How I F*ck as a Black Pansexual Woman (Transcript)

NATALIE RIVERA: This is How I F*ck, a podcast about how we have sex, sponsored by Fembot Magazine. I'm your host, Natalie Rivera. Black lives matter. It's a hashtag that’s grown in popularity in recent months in response to the systemic killing of unarmed black people including George Flloyd and Breonna Taylor. While the Black Lives matter movement has been around for years, it seems only just recently non-black people have been fired up more than ever and taking the time to reflect on any internal racism or prejudices they might have. But when it comes to love and sex, how does race come into play? Are we being prejudiced when swiping left? Are we subscribing to stereotypes when watching porn from the Ebony category? For Ekelle, a black woman who identifies as pansexual, her skin color is definitely a talking point for some of the men who approach her online. 

EKELLE: I would receive inbox messages where there were inappropriate things, like people see me being a black woman and they want to ask me these inappropriate questions or say things like, “Oh, I've never been with a black woman before.”

NR: I met Ekelle on Instagram. I found her profile after coming across a video she posted of herself talking about her dating experiences. The video caption includes hashtags like #datingwhileblack and #blackwomenmatter. Her Instagram is full of videos like this—Ekelle speaking to her followers in her bedroom, Hello Kitty plush  in the background, giving dating tips and talking about the music she makes. Ekelle isn’t the only black woman sharing videos about her dating life online. That being said, this episode is about Ekelle’s story and should not be taken as a representation of every black woman’s experience. Like many, Ekelle seems to find relief on Instagram, where she can freely talk about her thoughts on love, dating and sex, topics that weren’t really discussed in her family growing up. 

NR: What was your introduction to sex? Did your parents have a talk with you?

EKELLE: Not at all. Never. I still haven't had the talk with my mom. You'd see, you know, a sexy scene on TV and your parents would close your eyes or they change the channel. So you know, something's happening, but you know, my mom didn't want to talk about it. So I just started to look for the answers. Like when I was young, I would really try to explore my body and figure out, like, “What is this? What is that in particular?” Like, I would look at my vagina and just be like, “Well, what is this? What is in here?” And my mom would kind of catch me looking at it in the mirror and she'd be like, “Stop doing that!”

NR: But her mom’s disapproval didn’t keep Ekelle from exploring on the internet. 

EKELLE: I would just go online. I would see porn, I would be in chat rooms and people would explain things to me. So, I just went out and I sought the knowledge out because I wanted to know. So there was one I was on and it was just, it was basically everyone just sharing like smutty anime photos. And I honestly realized, “Oh, there, there are feelings. I have feelings toward these photos. I have feelings towards what people are saying.” And that's how, I guess I started to explore like masturbation.

NR: Outside of the chat rooms, Ekelle seemed to have a relatively normal life as a young girl. She grew up in a pretty diverse neighborhood in Toronto, Canada. While Canada is known for being a melting pot, Canada, like the U.S., still grapples with their own issues of systemic racism and prejudices. This was something Ekelle slowly started becoming more aware of growing up. When she was around 10 she was called out by a teacher for wearing her hair natural. The teacher asked Ekelle in front of everyone in the class to comb her hair.

EKELLE: I was like, “What do you mean comb? My hair is combed.” I guess she didn't expect me to take it there. So she kind of just gave me a look, and she changed the subject. 

NR: But it was after an incident with her sister in high school that Ekelle first realized her blackness might be an issue for some people if she tried to interracially date.

EKELLE: I remember being in the library one time and she was kind of upset. I asked her what was going on. So the librarian had a son who went there. She was a white woman and her son was also white, who went to our school. So I think my sister and a lot of girls thought this boy was really attractive. So then I think they were talking to the librarian and she was talking about a black girl that the son was dating at the time. And she said something to the effect of, “Oh yeah, he was dating this girl and then he was dating this girl a couple of weeks ago but I think it's just a phase.” So that was kind of like, “Oh, so you don't think your son could just be with a black woman?” It was interesting to hear that, especially when I was in high school. I didn't really know what to think or how to feel. It was a kind of, I guess, a crushing moment. As I started to go into high school, I would think, “Will their parents be okay with it? Is this something I should be pursuing? Should I tell them? I'm not sure.” And I guess I'm very much like that again. I guess it's different now because obviously being an adult, people who like you will come up and approach you but you still have to have the conversation of like, “Okay, well, what are your views about people of color? Are your parents or family okay with this? Like how is this going to work? How are you going to make me feel safe and protected as your partner?”

