Like the early advice columns of the 18th century, like the agony aunts of the advice column’s mid-20th century heyday, the wise women of the Internet specialize in a very femme form of critique and guidance that soothes the pain and cuts the bullshit, knowing what the world is and what it should be and the ache of the gap in between. Artist and writer Zahira Kelly is one of them, throwing out daily analyses of white supremacy and ideology as casually as she discusses fashion. In her second advice column, special for the Dicks issue, Kelly answers readers' questions on white girls and their black boyfriends, and how to have satisfying sex with a small dick.
Dear Zahira,
I’m a black girl and my straight white woman friends sometimes talk to me about the black men they’re fucking, as though black dick is another thing we can have in common. Recently a white girlfriend brought up her black ex and said she didn’t love him any more but he still loves her, and then threw in a comment about how he “lives up to the stereotype,” while looking knowingly at me. It was an explicit convo, but still, I noticed that she hadn’t discussed the genitalia of any of her white boyfriends with me. I felt upset on his behalf that he was spilling his guts to her while she thought of him as a trophy or a life experience. I didn’t confront her because I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know how to deal with these white girls and their black boyfriends ... Please help!
You need new friends. Ones who don’t fetishize black men and then flaunt them like badges or anecdotes to share. How do you reform what is obviously a warped mentality? I may just be speaking from a point of little to no patience after enduring all of that for years, but it’s not your job to fix them. Nor is it your obligation to have friends who will undoubtedly project that same dehumanization onto you when push comes to shove.
What are the odds they do that only with black men and not about your friendship, for example? There’s a huge chance you are the token they bring up in conversations about “diversity” and whatever other chances they get at showing how supposedly worldly and universally relatable they are.
I’ve had my fill of drunk white women yelling about how they can’t be racist because they’ve been fucked in the ass by black men (true story). And we all know white folks in general love being like, “But my black friend didn’t say anything so that’s totes O.K., don’t listen to those other black people saying you hurt them, mmmkay?”
And let’s be real. We are talking mandingo stereotypes here and those drive hella tourism to islands like mine. Hordes of bored soggy white ladies of all ages looking for that big-dick island boy-toy fling. Industries have been built to support it. Nobody from a tourist town in the Caribbean doesn’t know about the European, Canadian, and American white people who fetishize and hypersexualize black men.
What I’m saying is these women are of a particular stock whose rot you really aren’t gonna undo on your own. I’d say weigh out the pros and cons of having them as friends. There’s a big chance you can just do without. Because if you do want to explain to them why treating another human they’ve historically exploited like an object is horrible, you’re gonna have to explain the last 500-plus years of history. And you know what? Even if you got hella free time? Ain’t nobody got time for that! Unless you’re charging a fee. They should be so lucky if you decide to be that generous. You don’t owe them the labor of making them better people. We ain’t mammy, and slavery is over.
Dear Zahira,
I had sex with a man with a really small dick and feel really angry about it because he didn’t let me know beforehand, nor did he suggest or initiate anything other than the kind of hetero penetrative sex that probably satisfied his ideas of gender and masculinity but did absolutely nothing for me. After the awful sex, I said out loud, “Well, maybe you just don’t like me as much as I thought.” It’s not that his small dick disqualifies him from masculinity but his version of masculinity is clearly one where he just thrusts away on top of a woman. I’ll probably never see him again but how can I deal with this if it happens in future?
Ayy. Nothing quite sours your week like disappointing sex. And living in a patriarchal society unfortunately comes with a lot of that—what with cis men being raised to see their penis as the end-all, be-all and women as just warm fuckholes.
These guys are out here afraid and shocked to be touched anywhere other than their dick but expect women to be a free-for-all with no boundaries. It’s actually sad for all parties, though definitely worse to not be a cis hetero man, facing their masculine insecurities.
There are masses of men who are not just emotionally stunted because of patriarchy but unable to connect with their own body over this penis-centric cis masculinity shit. All those frustrations are thrust (no pun intended) onto us, and especially onto trans women, in part for proving men do not have a monopoly on dicks and shaking their cissexist beliefs to their core. Penises are actually irrelevant to masculinity, as trans men can tell you. People who don’t identify as either gender can have dicks too. (Penises are very equal opportunity, O.K.?)
In short, we have to suffer because they’re afraid of and have very limited understanding of their own bodies. Add the fact they grow up thinking women’s pleasure is irrelevant and/or taboo and sex is only for them, and you end up with this “jackrabbit thrusting on top like they’re masturbating in you” experience. You were right to assume he didn’t like you much to be that inconsiderate and there’s a high probability he’s been like that forever, probably even through what he called love.
The other notable aspect of your situation is that it seems you didn’t discuss sexual expectations, wants, and needs beforehand. While sometimes it’s cool to just go with the moment, we aren’t taught the importance of communicating our sexual desires before the act. It can really make all the difference between sex that is good and gets better with every try, and sex that is terrible and not really gonna improve. It’s shooting into the dark (another pun? sorry) and while you might end up being on the same page? You could be in Venus while this motherfucker’s 98,576 galaxies over on Tatooine. It’s nice to plan ahead so you can know how to get to each other (and if you even can meet each other’s expectations), you know?
Granted, it can be awkward to speak frankly about sex, but it’s a good habit to pick up because it’s certainly not more awkward than dealing with a two-pump chump who thinks sex begins and ends with his pathetic dick.
