Being feminine is being desired and hated at the same time. A feminine body or mind is expected to be open and receiving to everything from others’ emotional baggage to sexual fantasies of total strangers. At the same time, receptivity (not that this defines femininity by any means) is considered weak and inferior. The result of this is often violence. Femininity is to be present for other’s needs and then destroyed for its perceived weaknesses.

Being feminine and of color is especially dangerous. Not just because we are a walking target for racist, stereotyped sexual fantasies but because so often we are blamed for being that.

--Eva Rivera, "Processes of Feminization: Becoming Myself"

On Nicki Minaj.

I listened to/saw the video for the first half-ish of Nicki Minaj's "Stupid Hoe" last night. I say the first half because I actually couldn't bring myself to sit through the entire thing. It was like torture; I love myself too much to subject myself to such foolishness. Some things can't be unseen/heard. 

It's like, okay, from an academic perspective, I would really like to like Nicki Minaj. Or at the very least, to be able to appreciate her and what she's trying to do. I want to embrace her like I embrace Rihanna, for owning her sexuality and putting herself out there with an agency not often afforded to women, and particularly not to women of color, even in 2012. I want to applaud her for being the only female member of Young Money, and on an even greater scale for like, reintroducing the female rapper, whom we haven't really seen since Eve and Lil' Kim disappeared a while back. I want to commend her for being unashamedly and unabashedly herself in the face of an entertainment system that tries its damndest to mass produce creativity.

I want to have all this respect and maybe even some love for Nicki Minaj. I really do. But I just...find it hard to. I have three songs by the Black Barbie in my music library, "Fly," "Your Love," and "Super Bass". She is featured in three other songs in my library: Gyptian's "Hold Yuh," Sean Kingston's "Letting Go," and Trey Songz's "Bottoms Up." I have few major issues with any of these songs, but they're but a fraction of Minaj's work overall.

It's like, okay, first off she just kind of freaks me out, with her ridiculously colored wigs/makeup and her incessant tics in her music videos. But, as my blog description proclaims, I believe in the power of making audiences uncomfortable to inspire change, so I'm not going to knock her for freaking me out. And as a full-figured woman, I definitely appreciate a nice rack, but...she's just got too much artificiality going on there for me. But that's just a personal preference and I'm not gonna come out and say I'm like, against cosmetic surgery entirely, because it really does change some people's lives for the better. I just kind of wish she embraced her natural body, but hey, this isn't enough to write her off entirely. 

It's songs like "A$$" and "Stupid Hoe" and "Did It On 'Em" that get me. It's not that "A$$" is "too sexual" or that any of these songs are "too aggressive" or "too aggressively _______," it's that they're just too damn vulgar for my tastes. (And the fact that "Stupid Hoe"'s entire chorus is "You're a stupid hoe, you're a, you're a stupid hoe" is just problematic on all sorts of levels.) It might not even matter what your message is if it's so buried in seemingly unnecessary vulgarity that people can't find it. I am dubious of the idea that intent matters more than consequence. 

And then, okay, can we talk about this Barbie thing? Sure, people should be allowed to create their own identities and embrace them and yada yada. That's all well and good and I generally support it, but can we take a moment to analyze the identity she's putting forward? She's the "Black Barbie." Pause. Barbies, by definition, aren't real. They're toys, children's playthings to be used in whatever way the play-er wants and then tossed into some dark box, only to see the light of day again when the play-er decides. They have no will, no volition. They make no choices. They are only used and thrown away, used and left to collect dust. I wasn't really upset if Barbie's head came off because I combed her hair too hard or if my teething little brother chewed on her feet, because Barbie was a thing. By aligning herself with that image, Nicki's objectifying herself, and I can't really see any reason why doing it to herself should be any better than a man (or a patriarchal society) doing it for her. And to add another level, Barbie dolls represent anatomical impossibilities and are one of the first ways in which society indoctrinates young girls with standards of beauty they'll never be able to meet, which it could be argued that Nicki is also playing into by modifying her body with implants. 

