Sometimes we need verbal massage. Some salve to soothe away feelings of rejection, make us feel pretty even in our rollers and fuzzy bunny slippers. And if you’re like me, you didn’t shower today, so…you’re in rollers, house shoes and you smell like soup. So I brought black-woman-lover Aaby (pronounced “AB” as in, *ABCDEFG…now I know my Aaby C’s!”)

I’ve been waiting for two soup-stinkin’ months for this, and he BETTER be glad I like it, because I don’t much appreciate CPT time, especially if the person using it is not “C!”

Aaby, just because you love us, doesn’t entitle you to privileges endemic to our culture.

Okay; I’ll shut up now. Wait! Like my fancy French in the title? Guess my gig at Madame Noire is giving me some Euro-class.

Alphabet Man, take the floor!

—————–
Aaby Aabaakawad

I am a bit moody. Hey, I’ve been diagnosed with having an Artistic Personality. Anyways, I have been promising Christelyn some essays for BB&W for [*gulp*] two months now, but have been stuck. Not stuck for ideas, but unable to express them both clearly and supportively.

Last week I entered the comment section for Dr. Young: Black Women & Asian Men Make Blasian-Hot Couples! feeling grumpy and ended up declaring self-righteously, “I am not a cheerleader.”

Yeah, I know. Not a good look. :-/

A few days later I realized, well, why not do a little cheerleading? What’s wrong with that? And I finally got insight into my writer’s block. I was coming at my essays as if I was in the middle of a long complicated conversation with you all (I’ve been working with this subject for a while now), yet most of you here don’t know me from Adam. So, starting properly, I shall explain in an essay (or two) how I feel, why BWIR is important to me, and perhaps show why you might be willing to trust me when I go to some of the deeper questions of interracial romance, a few essays down the line.

I am way more comfortable being analytical or humorous, but today I will present to you, a profession of my love for Black women:

This is my personal story, only true for me. Some men may have come for opposite reasons. I will not explain why some, or even who, may love you. Just that I do. And that you are lovable.

I love the dark. I am not being facetious or metaphorical. I like being in dark places. I am pulled toward strong dark colors: rich wood tones, deep purples, ancient greens, the black between the stars.

I also love curves, as complex and baroque as can be imagined without getting lost. Lines and planes are for dividing and separating, not for defining living things.

I like trajectories and progressively changing motion. The dance of Nature, over the bound and excruciatingly simple movements of engineered things.

I listen up for the minor key, oversouled blue notes, and tripping wandering rhythms.

These personal aesthetics are more fundamental than my erotic sensibilities, and originated before sexual awareness or even conscious memory. But my feelings about living things, people, and especially my attraction to women, are built on these basic preferences.

So, perhaps you can see, without me laboriously connecting the dots for you, how this leads naturally to Black women.

Fortunately for me, there turned out to be more to appreciate as I grew. I am averse, sometimes unfairly, to the usual, the comfortable, and the conventional. Struggle is much more interesting, to me, than the playing out of triumph. By my nature, I deconstruct my world constantly. So, the pieces and people who don’t mesh with the main are assigned extra potential in my mind. I always want to know why.

A Black woman who is thriving is already heroic, and what she knows, whatever that might be in each woman’s case, is guaranteed to be interesting. I am not fetishizing suffering, honest. I am honoring insight. Insight happens to privileged people too, but it is rare for them, because (unless they have an extraordinary psychology) there just is no motivation to look beyond what is in their face.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

But hey, you are likely not really feeling these sprarkly generalizations, so let me break it down.

• I love that a Black woman often has thoughts in contrast to the main.
• I love that the eyes and teeth of a Black woman are prominent, by contrasting with her skin, so every expression revealed.
• I love that each motion through space by most fit Black women evoke the impression of graceful dancing.
• I love that when a Black woman speaks, the sounds of her words have shape and color.
• I love that veins, capillaries, and subdural fat do not define a Black woman’s skin tone, but instead the actual color of the skin itself.
• I love that Black hair is substantial and elastic, and claims space for itself.
• I love that there are no colors a Black woman can not wear.
• I love the leggy look, and the butt that says “I’m here, deal with it.”
• I love that Black women are sensual in the original meaning of the word, as in enjoying experience through her senses. Think food, dance, color, texture, music, touch, man-watching (ain’t nothin’ wrong w’ that).
• I love that those Black women who indulge in thinking are daring, analytical, and not self-serving.

Wishing you all progress.

— Aaby