Jan

The Root: Dating While Celibate

…many folks will make you think you’re crazy for not having sex. Put this in perspective: There are a lot of women who are having sex — wild, swing-from-the-chandelier, they-only-do-that-in-pornos kind of sex — and they are just as single as you are. Sex doesn’t guarantee you any sort of relationship, much less a marriage. – Demetria Lucas, Dating While Celibate: Men Who Respect Your Choice Exist

As much as I dislike using statistics to generalize, I think it’s worth looking at data when it comes to sex and singles. We can talk about all the black woman dating numbers later, but for now, let’s look at the statistic that 95 percent of Americans have sex before marriage. Eighty-five percent actually approve of sex before marriage. The biggest factor in delaying sex until marriage is religiosity, even though abstinence-only programs and their ilk tend to backfire.

So, most people are doing it, religious or not.

I think it’s healthy to get to know someone before having sex, regardless of whether you want to get married or not, but I don’t judge people who decide that they want to have sex just for the sake of doing the damn thing. Because marriage is not for everyone. And not everyone can legally get married.

But for single black women, in particular, celibacy is a double-edged sword. If we’re talking about black women who only want to date black men, that’s a really small group or marriage market. As noted in The Root comments, which I usually skip, a number of men consider women who claim celibacy or abstinence suspect and move quickly on to a willing, easier prospect. So while I’d like to believe that Demetria is on the right track – just hold out for the rare man who will respect you — I wonder about how singles who choose not to have sex deal with that dilemma.

Choosing celibacy always makes me think of that line in Love Jones where Larenz Tate tells Nia Long, “But we’ve already done it before!” I do think there’s wisdom in taking a break, but I wonder if that’s a lot of ask unless you’re a celebrity like Lenny Kravitz or Lady Gaga. But for those of you who are dating and celibate, do you agree that it’s a challenge? Is it worth it to wait?

My two cents is that I always hear from people who are celibate or claim that they were until they got married that it was a good decision. But the downside of that anecdotal data is that I don’t know that many people it actually applies to.

109 days ago Short URL Comments

black men/black women/celebrities/celibacy/dating/Demetria Lucas/journalism/media/relationships/sex/Single Life/The Guardian/The Root

Dec

Help wanted for single black men?

As predicted, the combination of a wonderful wedding and the holidays in December led to more discussions than usual about why, exactly, I am not yet married. It wasn’t framed that way. It was more like, “When are you getting married?” In a sweet, brotherly, uncle-like kind of way. I can, of course, always choose to avoid people in order to avoid these inquiries. But instead, I walk right into the conundrum.

So, I was a little relieved to see this Clutch Magazine piece about helping out single black men who can’t seem to keep a woman. Of course Demetria Lucas draws the ire of angry black men (surprise!) but I appreciate that she wants to balance out the vitriol that is usually reserved for us “angry black women”:

I mean, there are far fewer Black women that are unmarried, and selfishly, all the concern is about them.

Men have been overlooked too long!! I would like to advocate a movement that addresses their sour single lives and encourages them to be fruitful and multiply within the confines of marriage, instead of continuing the cycle of absentee fatherhood. I encourage every breathing Black woman to join me in this new crusade.

Here’s an incomplete half of the equation on why some Black men are unable to keep a woman, the part guys really need to hear.

You Can’t Keep A Woman Because…

01. You’re Entitled

Great. You might have a degree, a good job, maybe even a tailored suit. It doesn’t give you the right to treat anyone like they’re disposable or to be treated like God’s gift to womankind. You did what you were supposed to do. You don’t get kudos for that.

02. You’re a Misogynist

You’re such a raging sexist that you don’t get why a woman is offended by your continued use of “female” as a derogatory euphemism for “bitch”. Adult humans are called women. Refer to them as such.

03. You Don’t Know How to Communicate

Texting is not talking. Pick up the phone. Also, while women empathize with your issues and mood swings, giving the silent treatment while you get in your feelings or when you argue with your partner is dysfunctional communication.

