Can't Find It? Cliteracy In (Heterosexual) Relationships

Cliteracy - Juicy word isn't it?

I suspect just the title will give this blog more hits than any I have ever written. But this is no sensationalist click bait. This is an important issue inherent to our lives as womxn. Inherent to our sexuality, identity, and often most intimate relationships. 

I'm going to ask a very personal and intimate question now. Be prepared for a range of emotions to come up that may not be expecting to feel. Take a deep breath. Relax.

Could you ask yourself this question and answer it honestly?

How many men have you been with who are CLITERATE?

What do I mean by cliterate, let's see:

"Cliterate. (Adj. clit-uh-rit) A person able to locate, stimulate and successfully bring a womxn to orgasm using their clitoris, either in conjunction with or without penetration, but with no help from said womxn themselves."

Surprisingly, or rather not so surprisingly, almost every friend I have asked who has a clit, has told me that they have encountered a disappointing number of cis-het men who are cliterate. 

I don't know about you, but for me this brings up a flurry of emotions. Mainly because from the time we hit adolescence, and sometimes even earlier, we are bombarded with images and messages on how to satisfy a man by taking any phallic shaped thing and jerking it, rubbing it, sucking on it, or grinding on it. It's everywhere, in movies, in ads, in magazines. There is no shortage on articles in Cosmo on how to give a mind blowing blow job, how to learn to swallow and let's not even talk about deep throating - the number of porn stars giving ordinary womxn YouTube tutorials is RIDICULOUS. We've seen them all. And honestly, to say the least, it hurts my feelings, that men have not done the same. 

There is an il-cliteracy problem. To gauge the exent of it I have asked a number of my female friends about their sexual experiences with cis-het men and with women. Almost all of them have answered similarly. Here is the upshot (Get ready!): 

1. Out of many womxn who've fucked many men, almost all said that most men were not cliterate. Only one or two, at most three could bring them to orgasm using their clitoris.
2. Out of these a few more men they were kind of good at oral the rest were okay with handwork. 
3. None of them brought the womxn to clitoral orgasm during penetration by using their hands.
4. Of the womxn who fuck womxn, their is almost a 100% satisfaction rate. Like one friend said "Honestly though if you want a proper oral sex session - women". Preach sister! 
5. Almost all of the men they have fucked, cliterate and non-cliterate, expected the womxn to give them oral sex, and often bring them to orgasm. 
6. Of the womxn who are in serious relationships, there is some consensus that if their partner brings them to orgasm using their hands or mouth, it is inconsistent and feels like a fluke. 

Not so surprisingly I can tell you that womxn on the other hand, have no difficulty locating the clitoris and bringing their partners (and themselves) to orgasm time and time again. 

So what's the deal. Why are men so bad at cliteracy? Wait, wait, let me rephrase: why are men so USELESS at clit-work? 

Well, it must be because the whole world revolves around them and their dicks. No I mean it. Men think they can just show up with their penises and its game over.  Sex revolves around penetration and once you've been penetrated and have gotten a good pounding they think that's it. 

Second - porn. I don't think I need to say more but clits don't exist in porn err go they don't exist in the real world. 

Third - excuses. "Ah my jaw is cramping" "Ah, I keep losing the spot" "You keep saying left then right, then left, where is it". Mother fucker, don't you think my jaw cramps when I have to shove your fat dick down my throat? 

Fourth - men have issues with womxn pointing them in the right direction during sex. Often they call women "bossy" when womxn make their needs heard. 

Five -  A fundamental misunderstanding. Men think that clit play is a nice "extra". They don't understand that it is inherent to sex, as inherent as penetration. Imagine what they'd feel like if they could only dip their tips, then stop after 90 seconds. For a womxn that's what sex is like with a cis-het man. You stop at your peak if you aren't going to take the responsibility to finish it yourself.  

Six - this is really an extension of five. Men have not grasped the problem. They are completely unaware of our level of dissatisfaction... Where they are aware of it, have not taken it seriously. For some reason it doesn't seem to matter to them whether or not a womxn is satisfied as long as their dick has graced her vagina. 

To put it bluntly, men have no incentive to learn how to play with a clitoris. This is a sad and unfortunate realisation. And come to think of it we haven't even touched on the case of the man who gets offended (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) at the prospect of a woman needing clitoral stimulation. I remember one guy calling an orgasm during penetration reached through clitoral stimulation "fake". As if the true test of masculinity is what a dick can achieve by itself.... This all brings me to my next point - we need a cliteracy revolution. 

