[black] Sex Sells: The Cost of Black Sexual Liberation
“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves… our deepest cravings”
- Audrey Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power
My time in college could be neatly summed up into the famous first words of Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
Starting out at Harvard University as a first generation student was a battle I greatly underestimated, and within weeks I realized that some of the greatest challenges I’d face at this prestigious institution would have nothing to do with tests of my academic prowess but everything to do with tests of the solidity of my character and identity.
Growing up, I only ever knew school and worship (Or as us Haitians say, Leglise, Lekol, Lakay). This tight binary left very little to my imagination with regard to Alena as an independent being, or even Alena as a sexual being. I’ll unpack all of that later, but let’s just say it was… yikes!
During my senior year of college, I reflected on the idea of sexual liberation and my strained relationship with it throughout those 4 years. As part of my minor in African American studies, I created a couple of short films. My most audacious one, titled “Black Sex Sells”, was an attempt to decipher the line between sexual liberation and self-exploitation; a difficult line 19-year-old Alena tight-roped on as she fought to create her definition of sexual empowerment amidst fetishization, reflections on true consent, and the suppressive foundations she grew up with from the Black church.
I’ve never shared the video outside of the class I made it for, but I think it’s time to have these discussions out loud and fearlessly. I hope you all enjoy:
