My First Kiss

*blushes*

Ya'll tryna get up in my business, aren't you?

I've always been a little ahead of the pack. My first kiss was in kindergarten. His name was Edward and he was my boyfriend. Not too long ago I unearthed some pictures of my graduation from kindergarten and there he was. My first kiss and boyfriend (he was cute!).

I can recall playing dumb games of spin the bottle that didn't amount to much more than puckered lips and pressing faces together. I actually can't remember the first time I "french" kissed (that's bad, right), but I can remember my friends and I talking about what it might be like. I laugh now to think of 12 year olds imagining their first "grown up kiss."

I'm not big on PDA... I hate it, actually. I've had to come to terms with the fact that there are others who don't share my feelings on that subject (for someone who hates PDA I stay having friends who LOVE it...) but one specific kiss came to mind as I was writing this:

One spring break I went to Belize with J and his family. It was our first time on a trip like that together and his parents were clearly using the trip as some alone time for them, so J and I had a lot of alone time ourselves (not as much as he would've liked, but that's a whole other story). One night, J got into a huge fight with his mom and brother and after dinner I found him at the bar drinking himself silly.

J had made a bet with bartender that he could finish a bottle of liquor without passing out. If he did, the bartender would take all his other drinks off the tab, if not, he had to pay for however much he did drink. When I found out about his stupid bet, I started pouring his drink out when the bartender's back was turned. Eventually he got up to go to the bathroom and by the time he returned, I'd been able to pour most of the liquor out. He wasn't especially happy about it and so I started kissing him, to jokingly make him feel better. Maybe it was because we had both been drinking but playful kisses quickly turned into some serious tongue wrestling. It was a small bar (we were at a small resort) and there were maybe 2 or 3 other people standing there talking when our impromptu make out session began...

At some point I remembered where we were and pushed him away, but by then the bar had seen all they needed to see. J thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Needless to say we went back to my room...

Oh but Edward -- wonder if I could find him on facebook. :)

Why Do You Lie?

By now we've all heard about and probably discussed the rape case involving a student at Hofstra University.

For those who don't know, google "hofstra rape" and you'll get all the news articles you never wanted.

To sum it up, though, a young woman -- college freshman in fact -- by the name of Danmell Ndonye consented to sex with 5 young men. Afterwards, she claimed to have been raped. An investigation was immediately launched, outraged expressed and sympathy conveyed. Shortly thereafter, when the cops began questioning Ms. Ndonye's inconsistent stories as well as confronting her with the possibility of a tape, she confessed that it had been made up.

Because I understand the real aftermath rape can have, I don't want to make a lot of jokes, but the first thought I had when I read that there was a video was, "I bet a lot more dudes are going to start recording their sexual activity..." I can't say that I'd blame a man if he did that either. Many men are convicted of sexual assault crimes that they didn't commit. I'll be the first to say that sexual assault is not taken as seriously in our society as I think it should be, but anytime a person's life and freedom could be taken away by someone else's lie, it is a problem.

Only Ms. Ndonye knows why she lied, for sure, and perhaps even she doesn't know, but I can take a stab at it. We all know that when (and in this day and age, it's a "when" not an "if") the videotape surfaced (and I believe Ms. Ndonye was probably unaware of the video) we all would have taken to Twitter, facebook and our blogs to comment on the demoralization of our young women. "How could she degrade herself like that," we would've asked. "What's this say to other young women?" others would have chimed in. Ms Ndonye may have asked herself some similar questions right after it happened and may have had immediate and sudden remorse and so she lied.

Perhaps, even, Ms Ndonye did feel raped. Perhaps she woke up the next morning and felt that she'd been violated -- but the fact is, she consented to these sexual acts and the burden of dealing with it was her responsibility, not that of the 5 men or the police officers who got her case.

I sympathize with Ms. Ndonye. I can only imagine what it's like to wake up the next morning and feel violated and know, even if it's just subconsciously, that you're to blame for your own decisions.