Someone needs to sit these  idiots  men down and tell them that they need to learn about pushing buttons. But more than that they need to centralise the experience of their womxn partner. Without this centrality sex is going to be a game thats eternally in favour of the man. It is true that a happy sex life is not about keeping score about whose had more orgasms, and even though women do come by stimulating themselves it is actually necessary and political that they too could enjoy the experience of being stimulated by their partner.  So many men are keen to showcase their dick-tricks like making their partner squirt and that's all good and well but if only the same zeal could be put into the clitoris and the female orgasm. 

Deep down I'd like to believe that men have the capacity to recognise and value the importance of a consenting and satisfied sexual partner. And if they did, then they'd be willing to learn. So, if what we say isn't heard then men, here is a link to a video by a fellow man man-splaining to you how a clitoris works.

Like MLK, I have a dream, and that dream is for womxn to find sexual partners who can eat them out while they just lie there. Just like MLK's dream, mine too is for now going to be unrealised.


*Please feel free to comment,  share your stories or find me on facebook at
 https://www.facebook.com/indoafrikanqueen/

Let's talk about blood - menstruation in a male dominated world

Today is supposed to be the first day of my period. I am sore. So sore.

It feels like there is a vice crushing my uterus so that it is forced to close in on itself. I wake up early only to make it to work late because I find it hard to concentrate on getting ready. I go to pee when I get to the bathroom at the office only to see my brand new briefs stained with blood. It soaked through the measly fucking pantyliner.

Fuck.

I hope I have a tampon. I find one somewhere in my stationery draw and am grateful.

I pop two paracetamols and one ibuprofen. I wait for the pain to subside. It doesn't. An hour has passed and I am supposed to be working on an urgent document, but can't bring myself to focus. The contractions get worse. I am seeing a bit blurry. I bend over my tummy so that my head is under my desk. My eyes well up with tears. No-one notices. 

Fuck this.

I make the executive decision to fuck off home. Fuck. Fuck this shit. How the FUCK am I supposed to be productive when I feel this way? I start having doubts about calling in sick, and decide to work from home. I convince myself that it will be easier to work if I'm lying down. Drugged up. In clean panties and oversized track pants made for a chubby man. 

Why the fuck could I not just be a chubby man? Or a man?

I am 27. I have been having my period for fifteen years now. FIFTEEN YEARS. Yet every time it happens I feel like it is the first time. I take pills to control the hormones, and pills to control the pain but it never gets any easier. 

It never feels like the symptoms associated with menstruation are a legitimate excuse to stop what I am doing, and have a legitimate rest. Every time I menstruate I get angry, MAD, APOPLECTIC. I feel like a kid. I feel intolerant of my body. I feel incapacitated by the physical pain, and overcome by the emotional turmoil. I feel relief that the cycle will be over soon, but I can't cut myself the slack that I need. 

For some reason I feel like I need to be doing more. Working just as hard as any other day. Eating less sweets, gymming through the misery and acting normal. 

...

Why do I hate myself so much when I am on my period?

Why am I so intolerant of this natural and miraculous bodily process?

Who taught me to feel this way?

Why is it that we live in a world that does not acknowledge the feminine?

Why is it still taboo to mention periods at work or in public?

Why is period pain treated like an illegitimate ailment?

Why am I so angry, so enraged?

...

I know the answer to these questions. I know a male dominated society is designed around the premise that female bodily functions are unworthy of attention. I get even more angry. It makes me want to rebel against work. Against the system that treats menstruating humxns like machines. It makes me fume.

Instead I curl up in a ball with a hot beanbag on my tummy and cry. At the same time I hope that my little act of courage (making it home and to bed) means something in a world that refuses to acknowledge half its population. I try to calm my mind about the anxiety about the work I need to do.

Deep down I lament the sad fact that... "If period pain were a male problem it would be solved by now."

FUCK.

Loving a white (man) - part I

My partner and I have been together for a couple of years. Enough to know that we cohabit well together, and that we do love each other and for the most part want to build a life together.

He is an amazing human being, kind and compassionate. He is just the right amount of tender. He is open minded. Gifted. We even share the same political views.

But beneath the surface of our relationship I struggle with something.  He is a cis-het White Male. I capitalise white and male for a reason. Male and White dominated existence is the unfortunate reality of the world.  My partner, through no fault of his, is the product of hundreds of years of privilege and the world is created in a way that serves him. And while he may intellectually comprehend this (bless him), I struggle.