NR: Full disclosure, Ekelle  has dated outside her race before. She is open to dating whoever she is attracted to regardless of race or gender identity, but it hasn’t been easy for her, especially since Ekelle uses dating apps to meet both men and women. You see, when you create a dating profile you’re asked to write up a  bio. Bios can include info about yourself and what you’re looking for on that particular app. Are you looking to just hook up? Maybe you’re looking for a long-term relationship? Some people also like to include what they’re not looking for in their bios. For some people that might mean “no fuck boys” but for others that might mean “no people of a specific race or ethnicity.” 

EKELLE: Some people would literally say on their pages, “Oh no black women. Sorry, but I just find you all to be too intimidating.” And I was just like, “Oh, well, but like what... first of all, why does this person think it's okay to say that?” Was no one monitoring the site to see that this is being said, and that's just rude.

NR: Unfortunately, racism is pretty common within dating apps. In fact dating app giant Grindr only just recently decided to pull their ethnicity filter after receiving backlash from users who weren’t satisfied by the company’s response to the recent Black Lives Matter protests. Yet, dating apps still haven’t found a way to filter out the many racist dms people of color seem to receive on the regular.

EKELLE: They'll say things like, “Oh, like, I really like you but my dick is small. Is that okay? You seem like you're a real size queen and like, I don't want to disappoint you.” And they start talking about them seeing porn or TV shows with the black men having like a bigger penis and they get all worried or people would say, “Oh, you're pretty for a black girl.” Like you're cute for a darkie. And I'm just like, what is going on? 

NR: While most of these messages and racist bios came from white men, Ekelle tells me that she’s seen bios from black male users that seemed to exempt black women as well. 

EKELLE: There were times online as well, where I'd be checking out profiles, and this is like on Tinder, on PLF. Black men are just simply saying, “I don't want to speak to you if you’re a black woman. I'm here to meet a white woman” or they would find a way to say it. So, I mean, maybe they're showing like the black emoji guy with a white emoji girl and you get the picture. 

NR: A study published in 2014 by OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder found that black women were ranked less attractive than women of other races and ethnicities on the site. Asian men were also ranked least desirable  but by female users. The study included data collected from 25 million users between 2009 and 2014, and while it’s now been about six years since this study came out, black women like Ekelle are still coming across profiles and receiving dms that belittle them because of the color of their skin. 

EKELLE: I would report those profiles when they would message me, but it was really bad. Like I was screenshotting them at a point because I was like, “Okay, I don't know what I want to do with these, but like this stuff happens.” And a lot of times when you are a black woman and you want to talk about situations of racism or discrimination, people are just so inclined to not believe you. They're like, “Oh, civil rights was so long ago. Everything's fine.” As you can see today, clearly it's not fine. So I was just kind of saving the messages. I don't have them anymore, because now I just feel more comfortable reporting or talking back or knowing which ones to ignore. But for a long time, it was really, it was getting to me, I was really bummed by it.

NR: But it’s not just online dating. While the behavior Ekelle’s encountered on these apps is inexcusable, it does make sense that sexual racism would thrive on dating apps where a person can protect their anonymity and therefore speak their mind without consequences. Yet, from what Ekelle’s told me, there are of course people in real life who have no trouble speaking freely. 

EKELLE: I was seeing this guy, a brown guy that I had met online. We'd been in the situationship for a couple years while also seeing other people. So we'd sometimes talk about them. 

NR: The man, who is Indian, was telling Ekelle about a time he and a girl he was seeing were at a grocery store when a rap song started playing. The man, knowing the song pretty well, sang along to the lyrics.

EKELLE: The “n” word came on. So he sang the lyric and she kind of looked at him like, “Whoa, you can't do that. Like, what are you doing?” And he was convinced it was fine. He's like, “Oh, it's fine. It's, ‘GGA’ like, it's not a hard ‘ER,’ it's fine.”And she was like, “What?” So he's telling me this story and now I'm like, “What?” And I'm looking at him like, “No, it's not okay.” Like that's not good. It was hurtful that he felt so comfortable to just say that to me. I thought he had a better idea of me as a person. He thought it was okay, but I had to tell him it wasn't. And that definitely affected us because I felt very uncomfortable. And I found myself avoiding him.

NR: While I don’t  know the man in Ekelle’s story, I couldn't help but be slightly surprised that he asked Ekelle that. I was also surprised that he, a person of color, would use the “n” word in the first place, let alone defend his use of it. But Ekelle explains to me that while she has had great experiences dating black people and people of color, she doesn’t expect every black person or person of color to be respectful and not show signs of internalized racism. 

