My best girlfriend and her husband who lives in Indiana were recently invited to attend a swinger’s event/pool party, by one of her so-called…..”freaky white neighbors”, and she’s absolutely repulsed by the idea of going.
Having grown up in a lower to middle class black suburban area of St. Louis, she wasn’t accustomed to the free sexual lifestyle of her new rural white neighbors, yet she was hugely intrigued.
All she could ever talk about was how perverted her neighbors were, and how they liked to parade around their fenced in backyard stark naked with other participating neighbors. I could only imagine the level of culture shock for her, being that she grew up in an ultra conservative, riffle toting black family from the Midwest. Everything she learned about sex was from her High school girl’s locker room, or from some B-rated adult movie that’s shown on late night Cable TV. She simply couldn’t fathom the idea of exploring her sexuality in a group setting; a white one at that.
I try to hold my composure when speaking to her, because to me, sexual prejudices are just as bad as racial prejudices. And for someone to be judged solely on sexuality is a crime against nature.
On that same note, she complained that her husband doesn’t spend time with her anymore, and that they are now at the point of sleeping in different bedrooms. I tried explaining to her that maybe she and her husband should go to this swinger’s party just to rekindle that old sexual flame that’s slowly going dim, if not burned out completely.
She then let’s out a sigh and says to me; “Erika, swinging is a White folk’s thing”. I get kind of aggravated when I hear that, but to so many prudish black folks, swinging is looked at as a White Only pastime. That is until I began looking up “black erotica” and black sex events which went on for years in places like Atlanta with “Freak nick”. Then all the way to the Samba loving country of Brazil, and the parades of naked black women during the internationally famous Carnival. Blacks have been exploring sex and sexuality in groups for centuries.
Some cultures even worship sexual female deities of color, as a way of celebrating life, creation, and worldly pleasure. Black woman have always been looked at as sexual creatures, and not all of them were negative or exploitative. In ancient times, black sexual deities were looked at as symbols of fertility and beauty, but we’ve seemed to have gotten away from that. Yet black folks are some of the freakiest sex loving people on the planet, but hate that reputation.
I for one embrace sexuality, and have no problem sharing and learning from other cultures. It’s our sexual encounters with one another that bring us closer to understanding each other, and I embrace cultures outside of my own.
So no….Swinging is NO longer a “White folk’s thing”. It’s an explorative thing…and I LOVE exploring!
