a silbar

i'm reading (for a 2nd time) Evelyn Hammonds's "Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality." She touches on the double silence of black lesbians' sexualities, and its reminding me a bit of the cholas, though I'm taking it in a different direction. Weismantel & Albro both agree (for once) that cholas are historically sexualized because they are "white enough to be desirable, non-white enough to be accessible" (really, that's a paraphrase of Weismantel 2003, because i'm too lazy to walk into the other room, and look up the page #). Cholas are often portrayed as busty "cholitas" in short skirts, and are periodically the butt of jokes about what's under (or not under) their skirts. On the other hand, cholas are imagined in a Gill-ian Postcard way, to be the mothers of the nation. They are associated with fertility and feeding their children, but not as part of a household or sexual relationship. Much like the madonna/whore dichotomy, cholas are either sexless mothers or scantily clad vixens waiting for the taking. So my question (in light of both cholas and black lesbians--and let's throw in Wesley Crichlow's discussion of Trinidadian Bullermen as well) is this: How does one resist sexual objectification without resisting sexuality or objectifying others?

I have no answer. It is an open question. I only have an example of the way I failed to negotiate such a situation.

The Grabowskis (my one-time favorite sports team and subject of my research on pain & masculinity) had a habit of whistling at women. Guzman always suggested a nice round of applause was more respectful. I disagreed, but admitted this was preferable to the "hey single lady" sidewalk calls. In any event, often on the drive from JC to hobroken (yes, that's spelled as I intended) windows would be rolled down, and some nice young woman walking down Monmouth might get an acknowledgement, often in the form of a short double honk of the horn. Usually at that point I would get pissed off, and tell them to stop the car, I was going home, etc. But one day, on the drive back to JC, with a few beers in my belly, we passed two young men moving into an apartment near Hamilton Park. They had their shirts off and were lifting furniture. Being in the front seat, i leaned across JK and hit the horn twice. I waved out the window. The boys in the backseat cracked up and encouraged me. And we all had a good laugh.

And despite my laughter, I didn't feel totally ok about it. I did it to demonstrate a point to them, but I think it was probably lost. And I doubt the two men, being in a generally priveleged position were really offended or hurt. But I chose to make my point in a way that only served to reinforce their ideas. I played into the trope that sexuality is only expressible through the objectification of others. And this seems to be a widespread problem across culture, time, location, class, race, sexuality, etc. And with sexuality being such a wonderful thing, in general, why is it so hard to express without hurting others? damn.