≡ FROM THE HORSES MOUTH: Little BLK Boys & The Mandingo Complex by Lee Bynum
One of my very favorite moments in my seventh grade Latin class was when gladius appeared on our vocabulary list. Fiend for classics that I was, my recognition of the term’s full genealogy sent shivers of paroxysmal horniness down my twelve-year-old spine. Could it be that Ms. Pomfrey was actually sanctioning an in-classroom discussion of my very favorite thing? You see, while my handy Latin-to-English dictionary defined gladius as “sword,” I knew that it was really Virgilian slang for penis.
Dick. Cock. Schlong. Johnson. Peter. Pecker. Manrammer. Gut-wrench. Hector erector cervix inspector.
As an efflorescent homophile who already appreciated that his Blackness guaranteed oppression, the connection between pingas and potency (or was it sex and survival?) was absolutely not lost on me.
Okay, so let’s fast forward a fifty-leven years to 2010, where wielding the pee-pee is still the only way a lot of Black men know how to feel powerful. I chanced upon this little gem on my Facebook wall today (posted by one of my many trusty fuckery-suppliers, as they are wont to do):
As I gazed at the unfortunately titled clip (“5 Dudes Doing a New Dance ‘Dick Slangin’”), an ardent emotion calcined my spirit. For once, that heat was not born out of titillation.
Nope.
It was abject disappointment. (Trust and believe, no one was more aghast than I that one hundred and twenty seconds of a half-dozen abtastic, postpuberal libertines celebrating their Mandingo bumcleavers elicited only disillusionment and mortification.) To be sure, Negroid tummy-ticklers are still the tools that launch a thousand ships for me, but there is something truly vexing about this clip, both in spirit and in content.
First and foremost, how does the raggedy thrusting in this video constitute anything even remotely related to dance? The audacity! The shame! Moreover, the blatant homoeroticism (if that is even the word… I cannot think of too many occurrences in my very gay life when my boys and I communally electric slid our throat-plungers down the Soul Train line) aside, what are we teaching our sons that they interpret these outlandishly vulgar movements as proper ways to attract the opposite gender? Their simpering visages barely belie the easily discernible violent sexual tendencies in their rhythmic posturing. (Note the first twenty seconds consist primarily of unintelligible, savage grunting.) Presumably, if they’ve gone to the momentary trouble of uploading this poppycock to innawebs, there is a (young female*) audience for it. That begs the very serious question of why aren’t we inculcating our daughters to be something other than the receptacles for the spunk cannons of ashy, uncoordinated ne’er-do-wells?
Furtherfuckinmore, where are the parents, grandparents, older siblings, teachers, preachers, community leaders, and choreographers to guide these kids in a more productive direction? Most horrifyingly, what examples might these fledglings be teaching to their own kids?
Perchance one day soon, we might actually regard the ol’ one-eyed wonder lizard less as a gladius than a gladiola. (You know, that really beautiful flower that you choose to share with someone whom you genuinely respect, cherish, and want to something worthwhile.)
*I’m definitely not denying that there is a complex web of issues that exist in same-sex couplings, but these young men are apparently straight-identified, so I shan’t take them up here.
⊆ May 4th, 2010 by BlkGrl | ˜ No Comments »
On the face of it this probably seems like a really silly post but lets be real there are things that we have internalized that are misogynistic that we never ever question as such. Case in point…calling someone a pussy. This for most men and boys is the ultimate insult.
