Why is the black woman seen as a sex object?

Photo: “Black women are not meat”

Simple, thought-provoking and straight to the point post by Brazilian journalist Carol Patrocínio. In this piece, she touches on many of the same topics discussed by BW of Brazil on this blog.

By Carol Patrocínio

When you think of a black woman, what is the image that comes to mind? Many people would answer that it is the “mulata” of Carnival, with pernão (big legs), bundão (big butt), peitão (big breasts) and half naked. Other people would say they are the maids of the novelas (soap operas). You can even have a group that will tell you that they remember beautiful women, models, actresses or anonymous, who have a style and unique beauty.

Unfortunately, the latter group is the smallest of all. Our society, although it pretends that it’s not, is racist and still sees blacks as inferior. And this happens not only with the jokes that the black man is a thief, but also comments that are false appraisals. Why is the black man seen as being well hung, a stud? Because the society believes that that’s all that he knows.

And then we got on the subject today: why are black women are seen as objects? Because, culturally, the black woman was seen as a servant and those that were emphasized for their beauty were sexually abused in the era of slavery– which often was also used as a means to survive amidst all the violence of the time.

Now is the time that you say I’m tripping and it that this doesn’t happen anymore, right? So check out this story idea I got from a friend. She is black, pretty, middle class, hangs out with well spoken, educated people that are part of that stereotype of people who don’t have any prejudice.

“I want to bring up the topic of the day on the stereotype of the black woman, of her always being seen as less attractive or only being good for sex. I live in a world of white people who don’t even look at me. And I think it’s more common (to see) white women with black men because women are less connected to this question of standards of beauty, they see the man as a whole, but I notice that white men don’t find black women attractive. I observe this by the conversations I hear at work, for example.”

And all this really happens! I’ve heard many men say that they aren’t turned on by black women and I never understood the real reason for this, until I started accepting prejudice as the main cause of all this.

It may be a matter of the model that the media imposes, but change is in the hand of each person and is not something that comes only from external stimuli. Nobody is forced to find the/a black woman beautiful, of course, but it’s always good to think of where your standards of beauty are coming from and the things you believe.

A black woman is not “hotter”, she’s not always ready for sex and doesn’t live only for this. A black woman is a woman – it should not even be necessary to specify the color of the woman we’re talking about – and has other desires, plans and expectations, as all people do.

Accepting this role and this prejudice makes us accomplices of discrimination and doesn’t help in transforming the world and relationships between people.

* – Photo taken from the 2012 “Marcha das Vadias” rally in São Paulo.  Known as the “Slut Walk” in other countries, it is a movement that arose from a protest held on April 3, 2011 in Toronto, Canada, and has since been internationalized, being held in various parts of the world. The “Marcha das Vadias/Slut Walk” protests against the belief that women are rape victims because they asked for it because of the clothing they wear. During the March/Marcha, women not only wear everyday clothing, but also clothes that are considered provocative like sheer blouses, lingerie, skirts, high heels or only a bra. Taken from Wikipedia page in Portuguese.

Source: Yahoo Mulher

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