OSU/ Defending Abstinence

Okay, thank you so much to all of you who are sending me positive shot outs, and telling your friends to big up my blog. I appreciate the love tremendously. I have an announcement: I got accepted to The Ohio State University's Ph.D. program for Comparative Studies. I am so excited. (I didn't want to sound too shallow but I wanted to ask the head of the program if I could get free tix to the OSU football games next year- yeah baby!) I'll be going back to school in the fall to become a Professor and expert on Black Woman's Studies and black relationships/black families. My Thesis is going to be on the "Commodification of African American women from slavery to the present." Black women are leading the country in the number of new aids cases, new HIV infections, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and if you ask me, broken hearts. I think it all goes back to our treatment as breeders during slavery. We have only functioned as roles and not as persons. We have to reclaim our identity and begin to take care of ourselves first, families second, instead of the ohter way around.

Why, why why? I want black love to come back, but we can love another until we love ourselves. That's why I felt like I have to go abstinent because it's too easy to always do what we've always done and always get what we've always gotten. I want an upgrade to the emotional, needy, clingy relationships I've had. Abstinent ensures that I keep my head on straight and keep parameters and keep the relationship in it's proper perspective.

I'm telling you this because I spent a significant amount of time last night defending my decision to be abstinent to a young man I met at Walmarts. We began to chat about Obama (I proudly wear my Obama pin on my coat.) He has a marketing company on the side and he gave me his number so we can discuss him helping me with a marketing strategy for my book. Well, eventually the conversation turned personal and he expressed his interest in me. (It's good to know black men still find a thick black girl with a natural, no makeup and kids attractive.) This guy looks like LL (everyone knows I'm a sucka for LL) so I was definitely interested. But then he began to tell me how we wanted to get to know me in a more intimate way- and I had to put the skids on, "I'm abstinent." That's like throwing a bucket of cold water on the conversation. This guy was like "what? I'm a grown man. I have needs." But he was willing to listen to my explanation of why it was important for me to stay kept until marriage.

I grew wary of defending myself, but I also felt very good for standing up for myself. I told him that I was a jewel, and although he could hold and look at the case, he could not open the case and touch it. I said the jewel was too important to risk him tripping and breaking it. All he could say after it was damaged was "Ooops." Been there, done that. So... He said he was feeling me so he would respect my decision to be abstinent, but he said he wasn't down with that, and for the record, he thought it was ridiculous!!! LOL... One step forward for Tanikka, one step forward for Black love.