Having said that, what I really worry about are the women who have recently been raped and those who will be, who will remember this story and be afraid to come forward. They will stay silent because they fear no one will believe them; they won't talk because somehow they will make it their own fault. What about those women? What can we do to foster a society that allows women to come forward when they've been violated, but also protects men from women who have "buyers' remorse"?

Above all else, I hope that there are other young women out there who saw this story and will really think before they leap; consider how they might feel and what it might be like before they say yes.

I have a follow-up post for tomorrow (what? ASmith's gonna post on a Saturday?!) ok... good point...

Let's see what actually happens, but I DO have a follow-up post.

*****EDIT******
I just read an article that confirmed what I thought: she lied because she didn't want anyone to think ill of her and to explain to her boyfriend why she was MIA. He convinced her to go to the cops and so the ordeal began.

"Don't just wrap it up, get TESTED"

First, read this post at A Belle in Brooklyn. Honestly, if you don't read my post, make sure you read THAT post.

I can't emphasize the importance getting tested, enough. It just makes good sense. Unfortunately, we get defensive when we're asked to take a test and we're scared to ask our partners to do the same, even though it's our health at stake.

1 in 5 people have herpes. Herpes isn't HIV but it also isn't cureable. As one of Belle's commenters points out, we get so caught up in HIV/AIDS that we forget there are a host of other STI's out there that can have serious effects on our bodies if they go untreated.

I'm reminded of my freshman year in college. It was mid-first semester when there was a chlamydia out-break in my class. A guy happened to be on the phone with a friend of his checking his voicemail (I think he wanted to play a message for the friend). He mistakenly played a voicemail from the on-campus clinic telling him his results were in. The friend inquired and he admitted he had chlamydia, but didn't want to tell anyone.

The friend told his girlfriend, not knowing that SHE had slept with him.

The girlfriend told one of her friends knowing that while that friend hadn't slept with this guy, they had shared partners since she had come in contact with him.

When all was said and done, anywhere from 6 - 10 people may have contracted chlamydia and the guy who had it "first" wasn't going to tell any of them... and let me also add this came out shortly before Thanksgiving break when many of them went home to their significant others...

As I was reading Belle's post, I was simultaneously having a conversation with a friend who was telling me about her weekend. She may or may not have lost a friend or two over some choices she made sexually.

I told said friend to get tested today during her doctor's appointment... this isn't a game...

When The Internet Goes Bad (Look What I Found)

This'll be a special edition of "Look What I Found" 2 topics so far, and both are instances where we might question how much the internet adds to our lives.

First, everyone's buzzing about what Asher Roth said on Twitter last night.



So the joke is, he was at Rutgers hanging out with some "nappy-headed hos"

The joke wasn't funny and now people are buzzing that maybe he just committed artistic suicide. He didn't, but people need to be careful with Twitter. I've read a few other blogs that are discussing this angle more from the "When Twitter Kills" side than from "When Stupid People Make Bad Comments" and based on the comments, I'm beginning to see that, unfortunately, artists do have to be careful on Twitter. Too many of us expect them to be their stage persona all the time and we fault them for being real people too (I'll admit, it took me a minute to adjust to how much Solange tweets about being a mom...). They make bad jokes and stupid decisions just like we do, and too many of us don't seem to understand that.

Some celebs may need to rethink how they're using Twitter.

Asher Roth just needed to re-think that bad ass joke he made. The Don Imus thing is a deaded issue. No one is talking about it, and so his random reference to it makes limited sense. It wasn't until someone put the joke in the context of him being at Rutgers that I even began to understand where he might've been coming from. I still maintain that with this issue being so far back in most of our minds, he was on the wrong end of the stick with this.

Oh, and the "interns" or "street team" or whoever Asher's people are deploying on the blogs to try to show the "other side" of this issue are pissing me off. I may have a blog commentary on that later. Check out the IPS's blog post on it and read some of the comments.

Next is a website one of my co-workers forwarded to me (I have a total secret crush... LOL...) STDCarriers.Com.