So many women have so much love for Nicki Minaj, but it's not really clear to me that she has love for us, or even for herself.

And rather than sharing any of Nicki's music here, because I'm not sure how comfortable I am with it on my page even in a critical sense, I'm going to share this poem by Jasmine Mans, whom Josh Bennet told me to check out way back when I met him at the Mellon Mays mixer in December:

Smh

So when I was checking FOX's website to see when Bones comes back (NOT TIL NOVEMBER WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!), I noticed that they have a new show coming out called I Hate My Teenage Daughter. And then I saw today that MTV is producing a new show called Dumb Girls which for all intents and purposes seems to be about a group of normal 20-somethings. I'm pretty sure I'm disgusted with the image of femininity being marketed by production companies right now; not that that should surprise me in any way.

Hmm, I love writing scandalous blog posts.

I saw The Vagina Monologues for the first time this past February, and almost every performance resonated with me on a deep and self-loving level. All but one monologue, in fact. And that monologue was about something that is regarded as a rather hush-hush topic (well, okay, they ALL are; that's the point)--this particular monologue was on vaginas and hair. Basically, the woman telling this story had never shaved her snatch until her husband begged and pleaded, and when she gave in she thought it looked weird and unnatural and having sex suddenly became painful and the take away message is that "You can't love vaginas unless you love hair!" or something to that effect. 

And I was sitting there like

uhhhhhhh...Excuse me!?

Because, as you all know, I love hair. And it's probably unsurprising that I like to show my nani a lot of love. I just...am very specific about the way in which these two things are allowed to meet. Sure, sometimes I get lazy and embrace the natural look all over, but I have to whip that shit into shape on the regular. And by whip, I mean shave. 
And I would now like to make the counterargument that shaving is just another way to show your ladyflower some love. First off, there is no other activity in which I spend so much time/attention on its external features, getting to re-know the surface and all its intricacies where stray hairs might be hiding. When I'm done, all that's left is a narrow-ish strip in the middle and I love the way it looks, bold and demanding your attention, reminding you/me that I'm a grown-ass woman while the rest of it feels so smooth and new. Like a snake shedding its skin, shaving unearths a hidden beauty, a newness I just can't keep my hands off of. Another thing The Vagina Monologues taught me to do is to really see myself (with the help of a small mirror), and I love the way it looks with no obstructions. Then, all day long, while the delta of my body gets re-acquainted with its bare self and I walk around feeling skin touching skin, I get more and more turned on. That first night is perfection, mostly because I've been thinking about it all day. I agree with the woman from the monologue about one thing, that it sucks when it grows back, but hey...then I just get to enjoy this again. 
And let's consider the alternatives. Using any kind of hair removal lotion on my sensitive bits sounds like it's just asking for an infection. Ew. I could get it waxed, but having some stranger's hands all up and through my business and then providing no pleasure, only pain like I've never felt in my life? Uh, no. Not going to happen. The getting covered in warm sticky goo part sounds enjoyable, but I've heard people tell me they sobbed during their first Brazilian. No thank you. Pretending I'm fabulously wealthy for a moment, I could get laser hair removal surgery, but I feel like I would stop appreciating the blissfully nude feeling pretty fast. Like, if you live somewhere where it never rains, do you love the sunshine as much as someone who goes through a long hard winter? 

Long story short, I don't see nothing wrongggggg with a little trim and shaveeee...   

A revolutionary concept: "Power through candor."

I'm pretty sure that's what I aspire to practice every single day. I'm excited to share in Lidia-Anain's new project, SexLoveJoy, a platform dedicated to that concept, specifically through:

• Women candidly answering difficult questions about sexuality, gender, love, relationships and life.
• Women revealing their secret desires, fears, thoughts and struggles.
• Women celebrating sexuality, gender, love and relationships in ALL their forms.
• Women exposing common threads that unite us as women.
• Women promoting respect for the differences among us by building AND maintaining a SAFE venue for ALL women to tell their stories.
• Women being brave, candid and sharing our power with one another.