In all fairness, I know you can’t necessarily over-correct for misogyny and historical baggage when it comes to black man/black woman animosity. Nor is it helpful to generalize. But it is nice to see at least some acknowledgment that you can’t be in a relationship on your own and that single black men (like single men in general!) have some trouble in relationships, too, for a number of the reasons she mentioned. And then, of course, there’s the fact that they might actually be happy alone!

142 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

A Belle in Brooklyn/black men/black women/Clutch Magazine/Demetria L. Lucas/relationships/Single Life

Dec

It’s your anniversary: Reflections on Year One

There is nothing like standing in the middle of a crowd and feeling utterly alone.

The loneliest I have ever felt has been standing in a room full of dressed up people, my mind somewhere else entirely, my heart aching for something, though I couldn’t figure out what it could possibly be.

A year ago, against the backdrop of other life changes, I started Single & Happy. It was initially called Single, Happy & Free for like, two weeks, but that seemed to be rubbing it in. And the tag line for months was about statistics be damned, because I was really angry about all of the stories in our culture that shame black women in particular for being successful, having standards and yet, somehow still being unfit for companionship.

I didn’t really want to write a book about it. I said I did, but I prayed for different guidance. A lot of people like the idea of mavericks, of people who say the thing that folks think but won’t write or talk about in public, but being one, going against the popular culture stream is something I didn’t think was in the cards for me.

Meanwhile, I had tried all of the online dating sites with the exception of a few, but what I learned after spending money I didn’t have to waste was that while there are all kinds of people who can find companionship that way, it wasn’t for me. I was also angry that no matter where I went — from my therapist’s couch to meetings with supervisors to happy hours and picnics – the world reflected back to me what I believed about myself: I was not enough. I needed to get a partner. Sure, happiness and solitude – yeah, whatever! But you are a shell of a woman without a romantic relationship.

It was an incomplete story. I fleshed out what I was feeling and reacting to by reading books, like Samhita Mukhopadhyay‘s Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life, and Ralph Richard Banks’ Is Marriage for White People? and Florence Falk’s On My Own: The Art of Being A Woman Alone and Patricia Hill Collin’s Black Sexual Politics, among others. I could see how relationships for other black women in the past, the memorable ones, my heroes – Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth – had never been in the foreground for historians.

It turned out that Harriet Tubman was married a few times. How come I had only ever seen her pictured alone?

I learned that there is more than one way to find love, to be happy and fall in love with oneself while also reframing the discussion about what it means to be single.

For years, I had heard that single black women, and later, their white, breadwinning counterparts, were all these things: emasculating, overbearing, too fat, too dark, too much of everything. Those degrees would not keep us warm at night. That weave looked nice on a video hoe, but a man can’t run his fingers through that. Go natural if you want, but for some men, that makes you look too mannish. Too strong.

Too everything.

The message: These black women don’t know how to treat a man. “You don’t know how to let a man be a man.” Maybe you won at life by surviving all the things black women have to. But you have failed at matters of the heart. You have failed at the ultimate prize of womanhood: to be chosen. To be accepted, for life, in marriage.

And this: By succeeding, moving forward, we are making the brothers look bad.

And we are not alone. This year, I took note of the increasing rhetoric of the End of Men debate. What is a man without full ownership of patriarchy, when women are allegedly snatching up all the jobs and the money (spoiler alert: we are not). Why can’t white women, too, have it all – the partnership, the great job, the freedom and the money? Well, white follows black. So, welcome, sisters, to the reality of life as a black woman.

You can have most of “it,” whatever “it” is. But you will get called out for being something other than a woman. Insecure, mean-spirited, disenfranchised, coddled boys will find ways to remind you that you are only worthy when a man puts a ring on it. Which, as we know from the many stories of relationship mayhem, divorce and tragedy that circulate through our headlines, is just not true.

But I created Single & Happy thinking that I would keep it private until I could figure out what I was really trying to say, while I worked on a little book that I thought might actually be of service to some other folks. It turned out that I was right, that I had friends around the world who agreed with me, and when they didn’t, had reasonable arguments to the contrary.

