The Sexualization of Black Girls and Teens. Issue V
The violent policing and sexualizing of Black girls during their childhood and teen years.
Gif by SBrown82.
I remember throughout my entire childhood and pre-teenaged years, I would hear conversations between my grandmother, aunts, and other older woman in my family in which they described my cousins and friends as “fast” and “too grown.” When I was younger, the term “fast” did not make sense to me, I used to sit and try to remember if any of my cousins did track or played a sport in which speed was admirable, but none of them played so I sat confused, trying to understand what my aunts meant. Then, the term “fast” started to make sense to me when I would catch the looks of disgust on my aunts’ faces at summertime cookouts when my cousins would show up dressed in shorts and a tank top. I also noticed the pattern in which my mom would tell me to put “some more clothes on” when men were coming over. It then became very prevalent in high school as my school’s administration set strict rules on the dress code, which disproportionally affected the female students more than the male students, and as the #MeToo movement rose to prominence and people started asking, “well, what was she wearing?”.
From birth to womanhood, Black girls are violently policed in a way that hyper-sexualized us but also suppresses our sexual identity. In the eyes of society, and even our own families, we are never seen as children, as little girls, as someone innocent with no awareness or knowledge of sex. And as our sexuality is suppressed, we are often made the ones to blame in cases of sexual abuse and violence. I’ve heard older Black woman victim-blame and side with rapist, almost giving them a pass because a seven, ten, or sixteen year old was being “too grown” and she “knew what she was doing when it happened.”
I asked the Black women that follow me on Instagram how they were policed when they were younger, many recalled how they weren’t allowed to hang out with their cousins and other girls because their parents’ though they were “fast” or how they were given strict rules on their clothing and hairstyle choices and some even mentioned being dress-coded in kindergarten for wearing spaghetti straps and their mother accusing them of “pushing their chest up” at male cousins. Why have all these rules been placed on Black girls? While suppressing their identity through strict rules, such as no nail polish until they’re fourteen, the Black community has also hyper-sexualized little girls, children. The mark of innocence has been ripped away from Black girls before we’re even able to say our ABC’s.
But, Black people aren’t the only ones to blame for this phenomenon, the hyper-sexualization of Black women, and many more problems that plague or community, is rooted in the era of slavery and imperialism when enslaved women were blamed for getting raped by white men; They were seen as “Jezebels,” Black women who were “hyper-sexual predators” looking to “corrupt men.” When Europeans saw African women in their cultural dress, they viewed the nudity as lewd and became entranced in African polygamy and tribal dances which they interpreted as “uncontrollable sexual lust.” William Bosman described the women on the coast of Guinea as “fiery,” “warm,” and “so much hotter than the men” and William Smith called them “hot constitution’d Ladies” who “are continually contriving stratagems how to gain a lover,” creating the anti-Black sexual archetypes and narratives (African men were seen as brute and potential rapists and women were seen as the “Jezebel whore”) which became prevalent during slavery in minstrel shows.
Whites used these racist and sexiest ideologies to argue that they were the only civilized race and rationalize that Blacks deserved slavery because they were barbaric and were sexually-fueled like animals. The Jezebel stereotype, specifically, was used to rationalize the raping of African women by white men. Jezebels were seen as a Black woman with “an insatiable appetite for sex,” these women were not satisfied by Black men so white people claimed that these women desired sexual relationships with white men. This idea and view of Black women invalidated the rape done unto them by white men, thus blaming Black women for the sexual violence done unto them.
Now, we’re here, where slavery and white ideals and philosophies have tainted the Black community and older Black people have kept these ideals on a pedestal, from homophobia to over-sexualization of children.
The Black community has created these coveted set of rules that they think will “protect” Black girls and “preserve their innocence” when in reality these regulations suppress their identity and is a tool in slut-shaming. I asked on my Instagram story, “Black women: how were you policed as a child?” and there were a plethora of comments:
“I was told to ‘put on different clothes’ when men were coming over.”
“I got called ‘fast’ for watching ‘iCarly’ and ‘Drake & Josh’ because they kissed.”
“I wasn’t allowed to wear shorts above the knee, two-piece swimsuits, or leotard to gym.”
“My aunt said I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup in front of my cousins.”
“I couldn’t play with the boys.”
“Age-appropriate clothing was deemed ‘inappropriate’ because of my body type.”
“I wasn’t able to go over my cousin’s house or hang out with certain people in my neighborhood because they were ‘fast’.”
