by Ashleigh Shackelford

Rape culture is a culture in which gender and sexual violence, white supremacist misogyny, and inaccessibility to absolute bodily autonomy are the norm. Rape culture is pervasive within our everyday lives. We often center rape culture dialogues on how to avoid being assaulted or raped rather than telling people to stop being violent.

Rape culture is deeply embedded within our behaviors, our thought processes, our politics, our relationships, and our desires. But we need to dig deeper as a society and within our communities to push the conversation further. In fully addressing rape culture and sexual violence, we need to address that everyone is capable of engaging in sexual violence and/or rape. As frightening, uncomfortable, and disgusting as this reality is, we must address that violence is embedded in the tools we are given to love, to provide intimacy, and to interact with each other. There is no blueprint in which we’ve figured out what true, inherent consent culture looks like.


In addressing this complicated understanding of how rape culture (rather than consent culture) works, this doesn't excuse that most rape and sexual violence is perpetuated and enacted by cisgender straight men. This doesn’t excuse that misogynistic violence stems heavily from patriarchy and toxic forms of masculinity. But how do we move the conversation to push us to critical self-examination and deeper analysis of how violence works within our marginalized communities? How can we start addressing our role and our failures in engaging consent so as to transform our communities away from internalized rape culture politics?

In my navigation of being a queer, agender Black fat femme, I'm still plagued by the reality of rape culture permeating my relationships, my ability to decipher between misogyny and truth, and my own personal politics surrounding my body and autonomy. As someone who's dated primarily masculine-of-center folks, dealing with rape culture politics and misogyny has normally stemmed from my partner.

At the beginning of our relationship, my ex-girlfriend pressured me into telling her how many people I had slept with. I have never in my entire life told anyone how many people I've slept with due to the advice and Black femme power my mom instilled in me. But eventually, I gave in because I loved her and I felt like I owed her my truth. When I finally revealed my past, she broke up with me. We got back together after she calmed down (or rather, temporarily pushed her misogyny aside), but she still held it over my head and her internalized misogyny manifested in multiple ways within our relationship during the time we were together.

Another situation in which a partner's misogyny and rape culture politics violated me was with my ex-boyfriend, who was also 15 years older than me. He not only exploited me and forced me into non-consensual sex work, but he raped me on multiple occasions when I explicitly said I didn’t want to have sex with him. At the time, I didn’t know it was rape. I thought this is what women/femmes were required to do when their partner wanted sex but they didn’t. It took me years to understand that our relationship wasn’t actually a relationship. I was a transaction to this man. He used me, he sold me, he raped me, he disposed of me. The levels of trauma I carry with me because of his violence and exploitation still haunts every relationship I engage in.

Although these examples of my lived violence speak to the reality that rape culture politics affect masculine-of-center folks regardless of gender, sexuality, or race—I want to also share how I've participated in rape culture politics and abuse. This is important if we are to deepen our expectations of consent culture, even for women and femmes who are disportionately affected by sexual violence.


In a more recent relationship, I violated my partner unknowingly. During the first time we engaged in physical intimacy, I assumed that they just wanted to have sex with me. My assumptions were based off my insecurities of being a Black fat femme who is often only seen through the gaze of fetishization or demeaned as someone you can only love in the dark. Of course these assumptions do not excuse my behavior, but they contextualize how limited my understanding of the situation and the consent for this other person was. I was so focused on my own trauma and experience that I never questioned what the situation felt like for my partner at the time.

We were hanging out watching The Adventures of Mary Kate & Ashley and began kissing. Things got heated and we began dry humping. After a while, I guided their hand on my body—on my chest and eventually in my underwear. We went to third base and when it was over, they seemed okay in terms of their demeanor with me. We cuddled and started watching another movie. Mid-movie they stopped everything and said, “I really didn’t want it to go that far tonight.”

My heart sank because I was so confused. I thought they enjoyed it as much as I did. I thought they wanted to be intimate the way I did. But as they continued to tell me how they felt about the situation, I realized I didn’t communicate at all during our hookup. I realized that I relied upon them, a masculine person, to always tell me when they feel uncomfortable because I assume they’re trained to be vocal with their feelings. But my skewed expectations and my trauma don’t excuse that I perpetuated abuse within this interaction with my partner. I didn’t take it well. I made excuses. I felt attacked because how could I be abusive when I’ve been abused, and in ways that seemed incomparable to this situation?