I struggle because he will never know what it's like to walk my path.
He will never know what it feels like to be belittled, reduced to a stereotype or seen as a sex object because of the colour of his skin or what is between his legs.
He will never understand the blood boiling rage that takes place due to an accumulation of microagressions from people we both know, and often people who are dear to him.
Every time someone in his family speaks about someone or something related to my race they make eye contact with me. He will never understand why this upsets me.
He will never understand why his racist friends make me feel murderous.
He will never understand rejection based on his sex or race.

All he sees, is that I am right, they are wrong, and that he is torn between the two because of joint allegiances.

All he sees are things in black and white. There is no deeper meaning. There is no sensitivity. There is no need for a double take when the world was created to be as you see it. You as a white male.

He thinks of this as an attack on him. He feels threatened because he says I hate white men. If I hated white men, I think, why would I be with you? He fails to see that Whiteness is an institution created to empower people like him. He tries to listen, but he does not hear.

My partner probably never thinks about the fact that we see no other black people where we live, that I am the only person of colour in our apartment block, that I "fit in" because I'm light skinned. It probably never crosses his mind that I grew up in a ghetto designed for people of my colour, where all I saw were people of my colour, and that that is my culture. And I miss that.

He probably has no curiosity about why it is I know so much about other cultures, or why I tie a scarf over my head at night.

I wonder if he thinks about the blood that runs through my veins, and that I was born of a woman who was born of a woman who was born of a woman who probably could not speak a word of english, had probably never seen the inside of a school, and had never had a man respect her a day in her life. And here I am unable to speak a word of her language.

I think about our children. I cry for them. Will they know what blood runs in their veins or will they inherit his privilege. I think about the little superstitious prayers I say when I lose something or walk under a ladder, or almost have an accident, or sneeze. And I wonder: will they ever be curious? How will they know these things if I don't share it with them? Why is the burden of this responsibility on me? Why is WHITENESS the default culture for mixed race babies?

Will my partner ever know, will he ever care, will he ever see, that he and I are not the same.
We never will be.
My love, we are not equal.
You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
I was born to give my life to make that spoon.
And still I carry this burden.

I say a superstitious prayer for your eyes to open, for your ears to hear, for your self to retreat and for you to understand.

I say Insha-allah.

Conversations about home (at a deportation centre) - Warsan Shire

In response to this morning's resignation of David Cameron and the news that Brexit has become  reality with the inward looking nationalist government coming to power in October, the only thing on my mind, and on the minds of many in the U.K - is the plight of immigrants. Both, those who have found a safe place in the U.K and those who are yet to arrive. 

This is a piece by poet - Warsan Shire. It speaks for itself:

Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I've been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I’m bloated with language I can't afford to forget. 

They ask me how did you get here? Can’t you see it on my body? The Libyan desert red with immigrant bodies, the Gulf of Aden bloated, the city of Rome with no jacket. I hope the journey meant more than miles because all of my children are in the water. I thought the sea was safer than the land. I want to make love but my hair smells of war and running and running. I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you're young and asleep. Look at all these borders, foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate. I’m the colour of hot sun on my face, my mother’s remains were never buried. I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck, I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body. 

I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory. I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officer, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home. But Alhamdulilah all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, or a truckload of men who look like my father, pulling out my teeth and nails, or fourteen men between my legs, or a gun, or a promise, or a lie, or his name, or his manhood in my mouth.

I hear them say, go home, I hear them say, fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second and the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun. I'll see you on the other side. "

*Originally published in TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH (2011).

Why cleaning out your social media account can be as good as cleaning out your closet

Social media - facebook. instagram, tumblr, twitter - you know the rest - are to say the least, places where we express who we are at that moment in time, in that space. And over time they tend to become strange amalgamations of moments of projection as they pass our lives.

There is much criticism of social media on... social media. You need to be blinder than a bat to not see the irony in that. I am not here to advocate for or against social media but just to briefly point out that it is natural for us, over our lifetimes to grow and evolve.

If you're in your twenties or thirties at the moment, you're most certainly not the same person you were ten years ago, and it was around ten years ago that Facebook came to be  (most of us in Africa however, have it for 7 years or  much less). While it can be fun to look at pictures from ten years ago, as we all tended to do in the days of good old picture albums, it may not be in our own self interest to constantly be reminded of how we used to be, not only ten years ago, but last year, last summer or last week.

Social media, in particularly Facebook, constantly reminds us of times bygone. This can be good for us, no doubt, reminding us of happy memories. But it can also be fucking shit.