According to the website, "SexLoveJoy is a video web series and collection of essays in which brave women fearlessly share and talk about things most keep hidden away in their secret places."

That sounds like exactly my cup of tea. If you'd like to get involved, use my referral link!

http://sexlovejoy.com/yqy9f 

I-can't-believe-someone-thought-this-was-okay advertising strikes again! (NSFW)

Why yes, in case you were confused, this is a White woman lying on a bed of naked, contorted Black men, in an advertisement for luxurious handmade bedding. 

"Merge into the colours of the south. Feel the beating heart of the city of light at night. Breathe the scent of the forest. Feel the briny of the breakers on your skin." Funny, I don't associate any of those things with the naked, contorted bodies of Black men. Do you?

My first question is whether these men are intended to be interpreted as being alive or dead. I'm not sure which is more problematic: If they're alive, every single stereotype about the hypersexualized savage Black man out to rape and ravage the pure White woman comes into play here. I realize this is 2011 where interracial relationships are no longer condemned and denigrated to the degree they once were, and could perhaps be less of a big deal in France than they are here (this is a French ad), but...anyone who knows anything about the history of race relations should recognize this damaging trope and not try to replicate/propagate it. Or if I'm supposed to view this from the liberated empowered woman standpoint, are they her playthings? I can't get behind that either. If they're alive, are they/their work supposed to represent the labor that went into creating this luxurious bedding? Dozens of Black men working to make something for one White woman...do I have to say the s-word? (Their contortion does make me think of the arrangement of certain ships...) At the very least this smacks of all sorts of oppression.

If they're corpses, which I hadn't considered until someone pointed it out in the comments on the Sociological Images post that alerted me to this ad, then we're dealing with the Black-body-as-disposable notion that society has never really seemed to shake. They almost look as if they were tossed into some kind of mass grave. Were they worked to death to create the luxury this White woman desires so? Were they sexed to death in some crazy orgy that created the "heavenly" aura the woman finds herself in?

I suppose the best possible way to interpret this is that Black men's bodies are supposed to be a luxury, which is at the very least a kind of rare positive association. But even that has objectification written all over it. PEOPLE cannot be luxuries. THINGS are luxuries. Black man = person. Sheets = thing. Let's not equate the two, okay?

I approve very highly of The Good Men Project.

It's an online magazine about masculinity and gender issues from the perspectives of progressive men. I think the world needs more things like this. I wish the ratio of women to men in my Sociology of Gender class hadn't equaled than the student-faculty ratio for the class. I wish that most of my conversations about masculinity weren't female-dominated. One of my big problems with feminism [I know you're all like, damn, how many big problems with feminism does she have?], or maybe just with the way feminism has been perverted over the years, is the tendency of feminists to condemn the masculine. 

Tad Hargrave exemplifies this beautifully in this article from TGMP:

"If you were to sit down the average progressive male and ask them, “What are the gifts that women and the feminine bring to the world? What are the gifts that sexism, patriarchy and oppression have blocked the world from receiving?” The list would be long. Of course, there are dangers of conflating women and the feminine together directly–these lines are often not so clear. One can be in a woman’s body and deeply masculine and vice versa. But still, the list would be long. The gift of birth. The gift of their cycle. The gift of nurturing. Deep intuition and sensitivity. An amazing capacity for depth of feeling. The way that women are often the ones to carry a community–often the invisible giants on whose shoulders a community rides.

But if you were to ask the same man, “What are the gifts that the men and the masculine energy brings?” You would often see silence. And shame. Answers come but . . . not as readily. There’s a deep sense, in this culture, that men are a bad animal. A sense that “we don’t need men’s protection–we need protection from the men.” "

If we've reached a point where we feel that men as a collective cannot be celebrated, then we are doing something horribly wrong. Yes, patriarchy exists, and needs to be eradicated, but it doesn't afflict all men, and afflicts many women. Patriarchy is not a "men's issue," just like the work-family-balance isn't a "woman's issue". These are people's issues, society's issues. 