But after reflecting, I realized how fucked up I was in making my abusive behavior about myself instead of my partner. I listened, and then listened some more. I processed, held space, and centered my partner. I apologized. And I committed to changing my behavior around consent and intimacy. I committed to repenting through actively unlearning violence everyday. I committed to never hurting them like that again.

I proactively asked my partner if they wanted me to separate myself from them, and leave the spaces that we both frequent to give them a decision in how they heal and navigate the pain I caused them. My partner did not want to break up with me though. They wanted me to hold them through it. In addition to carrying their own trauma, my partner was committed to understanding my trauma navigation by offering me the space to be forgiven and to grow. They still wanted to love me while holding me accountable, no matter how uncomfortable it got.

I understand that this situation does not happen all the time. Sometimes our partners or folks we engage in physical intimacy with are abusive in ways that do not warrant us to give them space to grow, but instead traumatize us beyond repair. Sometimes we violate our partners and we are not forgiven or allowed back in their lives. Sometimes our partners become violent to the point that we can’t engage in a conversation with them about what makes us uncomfortable. Sometimes our relationships mirror dysfunction and trauma on new levels that we don’t have the language to unpack or decipher in order to address our feelings around it. But sometimes we can find transformative ways to address violence in our relationships that allow for us to move through trauma instead of circumventing or perpetuating it.
Recently an article written by Kai Cheng Thom, titled "9 Ways to Be Accountable When You’ve Been Abusive," was published on Everyday Feminism. It beautifully illustrated something that we rarely talk about: survivors can be abusers. Often we center our trauma, our survival stories, and our pain so much so that when we hurt other people because of our own trauma, we are almost permitted to justify it because the origin of our trauma was never our fault. But ultimately, that maintains a cycle of trauma in our communities. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If we continue to use our trauma to avoid accountability, none of us will ever be free to move through our trauma to heal. If we maintain this idea that our trauma limits the harm we can do to others, especially to our partners or loved ones, we will never be free to break the cycles of trauma that white supremacist violence has manifested within our minds, our politics, and our behaviors. We must acknowledge that we have the power to harm others regardless of our pain and experiences.

Envisioning the future of consent culture means we must acknowledge the fact that we can be knowingly and unknowingly violent, abusive, or non-communicative with the people we engage with. Consent culture also means unpacking the intersections of agency and body autonomy when it comes to race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and size. The culture we build around consent must go beyond the bedroom and private spaces. We need to politicize access to bodies through touching other people without asking them, touching someone’s hair, asking about someone’s sexuality or gender, interrogating bodies who we deem as “Other,” and so forth. Consent culture means we are inherently holding space and agency for all people to exist freely without persecution or infringement upon their autonomy. Consent culture means we are accountable to our communities and to ourselves in upholding inherent body autonomy for everyone.

Author’s Note: I was given permission by my partner to write about the experience I had in perpetuating abuse within my relationship prior to publishing this.

Photo: Shutterstock

Ashleigh Shackelford is a queer, agender Black fat femme writer, artist, and cultural producer. Ashleigh is a contributing writer at For Harriet, a community organizer at Black Future, and the creator of a body positivity organization Free Figure Revolution. She is a Ratchet Black Feminist dedicated to dismantling anti-Blackness. Read more at BlackFatFemme.com.

Two weeks ago much of the world mourned the loss of rock musician and cultural icon David Bowie. TIME Magazine honored Bowie by putting him on the cover page of their weekly issue, and a street in Austin, Texas was renamed after him. Amongst the mourning, conversations turned towards the fact that Bowie had once had sexual relations with 14-year old “groupie” Lori Mattix. The same people who have been posting about how the Huxtables are forever tarnished were sharing apologisms about David Bowie, with the narrative that “no one's perfect”, or that “the times were different.” New York Magazine, whose infamous July issue depicted dozens of Cosby’s victims on the cover, shared numerous articles honoring Bowie following his death. This got me thinking closely about the psychology of rape culture and why society continues to celebrate and award known rapists.

