Does Your Sexuality Exist If There’s No Character To Represent It?

Trying to find a black woman like me in fiction

The first fictional character I ever felt a kinship with was Beneatha Younger. My 11th grade English teacher made us read ‘A Raisin In The Sun’ aloud and he cast me as Benny because he thought we were similar.

And we were similar in personality and demeanor, but Benny had something I didn’t have: lovers. Male lovers. Striking, intelligent black male lovers.

At the time I discovered Benny, an article in a teen magazine explaining asexuality intrigued me. And it worried me deeply. In high school I had little interest in boys. But that was better attributed to the double edged sword of untreated depression and sexual repression. I knew I was supposed to be curious about sex. I was supposed to want boys and yet sex and boys were things to fear and abhor.

Benny had what I admired, things a bookish, insecure black girl needed to see. An education, ambitious goals, hobbies, confidence, and a love life. Benny was so different from other black female characters I’d read about in books and seen on film. I wanted to be like her. I didn’t want to be catcalled. I didn’t want to be gazed at like a piece of meat. I didn’t enjoy “MJ has some big titties” being yelled at me across classrooms. Like Benny, I wanted someone who would value my personhood more than my looks.

If I couldn’t have someone kind or intelligent then I didn’t want anyone ever. I thought often, “Does that mean I’m asexual?”

Inside I had little interest in sex. Church convinced me that was a good thing. In college the depression quickly became People Repellent™ and I submerged myself in fictional worlds to cope (and because I was so lonely). I wanted to be someone who wasn’t afraid of being touched. I wanted to be known. My deepest desire was to become the kind of woman interesting men pursued and made love to. Benny alone wasn’t enough to sustain me or my sexual curiosities.

There were white virgins on TBN and white sexuality on MTV, but where were the black virgins? Where were the sensitive, honest portrayals of black girls having their sexual debuts? Black hypersexuality was all I ever saw in movies and music videos and after a while I believed that was all black women were. Benny was an outlier. Being sexless became a secret I carried through undergrad out of shame and confusion. I had virtually no experience with dating or romance. Labeling myself asexual felt right but it also felt like I was jumping to conclusions as well. In a way, I was.

It was time for answers. I started seeing a psychiatrist and he gave me an antidepressant once marketed as the “skinny, happy, horny pill.” That pill saved my life. It also gave me, in my late 20s, a sexual awakening fitting for a late bloomer.

I was in a place I’d never been before. In the same way that representation provides a mirror for those who need to see themselves and their life experiences validated, I needed a map that could validate my path. I still do. I feel as if I’m the only type of me there is. I struggle with that feeling everyday. With all the stories out there, I have yet to find my mirror or my map.

Am I that weird? Is my journey that unusual and atypical that no creative can imagine someone like me exists? A work of fiction with an inexperienced black woman character slowly exploring her sexuality would help assuage my fears that I am just too different.

To have another Benny in my life would be ideal. Student loan forgiveness and talking animals and free Hamilton tickets would be ideal too.

And equally unlikely.

I still love Benny. She’s one of my favorite fictional women. But I don’t see myself in her as much as I used to. We’re not a good fit anymore which is a shame. I wish I had more than just her, even though I know I was extremely lucky to have found her at all.