So... What's Your Sleep Number?

I've had several conversations that have led me to this topic. From Paul Brunson's MDMQ the other week, to having a brief on-line chat with a real life male virgin, and having one of my guy friends tell me he assumes most sexually active women have slept with at least 20 men by this stage in life 0_0; I can't help but wonder how important it is to know how many people your mate has slept with.

Have you ever asked someone how many sexual partners they've had? Does it matter? Is it the type of question that buries itself in the back of your mind? Or do you just not care? If someone asked you, how would you feel? Would you be taken aback? Offended? Would you be honest?

So many questions, so few answers. I've personally never asked a guy this question, partially because I think I never really wanted to know the answer. I blindly assume most men who are sexually active have slept with more women than I would be comfortable hearing about, so I'd rather not ask because I'd end up like the guy in the above video. As the saying goes you ought not ask questions you don't really want to know the answer to, right? I mean, what if the number was really high? Would that cause me to think he had been too promiscuous in the past(ah yes, men can be promiscuous as well)? What if it was really low? Would I believe him or would I think he was lying?

I think the biggest issue here is why someone's sleep number would even be of importance. If the person you're with is honest and even more importantly healthy, should it even matter how many people they slept with before you? I also, wonder if the number of partners a woman has had has become less important to men. Everyone has been saying heauxs stay winning these days, so has it become less of a issue if a woman has to use both hands & feet to count the number of people with whom she's made a beast with two backs?

And for the ladies, if a man told you he was a virgin or had only 1 or 2 partners, would you think that something must be wrong with him? We have to be clear about the fact that there are obvious double standards in this situation. Ones that herald men who have had many sexual partners, because of course practice makes perfect(sarcasm) and taunts men who have limited sexual experience because that's not what society "expects" from them. And of course the opposite is the case when it comes to women.


So speak on it people. Does your mate's "sleep number" matter to you? Why or why not?

Uh, Hello, Men Have Issues Too!

Somebody talk to me about men and their daddy issues. Or maybe men and their mommy issues. Because they've got them. And I for one, am tired of pretending like they don't. Ladies are you all tired too? 

Let's just clear the air for a second. Women are not the only sex effected by their childhood experiences with their parents. The man whose father left him when he was a kid is just as marred by that occurrence as a woman is! The difference is just that women are brought up to know that it's okay to be emotional and talk about your emotions while men essentially get taught the complete opposite.

"Be a man!" "Toughen up!" "Men don't cry!" 

Sound familiar? The truth however, is that sure, men may not cry but they sure as hell act out and operate out of fear due to their upbringings.

I've met the men who are afraid their relationships & marriages are destined to end in failure/divorce so they only offer up half-ass tries. Those who don't believe they'll ever have healthy relationships. Who think womanizing is the way to go because that's what their fathers, who probably acted more like boys in adult bodies than beacons of positive leadership, taught them & showed them through their own actions. I've seriously heard some things from men about their pasts that made me cringe. But what I heard also made me have "ah ha" moments about the way they act and treat the women they deal with.

If there's one thing I have learned, it's that experiences from your past are not excuses for your current actions, but they are reasons. We can deny, deny, deny until we die that our pasts heavily influence who we are, but at the end of the day, they do. And in order to harness those experiences, we have to face and deal with them. No more sweeping the past under the rug in hopes that no one will notice that your flaws are showing. 

How do men get to a point where they are able to open up and be real about negative emotional occurrences in their pasts, so that they can properly address them? 

I truly think that's the only way we can start to heal the current state of love. But then again, what do I know? I'm just a chic with a laptop and a head full of thoughts. 

#occupyblacklove

Daddy Issues Pt. 2: I'm Single Because I Have a Dad?

"So now I have to have bad luck in love because I have a positive relationship with my dad?? Bullshyt." - Me.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how absent fathers and negative father relationships adversely impact men. While writing that post and speaking with some of my girlfriends about "daddy issues", I began thinking of another take on this subject that seemed worth writing about.

Most of my close girlfriends are single. Not just, "I'm not married yet so on applications I check single" single, but "I don't have a steady man that's even worth talking about" single. They're attractive, educated, smart, ambitious women with pleasant personalities, but they're all single. Maybe it's just a sign of the times or merely a correlation between singletude and living in big cities with terribly uneven eligible male to female rations. But then again, maybe it's more than that.

I'm an over-thinker so of course I started to look for a common thread or theme among us. And as I started to do so, I thought about our family backgrounds. Almost all of my friends, myself included, who are super single, either come from two parents households or family situations where they have great relationships with their fathers. Could women with positive father relationships in their lives be negatively effected by such a great thing when it comes to dating?

I've talked to one of my married friends who has a different family background about this, hey Mira boo!, and she sort of agrees here. According to her take, women, like the aforementioned, create fairytale-like qualifications for their future mates based off of the positive relationships they have with their fathers. Instead of just dating guys for the fun of it, they want to find a man, THE man, who is going to be their husband because that's what they're used to seeing. I don't necessarily disagree here, but I don't exactly agree with that take either.

I look at it like this: how often do you hear people say, "I want my kids to have it better than I did. I want to be able to give them more than I had."? Pretty frequently right? When a woman has a great relationship with her dad, this is exactly what happens. Instead of saying, let me settle down with this guy who may not be bringing much to the table, they(we) want the guy who we see has the potential to give us AT LEAST what our fathers gave us. Is that so wrong? It doesn't mean we won't give a guy who hasn't quite made it, but is on his way there, a chance. It may however, mean we're less likely to let a man stick around who doesn't have it together at all and doesn't exemplify those characteristics that we love in our fathers. For many of us, our dads are our frame of reference for what we want in a man.

