In today's America, race baiting and even overt racism has once again reared its ugly head. It is imperative that we sex-positives push back against this sad trend. The simple truth is that we must approach any attacks on marginalized groups as an attack on all of us. It is not enough to push back on blatant racist screeds by the sex-negatives on the right, but we must evaluate the open sex community for our own demons. Sadly I still see too much misogyny on social media disguised as sexual freedom. On that I have written before. However, there is a racial stereotype that is patently destructive and demeaning, yet it seems to escape scrutiny, let alone censure.
This issue has bothered me for some time and I have wondered why no one seems to call out this pernicious racial attack that has many blogs devoted to its perpetuation. When I have written about it in my prior blogs, I offended some of my followers, but I feel it is an issue that must be addressed firmly.
The problem is simply this: there exists in open sexuality circles a tolerance for fetishising sex between women of European decent (white women) and men of African descent (black men). This fetish is not benign, but reinforces old and damaging stereotypes and must be opposed. I know this will not be taken very well by some, and will likely reduce my number of followers, but If I am to remain true to my Christian values, I must address it.
First I’ll be clear. It is not a myth; African men have a larger average penis size than do European men. I’ve seen different research, but like all physical characteristics, penis size is on a bell curve so that the vast majority of men’s penises fall very close to the center with very small numbers as outliers. Though the research has not been consistent, it appears that men whose ancestors come from close to the equator are more likely to have slightly larger erect penises than those whose ancestors came from more northern regions. It is important to note the word "slightly" because it very small and not necessary noticeable on any particular man; rather it means the top of the two bell curves are not at the exact same point.
This appears to be an evolutionary development because my ice age ancestors with long dangling penises were more likely to have them frozen off than those with short stubby ones. A cave man who's dick froze off won't be having any children. Thus in time the average length decreased. Still the difference is only about a quarter inch in the center of the bell curve, though it shows up more in the size of the top 5% of both those of European and African ancestry.
However, in the United States, there is a kink in this broad finding. In the US men who self-identify as “black” average only 60-70% sub-Saharan African DNA; thus the difference between African American and European American penis sizes is actually not as great as between Africans and Europeans. That issue is not in dispute.
And though the literature is mixed, it is safe to generalize that a majority of women prefer their sexual partner to have a penis in the “average” to “large-average range”. If we use race as a factor that means a slightly higher percentage of men of African heritage fit that preference, than those of European heritage do. Again, we must keep in mind that only 16 % of all men fall below those two ranges and 2% are above it. Again that issue is not very much in dispute.
None of that explains the cult of “Big Black Cock” (BBC). Just this week Paula and I were on a site to meet other couples with open-marriages (for the first time in a couple of years), and saw this term used. So this fetish is not just limited to the fantasies of lonely guys on social media.
Over the years, I’ve seen hundreds, perhaps thousands of posts that present BBC as the end all and be all sexual experience for women. What is significant in these posts is that the focus is not on the man, but on the penis separate from the human being to which it is attached. It appears that those who go on and on about BBC have little interest in the man to whom it belongs. To them, his personhood is irrelevant. This, just like it’s counterpart of the cult of big breasted women, effectively dehumanizes the person and rates their value as a human being to the size of a specific body part.
I reject this approach as a violation of my core values. In this blog I openly advocate sexuality as a normal part of human social interaction. My rhetorical question of “If you can’t have sex with your friends, then with whom can you have sex?” sums up my approach. Sex is what adult friends do together. To reduce ones sexual partner to being a big black cock, to me is patently offensive.
However; that is not my chief concern. I am far more concerned about the overt racism involved with the whole concept. The BBC concept is not just about the big penis, but that the big penis belongs to a black man. The trope about the animal-like sexual prowess of black men has long been a mainstay of racist oppression and the excuse for a great many lynching's. This idea that black men are "bulls" is easily traced back to the practice of slavery. A prized black man with a large penis was a bull to be bought to provide stud service to the female slaves. With his purchase of a prize bull, the slave owner ensured a future supply of virile farm hands. This was no different than buying a bovine bull. It assumed the black man was not really human at all.
To select black men today, for what amounts to be stud service, is so offensive I have a hard time understating who would promote it. In the most pernicious postings, it is explicitly presented that the woman involved has sex with black men because the fact her lover is black is more humiliating to her husband than if her lover was white. Thus putting forth the proposition that white people are inherently superior; and that the wife’s sexual union with a black man is inherently degrading to the white husband. References to husband’s being made to eat “her black bull’s cum” are so blatantly racist I just can’t believe they are being posted.
We have enough problems these days with race baiting, we don’t need to be feeding the loathsome racists with this sort of stuff. Young black men have far too many voices telling them their only way to success is through physical prowess (sports) or physical violence (crime); the additional voice that their only value to the larger “white” world is to be a bull to give stud service to white women is not helpful.
In most cases I don’t post photos that appear to focus on the fact a white woman has a black lover. The occasional exception is when the skin tone differential is used for artistic effect. Those photos are not degrading to the black man involved, nor reducing him to a big black cock. In fact, a few years ago my wife and I tried to work out plans several times for her to do a full erotic photo shoot of her and a good friend of hers who is African –American. The man was a professional artist and he was excited to pose with Paula. The agreed on purpose of the proposed shoot was the artistic contrasts between skin tones of the two friends engaged in sexual union. Though in the end it did not work out, we never saw this as her fucking a BBC, but having sex with a good friend for artistic purposes.
I will say it plainly, in a sex positive society, sexual racism has no place.
Social media is wonderful in that they give a sense of belonging, validation and community to people, such as those like us with open marriages, by reaching out across the globe to like-minded people. Through this we are creating new norms of behavior that we hope will shape future society. It is this very power to make norms that forces us to closely examine what we do to see if it is indeed a positive step for society, or does it lead back into old negative ways. I suspect that a good deal of the negative postings about which I am concerned, were not made with racist intent, but only with inadequate reflection on the underlying message.
This is just a call to consider first what you are supporting before you re-blog something.