When white men rape, histories are rewritten, their careers continue to flourish, and their legacies remain unstained even into death.

It must be noted that neither Cosby nor Bowie considered themselves rapists. Part of rape culture feeds off of the predatory nature of male entitlement. We’ve been sold on the idea that anyone would be so lucky as to sleep with these powerful, rich, and famous men… So how could it possibly be rape?

Bill Cosby has openly admitted to using Quaaludes, a popular narcotic in the 1970s, to drug his victims. Quaaludes, as Hugh Hefner once charmingly mentioned to former girlfriend Holly Madison, were known as “thigh openers” during this time. Hefner, another sexual predator, happens to be close friends with Cosby and lives in the home where several of Cosby’s alleged sexual assaults on young women took place. Including the assault of a 15-year-old who stated that in 1974 Cosby forced her to drink beer and then took her to the Playboy Mansion where she was raped.

Hefner claims an event such as this would never have been tolerated in his home. But again, this is the same man that referred to narcotics as “thigh openers.” Not to mention that throughout the years, Holly Madison and several other Playboy Bunnies have shared similar experiences of being manipulated and coerced into fulfilling the sexual desires and other demands of Hefner. And yet, because we live in a patriarchal rape culture, Hefner is not seen as a rapist. Instead, the women are thought to be naïve for thinking that they wouldn’t or shouldn’t have to live under the sexual, emotional, and physical rule of a famous older man. After all, it’s Playboy and the Playboy Mansion. What did they expect?

The Playboy Mansion has become a symbol for gendered power dynamics in American culture. We see it as perfectly acceptable for an older man to lure young women onto his property with promises of fame and fortune—along with the unspoken rule that there will be sexual favors performed in exchange. So when women do leave and speak out against the mental abuse, trauma, and coercion they’ve experienced there, they aren’t seen as victims. Instead, they are seen as gold diggers who knew what they were getting themselves into. Their stories aren’t believed or validated. Rather, they have been viewed as scantily clad opportunists: cheap women trying to continue to profit off of a powerful man’s hard work.

As we begin to deconstruct rape culture, we must question what we understand both consent and sexual assault to mean. We must also look at how the women who speak out against the abuse are treated, when they have less power and/or racial and economic privilege than their attacker.

In our culture, youth is fetishized and sexualized. But it happens even more so in the entertainment industry, where younger is better, and barely legal is legal enough. When we hear that David Bowie “devirginized” a 14-year-old “groupie,” we’re supposed to think “How cool! Her first time was with David Bowie.” And then perhaps feel envy that our first sexual experiences were less glamorous and less memorable.

Except a grown man having sex with a 14-year-old child is rape. Calling said 14-year-old a groupie, or saying that she wanted “it” is not a sign of consent, but an example of how little consent is valued and understood in rape culture. You would think that one does not need to explain that a child cannot consent to sex with an adult. That even if upon reflection, the victim still believes sex was consensual, it does not mean that rape did not occur, because women in our society have been forced to internalize and adhere to rape culture.

In these incidents of famous men committing acts of pedophilia and rape, society has continued to embrace and reward predators. Woody Allen—a prime example—molested his seven-year-old adopted daughter, and also had a sexual affair with the then teenage adopted daughter of his long term partner Mia Farrow. It feels wrong to even call it a sexual affair. Soon Yi, who had experienced abuse and trauma from an early age, was only a young adult at the time, and Woody Allen was supposed to be a father figure to her. Farrow and friends of Farrow often spoke of being afraid of Allen, citing his connections to New York teamsters and status within Hollywood. He continues to be celebrated as a brilliant director, creating movies with A-list actors and major film studios. In 2014, the Golden Globes gave him a lifetime achievement award, followed by a standing ovation from the audience.

Even to this day, Woody Allen remains untouchable. And when he dies, his life will be commemorated much like Bowie’s has been—with articles praising his body of work; reflecting on how much we as a culture will miss him; and as with all “heroes”, how imperfect yet endearing he was. Imperfect, because when white men are rapists, it is seen as a flaw—not a desirable one, but an accepted one nonetheless.