EKELLE: Other POC can discriminate as well and say terrible things, have stereotypes against you too. So yeah, I would get messages from brown men as well, Asian men too. It is a bit more frustrating when it comes from other POC because you think they would kind of be sensitive to the struggle, but I guess not. I had always thought that dating someone black would mean that they would relate more, but I was wrong. So I guess I've realized that not every black person gets the same education about race. I used to think that in dating someone who is also black, that they would have an understanding of what I go through and they would go through the same thing, but I've come to realize that not every black person has the same education at home about race and injustice. Sometimes they grew up in a household that has a colonial  mindset, even though they are black. So they are taught that they need to kind of have and act white to fit in. And then they're also taught that they can kind of credentialize themselves out of racism and keep achieving, keep achieving, and then people will respect you, but that's simply not true. And then it just makes it very hard when you have your own issues. This person who is also part of your racial group has different issues or just can't see your issues, or doesn't want to talk about your issues. It makes things  complicated. There's been times where I've dated black men who are a darker complexion than me, and they'll make comments about my light skin or my hair in a way that is supposed to be complimentary. Like I'm supposed to feel good about these things, but I don't. I remember just being with somebody I dated last year, we're kind of cuddled up on his couch and he was just kind of pressing me. And he was like, “I like how light your skin is.” And I was like, “Oh no, I can't believe he just said that,” because that for me is a turn off. That applies that you see some sort of power and separation within blackness and it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

NR: When I ask Ekelle if she’s ever had similar experiences with women, she tells me that thankfully she hasn’t, but this is before she tells me that she actually hasn’t had much luck with women online. For a while, Ekelle would identify as bisexual. It just seemed like the best word to describe her at that time. It wasn’t until she learned about the term pansexuality that Ekelle started identifiying as pansexual, but for some time, Ekelle was on dating apps for women searching for women as a self-identifying bisexual, which was a bit of a turn off for some women. 

EKELLE: You would talk to girls who identify as lesbian and they're not interested because they feel like you just can flick your bisexuality on and off. Lots of girls are basically like you're not serious and you're not interested in building actual relationships which is very hurtful.

NR: What Ekelle is explaining to me seems reminiscent of a term researchers came up with in 2018 called the Androcentric Desire Hypothesis, which is a theory that gay men and women perceive bisexual people as being more sexually attracted to men than they are to women. This theory was supported by a study where researchers asked gay men and lesbians questions about how they thought their community viewed bisexual men and bisexual women. What they discovered was that both gay men and lesbians believed that their community viewed bisexual women as more attracted to men than to women. The same was said about bi men. Researchers believe this might be because of the stereotypes that bi-women are “indecisive” or “incapable of monogamy” and that bi men are “gay men in denial.”Of course, not every lesbian or gay man believes this. Then there are the comments about Ekelle’s pansexuality  from straight men. 

EKELLE: A lot of times with a straight man and I tell them about my queerness, it's annoying because they'll just immediately bring it back to them and say like, “Oh, does that mean we're going to have a threesome?” Or, “When's the threesome?” Or, “Oh, I'm going to go find a girl for us.” And it's like, okay no. Like, I didn't tell you that so that you can state your interest in a threesome. I told you that because it's part of my identity and it's important for me. 

NR: But while Ekelle’s dating life may seem like it’s riddled with inappropriate comments and approaches, she’s still living her best sex life, whether that’s sleeping with people she’s in “situationships” with or pleasuring herself, which doesn’t need to involve that many toys in the bedroom. 

EKELLE: I’m all natural. With certain partners I'm seeing, sometimes toys are a part of our routine but personally I don't have a lot, I have some from when I was younger that I don't really use anymore.

NR: Lately though, masturbation hasn’t been on Ekelle’s mind. While it can be a form of self-care, Ekelle is understandably having trouble being in the mood for anything sexual because of the recent Black Lives Matter protests and the very publicized deaths of numerous black people. 

EKELLE: Some days you wake up almost wanting to cry or you do cry. And you're just wondering, “Okay, is this going to be a normal day where there's no more killings or am I going to care about something else?” So for me sexually, it makes me more so want to just kind of be cuddling and holding and reassurance rather than just to have like actual sex, just because I'm not in the mood and I’m sad. And if you're with someone who doesn't want to address it and doesn't want to talk about it with you and you don't have an outlet, then it just kind of manifests itself in different ways, the stress that you're feeling. So I don't know right now. I have a situationship, so that's good. I can talk to this person. So that's fine. I'm happy to share my thoughts with them and they share their thoughts back. So I feel good about that, but it's a situationship, you know. I'm not seeing this person every day. I've been finding it hard to date and meet someone new with coronavirus and with all of the issues of Black Lives Matter finally coming to the forefront. Right now I'm just in a space of observation or I'm just seeing like, “Okay, what's going to happen next.” This would definitely affect who I would date. Like, “Do you believe in the issues, do you believe in the cause? Do you see it and what are you doing about it?”

