Longing to Tell
Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Sexual Lives of Black Women, In Their Own Words
In a culture driven by sexual and racial imagery, very few honest conversations about race, gender, and sexuality actually take place. In their absence, commonly held perceptions of black women as teenage mothers, welfare recipients, mammies, or exotic sexual playthings remain unchanged. For fear that telling their stories will fulfill society's implicit expectations about their sexuality, most black women have retreated into silence. Tricia Rose seeks to break this silence and jump-start a dialogue by presenting, for the first time, the sexual testimonies of black women. Spanning a broad range of ages, levels of education, and socioeconomic backgrounds, twenty women, in their own words, talk with startling honesty about sex, love, family, relationships, and intimacy. Their stories dispel prevailing myths and provide revealing insights into how black women navigate the complex terrain of sexuality. Nuanced, rich, and powerful, Longing to Tell will be required reading for anyone interested in issues of race and gender.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although American culture is heavy with sexual images and suggestion, honest dialogue about sex and its effects can be rare. According to Rose, an American studies professor at U.C. Santa Cruz, this is especially true for black women, who are most often seen only in stereotypical roles (e.g., welfare mothers, voracious sexual playthings). Yet, she posits, sexuality and intimacy are an enormous part of black women's lives. Rather than use interview snippets to underscore her points, the author presents a collection of oral histories told by 20 women who describe their lives in rich, sometimes startling, detail. The format works well, and Rose steps in only occasionally, at section breaks, to point out the intersections and divergences readers might miss. The tales are heartbreaking, inspiring and brutally honest on topics like AIDS, domestic abuse, race, sexism and erotic adventures. Although the speakers' stories traverse a wide range of experiences, each one chronicles the pain and hard-won triumphs of trying to be a black woman in a society they often find cold and hostile. They speak out on their treatment by and attitudes toward black men in a way that is far removed from the popular fiction that they supposedly identify with. By letting the women speak for themselves and following the histories with a passionate afterword, Rose provides a collection that is as compelling as it is sorely needed.
