Do you think I’m a Nasty Girl?

The Black women who pioneered sensuality in entertainment, music, and its influence in modern culture

Black American women across the entertainment spectrum expressing their sensuality in music, dance, and cultural traditions

  Black women need to be focused on being positive role models for the community. Don’t we have enough women who advertise their bodies for attention?

It’s been two years since I partied in my lingerie with my homegirls. Dancing under the full moon in Savage X Fenty toasting to a new chapter in my life, renewed and happy to celebrate without judgment and fear. Day by day, Black women enjoying their autonomy is attacked and ridiculed. Maintaining duality can be a struggle and the male gaze objectifying women everywhere, has compromised simple pleasures and interests. Society forces us to exist within the limitations of respectability and conservatism outlined by male fragility. Black women are either oversexualized or ostracized by simply existing in spaces that highlight sensuality and hyper femininity.

Nothing really starts to make sense until you discover your preferred manner of sensuality. The truth is there is no ideal expression of feminine representation, for it is a spectrum. The sole purpose of our existence in the space of creativity and sensuality is not to be attractive. For Black women, there is equity and freedom when we tap into the nature of our expression with our bodies, dressing style, and personal preferences. 

An autographed photo of Toni Elling, burlesque dancer

 What is the sole purpose of attempting to distort the umbrella of feminine representation? Sensuality is not a privilege afforded only to the conventionally attractive or non-Black women. It’s iconic for Donna Summer to moan in a song or girl group, Xscape to melody about infidelity with a man in a committed relationship so why was it so hard to accept seasoned artist, Chloe Bailey being hyper feminine and express explicit sensuality as an adult woman? It may be a new day, but it is still the same old song. Two things can exist at once and multifaceted interests has already proven that one woman’s comfort level has no direct influence on another.

What do you get out of being scantily dressed in public? Confidence thrives in comfort and experimentation. After our 20s, society requires women to leave their explorative nature creating incompetence, discomfort, and unanswered questions that turn into self-hatred, misogynoir, and prejudice. After years of guarding our bodies from birth to accepting everyone’s entitlement to our perspective without pushback, we’re only allotted 10 years to use our free will. When Black women dress provocatively embracing their beauty that’s unconventional to the manufactured norms around respectability and maturity, we pay respect to the influence of women who alchemized their beauty and utilized provocation to challenge boundaries and redefine sensuality and beauty.

When young, female artist like Normani combined her sensual music with dancing and attire displaying her transition to womanhood she was met with disdain and criticism. A Black woman be sexually suggestive and overtly sensual without reproach. Toni Elling, when (real name Rosita Sims) pursued a passion that many wouldn’t describe as “respectable” work when she quit her typing career in the 1960s to become a burlesque performer. Uncompromising and unapologetic rap subgenre, coochie rap is more than sexually explicit lyrics and beautiful women dancing suggestive in front of a camera. It’s birthright music. Anything a woman desires, there’s musical affirmation. The energy artists have planted into music has grown into a mosaic of enlightenment and insight throughout the history of music. If I wanted to feel more beautiful, confident, motivated there’s an endless catalog of music from the Heather Hunter to Cupcakke. Black women that create joy, generate pleasure, entertainment, and freedom are generating a power that can only be found within. Even in the face of racism and mockery, Black women will continue to carve themselves in history built off beauty and allure.

 Burlesque performer, Miss Topsy

The criticism Black women have been subjected to in comparison to non-Black women result to a biased, baseless beliefs. With the scarcity of third spaces and the constant backhanded advocacy, some Black women are returning to chattel religion. As they begin to reinvent themselves under a floor length skirt and an e-book on femininity and etiquette, there is no reward for robbing ourselves of uninhibited expression and sensuality. It is a Black woman’s birthright to openly claim their bodily autonomy via creativity and express themselves that platform their sensuality. What do we stand to gain by upholding a system that was built from the stereotypes and unfounded beliefs about our bodies and features? Leaving something to the imagination only has led to an increase of intimate partner violence and sexual assault among all socioeconomic backgrounds in the Black community.

We’re heading for the inevitable expansion to reimagine womanhood. A stripper and a bank teller stand to have a lot more in common if they simply unsubscribed to the monolithic caste system with a singular primary function that serves to punish those who push the boundaries of what is socially acceptable behavior. Our power lies in the sanctity of how we express our prowess without the threat of judgement from people pleasers and male centric systems. Modern women are the daughters of the same women that are now surprisingly labeled as ‘classy’ and ‘modest’ when in fact they were treated oppositely in their prime.

What we do or don’t do isn’t a litmus test to receive respect. Nobody gives a damn about being a wife in the club wearing a micro skirt screaming their favorite rap lyrics at 1 in the morning. Nor is participating in activities like pole dancing is going to diminish your chances of finding romantic love in the future. It is time that our sense of expression be released from of conformity and patriarchal ideals. There is no power or self-fulfillment within the walls of establishments that center and praise principles that degrade consenting, adult women. When our validation lies with the approval of others that is when we jumpstart our personal path to failure.