As it reminds us of who we used to be we often...:

- become nostalgic
We've all gotten those feelings, recalling how we used to look, or what we did, and who we did it with.

-pine for things that are gone
Coupled with the nostalgia we long for things that have passed us by sending ourselves into a suboptimal stupor.

-put on rose tinted glasses
The nature of memories and recollection, unfortunately, is that we omit many many details about the reality of the situation. We put on rose tinted glasses and romanticise people, places and things we would not if we were probably 100% objective.

- are reminded of the past and in the worst case triggered in a negative way. 
A friend of mine recently mentioned that in the last few years she's had atleast three exes and made the point that facebook's memory function reminds her of things she would rather not remember at all.

and...

- are not present
This is the most important of them all. Combining a little of all the aforementioned factors social media has the potential to detracts from our lived experience in this moment. And in order to be who we are right now we need to detach from those bygone experiences.

For these reasons, I not only think that occasionally cleaning out ones social media account can be worth the tedious scrolling through old photos and posts but is also a little bit like uncluttering your mind. Or cleaning out your closet.

When our clothes date and wear we don't hesitate to let them go. Why should we then hold on to little snippets of our lives manifested by status updates and photographs online. We should do whatever it takes to give us improved peace of mind and a more equanimous environment to love ourselves.

This can involve:

• Deleting old posts, statuses and photographs. 
• Unfriending people with no shame. 
• Blocking people who put you in a bad space and spread their negative vibes. 
• And, taking ownership of your online space. 

Feng shui that shit so that it works for you!

Go on... Spring clean and compartmentalise a little. Unclutter your online life.
And do it as often as you need.

Thoughts on the Orlando Pulse massacre by a queer South African muslim

The mass shooting of defenceless LGBTQIA members of our society Orlando marks a collective stain on our humanity, make no mistake - where those already vulnerable in society are gunned down by a man with an automatic war machine and picked off like vermin in a space supposed to be safe. It is not just a problem for the US, but one for all of us at large. Thirteen years ago in South Africa 9 men were executed in a gay safe space in one of our country's own hate massacres. We are quick to forget about the Sizzlers massacre and the hatred of the two men who perpetrated it. We are not exceptional, we are not immune. Section 9 of South Africa's democratic constitution guarantees that nobody, including the state, should be allowed to unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. Yet daily we hear stories of violence against members of our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters- corrective rape, stigmatisation, assault, abuse. It goes on. We allow those around us to foster casual discrimination, to say things that denigrate the LGBTQIA community and dehumanise the love between people. And the worst of it- just when the LGBTQIA community finds a safe space we have individuals and groups who are determined to destroy them. This is not us. This is no religion or faith. This is no teaching of love or spirituality. It is not Islam now or ever. It is not heroism or grandiose masculinity. It is the deepest and darkest of evils perpetrated by the worst of our society, designed to further divide us. We cannot allow people to claim their hateful causes in the name of us all. And we should certainly not judge a whole group by the actions of a hateful few. Perpetrators of violence are in no way unique to those who incorrectly profess Islam. They are found in all corners of society- in Sandy Hook, in Columbine, in Virginia Tech, in Norway. We cannot deflect from our failings to stop hatred, to stop access to war machines, to protect our most vulnerable. We are jointly and collectively responsible. And we bleed for it.

Say their names. Remember their faces. 

But we will not be divided. As Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, gay, straight, bisexual, black, white, coloured, Asian, Indian, woman, man, trans, and all the other shades of these. We are together against hatred and violence. We stand with Orlando, we stand on the side of love that knows no label. And our struggle will continue.

*Published with permission of the author - Ziyaad Bhorat.

Bitches be cray - Reflections on a toxic friendship

So this is a post about that crazy bitch ass friend we all have -
Toxic
Manipulative
Just a general DB*

While my tone may seem facetious, this subject is truly non-trivial. Friends are the culmination of our thoughts, values and approach to life. They are our mirrors - reflecting back to us what we put out in the universe. This does not apply to all friends though. Especially not the pathological ones, who we obviously do not detect are bordering on psychopathy.

For almost a decade I struggled with a friendship that was completely and utterly abusive. Emotionally destructive. Over the last couple of years, I have noticed - on social media and in various other places that awareness about "toxic" friendships is becoming more and more common. This is a wonderful thing.