He also quotes a progressive female friend of his, who says the following:

“I’ll tell you something many of us women talk about in these circles for conscious change. We’re surrounded by sensitive new age men and what we really want sometimes is a man who could just bend us over the couch. Yes, we want men to be more sensitive. But sensitive to US as women. Sensitive to our needs and desires and body language. Not overly sensitive and taking everything personally. I need a man who’s solid in himself enough to notice what’s happening over here–not someone who’s obsessed with himself and what other people think of him.” 

 I added the italics there, because for a very long time I've felt like it makes me a bad...person-who-is-conscious-of-the-problems-of-patriarchy to want to be "man-handled" (I wish there was a better term) from time to time. I'm almost uncomfortable asking this question, but I've learned that questions that make you feel that way are the most important ones to ask, so: Does every action that could be construed as being based on male privilege (or white privilege, or class privilege, etc.) have to be interpreted as such? It seems to me that being progressive should be about finding ways to do these actions respectfully. Like, I don't mind being hit on as long as dude is coming correct. I like to wear makeup and flowers in my hair, and I don't think this makes me any more or less of a woman. And sometimes I want "a roughneck n***a, mandingo in the sack/ who ain't afraid to pull my hair and spank me from the back" -- LL Cool J feat. LeShaun, "Doin It". I just also want to be able to hold insightful conversations and go on romantic outings and just kick it on a couch somewhere with him. All of that can be confusing for me, so I can't even imagine what the conflicting messages must be like for guys.

I'm sure I'm supposed to find something wrong with this

or at least I would be supposed to if I was a hardcore enough feminist, but mannnn...I think this shit is hilarious. Mad props to B for sharing it with me.

Taboo Subject Number Next

Disclaimer: I am going to talk about porn. If this offends you, there is non-sexual social commentary in the previous post; keep scrolling.

I am talking about porn for two reasons. 1) Because one of my favorite bloggers, Ev'Yan over at Sex, Love, and Liberation, asked me to, and 2) because I think it's stupid that society treats it as something that shouldn't be openly talked about, especially by a woman. And we all know I don't stand for stupid. 

So, Ev'Yan, followers, people of the internet: I have a declaration to make. I, too, am a woman who enjoys watching porn! I also like reading erotic literature [the real stuff, though I'll settle for a "romance novel" if I'm feeling particularly sappy], but the visuals get me off faster. When I have a nice extended period of time to devote to self-pleasure, I like to read naughty stories with real porn playing on a separate tab so I can hear it--the combo of words and sounds drives me crazy. 
She asked what my first experience with porn was like. I'm not sure I've told anyone this story in full, so yay secrets time! I was twelve. This may seem shockingly young to most of you, but it should be noted that getting my period at the age of 9 meant learning about my body very early, including how to make it feel good. I had been masturbating for quite some time already, but I discovered porn when I was twelve. I discovered it by accident, with my female cousin (age 11 at the time). We had been watching some movie on Cinemax earlier in the day [small things I miss about living in a two-parent household: we could once afford movie channels] and then we put a DVD in to watch with my little brother and sister. The movie finished after whatever time Cinemax becomes "Skinemax," and when we switched back to TV mode from Video mode, two White couples were just starting to get busy in the middle of a campsite. There were children present (my brother and sister, who were 7 and 8 at the time), so we switched the channel as soon as we recognized that there were boobies on the screen--they barely had enough time to say "Ewww." Then, since it was late, my cousin and I sent the kids upstairs to bed, then settled back down in front of the TV. I don't remember how we came to the agreement that we were going to turn back to Cinemax, but we turned the volume nearly all the way down [the better to potentially hear people coming down the stairs] and got under the blankets we were laying on on the floor and pushed the last button on the remote. It should be noted that this cousin and I talked about sex a lot--whenever one of us would hear something from a friend or catch a glimpse of something we shouldn't have seen in a movie, we would dutifully report it to the other the next time we hung out. Our Barbies had sexytime. So this didn't seem weird at all. We were laying on our stomachs, eyes glued to screen, and sometime during the movie I realized that I was more turned on than I had ever been in my entire [short] life, and my hand began to drift downward. I tried to not be that into it, lest she notice, but eventually I could tell she was paying attention and so I stopped and slowly brought my hand back up. When it was back outside the covers, she grabbed my wrist, pulled my hand towards her face, and inhaled, then said, "You nasty." I gave her an I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about look, but remember feeling relieved that if she recognized the actions and the scent, that meant she did it too.
We began to seek out porn late at night whenever she was sleeping over at my house, which was pretty often back then. Eventually my family cancelled its subscription to Cinemax, though, and my days of watching porn with another person were dead until I was with J the summer after my senior year of high school. He noticed that watching people give blowjobs turns me on. (It still does, as long as there's no spitting.) Oh that's right, Ev'Yan also wanted to know what kind of porn I like.
I'm pretty open: I have gotten off to M-F, M-M, F-F, M-M-F, M-F-F, MtoF-M, all kinds of crazy orgies...I think that's about it. I watch two-person straight porn the most frequently by far, though. I can't fuck with old people, very overweight people, BDSM, or gang-banging though. Or anything illegal. 

