#BlackChurchSex, Best Of, Love Single Life and Marriage, Pleasure, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex, Womanism
In 2015, I had a farewell dinner with a friend a few nights before I left Louisville. As we sat inside a dark restaurant filled with families but better suited for couples, awaiting our order of Indo-Chinese fusion dishes we had never heard of, my friend asked,...
Black Diaspora, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Research and Scholarship, Respectability, The Bible
I recently attended Ira Dworkin’s talk about his book, “Congo Love Song: African American Culture and the Crisis of the Colonial State.” In the Q&A, I asked: How did Sheppard and Brown see their identity in relation to Africa and their responsibility to the...
#BlackChurchSex, Black Love, Gender, Love Single Life and Marriage, Pop Culture, Race, Religion Faith and Spirituality
Over the past week or so, as “For the D” and “For the P” challenges have overtaken attention spans, Christians have stepped in with remixes espousing what they would do “For the D [after a ring],” “For My Jesus,” “For My God,” and “For My Husband.” At least, Black...
Best Of, Black Love, Feminism, History, In the News, Pleasure, Race, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex, Social Justice, Tyranny, Writing Intimacy
For two weeks after the election, I wrote nothing. I was enrolled in two writing workshops for my MFA, and I wrote nothing. I submitted a poem I had written over the summer and didn’t bother to revise for my poetry workshop that week. The following week, I skipped my...
Feminism, Gender, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Reproductive Justice, Sex, The Bible
In my early and mid-twenties, I wrote several drafts of a screenplay in which a modern-day Virgin Mary who received word the second coming of Christ would happen through an immaculate conception in her womb essentially says, “No thanks. Find someone else.” I wrote the...
Best Of, Black Love, Feminism, Pleasure, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex
I attended a conference session called, “Defusing the Power of Toxic Religion for Sexual Advocacy,” because I’m writing a memoir about intersections of faith, family, and feminism in my life and of my experience with black female sexuality within the context of the...
Best Of, Feminism, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Reproductive Justice, Social Justice
At a table on the quiet side of the room, five black women are talking. Sex. Helping a friend buy her first vibrator. Midwifery. Crunk Feminist Collective. Sexual health education. A sexual health education session in an AME church. The girls asked the sex...
Best Of, Black Love, Pleasure, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex
How is a church like prison and being incarcerated like belonging to a church? Both have a way of asking, “How do you plan to handle potentially lifelong, involuntary celibacy?” Read more. ← On my bicycle, at the intersection of blackness and...
Best Of, Religion Faith and Spirituality
Originally published Sept. 1, 2015 In my last column for NCR, I wrote about my somewhat surprising desire to find a church home in my new city. I said there that I’m looking for a way to connect with people socially and politically, but there is a third aspect...
#BlackChurchSex, Best Of, Love Single Life and Marriage, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex
Originally published Dec. 22, 2014 “A Southern Baptism,” Detroit Publishing Co., ca 1900. Library of Congress. One of the reasons I stopped working on my memoir was because when an agent strongly suggested I adapt my essay collection into a linear...
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