When I was in high school, there were rumors of a girl who was arrested at another school for having unprotected sex with people without informing them she had HIV/AIDS. The story was something like she'd moved to our city from NYC to live with an aunt and her anger at having the disease made her do this. I never got concrete proof of this, but stories like this DO happen. So, arguably having a website to cross check your potential sexual partner on could be helpful, but on the OTHER side... DAMN. What if your name pops up there and you don't have an STD? This is definitely scary.

Oh and I tweeted about this: What's with mainstream media's (MSM) "new" fascination on "women who leave men for other women." Oprah did a show on it and now it's "all the rage" LAWD. That bothers me. Between this and something that's been happening to me, I may need to dedicate a post (sigh). I'm not sure if I really will, just yet, though. Let me think on it.

Commentary...

And here we are again. I had a post in mind, and now I'm doing this because of an e-mail I got.

I always say to myself "you could do more than one post a day" and I intend to, but time constraints and the fact that we all can see I like to be long-winded makes that a little harder to do. In fact, I think the real reason I'm on twitter is to force myself to be concise sometimes.

The article I recieved in an e-mail is rather long, but I highly recommend reading it through. Here's the link: (I would normally post the text, but like I said it's long, and I'm long by myself.) :)

Menace to Sorority

Here's a (my) summary:

Chanise Alton-Smith was born female, but identifies as a male. As a result, he prefers to be called Devin and referred to using male pronouns. He attended George Washington University and had never been interested in sororities. However a senior member of Zeta Phi Beta continued to approach him and encourage him to attend their functions and get to know the sorority and it's members. He did, and he liked the sorority and so he joined. There are some instances mentioned where it became clear that his sisters didn't understand the identity issue and so, according to the article, he tried to be understanding and compromising even when they asked him to wear feminine shoes and things of the like. After he was officially accepted into the sorority, the older members who seemed to "get it" graduated and the new "administration" seemed more intent on fighting Devin's wishes to be recognized as male. They wouldn't allow him to wear male shoes to events and at official Zeta Phi Beta rush events, they would refer to him as "she" to potential members. Eventually, Devin was notified that his status as a member had been changed to inactive because he turned in a transcript late. He became depressed and eventually withdrew from the school, after destroying his paraphanalia and returning it to his former sisters.

The article details some of the specific things they did to him (which is why you should absolutely read it) that were clearly meant to make him feel uncomfortable and force him to be something he did not identify as. I think the article quotes one of his older sisters as saying "it's time for you to start acting like a woman..."

Of course, my first question was, why would he, since he identifies as male, join a sorority? GWU's discriminatory rules essentially say that a fraternity had the right to deny Devin admission because he was born a female, but a sorority could not deny him admission because he identifies as male. But I still wonder... Zeta Phi Beta has a commitment to 3 things, one of which is Finer Womanhood. Anyonoe remotely aware of the sorority knows that. Clearly womanhood doesn't apply to Devin and so again, I wonder...

And then I read the comments where someone made a good point: when the members of ZPhiB approached Devin and recruited him and then allowed him to participate in their intake process, they, at least, implied they understood his situation and were willing to be accomodating. And it should be highlighted that the girls who essentially forced him out were NOT the ones who recruited him. My concern is that not enough was done to explain to everyone Devin's situation and how it would be best handled.

I just think a lot of wrong decisions were made by both sides. The sorority members are portrayed in the article as callous and uncaring. The university didn't participate in the article so their stance, outside of what is publicly available (i.e. the rules governing discrimination) is unclear and the national sorority's opinion is also missing.

So I'm very interested in what you guys think...

Random (Invasive) Questions

Today, I got this text message:

"Hey just curious... And not to be offensive but, Do you like women? Ppl ask me do i all the time"

I'm not an easily offended person. And it's hard to be mad at this question because at least she had the (proverbial) balls to ask me instead of asking someone else. Few people these days do stuff like that. I guess I'm not upset (and really, I'm not upset) so much at the question as I am in a)the way it was asked and b)who asked it.