"My porn preference says nothing about who I am as a person; yours most likely doesn’t either.People like what they like because they like it, & to have our identities wrapped around the kind of erotic images we gaze upon is dangerous. I believe that the porn we view has little to do with the inner workings of our personalities & more to do with raw, instinctual carnality.

We fuck, therefore we enjoy images of fucking." --Ev'Yan

In light of that, I feel comfortable revealing to you all that my go-to kind of porn is pretty degrading, the kind that feminists and really just women everywhere are/should probably be against. I really really love public-drunk-party-girl sex. Like, in the middle of the kind of wild crazy house party one associates with "college" but I will never actually see the likes of, when people just start getting it on on the couch in the living room with a crowd watching/cheering/recording. The person-who-cares-deeply-about-the-state-of-humanity and was-she-really-in-a-state-to-consent in me is shut up entirely by the wannabe-exhibitionist who is entirely enthralled. I'm also a big fan of threesomes, particularly if they feature an MMF train. Nuru massage porn is the shit too--I actually wanna try that shit. I tend to watch more White porn than Black porn, just because it's harder to find Black porn that isn't audibly degrading to the woman involved, imho. Visually, I'm a big fan of amateur porn and will turn it off if there is music in the background distracting me from the sounds of sex, but when it comes to erotica I like there to be a story and can get pretty caught up in like, series. There is also one genre of erotica that I love to read but would never watch porn of because it would be disturbing, harmful to the people involved, and illegal. I'm not telling any more than that.

Nail update

Typing feels so weird now that my nails are long enough to hit the keys before my fingertips. I love my neon nail polish though!

"Every girl learns to hate her body by watching other women hate theirs or hate on each other’s." -- Lisa Bloom

 Ladies, look in the mirror and repeat after me, "Girl, you are gorgeous."

Stephen Colbert is winning so hard

in the game of my affections right now. 

I wanted to blog about these ads last week, but didn't know how to type STEREOTYPICAL, RACIST, and CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE in large enough letters. Or how to convey that I'm fucking sick and tired of women being told that their bodies aren't good enough at every damn turn. SUMMER'S EVE, YOU ARE CREATING A PROBLEM HERE TO INCREASE YOUR REVENUE (and exacerbating lots of other problems in the process). So much shaking my goddamn head here. 

But that's just me whining. Colbert did something so much better than whine. He launched a counter-attack [though I must say that the fact that simply making a very similar ad tailored to men reveals the ridiculous nature of the situation just goes to show how accustomed we've become to women's bodies being problematized in the media...]: 

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

 

Surprisingly feminine moment:

OMG NAILS.

I can actually barely handle how gorgeous these are. I could totally see myself rocking a nail style like that. It almost makes me want to grow my nails out and try. 

Wait. Hold on. Almost? Do we play almost, Maya? Almost doesn't count. 

CHALLENGE. ACCEPTED.

