Flip the historical coin of black sexuality and we’re faced with one of two images. One image cast holds the legacy of the beastly images of wanton black women and sex-crazed black men that gave permission to abuse and silence. These oversexualized stereotypes were married to the other side of the coin—Mammy and Uncle Ben. It was largely the effects of the first image that led to an attempt to counteract the sting of shame by concealing these pictures with a portrait that was upright and chaste, leaving us with a pentimento of our sexual inheritance.
We lacked our own holistic images that would embrace all aspects of ourselves and acknowledge the power and beauty of our passion. Fortunately, we were able to look to strong and creative individuals to reclaim the territory of our sexuality. Although the faces on the coin are still present, artistic and popular images of black folks with full and self-defined sexual selves have subversively emerged. Whether in the form of a bawdy song by Bessie Smith, later screen gems like Pam Grier’s Coffy and Friday Foster, or D’Angelo’s open sexuality, these artists have inspired a primal response. And whatever you may think of Lil’ Kim, she is certainly singing a postmodern version of “Ain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do.” Until recently our own spin peeked through mostly in music, television, and film, so this collection captures an exciting direction for black writers.
Black Silk is the language of body to body, a language that is elusive and essential, specific and universal.
Dear reader, put that old coin in your pocket and immerse yourself in stories through which black writers have minted their own erotic currency. Black Silk contains thirty-one original stories by women and men who fully embrace eroticism with incredible diversity. The writers herein represent some of today’s best, working in a variety of genres from literary to commercial, from romance to magical realism. Some of the stories celebrate the act itself. Other stories turn us on and tell us something else at the same time. In “The Princess and the Cop,” a woman is forced to confront her class issues. In Eric Jerome Dickey’s “Good-Bye,” the many layers of infidelity are unraveled.
The contributors included in Black Silk take on the bittersweet nature of eros, as in Bernice L. McFadden’s “One-Night Stand” and Bruce Morrow’s “Popsicles, Donuts, and Reefah.” Other stories invite us to follow their lovers on odysseys. In Janet McDonald’s “Undoings in Amsterdam” and Kiini Ibura Salaam’s “The Sexiest Seconds,” the journeys take place abroad and lead to self-discovery. For others, the distance traveled is psychically farther than the character has ever been, as in Elissa G. Perry’s “Revelation.”
Proof that the best sex employs innovation is displayed in stories like Breena Clarke’s exuberant “Fucking the Fat Man” and in “The Dawn of Our World,” Carolyn Ferrell’s engrossing multigenerational tale of lust and its costs and lessons. Wicked humor sets the tone in Reginald Harris’s “Stores,” which makes us look at grocery shopping in a whole new way.
Everything from the extraordinary to the mundane is woven amid these lusty tales. In many stories music makes a cameo or plays an important role: in Clarke’s story, Margaret Johnson-Hodge’s “Summer in the City,” and Cheo Tyehimba’s “A Different Drummer.” As for food, it becomes the language of love. As Jacqueline Woodson points out in “Kiwi,” her tale of a singer who falls for another woman’s hands, “If it wasn’t for food, Negroes wouldn’t have no idea how to talk about themselves.” I hope Black Silk will provide readers with erotic enjoyment and carnal food for thought. After all, life begins with the erotic touch, and we are sustained by it.
Retha Powers
New York, 2001