However, when Cosby dies, we can be sure that he will be remembered as the man who let the entirety of the Black community down. White America still views the fictional Huxtables as the only example of a positive black family—one of the few times we’ve seen a Black husband and wife raise a family together without having to struggle. White America believes that Cosby was the father figure that we, as fatherless children, never had.

But Cosby is no leader to the Black community. He actually despises us. And as someone who grew up in a nuclear home with two loving parents, I didn’t need the Huxtables to know that Black love and the Black family exists. So now that Cosby is an accused serial rapist, I feel no allegiance to him, and see no reason to defend him or his legacy.

Let him be exposed for the rapist that he is. Let's condemn him in the media, dishonor his name, and take away whatever accomplishments or honorary titles he may have been given. But also, let’s just not forget to do the same for David Bowie, Hugh Hefner, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Jimmy Page, James Franco (who, within the past couple of years, attempted to arrange a hotel hook-up with a 17-year-old girl), Bill Clinton, Ben Roethlisberger, Jerry Sandusky, Terry Richardson, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Trump, Bryan Singer, Jerry Seinfeld, and the many other white men of power and fame who continue to rape and sexually abuse women and girls with impunity and protection.

We often use the words “allegation” or “alleged” when discussing these men’s crimes, since this is proper and protective protocol employed by the media, but this is often used as a dismissive tactic toward victims. Whenever someone is raped—whether their rapist was famous or not—we question the validity of their claim. It is easier for people to give the rapist the benefit of doubt than it is for them to believe the one who has been abused.

For example, Dylan Farrow courageously wrote an open letter regarding the sexual abuse and trauma caused by Woody Allen. The letter was published in The New York Times under Nicholas Kristof’s column where he prefaced her open letter with a disclaimer stating, “It’s important to note that Woody Allen was never prosecuted in this case and has consistently denied wrongdoing; he deserves the presumption of innocence.”

When we intersect and factor in race along with privilege, we see that when a rapist is white—especially if his victim was a person of color—it is more difficult for his accuser to seek justice, or even believed. We need to have an intersectional approach to deconstructing rape culture; one that includes race, gender/gender nonconformity, class, documentation status, body type, mental and physical abilities, and age. And while all rapists deserve to be punished, not all rapists will be. Especially when you consider race, class, and other variations of privilege.

We must continue to have these uncomfortable conversations and be honest with ourselves about the people we admire and, most importantly, the people we love. Rapists benefit from silence and are protected by doubt. We must understand that we all perpetuate rape culture and have internalized it as well. We must ensure justice and support for all victims.

We must hold all rapists accountable.

Photo: Everett Collection / Shutterstock

Bobby London is co-host of On Resistance Radio on 90.7 FM KPFK and a Los Angeles based writer and journalist. You can find her writing on ThisIsBobbyLondon.com and on CounterPunch.org.

@SunnyDaeJones

Ever since the public learned that Bill Cosby’s lead defense attorney is Monique Pressley—a black woman—his pending Pennsylvania sexual assault case has mutated from overtly damaging to covertly revealing the seldom spoken-about oppressions that are pervasive within the Black community: classism, rape culture, misogyny, and internalized inferiority complexes to keep the list short. The HBCU grad has been revered as a pillar of Black Excellence and a pinnacle of Black woman success. The overall tone of the Black community has not only been of acceptance, but outright celebration of her accomplishments. I must admit that her expertise, no-nonsense approach, and zeal for her client seem appealing… until, of course, one has truly absorbed what she represents.

by Breeshia Turner

By now, many of us have heard the news of Daniel Holtzcalw's conviction for sex crimes committed against 13 African-American women during his employment as Oklahoma City police officer. The videos of his tears have been liked and shared around the Internet, as people rejoice over what we have come to understand as "justice well served." Amidst the suffering and mourning for Black lives lost and brutalized across the nation, we can finally celebrate having "won" one. At last, we can sit back and revel in our oppressor's suffering.

by Eva Parker

Today I commit to telling my story. I can no longer suffer in silence like so many of my brothers and sisters do every day. Like so many other Black children I was told to keep personal business private. Telling my truth meant harming family members or chipping the facade of a strong Black woman. Sadly, it is the burden of privacy, the burden of discretion, the burden of pain that forces so many people to suffer in silence.