I’m more Eeyore than Pooh or Piglet on any given day, so the Single & Happy title could often be read as a misnomer. But because of y’all, it is almost always true. Thanks for reading and for visiting. Looking forward to another year of sharing and commenting and dancing a little to old songs from the 90s with y’all.

Dec

“That’s Why You’re Single”

Every now and then, I lose touch with the rage that inspired me to write Single & Happy in the first place. But thank God for Google Alerts! Yes, haaay, Shawn James! James is a Bronx writer who has a number of his expert titles for sale and appears to have drawn the covers himself. He has some important, not very unique information for you about single black women, y’all. That statistic that 70 percent of us are unmarried? He’s got the solution, he understands what happened:

From the day they were born these women were taught that Black men had no value in their lives. This ideology was reinforced by the verbal statements their single mothers made like talking about their children’s “no good daddy” or other “no good niggers in the neighborhood.”

Moreover, it was also reinforced by White Supremacy and White feminism. Brainwashed by the false ideologies of White feminism, Black women were tricked into believing they didn’t need a Black man. And With the help of Uncle Sam’s government programs and White Supremacist Corporate America’s entry-level jobs, Black women achieved financial independence and the economic power to devalue the leadership and authority of the Black men in their communities.

You been tricked! You been hoodwinked! You been bamboozled into Oddly Placed Capital statements that sound like the worst cliches of bitter black manhood that have ever graced the internet.

I would love to believe that James is alone. Unfortunately, there is a pandemic of stupid and it’s been plaguing us for a while. See: Nightline. But, as it turns out, the 70 percent figure is actually a myth. Unless Angela Stanley is part of the group that James believes has been brainwashed by the man and all the white feminists. Here’s Stanley in the New York Times:

A look at recent census data will tell you that the 70 percent we keep hearing about has been misconstrued. According to 2009 data from the Census Bureau, 70.5 percent of black women in the United States had never been married — but those were women between the ages of 25 and 29. Black women marry later, but they do marry. By age 55 and above, those numbers showed, only 13 percent of black women had never been married. In fact, people who have never married in their lifetimes are in the clear minority, regardless of race.

165 days ago Short URL 6 Comments

Angela Stanley/black women/media/New York Times/Nightline/popular culture/Shawn James/Single Life/Why we can't have nice things

Nov

On anger and loving the ones who love you back

From Centric TV.

D.L. Hughley thinks black women are the angriest group of women he’s ever met. Oh, and he’s writing a book that’s probably as unoriginal as he is, and those sentiments are probably laid out with more substance. But probably not.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this. He defended Don Imus when that dude called the women on the Rutgers basketball team out of their names. Bros before hoes, I guess.

Hughley is the latest example of a black man with a platform using it to chastise and generalize about black women for profit. While Hughley’s book is not strictly about black women or dating like the ones you’ve heard me rant about and those published recently by Ray J or Musiq Soulchid or The Very Smart Brothas, or the ones to come like the co-authored book by Tyrese and Rev. Run, it riles me for reasons I wrote about in Bitch Magazine for an article called “Ill-Advised.”:

The reason I am riled up about the runaway success of these books—why I refused to pay money to see Think Like A Man (besides Chris Brown’s casting)—is that the messages embedded within them demean the success of black women. Doubly oppressed by race and gender, black women continue to succeed academically and economically – but they (cue violins) are still stumped in matters of the heart. What, no celebration over the academic degrees? We didn’t get to learn how to read legally for centuries. Where’s the bestseller-turned-blockbuster about that?

Instead, popular culture narratives leveled at black women – particularly those penned by black men – are typically demeaning, snide, childish, humorous at the expense of successful black women…

These works debase black female readers by way of black male condescension. It’s a kind of intellectual bullying and a Catch-22: If they consume it, they are under black male control, if they dismiss it, they are fulfilling the stereotype of emasculating, hard-headed black spinsters who don’t know how to treat a man, which is why they can’t keep one.

What happens in the black community tends to set cultural trends. Maybe women of different races feel like this isn’t even about them, the same way that black men consider it quietly humorous to continue to support a guy like Hughley or name-the-relationship-expert-this-week. But women around the world who have been juggling successful careers while also trying to stay sane know that any woman who is deemed “too independent” — and God help her if she’s also unmarried — are implicated in these kinds of cultural narratives.