NR: Finding someone who can empathize and comfort Ekelle the way she wants to be comforted is important for her wellbeing. It’s also important that Ekelle is living a healthy sex life in order to help better manage the feelings she has when she has experiences of being othered because she is black or when she sees her community being marginalized. Because sex can be a destresser, there are many black women online that argue that a black woman finding sexual pleasure can be hugely beneficial for them especially living in a world where they are often marginalized. In 2019, Glamour published an article by writer A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez titled  “The Importance of Good Sex as a Black Woman.” Meadows-Fernandez spoke with experts, including the founders of Afrosexology, the online community, about how black women reclaiming their bodies and their sexuality is like an act of resistance. The idea is that if black women don’t have agency over their sexuality then how can we expect them to have political and economic agency? 

EKELLE: If you are able to communicate to your partner about something you don't like, and have confidence in that, well then maybe you can go to this boardroom and then say, “This idea that we're presenting isn't exactly helpful to the black community right now, or this is stereotypical.”

NR: There’s also the argument that we should be shifting our focus away from black suffering and focusing more on black pleasure. While being aware of the ways some black women are being oppressed in the dating world is important, we should also be paying attention to black sexual pleasure and black love. Media representation can make this difficult though, especially when it comes to film genres like the rom-com. Rom-coms have historically been white and heteronormative. and when we do have a rom-com with a mostly black cast, it’s usually marketed as its own separate category and rarely gets mentioned in the many “best rom-coms” lists. And on a less PG note, there are the many porn categories, themes, and plots where black men and women are arguably fetishized.

EKELLE: The way the titles are made are just offensive. It'll be like “Big black bitch gets fucked” and you're like, “Whoa, like that's a little too much. We didn't have to take it that far.” Like whoa. I see that with other racial groups as well. I think just in general, there is a problem with the way these movies are labeled, but yeah, the ones where there are black people involved, it's very much an emphasis, like, “Oh, big black cock does this” or “black women dominate this.” It's showing these stereotypes of, I guess, hypersexuality, and it's not helpful to the overall cause here. 

NR: Which is why investing in porn that doesn’t use the kind of language Ekelle mentioned is important and why watching shows like Insecure where black love and sex is celebrated is also a great option. According to Ekelle, being more selective about the content you consume can help eliminate any preconceived notions you might have about black people and sex. 

EKELLE: Definitely educate yourself. Like if you're somebody who wants to date interracially, go online, read a book, whatever it is you prefer, but really consider the source. Ideally you should be going to a black website, run by black people who are really sharing the experiences of a variety of other black people. So again, not seeing us as this monolith—We all have different experiences and identities and they can be very different. So I think that is something that would be very helpful. Learning about the issues going on right now. So if you don't understand the Black Lives Matter movement and what it's for, again, do research, don't rely on a black woman in your life to explain it all. It's exhausting and it's tiring and for some people retraumatizing. So just put that research onto yourself. And then when you are meeting a black person, really just try to hear their stories and experiences like don't assume at all, just ask, don't make any sort of preconceived notions heard. Just hear what we have to say and treat us as if you treat anybody else.

NATALIE: And that was our episode. You can follow Ekelle on Instagram at @officialekelle, that’s Ekelle, e-k-e-l-l-e. This podcast was produced by me, Natalie Rivera. I am also the host and creator. Ben Quiles is our audio engineer. Shyanne Lopez did copy and fact check. Chelsea Kwoka is our vocal coach. Music is by Miguel Gutierrez. You can find more of his music online under his artist name MAGH. Our marketing team includes Gabriela Sanchez and Alissa Medina. Mouna Coulibaly is our sponsorship manager. Special thanks to the talented Britt Middleton who was our consulting writer on this episode. You can find her work at brittmiddleton.com. Also, check out our sponsor Fembot Magazine. And if you’re curious about the articles and studies we cited on this episode, check out our website howifckpodcast.com. That is “howifck,” without the “u” so “fck” “podcast.com.” And please, if you like this podcast hit subscribe. Give it a rating. Leave a review. Anything is much appreciated. Thank you again and stay tuned for our next episode.