by Veronica Maria Brown-Comegys

When I was 10 years-old, a white man parked his truck in the alley behind our apartment building. He grabbed my four-year-old neighbor, Cynthia, who was in the backyard. In the vehicle, he demanded that the child perform oral sex. Her screams alerted the adults. The man shoved Cynthia from the vehicle and fled.

by Jennifer Arnise Carter

I still remember feeling him hook the inside of his huge forearm around my neck and pile-drive me to the bed. I landed so hard the impact made both of my Etienne Aigner sandals fly off and hit the wall on the other side of the bedroom. I was only 17 years old and I was being raped by the first of two men who would change my life forever.

by Ngozi Cole

Sweaty palms and a beating heart that almost bursts out of fear, anxiety, and repulsion…

Being in the same space as the rapist can be one of the most disempowering and soul-crushing experiences anyone can face. Emotional torture regurgitates lasting moments of physical trauma as we struggle, clutching at every strand of hope, just so that we may heal.

Silence in the face of oppression is about power dynamics. When people are silent about their pain, their power is sucked out of them, rendering them weak, defeated and psychologically captive under the ones who inflict their cancerous wounds. Despite the gravity of whatever incident might have occurred, it boils down to a simple power equation where one’s self-worth is subtracted and added to another’s coffer of conquest and control.

The power dynamics surrounding rape and sexual assault are no different. Unfortunately, rapists thrive on the shame and stigma inflicted on rape victims that guarantees that this private crime, even though rape is indeed a public crime, will be kept a secret. Rapists gain power on the silence of their victims, and of course there are countless incidents wherein they dare their victims to ever report the incident.

In many societies, rape victims shroud their experience in secrecy, too ashamed to out their assailants. However, rape is not an easy experience to talk about, primarily because of the physical and emotional damage involved. Many survivors prefer to bury these experiences in the hope that if they bury it long enough it might go away. Except more often than not, it doesn’t go away. Instead, it bears self-damaging fruits.

The culture of silence that surrounds rape and sexual assault, especially with regards to women and children, gives more and more power to their assailants. It cultivates the growth of victim blaming and shaming, when this should rightfully be transferred to the perpetrators instead.

It is extremely difficult to talk about rape, extremely painful to dig up a traumatic experience, but it is fundamentally self-empowering to break the silence. It can start in little steps such as changing the language surrounding your experience. Refer to yourself as a “survivor” instead of a “victim.” Even though it is essential to use the word “victim” to establish the gravity of rape as a crime, referring to yourself as a “survivor” is one step to psychological and emotional empowerment.

If it seems useless to report the crime or the time has elapsed for the assailant to be prosecuted, or if you are afraid to report it, then telling a close and trusted friend or family member is helpful too. It makes a huge difference to just talk about it—cry about it, pray about it and cuss out about it—with a trusted person. Don’t feel obligated to share all the details; share as much as you can and are ready to.

And then of course, when you feel ready and if you can, please report the crime. Many people who have been raped cite a weak or bureaucratic justice system that might not help them when these cases are reported. That might be true, but there is a lot of power that you take back from the assailant when you report them, name them, and subsequently shame them. Sometimes, just breaking the silence alone and not letting your voice be drowned by another’s oppression grants you a powerful first step to personal healing and helping others defeat their shame and silence too.

It took me five years after I had been raped as child to tell someone and then another twelve years to feel comfortable sharing it with some of my close friends and a counselor. During those years of silence, I had felt ashamed of myself that somehow it was all that little girl’s fault and that I would be an object of ridicule and repulsion if I reported it. However, the driving force behind my silence was fear…fear that the assailant would show up again and threaten me…fear that nobody would believe me, and even if they did, I would receive pity instead of support.

But sharing what had happened to me became incredibly liberating. Even though it was impossible to find the rapist again to get him arrested, I felt a pure sense of freedom and something that felt really close to healing and lasting peace. He couldn’t hurt me anymore because I had regained my power and sense of self-worth back-and you can too. Being silent about your experience does nothing for your healing and stunts the empowerment of other survivors of rape and sexual abuse to tell their stories, and gain their power back from their assailants. Please, break the silence, and conquer your oppressor.