It’s not as sexy, I know, to say: I’m really sad. I’m going through it. I’m so disappointed. I’m so hurt. More convenient for marketing purposes to read melancholy as anger, to reinforce the notion that women of marrying age who are not coupled are inflicting it on themselves by being unjustifiably upset at the world.

The inability to see black women as capable of more than rage or sass, but also fully capable of being disappointed and hurt absolves black men who hurt them of taking responsibility for some of the pain that black women internalize. And hurt and disappointment turned inward, of course, turns into anger.

It took a lot of meditation, therapy and soul-searching for me to understand that as a survivor of trauma and stress, I carried the burden of not wanting to ever appear angry in public. Repressing my feelings led to a lot of darkness and ugliness in my life. God forbid, that on top of being successful and self-sufficient, I would also be pissed off once in a while.

I had to practice allowing myself to be tired, sad and/or angry. It comes with the territory. It’s called life. Anyone perpetuating the notion that black women or any women, really, are the angriest, ever, is untrue and unfair. It is just a disappointment, heaped on layers of other disappointments.

To add insult to injury, D.L. Hughley is not even funny enough for me to care about. The black men I count as my true friends know how to treat women, so this is not about them. I’m still allowed to be sad about and tired of the universal acceptance and passive invalidation of any defensiveness on the part of black women about old tired tropes of black-women-as-a-monolith-to-sell-products.

Kimberly N. Foster wrote thoughtfully about giving up the fight in defense of black men for For Harriet, which I totally get and can relate to. I’m at a point in my life where I am learning to surrender battles that are not mine, since part of what makes me gloriously happy is leaning toward my life’s purpose, writing, speaking and reading books that are not written by men who don’t know how to use their platforms for good and not evil.

The place where I get stuck is that I don’t think anyone wins when we only love the people who love us back. At the same time, we don’t have all the time in the world on this planet, so it seems wise to just ignore or give up on people who give up on you. I’m not an angry black woman as much as I’m a disappointed and weary one. Hurt, tired and self-protecting, maybe. But not angry.

There are more of us than any sound bite would lead you to believe.

I think it’s helpful to remember that our attention is our currency. I don’t choose to pay attention to the demeaning crap anymore, because it’s not worth the drama. It’s not exactly a boycott, and it doesn’t always feel as empowering as I’d like. But it is what keeps me moving toward happiness. And sometimes that’s all we need.

Nov

“It is not worth the grief” An essay at the Feminist Wire about work & self-care

I wrote a piece for the wonderful forum on black women’s health published at The Feminist Wire today:

There was something really satisfying about it, I think, because I was used to abuse. I had no idea what to do with my feelings when I wasn’t working. My work addiction provided immediate gratification so that I was always accessible to anyone – student, editor, supervisor or reader.

As Gloria Anzaldúa wrote in another context, “no vale la pena…it is not worth the grief.” Like my peers in academia who are full professors, I know what it means to be fully committed to the world in which we find ourselves. When I started teaching, I had the same porous boundaries with my students. I was answering emails and phone calls at all hours, regardless of what the syllabus said. For my 60+ hours per week, I was essentially paid the wage of an intern with no benefits, which is why it was useful to continue working at the paper.

My life was my work. Work was my life. I was always exhausted. I thought this was what it took to live the American dream, but I was not really living.

I hope you enjoy it. Ironically, I still work all the time. It feels different (and more anxiety-producing at times) because I’m working for myself now, but I know it will resonate with some of you.

198 days ago Short URL Comments

African American/black women/feminism/journalism/media/patriarchy/popular culture/relationships/Single Life/sociology/women/work

Oct

Me & Mr. Jones, or when the marrieds are unfaithful

Not long ago, I thought the love of my life had returned to me.

We met when I lived in another city, when I was in my twenties. He’d had a whole marriage between when I last spoke to him years ago and our reunion. However, he was not technically single: the divorce would be final soon.

Cue the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack. Mute the quiet admonishment of my married and soon to be married friends. Picture me trying to roll with it.

