"Sexy"

From Journal Entry of December 23, 1992 that I Will Label
“The Problem of Being Called ‘Sexy’”

I wrote this entry when home for the holidays and in response to thinking about the issue of teen pregnancy.

. . . “I wonder what can protect little black girls from premature exposure to sex. (Black boys need to be preserved until maturity, too). But black girls are the ones who have the capacity to be prematurely impregnated, while boys are not forced to be inextricably bound to another life inside the body. It is not enough to cry “stop teen pregnancy.” I’ve discovered that teen pregnancy is not the problem and stopping it is really only a band-aid solution. The real culprit is poverty and the crowded conditions that breed the availability of sex with young, unattended girls, often daughters of single mothers. Such conditions are promoting some freakish desires in black men. I’ll never forget a crying classmate at Spelman who stated that eight out of the ten little girls who she’s supervised had been sexually violated and abused.

I wish I could help to stop this craziness. Maybe I did help one girl abstain from premature sex. I was a volunteer at the local black YMCA during my last two years of high school. The group that I set up and supervised had kids, boys and girls, of all ages in it. Still, I refer to them as “my kids.” They were so beautiful. Two of the oldest girls were alone with me as the young kids enjoyed the game period that I allowed before lessons in black history, individual tutoring, and social graces. One girl, the one who was obviously contemplating sex, was thirteen. She asked me if I had a boyfriend. (At that time I was 16 and dating a handsome Lanier football player. We’d been going together for three months and had not kissed. We did not kiss until June of 1988 and I was seventeen when that happened). So naturally, this preteen was scaring the hell out of me. I acknowledged my boyfriend. She told me that a boy liked her and she was thinking about letting him . . . she never fully articulated her ambivalent intentions, although I sensed what they were. I, being cautious, explained that my boyfriend and I were getting to know each other and that we valued each other’s company. I stressed that he was my first one, at 16, ever in my life and that waiting for such a person was worth it. I also stressed that girls should demand the utmost respect from boys and should not allow themselves to be pressured. I caught a pensive vibe from her, so hopefully she abandoned the idea of sex. [A few weeks later, a few days after he came over to the Y to pick me up after one of my sessions, she and another girl, a little awestruck, told me how cute they thought he was and could not believe that he was a football player-at Lanier-when seeing his jacket; her seeing him, while coincidental, was the best thing that could have happened and hopefully convinced her that she would have plenty of time later on to think about boys].

Maybe my sheltered existence has protected me from boys, then men. Really, a combination of things have protected and preserved me. My family, although not strict, set a good conservative example for me. I never had a stepfather or any stray presence who could have potentially abused me. My neighborhood helped. The same families have always been here. In some black communities, full of boys, girls, and teenagers, sexual experimentation is rampant. I’ll never forget the day that I was visiting a cousin in my extended family. Her friend went bike-riding with us. My cousin was pulling me on the seat of her bike, and she was beside us. We were 11. Riding through the streets of Twin Gates (my Grandmother would have had a fit). We passed a house which she cited as the place where she and this boy had kissed. I was taken aback, for it was inconceivable to me that people that young would do such things. I had a crush on a boy in my class, but I delighted in his art and agility in P.E. My ultimate fantasy was for him to pass me a note. Today, my ultimate fantasy is to be honored in a poem, so not much has changed, except maybe my idea of the person who should do it. I thought they were “fast.” They used profanity, too. In my neighborhood, eyes and ears were all around. Even if I had tried to sneak around with boys, I would have been busted. Really, there were no boys, just a couple, and we rode bikes. “Doctor” and whatever else were not on the agenda.

In later years, my appearance has shielded me from the masses of men. Aesthetically, I have some of the things that brainwashed black guys would appreciate. I had some of the longest hair at St. Jude and a complexion that could stick around. Many times, I thought about how my life might have been under different circumstances, for the only obvious dividing line between those guys and me was my height. Men are conditioned to want superiority, and few men have the balls to stand a woman who could look them straight in the eye. They’d drop dead before having one who could look down on them. My uniqueness has therefore been a social detriment and a personal blessing at the same time. I doubt that I would have had the time to be as intelligent as I am now, because my entire experience and existence may have been totally different with a less intimidating presence.

It should be noted, though, that I still got bothered. Lustful juniors and seniors on the prowl for younger, vulnerable freshmen at St. Jude singled me out. My male friends thought it was funny. I thought that they would ruin my reputation. Every rainy day when they were in the lobby of the cafeteria and I walked out with my female associates, they would start. “Hey, Sexy!” They embarrassed me so, and I felt that I was being verbally gang-raped. At first, I thought they were making fun of me, but then I realized that their comments, however rude, reflected some kind of appreciation. To my understanding, from what my male friends overheard and told me, they thought that I was sexy because I didn’t try to be. I didn’t hang out, and my innocence turned them on. With my appearance in uniform (I was the only girl who wore ankle socks and penny loafers at St. Jude. I liked the preppy look and wore them as my style instead of stockings all through high school), they could tell that I was not consciously trying to be provocative like some of the other girls. Some actually told me, “You are going to really be something else when you get older," “You’re so sexy,” and “I like those tall girls with that long hair.” My female friends didn’t understand my alarm over their attention. They said that they would have liked it. My male friends enjoyed my paranoia. I’d say, “If they say I’m sexy, teachers may think I did something to make them think so.” “Evidently you’re doing something,” they’d say. “There’s nothing sexy about me!” I once retorted because of my paranoia. I wanted them to leave me alone. [So many of those rainy days walking out of the cafeteria, just when I’d think I’d gotten by safely and unnoticed, one would start it. I usually tuned them out and never looked in that direction, but one day when I was passing a group at school and one said “Hey, Sexy,” I accidentally looked and they got a big kick out of it. I never told my family about any of this, for I feared they might take me out of the school, and I wanted to stay]. However, I must admit that older guys who were still there when I ran for SGA vice-president at the end of 10th grade helped to make me a political machine. It took me a long time to ask for their support, but I knew that I needed it because there were more boys at St. Jude than girls and a girl I knew had lost a year earlier because she was one. “We’re voting for you, Sexy,” was the response when I finally approached their lunch table the last day of the campaign. I reminded them that they should vote for the best qualified candidate. “We don’t like him. We’re voting for you.”

I have certainly been lucky. Yet, I pity those girls who haven’t been. Active sexuality will be my choice. I was not a pregnant teen and am mentally and emotionally strong enough not to become a pregnant young adult. There is no man that I could conceive of making a baby with at this point in my life. There’s no man at all, but maybe the silence of being alone is better than hearing the pitter patter of little feet or the breaking of one’s heart. The right person will come along.