something secret

Back again. This time  to share  this comment thread  (and specifically the comment below) where I talk about Rashida Jones' comments about "women being whores" and how it relates to Rihanna (because Rihanna is the devil incarnate/Illuminati Queen/Bringer of all that is Evil in the world. Naturally), and the way in which the conversations about "pop stars being whores" always manages to find a BW scapegoat: I also think that it's  imperative  that we talk about racial disparities when we talk about this stuff because sexual expectations  are  just different  for WoC. For WW, virginal is the assumed natural state, and expressions of sexuality are seen as liberating (Madonna). For WoC, crass and oversexed is the assumed natural state, and self motivated expressions of sexuality are seen as a reinforcement of that stereotype. (Rihanna) If we push against it we're prudes, and  how dare we refuse a sexual advance with our ugly black ass selves?...

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while. It was originally conceived as an examination of the "Stripper Anthem" as presented by Nicki Minaj and Rihanna in Beez In The Trap and Pour It Up, as it related to the sexuality and sexualization of black women, but after last week's post on Lily Allen, and some of the... ill-informed responses it received, I realized that there is a different conversation that needs to be had first. That conversation is about the distinction between the exploitation of black women's sexuality for the (white) male consumerist gaze, and a black female celebrity's reclamation of her own sexuality on her own terms. For whatever reason, there seems to some difficulty in grasping the concept that the most significant difference between these two scenarios is agency , and the way in which the presence or lack of agency determines how a display of sexuality is to be perceived and received. To that end, I want to examine the ima...

There are a lot of things I want to say about this video, so I plan to get back to it eventually, but for now, just know that I love it and Rihanna unconditionally. I will hear no blasphemy against her! :)

There's something about this video. It might be an odd choice to talk about this video on Valentine's Day, but I've loved Rihanna for a long time, and I've felt deeply connected  to her very public story of abuse. The "woman in an abusive relationship" narrative always seems so simple: LEAVE. But it never  works that way in real life, because there are always mitigating factors involved. Rihanna's celebrity doesn't make her immune to the cycle of violence, and I think it was a brave choice for her to make herself so vulnerable for this video. That said, this video make me want to cry. I get that it's performance, but I agree with Refinery29's assessment ; because of the public nature of their breakup and reconciliation, it is impossible to consume this in a vacuum. There's no way you can watch this video and not think back to the last four years of their tumultuous relationship. It's interesting that the public at large seems to carry m...

You might have noticed, but I haven't been around lately.... I've been ill, but more significantly, I've been suffering through my own personal version of hell, wherein I have had no access to the internet (or any kind of web enabled device) for days at a time. I feel like a brat for even complaining about it, ( is there a bigger first world problem in existence?) but in this day and age, not being online for extended periods of time is almost  like being forced to clap after you've had an arm cut off. Especially if you're young and broke like me, and trying to find a job.... In any case, I can't yet say when next I'll be online, or when I'll be posting regularly again, but I thought it was prudent to reassure the silent (and possibly non-existent) masses that I am not yet dead. Hopefully I'll have this problem sorted soon, but no promises. In the mean time, please enjoy this lovely little tune that Rihanna apparently released while I was in a tec...