Because he was handsome. He had a good job. He didn’t have any kids. He said he loved God. He was a black man without a record.

I know you feel me.

The rigamarole that followed included a lot of texting and allowing him stalk me on Facebook. It took me weeks to realize that I had let myself become a side chick. I had done a couple of things that I promised never to do – settle for less than I deserve and get involved with a married man.

Symptoms of side chick status include the following:

I knew nothing specific about his intentions or his feelings for me.
I had a feeling that he was not being clear on purpose.
He never answered his phone when I called.

But I like affection and attention. I believe we refer to these things as human desires. I had been single for SO LONG.

I am a work in progress on the patience front, though. I especially don’t have patience for entanglements that feel like relationships and sort of look like relationships but aren’t really relationships. Because they’re suspect.

So, I did whatever it’s called when you disentangle yourself from someone you’re not in a relationship with. He claims I dumped him.

I felt freeee! Because in the space between everything he didn’t say or tell me about his life, I was doing what writers do: I was telling myself a story about us that was probably not even true. And that’s never healthy.

Also: He was still married. I want a love of my own, not half of someone else’s. But when you make a proclamation like that, sometimes God will test you to make sure you really mean it.

A month passed and I met a friend of a friend who was in town visiting for about a week. I drove him and his friends around for a couple of days because of the strength of our mutual connection. Three days and a lot of game later, when I start thinking about how sweet and gentlemanly he is and how much I like getting to know him and how nice it is to be flirting with another educated black man, I find out that he is married. With kids. Plural.

(Good looking out, Google.)

No, he didn’t mention it – you know, the way people will drop “we” in every single sentence when they’re married or coupled. No, he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He said it was because the marriage is complicated. They’re together for the sake of the kids. It’s a rather unhappy marriage.

Yeah, I told him. I figured that part out.

But why did he think that by being kind and joyously single that I was actually putting in an application for side chick status?
“I don’t get a lot of opportunities, so I figured I’d take the opportunity.”

Oh. Well.

Next.

The moral of these stories is that our culture’s obsession with marriage and black women’s failure to join the cult of true womanhood by getting ourselves married does not factor in the unhappily marrieds. It is more culturally and socially problematic, to say nothing of ethically and spiritually corrosive, to support the silence around unhappily married dudes and women who are on the prowl, on the down low or just overt and regularly on some Me & Mr/Mrs. Jones stuff.

These shenanigans persist because people who don’t really want to get married but ended up bowing to societal pressure to do so end up acting out their real heart’s desires eventually, no matter what the consequences, and no matter who it hurts. Sometimes, they will attempt to use trickery to get what they want.

This is a problem. It’s a quality of life issue. I call it that because I believe most of the animosity in our culture leveled at unmarried people has to do with the presumption that we are sexually immoral, unethical and down for whatever.

So, if that’s you, then OK. It’s not my place to judge people who don’t believe in Jesus or karma. But please don’t believe that me saying that I’m content with this season in my life during which I don’t have a partner is code for saying, “I’m available for shenanigans.”
Not the case, homie.
Also: you’re unhappy in your marriage? Get a divorce! If you’re not really all the way divorced yet, let folks know before they roll up thinking you’re available. Married, single or semi-partnered: Tell people where you stand. Don’t let Facebook tell you that “It’s complicated” is a satisfactory answer. It’s not.

What’s your stand on being a mistress or the person on the side? Do you get hit on by married men or women? Do you think it happens more to singles than those in relationships?

208 days ago Short URL 13 Comments

black men/black women/clarity/infidelity/marriage/men/popular culture/relationships/side chick/Single Life/women

Oct

Single Lady Music: Beyoncé

File this under #GuiltyPleasures.

I became totally enamored of Destiny’s Child back when Wyclef was closer to relevance and I halfway believed a singing career a la Mariah Carey or Lauryn Hill was in my future. I could sing a little bit, despite awful stage fright, so the yearning, sticky-sweet ballads of my generation were right up my alley. I was as likely to jam to Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin as I was to try to reach all of the high notes of Whitney Houston or Rachelle Ferrell.

