"If You're Ready to Learn" is controversial (and probably a parody), but women could certainly stand to learn how their bodies work when it comes to pleasure, Ebony's Josie Pickens writes.
In a sex positive world where women aren’t considered Jezebels for having any sexual desire at all, instead of Brian McKnight instructing a woman on what her vagina can do, he would ask her how to make it “do what it do.” …
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The catch: communicating those wants and needs releases the role of women “succumbing to sex”, which many men and women rely on to establish “worth”. Men and women are taught, after all, that good girls don’t give “it” up and if they do it has to be pried from a tight grip. Willingly having sex and even directing how she wants to be sexed, sits those tropes right on down- and honestly, some women (and men) simply aren’t prepared, emotionally or mentally, to face those tumbling walls.
Enough with the double entendre, I know. But the questions are: Fellas, are you (really) prepared to let women instruct you on what “it” do? Ladies, are you empowered enough to give those lessons? I hope all answer yes and we can allow this Brian McKnight song be just another random internet meme.
Read Josie Pickens' entire piece at Ebony.
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Josie Pickens is an educator, culture critic and griot whose work focuses primarily on race and gender. Follow her musings on Twitter.
