I think this is an interesting topic but it requires the reader to understand a little bit more about me. As I mentioned in my previous post, the purpose of my writing this blog is to get a better understanding of my sexuality. Outside of my blog life, I’m starting a very cool life in bloomsbury. I love bloomsbury, it’s central, it’s hip and it’s multi-cultural. Before I came to bloomsbury, I was living in country X somewhere in Western Africa.
In country X, on the surface it seems very conservative. As a woman you’re suppose to wear dresses, preferably covers the knees or longer. Men will carry your bags, open the doors and help you with heavy things. It’s wonderfully polite and also a little bit restrictive. What’s exciting and interesting is that the culture smells of sex when you get to know people. They talk about it openly, they joke about it frequently and make many references to it.
The thing is, I didn’t fel sexual in this culture. I turned down every single offer, I never made any offers. In country X’s culture, not only do they have a very sexualized culture, they also have a huge power hierarchy between ‘white’ people and ‘black’ people. I never knew if they were asking me because of my skin colour or because they really found me interesting. Maybe they were asking me because I have access to opportunities, access to money, or access to more power than they did. I’m sure I had more marriage offers than the number of days I was in that country. So I never let down my walls, which is in some way unfortunate but I couldn’t separate the people who were genuine and the people who were simply asking for an opportunity. I once read Kink in Exile’s post “The power of “no means no”, and it describes exactly how I was feeling. I wasn’t sure if my no’s would be respected. So I don’t give an inch. I don’t give any reason for any mis interpretation of my actions. I don’t expect an invitation and I don’t give the expectation of an invitation.
It’s interesting as I cross boundaries and come to bloomsbury that I’m so much more comfortble flirting, putting inuendos in bits of my conversation or even going out. But something happened today. I met someone from country X. I knew even before introducing myself because he had the same mannerisms, same politness and same flirtiness. For some reason, I still don’t feel comfortable accepting an invitation from him, even though he must be a nice man.
I don’t know if it’s because when I saw him, I was transported back to when I had to have my walls up. Or perhaps I’m a little racist and believe anyone who comes from that country behaves the same way regardless of their background. Or perhaps I should just stop giving myself a hard time; realizing his mannerisms are very similar he’s also new to bloomsbury as I am. I hope that my year in country x would have taught me lessons in racism and power hierarchies, but maybe I’m still learning them.