As much as I love soul, R&B and gospel, there’s something about pop music from the 1990s, particularly, that inspires a deep nostalgia that I’m not yet comfortable with entirely. I don’t want to say that Beyoncé is the Diana Ross of my generation, but the glamour, the talent and the iconography are all there. It’s likely that “Single Ladies” tipped her into the pop artist stratosphere, but maybe she was going to be that famous anyway because she’s just that talented.

Nineteen-ninety-something.

Why is she always so naked? Why is she telling girls that we run the world when, clearly, there’s still so much misogyny in the world? What kind of message does our love for Beyoncé send to little girls who can’t live up to the standard of beauty that Beyoncé seems to set?

I don’t have answers for any of those questions. And I have written defenses of Beyoncé in the past, so I won’t go back into it. But the reason she’s become so popular is that there aren’t many singular black female figures in popular culture (not just those who are unmarried, since Mr. Carter put a ring on it a while ago) who seem to “have it all” – beauty, brains, a loving partnership and a sense of self outside of that partnership. For me, Beyoncé’s confidence and self-possession counterbalances the hypersexual sultry stuff.

There isn’t anywhere in our culture where women don’t get mixed messages about women, independence and relationships. I don’t think it’s fair that Beyoncé is the symbol of our angst about not committed to chastity or promiscuity. I love that she uses what she has to get what she wants; that’s what I aspire to do.

Here are some of my favorites.

Upgrade U: I know the feminists among us will pretend that we didn’t like this song, but I’ll just come out and admit that I loved it. I love it still.

Diva: I was inspired to write an essay about my short, failed attempt at being a rapper for an anthology when I heard this one.

Independent Women Part 1: Wow, it makes me feel old that this was 12 years ago. But whatever. I like the remix better, though.

Irreplaceable: Every woman who has had to, um, put someone out loves this song. It’s just a given.

Best Thing I Never Had: Honestly, I hated this song when I first heard it. But it resonated with me for a dozen reasons when I started listening to Beyonce 4 again recently.

What’s your favorite Single Lady music? I’m a Keri Hilson fan, too. We’ll get to her in a minute.

Oct

Why black women can’t afford to be shamed for being single

Earlier this year, I was reading Health First! The Black Woman’s Wellness Guide and these figures gave me pause.

2010 Census Figures for Marital Status among Black Women in America

7,492, 890 Never Married
4,170,470 Married
792,263 Separated
1,422,370 Widowed
2,173,815 Divorced

53 percent of American women are married and living with their spouses, compared to 44 percent of Black women, who are more likely to be single heads of household. Single mothers of color are more likely to be poor than any other women.

…the average Black single mother has no assets; she has a median net worth of zero dollars, compared to $6,000 for a White single mom.

So, basically, it’s already expensive enough being a black woman & we don’t amass any more wealth when you add shaming to the mix:

“Lifting as we Climb: Women of Color, Wealth, and America’s Future,” also found that nearly half of all single black women have zero or negative wealth, meaning their debts exceed all their assets; one-fourth of single black women have no checking or savings account; and only 33 percent of African American single women are homeowners. Mariko Chang, independent consultant and author of “Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It,” notes that the legacy of the racial wealth gap is largely to blame for the discrepancy.

“So much of the racial wealth gap that occurred in our history is still really alive,” Chang said. “Because of both discrimination and a gender pay gap, black women, in particular, lack a lot of the traditional wealth safety nets that other groups have access to. Because of their lower earnings, and also because of the types of jobs they have – service jobs, for instance – they’re less likely to have fringe benefits, retirement accounts, paid vacation days. If they face unemployment, illness or any kind of negative economic shock, they just don’t have that cushion.”

I would like it very much if we lived in a post-racial, post-racist society, but unfortunately, the racial and class disparities that affect me as a black woman interfere with my ability to “just get married” to solve my financial problems — even if I were the kind of woman to marry for money, which I’m not.

219 days ago Short URL Comments

African American/assets/black women/books/Census/Health First!/marriage/money/Single Life/sociology/statistics/wealth

Single & Happy

Tag Archives: black women