Auntie Conversations: Black Women Talk Sex, Self-Care, and Illness
July 12, 2016“You’re just being nosy,” one of my aunts said, after I asked her if she enjoyed having sex with her husband. I assured her this was all part of a research project on the intimate lives of Black women. She relented a bit, but still gave me the side-eye.
I’ve been engaged in archival research for the last year. While the personal letters of Black women writer-activists and the newspapers of the Third World Women’s Alliance are remarkable and informative, they provide little insight into the intimate lives and sexual desires of Black women. After all, sex improves our mood and alleviates stress: That immediate gratification of pleasure and release is a way to practice self-care.
So on a recent trip home to Los Angeles, I asked my aunties to share their stories with me at a little gathering they threw in my honor.
And they did.