to keep going. Over the past few years i have slowly curated my book collection and my language, my way of communicating, my thought processes. I code switch a lot, i make up words. Words mean what i want them to mean. I utilize AAVE, because why not?

My hope is to foster a pro heaux discourse, adding to the lexicon of black feminist thought and expanding on sexuality and gender from a black sex worker's perspective. I actually conceived of this almost a year ago but depression, relationships and procrastination derailed me. I am not one of those people who compartmentalize well (hence the bleeding). Being pro heaux (also: pro ho[e], pro-heaux) has always been distinct from being sex positive for me, but i haven't seen much pontificating on this specific term. Sex positivity has always been a very "white" movement for me, emphasizing a dichotomy between empowerment and victimization, and ignorant to the politics of "choice" that come with being a black woman (in poverty).

This is written from the perspective of a bisexual (queer), black, cisgender, American woman. My serious relationships, of which I have had two, have been with men. I am a single mother, and have been pursuing a degree in the arts off and on since 2007. I am an artist, a self proclaimed ho[e], and a self taught intellectual who loves to use and misuse brackets and fuck up grammar, and say the word fuck. My focus is on black women and femmes with an additional focus on black men and masculine folks. I will also discuss my personal philosophy of proheauxism, especially in the context of being a black sex worker, and the commodification of sex in general.

Notes

1. The term "bluestocking" is a derogatory 18th-century term that I appropriated with the help of my trusty internet thesaurus. It specifically means a literary or intellectual woman.

2. I am aware of how dramatic that sounds, and idgaf. This is how I feel and when I don't feel this way anymore-- contemplative, heartbroken and generally misty--I will declare myself done with it, like the sensitive dramaqueen I am.

3. Isn't it peculiar (and telling) that muses are typically women? That they are vehicles of inspiration and ideation, objects of desire? Yet that is what he is to me at the moment. I will write more on this later.