Author’s Note: This passage is coming from my experience as a Black Trans Woman, but is not meant to speak for all Black Trans Women, or to invalidate the spectrums of gray and asexuality. All perspectives, stories, and viewpoints are valid, but I can only be an expert on my own.

When I first attempted celibacy, I was identifying and living my life as a man, because I was being used for a sexual purpose, in exchange for validation that I could be wanted for something. I was constantly being told that I wasn’t “boyfriend material” (shocker and a half, right?), but word had gotten out around campus that I was a good fuck. That was years and years of living, and I was tired of it, so I decided that I would be the only one loving me, until someone was ready to love me for the person I was, and not what they could take from me.

Now I exist in my truth, as a woman, a sensual and unapologetic, but nervous, woman. The strange thing about this is that the things that used to trigger me about being a man (like lifting and playing sports) are things that now affirm me as a woman who cannot — and so, does not —conform. At this point in my life, sex has also been one of those things. While I was celibate the second time around, which only lasted about a month, to be honest, I realized something about me: sex is a form of self-preservation for me as a Black Trans Woman.

Meditate on this: a Black Trans Woman faces so many obstacles as a consequence for merely existing. She is hunted, not only by the state, but by her own people as well, as some sort of aspiration to an internalized sense of “manhood” by Black cis men. Add to this, the endless hurdles to find work and keep it, or to find other means of working that are not considered valid by society which increases the danger for them in many instances.

These are just outside factors to consider. Add to this the dysphoria, the constant misgendering from loved ones and close relationships that have proven to be mentally, physically or emotionally violent. Cap this off with the death toll, and the ever decreasing life expectancy, and I guess you could say a bitch like me might have a little bit of stress in her life! Go figure.

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For me, as a Black Trans Woman, to witness sex as a form of affirmation, is to find the smallest diamond in a rough of shit covered knives, doused in lemon juice and sprinkled with salt.

For me, as a Black Trans Woman, to find her body not only as something worthy and magnificent (as it is), but to find someone to share that magick with, may very well be one of the only moments she has to enjoy a trying and very taxing life — one that’s always trying to kill her.

I was able to give my body to someone in this way recently, to feel a presence beside me and within me, that was a compliment to my being. Believe me when I say this: it was the first time in a while that I felt able to take on this strange, complicated, and altogether violent world I live in, with all of my identities attached. For a moment, there was music, sweat, voices, hands, mouths, hearts, and above all of this — peace…a moment of peace and bliss.

This… this is something I need. That’s an unpopular opinion potentially, but for me, it is something I need. In a world that seems to be all to focused on the idea of less and less women like me being in it, the moments where I can love my body, and share it with someone else who loves it, are moments I don’t think I could live without right now.

So I declare my celibacy absolved and my sluthood righteous, free moving and resurrected. I will work to center myself in other ways, so that I never fall into the shadow of another. I will focus my life, and then take self-care in the form of being a shameless fucking THOT, because that’s what liberation looks like for me.

To all my loves on their respective journeys, know that your journey, your story, your narrative, even when not in your hands, is still yours. You owe that to no one. Peace.