I love that my father was a great provider for us growing up. He worked hard to keep the roof over our heads and food on the table. And at the same time made it possible for my mother to be a stay at home mom until I reached 7th grade. Do I think i'm going to meet a man right now who will be 100% cool with me being a housewife while he goes out to work everyday? Not necessarily. But I do want a man who realizes the importance of love, trust, family and sacrifice and how those factors work together to create a successful family unit. My dad also has drive and ambition. He's helped to create plans that have impacted pretty much every person in the DMV if you ride public transportation. Ever rode an express metro bus or used a student pass growing up? My dad's ideas/plans(yep! I'm bragging right now). With a dad that great, why should I be aiming to settle for a man who lacks those very same qualities? Just like I have a father I can brag on, I want a husband I can brag on as well. *Cue Drake - Make Me Proud*

I'm sure this may be an unpopular opinion but eh, it happens sometimes. What do you all think? When it comes to daddy issues, are women "damned if you do damned if you don't"? Or am I merely blowing smoke out of my a$$?

Daddy Issues

I know what you're thinking, "Ohhh here we go. The same 'ol discussion on why chics with no father figures in their lives end up looking for love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways."

Sorry to disappoint, but that's not what I'm about to talk about at all. How about we discuss men and THEIR daddy issues for once? 

The overwhelming lack of positive male presence in the Black community is one of the biggest issues effecting our current collective state. Men are just as effected by the absence of a male presence in the home as women are. But let me not just make it seem like fathers not being around is the only issue, because many of the guys I know with daddy issues know their dads; and they also know that their dads were no good.

They grew up watching their fathers cheat on their mothers, fall victim to addictive behaviors and emotionally neglect their families. If this is what a boy grows up being surrounded by, what kind of man does he grow up to be? As important as we all know it is for women to have positive "father"* relationships in their lives in order to show them what type of man they should marry, it's just as important for men to have those relationships so they can know what type of man they should strive to be.

I've heard a lot of chatter lately, on twitter and even in Jay-Z's most recent GQ article about the"scars" left behind when a father is absent in the home. I always say that when you grow up around negative behavior, you either fall victim to it yourself or you fight to do and be the complete opposite. That's essentially the sentiment Jay expresses in the GQ article. His excitement over not only becoming a father but also having the opportunity to be the type of father to his child that he never had himself is definitely apparent. And while there are men out there who do exactly as Jay strives to and be the opposite of what they saw growing up, I've witnessed far too many young men who follow in their negligent father's footsteps and use their past as an excuse for their misbehavior. I remember having a conversation with a guy friend once about infidelity and he admitted that he cheated because that's what he had seen from his father and from the other men in his life.

Is that an excuse? Yes. But it's also a reason. How can we truly expect for boys in these types of situations to all grow up and automatically know how to do the right thing once they reach manhood, if that's something they've never been privy to?

The biggest issue I see here is that in our community, and hell, in America period, men aren't "allowed" to freely express the pain and emotion caused by growing up without positive male role models in the home. As I stated in the beginning of this post, everyone talks ad nauseum about the ways in which women are affected in these situations but rarely the way men are. In order for us all to heal and begin making things "right" we have got to start talking about this. Male emotion is not something most of us are used to discussing or are even really comfortable doing so. Nobody's saying men need to go all Emo on us and tap into their inner Drake or anything *cue tracks 1-17 of Take Care* but this discussion is definitely long overdue.

So why don't we turn the tables, men, who hurt you?

For Colored Girls... And Boys

Today I went to see For Colored Girls. Alone, I sat in the theatre actually afraid of what it was that I was about to see. There have been quite a few reviews done of this movie and having had the opportunity to read a couple, I was a bit leery of what I was about to watch. I'm not much of a Tyler Perry fan but seeing as the movie was based off of Ntozake Shange's 1975 poem, I figured it would be worth a shot.

And me oh my, was I correct. The film is absolutely amazing, definitely Oscar worthy. I will even go so far as to say that something, which I can't quite put my finger on, is even beautiful about this movie. It may have been the numerous moving sililoques, derived from Shange's work, which are littered throughout the film and flow like an emotional song from the actresses lips.

One of the most scathing reviews I read on For Colored Girls, was written by Washington Post columnist, Courtland Milloy. Throughout his review he bemoans the fact that black men are being bashed in this film and that most recent movies fail to show black men in a positive light. Well, I have one thing to say in response to his critique: this movie ain't about y'all! And the fact alone that Milloy and other reviewers fail to recognize this is exactly the problem. It doesn't surprise me that many negative reviews have come from men. If you aren't guilty, I don't see the point in viciously attacking this film.

The movie, as well as the original work is about the many faces of black female disempowerment. It's not about calling out black men who have abused, cheated on and lied to black women. It is however about calling out to black women and saying that even though your struggle may be different than mine, I hear you. And I call out to you so that we may come together and reclaim the power that so many of us simply give away; "Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff" anyone??

I ask that not only black women see this film, but black men as well. Actually, I want black men to see this even more. For many women, the stories told in this film are our own so in viewing this piece we are simply watching our stories, our friend's stories, our mother's stories being played out on the big screen. But men, you need to see the different effects that negative & hurtful male actions have had and continue to have on women, some of these being women in your lives. There is no reason why a poem written in 1974 should even still be just as relevant for us in the year 2010 as it was then. Something(s) needs to change.

For Colored Girls does an excellect job of showing the emotional response of women, not only to the pain inflicted upon us by men but the pain we bring into our own lives. If you're simply looking at this movie as a male bashing session, you will totally miss that point. So to the critiques out there who can't see past the fact that this is a Tyler Perry film or that it's a film featuring a majority female cast, my only note to you is to simply get over yourself.