In light of the trauma  and mind-fuckery I experienced at the hands of this toxic human being I would like to share my experience. Here was this woman, smart, reasonably good looking, blessed in terms of intellect, personable, relatable, fuck-off manipulative but let's call it charismatic. We hit it off like a house on fire. How was it possible to get along so well with someone? We were obviously meant to be friends. Well not really, and this is why.

These people are usually highly intelligent and probably have a higher level of mirror neurons (that characteristic that manipulative people have that allows them to transform depending on the audience)  than anyone else you may know. They are social chameleons, chopping and changing who they are to suit those around and in front of them - but the toll that this takes is that they spend so much time and energy transforming to appeal to others that they do not have any authentic or deep relationships.

Importantly the characteristics of a toxic friend from my experience have centered around the theme of their abuse being so subtle that their corrosive characteristics went over my head for years. It is only now, in hindsight, years later that I am able to identify the warped characteristics this "friend" possessed. They are as follows:

-This person is clingy - they want to know what you're doing doing, who you're doing it with and expect to be responded to immediately.

-This person is competitive to the point of it being unhealthy - This applies to everything, grades, promotions, hairstyles, clothes, and yes lovers. This can get so bad and if it was anything like my case it got to the point where where mutual friends and ex-boyfriends would be a point of competition. That is, she would go out of her way to compete for the affection of people in our circle who were closer to me than her. This weird and constant sense of  one upmanship was emotionally exhausting.

- This person is usually prescriptive about how you should live your life, saying things  like:
"I know you and I know whats best for you."
"Noone will ever love you as much as I love you"
"Noone will ever accept you the way me and my family have"...
You catch the drift (fucckkeeddd upppp shiiiitttt).

-This person tends to be confused about their identity, and is generally a deeply insecure person.   Their identities are usually rooted it in superficial things (what car they drive, what they have that's better than yours, overly materialistic sometimes, and exceptionally selfish).

- This person's closest relationships are abusive and unhealthy - for instance the relationship with their partner, lover or parents. In other words, if you took an objective step back and took a look at their close relationships you would notice a trend of dysfunction, abuse, unhealthy enabling, and destructiveness.

- This person transgresses trust  by disclosing personal information to others - or embellishing personal facts and sharing it in contravention of confidence. For instance, after a break up this person told others that my ex-partner had abused me. This was completely and utterly untrue and I only came to know of it years later when I heard it from the person to whom it was told.

- Other people have had similar experiences with this person - and there is a trend of people falling out of this person's life because of this toxic behaviour. This is important as this is the dead give away that the problem is not with you, and this is a reminder that you are sane and your experiences are valid.

- You never know where you stand with this person and there is a general feeling of inauthenticity. It never truly feels like this person has your best interest at heart despite them saying so all the time with statements like "No one will ever love you as much as I love you".

When it comes down to it I can't explicitly highlight single incidents that occurred that marks this relationship as abusive, but an old friend described it very well - she said that when you are around a person like this you leave with a horrible feeling inside you - like this interaction was not good for your soul.

In my experience the emotionally trauma was never explicitly denied by her saying that she never said the horrible things she did - it was more that the things she would do and say were so outrageous I'd feel like I must have dreamed them up because no ordinary well-meaning human being would ever do or say something like that. Here is an example (enjoy):

Her: Do you want to come over to my place?

Me: Nah, I'm tired I'd rather go home.

Her: Just as well, because if Mark* sees you he would wanna fuck you instead of me...

Me: ... !!!

Yes, if you gasped that was the right reaction... Who the FUCK says something like that? This was a mild and humorous example but imagine years of being around someone who says these things, that you keep discounting as jokes, or quirks, and one day you wake up and realise that they're actually just deeply fucked up.

So once again, while my tone is facetious, I am so dead serious about the fact that we need to let go of these people, and I am also fully aware of the fact that cutting people out is not simple, or the best response for our own well being. If I could say something to myself five years ago, when I was emotionally drained by the relationship it would go something like this:

The remedy for toxic friendship is self-care and self-trust and of-course self-love. 

"Trust your feelings  you are not crazy.

Do what you need to do to protect your mental sanctity, if you need space take it, if you need to have  a conversation, have it, and if you are unable to do anything, don't feel disempowered. It is okay. Just realising that this relationship is unhealthy means you are making strides.

You are love, incarnate, so surround yourself with others who love and cherish you!" 

And finally,

"Remember that healing takes time, and these scars run deep, so go easy on yourself". 

Peace and love. Revolution. For yourself. For always.

*Usually DB means douchebag.. but here it means something way worse...
**Mark is obviously a fake name 
***Poem:  Nayyirah Waheed