This girl and I went to high school together. We were friends in the way that when you go to a small private school, everyone is friends, especially the outnumbered black folks. She and I never would've been friends in the "real world" at best we might've been good aquaintances. I think we both know this. At this point, high school was 4 years ago. I've since graduated from college. And though we have kept in touch, it's been very random. It wasn't at first, but as we all grew up and realized we didn't actually have to talk to people we didn't like, anymore, people started to fall to the side.

I suppose the straw was when she (N) called me upset that two mutual friends of ours (A and W) were going to Atlanta to celebrate A's birthday. A and N are not really friends, more like frenemies and A has decided that she doesn't have to be around N, so she doesn't want to. It was her b-day, and I understand N was upset, but she took it out on me when I didn't have any say-so in the guest list. I wasn't even mad then (I'm hard to piss off) but I felt like that was a sign that I needed to cut ties.

She's tried to repair that, a little, I think. I'm a nice person -- and there's no reason for me to be a bitch, but I haven't reached out to her as I have in the past.

Anyway, I set all that up to explain how we don't communicate regularly enough for that question to be appropriate. I mean, I'm not gay, but if I were -- how's that any of her business. I try to hit on you, you ask me that. We're good friends, ask me that. You think one of my relationships is "odd" ask me... but you don't just wake up one day when we haven't spoken in at least 9 months and ask me that -- that's random and inappropriate.

I'm not upset with the question, I'm upset with the fact that she asked a personal question and she isn't... well... a personal friend.

I did answer her question because the girl is also a big-mouth. And while I really don't care what people think, I don't want to deal with all that madness.

On another note, I know for a fact she's not the first person to wonder that about me. I used to be really insecure about that. Not so much because of how homosexuality/bisexuality is perceived in our society, but more because if I am heterosexual but people still wonder, what's that say about me (I used to think). I've since grown the hell up and decided it doesn't matter. However, I think one big reason some people in my life wonder this is because I don't put my business in the street. Very few people know anything about my romantic life -- and that's on purpose. I don't need a whole lot of people in my business, I'm a private person, really. But it's interesting that people expect to know all about your relationships and who you're interested in and so forth, otherwise, they figure you're "hiding" something...

Yeah, I'm hiding my own damn business...

Is You Gay or Is You Ain't

Siditty over at Siditty: Angry & Black Since 1976 posted the video below and has a dialogue going on about whether or not sleeping with members of the same sex makes you gay.

First the video:



He might have a point about not knowing whether or not the person performing oral sex on you is male or female, but that doesn't support his argument. If you knowingly have sexual interaction with people of the same sex you're not heterosexual.

But, as I've discussed before, are we boiling sexual orientation down to who's in your bed at night? In other words, is it as simple as who you have sex with? On that youtube video, someone asks "what about the people who've never had sex with someone of the same sex, but consider themselves gay?" and I ask the sister question: "How did the 40-yr old virgin know he was straight?" If it's only about who you have sex with, then how does anyone know their orientation until their first sexual experience?

So the answer/counter argument is, it's about who you're sexually attracted to. And I buy that on most levels, but I know plenty of people (I'm not one of them, since I think sex is kinda a big deal) who will "stick [their] thing in any thing" (click the link if you don't know where that quote comes from) regardless of attraction and that's fine -- to each his own, but if that's the case, doesn't it poke a hole in the idea that it's only about who you're attracted to? Maybe one could argue that those people are factions and don't represent the whole, but in our day and age, I don't know if we can be sure about that.

These aren't easy questions. Ultimately, your sexuality is your business (less'n you're sleeping with everybody and telling nobody because DISEASE IS REAL) and if you want to claim to be straight while sleeping with people of the same sex, as long as you also cop to your extracurricular sex activities, that's fine with me. I won't be sleeping with you, but I think honesty is important and it's fair to do what you want with whom you please. At the end of the day, these are just labels meant to put everyone in a box, because people like boxes.