Ngozi Cole is a recipient of the National Youth Excellence Award for Leadership in Sierra Leone, an exhibition of her deep commitment to her country. She writes for several online media platforms such as African Youth Journals and Voice of Women Initiative, and runs her own blog at sepiadahlia.com. Her work focuses on feminism and social justice.

Bill Cosby is once again in the spotlight. Over 40 women have come forward accusing him of sexual assault—some of the accusations from as early as 1969. And this week, documents from court dispositions were unsealed, revealing that Cosby admitted to giving drugs to women so that they would have sex with him in 2005.

by Kioshana LaCount

Fourteen years ago, I was raped.

It was late fall 2001. I was in the first semester of my 9th grade year in high school. I was14 years old. My parents had just gotten divorced, and I’d recently transferred to a new school district for a fresh start and to escape the bullying I’d endured for years at my old school. I was walking to my local Boys and Girls Club branch after school when some kids invited me over to their house for a few minutes. I was really excited that these kids – older than me – wanted to hang out with me. In my naiveté I was flattered and excited that I – a freshman, new transfer, and kind of nerdy kid – was being invited to hang out with the “cool kids.”
It only took about an hour for me to realize that this was the worst mistake I’d ever made in life. In that hour, my entire life changed. One of the boys at the house (the brother of the girl who’d invited me over) forced himself on me, taking my virginity and most of my self-worth with him. After it was over I did what any traumatized victim would do – I ran, as far away and as quickly as I could get.

I never spoke to any of them again.

I also never told anyone what’d happened to me… at least not until years later.

This wasn’t out of some misguided attempt to protect my rapist – although most people would like to think that. It wasn’t even so much out of guilt, although I did feel some measure of guilt for a long time. No, it was mostly because I didn’t see the point in telling anyone. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.

I was afraid to tell my parents because I didn’t want to get into trouble. My father had told me once the year before that if I ever told him someone had raped me he wouldn’t believe it because he felt I was “big enough to fight anyone off.” I realize now, so many years later, that he didn’t really mean that at the time. But as a scared and damaged 14 year old, I felt exactly that.

I also didn’t want to tell my parents because I didn’t want to hurt them. As I mentioned, they’d recently been divorced and my mother, especially, was dealing with serious bouts of the depression that accompanies letting go of a failed marriage. I didn’t want to add additional stress and anguish to her life, so I kept it to myself. I’d come to the conclusion from years of watching other women that this was probably my best bet anyway – like I said, who was going to believe me?

It took about ten years or so for me to finally come clean with my mom about what had happened to me. We cried and talked for a long time about what happened and why I never told her.

I’ve still never been brave enough to tell my dad.


I’m writing this because you need to know that it isn’t that easy.

Rape is a crime that I can liken only to murder. It kills a part of you from the inside. The only difference is that murder victims are able to escape their suffering at the end of the crime. I, on the other hand, will carry these scars with me forever.

I still remember every little minute detail about that day, from the denim Tommy Hilfiger dress I was wearing, to the faint smell of bleach and Fabuloso on those green tiles in the bathroom where he found me, to the sickening feeling of dread in my stomach as he pressed that sharp blade into my neck and warned me not to make a sound as he did his work.

I remember all of it.

It’s the reason that I’m 28 years old and I still sleep with the television on every night – because I’m afraid of the dark.

It’s the reason that my first instinct when entering into a room with unfamiliar people is to immediately look for several mode of exit.

It’s the reason I have panic attacks sometimes when people – especially men – try to hug me or touch me without my permission.

It’s also the reason I do this work. It’s the reason I wanted to create a safe space for Black women somewhere in the world. And it’s the reason I go so hard for my sisters every single day of my life.

1 in 6 women are the victims of rape in their lifetime. 18.8% of Black women and 24.4% of mixed-race women experience the same trauma that I’ve been made to endure, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network).

So many of us never report – never call our attackers out for what they are.

I don’t begrudge any of us for that – it is not our responsibility to hold an attacker accountable for his/her crime. Our criminal justice system has a demented way of forcing rape survivors to relive their trauma over and over again, putting each experience and memory on trial when/if we do ever decide to come forward with the truth.

