Show Me Your Soul. A conversation with Teddi B

::: Sex and Souls / My inner thoughts :::

So, Uhuru Rahman (Blue Azul) said "I want to see your soul. Then, I want to rub up against it." and it got me to thinking about something that I have not yet articulated.

All morality aside, sex is a beautiful thing. In fact, its hard for two people to be closer than during intercourse. However, in and of itself the act is not something I necessarily pursue.

I have never (saving once or twice) had sex with anyone who I didn't feel had shown me their soul. And by that I mean their truest self. I have, on many occasions, had women in my bed and didn't attempt to have sex with them. This was a stumbling block for me for many years in adolescence and in my early twenties.

See, for whatever reason, women expect you to want to have sex with them. If you don't, when the opportunity is there, they feel like something is wrong (not necessarily consciously). And this always lead to withdrawal.

I spent a long time thinking something was wrong with me. Like, "how could I not want to have sex with this beautiful woman in my bed? am I gay?" ... I hadn't yet figured out how to articulate the fact that I wanted to Know them, deeply, before I knew them physically. And it was a point of great inner dismay for me for a long time.

In my older years, I learned to recognize what it was that I wanted, though I still never articulated it. Just knowing made me much more comfortable with my decisions. Understanding that societal norms and expectations, are not necessarily the gold standard. It's ok to want more.

and lastly, let me clarify, that we're not talking about "love" in the way that people generally associate it with romanticism. We're simply talking about openness that leads to understanding. Nakedness before nakedness.

Peace,
Teddi B


I was a "late bloomer"...a term I take issue with because it really only means that I wasn't having sex in high school which is kinda what I thought was healthy and sort of lead to my educational and career success because I wasn't fighting the emotional and ovular unexpected consequences...but I digress from my original point...I interacted with men physically beginning in my 20s and was turned off almost immediately. It seemed that the men I attracted viewed me as a way to boost their earning potential and social collateral (money and power). I also may have represented something that would make their mothers proud of them because of what I looked like on paper. I admit that I was not completely innocent. I had been taught to find a young man who was educated and had a job...I mean, this is the lesson that young black girls get: "Make sure he has a J.O.B.!" I was never taught to find a young man who was sensitive and loved me. But how could I be? Looking back, I almost feel as though my family and community attempted to mold me into some type of, I don't know, great hood hope. And of course, all the typical cultural modifiers made their experience of me even more disassociating: nappy headed black girl; doctoral student; musical performer. Regarding my early boyfriends, I have no idea what they saw in me. My truth was that I was confused and doing whatever I could to keep from wanting to kill myself as a result of my severe social disappointment. Sex became something that I figured was just expected of me. A currency for love. Those men I attracted wanted sex from me. They would give me love in return. That's the exchange that I learned. What the men actually thought of me was irrelevant. My relationships with them became proxies for the relationship I had with myself. I found that I was having sex with them, yet wasn't getting love in return. So I'd stop having sex with them. Then, they stopped paying attention to me at all. They became bed warmers and I became less attached to reality. Then, the relationship ended. I had no idea that the love that I so craved was something that I had to give myself. I wish someone had taught me that instead.

Love,

Blue