Vent

I have got to get this off my chest or I'm going to have a problem.

Here's the backstory:

About 2-3 wks ago I had a little issue with my living situation. Actually, I was put out. But it really was ok, I had somewhere to go and a long-term plan, so everything was fine. BUT, I had been through a whole lot so I was still a little down about how everything had played out with the lady who put me out. To top everything off, my infamous ex called me. His message said something like "I just wanted to call and catch up with you, since we haven't talked in a while."

Now let me add this: the reason we haven't talked in a while (and I've outlined this before) is because his boyfriend (yes, his boyfriend) didn't want him talking to me and I refused to talk to him if he had to sneak around to do it. Now, of course, it should be said that my ex is the KING of acting like things are ok when they're not, avoiding the white elephant in the room and flat out lying about things to make situations easier for him. SO, while all of that is true, he wanted to act like we hadn't talked because we'd both just been busy. Whatever. I can support that delusion. It's not that serious.

I'm not stupid. I'm not stupid, and I know him. I'm not stupid, I know him and I'm a student of people. He called me on a Friday night. We haven't spoken on a Friday night since we were together. Why? Because we both now have lives that are completely independent and irrespective of each other, not to mention that most people in relationships spend Friday nights with that special someone... so if he was calling me on a Friday night that HAD to mean him and his boyfriend were having some problems so that ol' boy wasn't around, which made me skeptical to call back... cause your ex calling when they have problems with the new relationship is NEVER good.

But curiousity killed the cat, and so the next day I did break down and call him back. And, just as I had suspected he and his boyfriend were having major issues and it seemed a break-up was coming. I didn't offer any opinions, though based on what he told me was going on, I was shocked that he had put up with it for so long. The guy I knew never would've stood for that, but, it did serve as a great reminder that the two of us have grown up a lot since "then."

I digress...

I told him about my situation, we talked about his and then 15-20 mins later the conversation was over, and of course he offered to call me back and of course (which is why I agreed) he didn't. A week after the fact, he sent me a text asking if everything in my world had gotten better. I figured that since he didn't call me back him and the b/f had gotten back together so I told thim that my world had gotten much better just as I was sure his had as well and he responded in agreeance.

Then, two nights ago, he called me and left a message saying that he was calling to check up on me since the last time we talked I "didn't sound so good..."

Umm... WHAT?

I automatically know that a)this is bullshit and b)he really just wants to talk to me, which is fine, but please, don't talk to me like I'm stupid.

I call him back, but we don't talk.

Then last night he calls me again. He can't talk, again, but he just wants to know if I'm ok.

Back in the day, my ex prided himself on being able to tell when something was bothering me but I wasn't being honest about it, and most times he was right on the money. But like I said -- we've changed. And I've been happier in the last 12 months than I have in the last 24 - 36.... so for him to fall right back into that "place" with me... saying "are you really?" in response to my "I'm ok..." pissed me off.

How dare he, I thought, call me a year later acting like he really gives a shit about me and my life.

Bottom line, it upsets me that STILL he's acting like nothing between us has changed when EVERYTHING has changed. I don't trust him, don't really like talking to him for too long, don't really care too much about his personal life... and aside from all that, I'm just no longer the person he used to know and instead of coming at me, trying to get to know me again, he's coming at me like I've been waiting for him to come back. As if when he broke my heart, I pushed pause...

Dude, quit joking.

Whether this is about a romance or not... him in my life would be a MAJOR step, and I've thought long and hard about how I would handle this time if it ever came (and, it may not yet be here) and I decided that if he tried to come back in a way that acknowledged that this means starting over, I could be receptive... but I see he's going to need one of my infamous "too frank for public consumption" talks. One where I say "Look. I don't know you, you don't know me and there is no way I'm going any further than where we are right now until you acknowledge that..."
I haven't said that yet because I keep hoping that either he'll go away again or he'll realize it on his own, but I'm remembering, now, one of the many reasons our relationship had to end. He took my loyalty for granted, and even now -- even when he knows that he's hurt me over and over and lied again and again, he still thinks the same ol' A.Smith will be right here waiting...