Possibly the weirdest thing recent circumstances have changed:

The arrival of my period is now something to be anticipated and internally celebrated, recognized as an accomplishment of some sort, rather than dreaded and seen as a curse. It's very strange for it to suddenly serve a purpose, even if that purpose is to tell me the same thing it's been telling me every 29ish days for the last 11 years. Of course, that yay I'm glad it's here feeling vanishes as soon as the first cramp comes and then I want it to be over ASAP like always, but hey. Gotta take the bad with the good.

A Failed Experiment in Femininity

I did a very uncharacteristic thing yesterday. Well, I suppose it started two days ago, really. I was sitting in class daydreaming about the-booskie-and-I's upcoming trip to Broadway, trying to put an outfit together in my head, and I got the random desire to paint my nails for the trip. Then, instead of stepping back and asking myself wtf was happening to me, like I did when I thought a frilly floral nightgown was cute, I actually went to CVS and bought not only nail polish, but clippers and a file too. Then I sat down for over half an hour yesterday morning and painted my nails, trying very hard to get them just right, and feeling more and more frustrated the longer I spent attempting perfection. Eventually I had to leave for class, so I blew on my nails like I've seen my sister do and headed out the door. 
My fingers looked...foreign as I typed notes in class. I couldn't decide whether it was good or bad, it was just very very different. I kept inspecting my hands, as if trying to make sure they were still mine, during lunch, and K noticed and asked me what I was doing. I told him I'd painted my nails, and J commented about how I was trying to impress my man, or something to that effect. K grabbed my hand to inspect my nails, and chuckled at my apparent inability to do this simple feminine task. Even J said we were going to have to work on my nail painting skills. K said they were "uneven", and scoffed when I tried to describe how difficult it was. Dab and make a line. Repeat. It sounded so simple when he said it.
So I went back to my room and took it off (well, most of it. Some got stuck in like, the crevices of my fingernails and wouldn't come out no matter how much nail polish remover I used...) and began to try again. Dab and make a line. Repeat. But how to deal with the giant glob that comes out on the first dab? Remove. Try shaking excess off before making the first line. Now it looks streaky. Remove. *Gives up*
This painting my nails business just seemed like a crazy new trying-to-be-a-girl endeavor that I shouldn't have been embarking on. I kind of liked the way it looked, while simultaneously recognizing that painted nails did not seem like Maya in any way. I don't understand where these new stereotypically feminine desires are springing from; does simply having a boyfriend inspire some inherent need to be overwhelmingly girly? I'm practicing emphasized femininity, to use a fancy term I learned in class. He obviously didn't initially like me for my particularly feminine ways...this is coming from inside me somewhere, and I don't know how I feel about it.

Period.

Dear Pad Commercial Designers,

Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but your vials of

blue liquid convince me of absolutely nothing.

Touchably dry, my bloodstained fingertips scoff.

Your free floating cartoon pad drifts like a magic carpet

across my screen, and as it loop-de-loops, it promises

to stretch to fit my body’s natural curves.

Problem with that statement number one:

You sound like a Pamper’s Cruisers commercial.

Two: someone once told me a “regular” sized pad is designed

around the body of a size 6 woman, and I don’t like

what you’re implying about my “irregularity”.

And seriously, anyone who was just dying for a thong pad

is in dire need of a reality check.

But don’t think you’re getting off the hook that easily,

Tampon Commercial Designers. No, I’ve got a complaint or two for you.

Who are these actresses you cast? What menstruating woman in her right mind

really wants to lounge flirtatiously on a pool chaise in a bikini

between overly muscular gentlemen, or chase her dog barefoot

through the wet sand, or go clubbing in the tightest of black dresses,

or nail that difficult new yoga pose while sporting white spandex?

Sorry to be the one to break it to ya, but no one trusts you that well.

And just because you make it tinier (read: easier to leak) and dress it up

in a polka-dotted case does not make me want to show it off to my class,

and I won’t be the first person in line to twirl in slow motion through the field

of flowers or splash gaily in the waterfall either. Now is not a good time to discuss purity.