I want you to think about that the next time you hear from one of Bill Cosby’s victims. Instead of framing her as a “gold-digging hussy” trying to ruin a man’s career, I’d like you to just think of her as a person. Think of her as your mother, your sister, or your daughter. And think of how you would feel if someone said the same things you’re saying about that survivor to one of the women in your life.

Survivors don’t owe you an explanation or an apology for how and why and when we decide to disclose our status as survivors – if at all. We don’t owe anyone anything.
To those criticizing the women who have been victimized by Bill Cosby and others, I hope that you’ll take a critical look at yourself and think about the damage that you could be doing, not only to those women, but to the potential survivors all around you that you may or may not know about. Think about what your dismissal of these women’s experiences is teaching your daughters and your sons about consent, agency, and their value/worth as people.

To my fellow survivors, I send you nothing but love and light today, and every day. You are beautiful and special and deserving of love, whether you feel like it or not. You don’t owe the world an explanation and you have nothing to feel ashamed of.

You never need to apologize for how you choose to survive.

I love you.

Photo: Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com

Kioshana LaCount is a 20-something professional hailing from the Deep South (Alabama). She is the Founder and Co-Executive Director of The SpeakLove Project, a nonprofit dedicated to creating safe spaces for Black women in the online and offline communities. In her free time she writes, crafts, and advocates. Feel free to contact her at Kioshana@thespeakloveproject.com, or via www.TheSpeakLoveProject.com.

by Inda Lauryn 

by Inda Lauryn

by Kadijah Ndoye​


Trigger warning: Discussions of sexual abuse and violence

It was the beginning of my freshman year of high school and I attended my first high school party. I remember being so excited on the car ride to the party and being so elated on the way back. That same night my mom had invited my half-sister to spend the night. I went home to my bed and slipped into my pajamas. My half-sister was home when I arrived and we laid in my bed as I gossiped about the cute guys I danced with at the party and tried to remember all the new songs I had heard.

The common fallacy about misogyny is that it is reserved for men. Many people believe that one can’t be a woman and still possess misogynistic biases. Sadly, this opinion is unfounded especially in the case of Black women. Far too often, our foremothers suffer from internalized misogynoir and respectability even though they themselves have overcome the obstacles of being Black women in predominantly White spaces. In times like these, when popular culture not only condones but excuses sexual abuse of women, we have to work to counter these narratives while seeking community with our foremothers.

Last week, President Obama gave a powerful State of the Union address, with a strong populist message addressing diverse issues: climate change, minimum wage increases, paid sick and family leave, pro-family workplace policies, support for veterans, debt-free college, decreasing student loan debt, health care reform, immigration reform, and the need to pushback against the erosion of voting rights of African American’s and people of color. He also became the first President to mention lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people at a State of the Union.

by C. Imani Williams


People differ in their beliefs on the appropriate age to talk to kids about sex and sexuality. It often depends on the parent and child. Certainly hitting a seven-year-old with topics that he or she is not emotionally ready for will likely do more to confuse than to explain. Another reason the conversation is not easy is that adults (whether they be parents, grandparents, guardians, or any other adults with influence) may not have a clear understanding of how to broach the topic while using age-appropriate language that kids can understand. Personal beliefs about topics such as gender, sexual orientation, and abstinence can also affect how and when the conversation takes place.

Dear Phylicia Rashad,

I am disappointed in you.

Any Black woman can tell you that her womanhood and her Blackness are inextricably linked. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that many of the people leading #BlackLivesMatter actions are Black women. We know that our communities are subject to racist justice systems. And so we also know it can be hard to accept the truth that some Black men—like your beloved Bill—are capable of horrible acts, especially when it comes to violence against women.

by Valerie Jean-Charles


This year has been a great year for feminism. Whether it be the social justice movements led by Black women to protect and uplift Black lives in the midst of oppression, or simply Beyoncé standing righteously in front of the word “feminist” in bright, bold letters. Women—Black women—have been winning. Yet, we have also taken some major hits: Internet trolls, white feminists stealing and undermining our work, and controversies. Looking back two of the most major stories of the year in our community have twisted my insides with disgust, and have also led me to ponder the issues we face in our own community in moving the feminist/womanist movement forward.