“I couldn’t paint my nails until I was fourteen because it was ‘too grown’.”
“I wasn’t allowed to wear fitted jeans.”
“I was FORCED to wear beads because fake hair/box braids were ‘too grown’ for a fifth-grader.”
“I couldn’t wear anything that exposed my shoulders or thighs or wear makeup. I was an early bloomer and started getting boobs in third or fourth grade, I was like nine or ten and didn’t like wearing bras, every woman not he planet felt like it was their job to comment on what kind of bra I needed to wear, what kind of clothes I could wear so no one saw my breasts, and the men at church…don't get me started.”
“I couldn’t wear a dress without a slip and could rarely wear my hair out because it was ‘grown’.”
“I wore a spaghetti-strapped dress for picture day in kindergarten and got dress coded.”
“I was at a cookout and my mom accused me of ‘pushing my chest up’ at a male cousin.”
The list goes on of wild regulations that Black parents have put on Black girls and women to '“protect” us and save our “purity.” However, this hyper-sexualization and suppression, or “adultification” (the term used to describe the dehumanization and robbing of a Black child’s innocence), of Black girls and women has done far more harm than good. In our community, this adultification of Black girls allows for victim-blaming, giving the rapist a pass by not holding them accountable, rather, the blame is put on the Black girls and women. Questions like “well, what were you out being grown for?” and “what were you wearing?” and statements like, “well if you weren’t being fast, nothing would have happened” and “well, she’s a hoe.” are assailed at us in any case of sexual violence because we are never seen as children. The Black community has protected rapists by blaming underaged girls (and woman of age), what seven year old is making the conscious effort to be a “hoe” and seduce a fifty-seven-year-old man? With this continuous, violent pattern, many Black girls and women have seen others get blamed for their abuse and thus silenced themselves and never seeking help. And with this suppression, also comes a lack of comprehensive sexual education, I even remember when I was coming into puberty, I would ask certain questions and be immediately reprimanded with the response, “that’s grown-folk business.” This systematic lack of real protection of Black girls and women is the reason for the lack of sexual education and why the STI rates are disproportionately higher among Black girls and women. Black women make up twelve percent of the U.S. female population while making up sixty-one percent of the new HIV diagnoses among women in 2016 (compare that to then nineteen percent of white women and sixteen percent of Latinx women) and, in 2017, gonorrhea cases among Black teens between the ages of fifteen and nineteen were 9.3 times the rate as white teens in that age group. Instead of Black parents discussing sexual health and education with their children, they choose to hide helpful information that would help increase safe sex practices among Black teens and decrease the number of unexpected teen pregnancies. Talking about safe sex and sexual health is not “grown folk business,” it’s important to have that conversation with your children. This suppression also causes the worst body image issues anyone could imagine. While I wasn’t policed as aggressively as others, what I do remember from my childhood has scared me and now I get uncomfortable wearing certain things around my older family members, men, and people I don’t know. My family will “compliment” me on my body and I cringe inside because of how I was reprimanded for it when I was younger and it’s affected the way I view myself. For Black girls and women, this policing has caused higher rates of body image issues and insecurities. Lastly, this adultification affects how others view Black girls and women, because we aren’t seen as adults, we’re usually seen as the “bad kid” or the aggressor in situations. In an opinion piece from the Washington Post, the writer recalled how her fourteen-year-old daughter was blamed for bringing weed to her white friend’s sleepover. When the girls were caught with the weed, the writer’s daughter, Chloe, was not touching it, didn’t have it in her possession, and she didn’t look visibly high, but the white parents immediately blamed her. Turns out, the white girl hosting the sleepover has the one who had purchased the weed. If our parents see us as adults at fourteen, white people definitely will.
This cycle and it’s effects are both negative because it perpetuates stereotypes society has created about Black women, it blames the victim in cases of sexual assault, it blocks Black girls from learning comprehensive sexual health and education, it creates body image issues and suppresses sexual expression and identity, and so many other damaging impacts. The Black community must start making the collective effort in ending the narrative that black girls and women are promiscuous, removing the term “fast” from parenting, including sexual education in our parenting, and seeing our Black girls as children.
Gif by Beyoncé.
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From A Black Body will be back soon! Stay safe.
Loved reading this (in a way that I love getting heated and educating myself on the nitty gritty of underrepresented issues). The hyper sexualization and policing of females needs to be addressed more from an intersectional standpoint and I appreciate your voice on these issues. :)