Of course, not everyone paints periods as a pocket full of sunshine, but Midol and Pamprin

Commercial Designers, you’re next on my list. If I see one more woman get half out of bed

then fall back in, or poke her water weight in the mirror/struggle to button her work pants,

or moan in agony while grabbing her waist/back/head, I’m going to scream.

Yes, it hurts. We all know that. We’ve all known that from tender ages of innocence.

We also know that the cute tight pants are out of commission for a few days, and no matter

how tight the budget is, that morning coffee is a must this week. We know we’ll be crying at

the sappy movies and not having the energy to move, but the real world expects us

up at our normal times and moving at our normal rates and not taking twice as many bathroom

breaks because we either feel like we’re back in diapers or our tampon is so small we can’t feel it

and that’s worrying but either way popping two pills doesn’t stop the feeling that we’re dying

so either show the woman with the clenched jaw and the halfhearted smile who suffers invisibly 

or shut the fuck up.

That last bit is meant for all of you.

Signed,

Your Consumers

BIG Questions

I'm wrestling with two pretty big and somewhat linked issues right now, as I move towards a better and deeper self-understanding. I suppose it's somewhat impossible to study college's effect on student ide entity without pondering my own identity and the way Princeton is molding it. Anddddd I guess one of the purposes of even starting this blog was to get back in touch (or perhaps even in touch for the first time) with who I really am. 

Well I can't know who I am until I can definitively answer these questions:

1) Is my blackness or my womanness more important to me? Which comes first, and is that firstness justified?

2) Fact: I might actually be more non-black than I am of African descent. What does that mean for my identity as a black person? And for my ideas about black people in general?

Relatedly, I identify as a Black American. I don't like the term African-American as relating to ME, because I feel it should be reserved for first/second/third generation immigrants, like most other -American groups use the hyphenation, and that does not apply to me or my people. Not to denounce my African roots in any way, but I'm not even sure the majority of my blood comes from the motherland (I'm also German, French Canadian, Native American, Portuguese, and probably a few other random things). .I feel like the term African-American doesn't give respect to the fact that my ancestors are not all just from Africa. They come from... all over the world. My skin is not that of an African's. Neither is my hair. I know from conversations with my African friends, neither are the vast majority of my ideas and perceptions of the world. Those things and more all come from the eclectic blend of cultures and heritages within me, and within most of us who have descended from slavery--we all know that wasn't an institution built upon preserving the separation of the races--and I believe "black American" is the most fitting term (of those we have to choose from) to represent that blend. I also like "multi-generational African-Americans", a term Imani Perry tossed out in precept last week...

I always chuckle slightly to myself when I put a mug or a glass down after taking a sip of my drink, and see the perfect imprint of my lower lip marking the rim of the glass in some shade of red or brown lipstick. I like the way seeing that makes me feel. I can't really explain it, but it makes me feel...adult somehow. "Strange/ like I [am] a woman or sumthin". Kind of sexy, too, even though those fancy (read: expensive) lipsticks that don't rub off are supposed to be sexier now. I can understand that, but I like the idea of leaving a little piece of me behind on my mug, or on that spot where a guy's neck becomes his collarbone [my favorite spot to kiss]. A lip-print I might be identified by. A reminder that I am a woman who takes the time to look "put together", and I was here.

So they say real women have curves

...and as much as I hate the "real women" qualifier (what the hell are fake women, anyway?), I'm pretty sure I've got that part down pat. 

...and yet, a close friend recently informed me that perhaps the guys in my life don't see me as a girl. Not the way I'd like them to, you know? This has caused me to re-evaluate the time I spend with my boys. I've come to the decision that I play one of two roles that come quite naturally to me around them: either hanging out as just another one of the guys, or as a worried protector motherly type. I'm either in the middle of watching a football game or debating the ethics of strip clubs, or worrying about a new injury and whether they're getting enough sleep. I suppose neither of these things is inherently sexy. 
I told said friend that I don't see how me hanging out with a few guys I'm close to is any different than me hanging out with a few girls I'm close to, and she says that therein lies the issue. Should there be a difference? 
I don't see why. I'd rather be thought of as being ME than as just a girl.