That chick had to take a nap for a little while, so she ain't available, right now...

When the Past Comes Back to Haunt You

Ok. The picture might be extra, but... sometimes you gotta exaggerate to make a point, no?

I was trying to switch this blog from being all about my sad, dark and depressed feelings about what's going on in my life to a place to talk about the awkward turtle moments/situations we all find ourselves in because we're human and we like human interaction. However, I suppose that sometimes, it's best to go back to your roots, right?

My ex called me last night. My phone is retarded, so he was sent straight to voicemail (although, perhaps my phone was really looking out for my best interest) and I innocently checked it. As soon as I heard his voice, I got sick to my stomach and really thought I might throw up, I exaggerate, not. There was absolutely a point where the sound of his voice was beautiful. These days, it makes me sick.

The sad part is, when he does call, he does seem to be genuinely interested in talking to me. Which I hadn't felt to be true about him during the last parts of our "relationship." But as I told someone else: in order for him to be a part of my life, I have to be a part of his life and I just am not interested in that.

Here's where I'm honest:
I don't want to be a part of his life because he's in a new relationship. I hate talking to him about his boyfriend (yes, his boyfriend...) because I feel like it's always a reminder that my worst fear came true (no, not that my boyfriend would leave me for another guy... that thought never crossed my mind). I had a fear that I would go through all the growing pains and bullshit with him that I did, only for him to go off and be a great person in someone else's life. I shared that with him once and he promised me it wouldn't happen like that. It did. I can hear it in his voice. His relationship now is exactly what I always hoped ours would be and it wasn't and to know that I gave 1000% just to have what he has and got nothing in return pisses me off.

I tried to be that person. I tried to pretend like it didn't bother me, but it did. I even pseudo-jokingly mentioned it to him and he tried to make me feel better by saying that this new guy would never understand him like I do because I saw him at his worst and was there with him through it. (I'll tell ya, my ex is a charmer). Unfortunately, I'm too well-versed in his bullshit and that comment only served to REMIND me of the bs I put up with, which pissed me off even more.

The straw, though, was when he basically told me he was sneaking around to talk to me. He was purposefully only talking to me in the early part of the day on his days off or during his breaks because he didn't want his boyfriend to know he was still talking to me. "Well, if he (his boyfriend) was talking to one of his exes like I talk to you, I'd be jealous, too." he said. I was hurt, PISSED and disappointed. Here I am, pretending like it doesn't kill me to talk to you about your new and functioning relationship and you're hiding from your boyfriend?? Dude. Please.

So I decided I didn't need to talk to him anymore. I didn't need to make myself uncomfortable for the sake of our "long-standing" history. I thought about whether or not to let him know my decision and also decided he didn't deserve to know and the ensuing argument/discussion wouldn't be worth it. I also wanted to see how long it would take him to call me.

He did call me after he knew I re-located to find out how my new job/life was going. The 5 minute conversation we had was PAINFUL. It was like I was frozen. I couldn't really contribute purposefully to the conversation, because I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and eventually it did. He mentioned something about him and his boyfriend and that was all it took for me to break, emotionally. I decided then and there that I was not going to call him or make any attempts to keep up as hard as I knew that would be. I needed to move on and be done and at the time I thought to myself "perhaps this is something I can come back to, but right now, I need to not..."

And I was successful. Unlike previous times, his call was not prompted by a text from me, it was of his own accord. And I'm sure that if he called me yesterday, he'd been thinking about doing it for the past couple of days. Which is fine. I don't think he has dealt with us being over the way he should have. I suffered through it (not that my suffering means I did anything spectacular) while he jumped right into another relationship. In my opinion all he's doing is postponing the inevitable because one day he'll have to deal with the loss -- some loss.

I do want to be honest/clear something up here:
The time period between when we were together and now has allowed me to understand a lot about myself and him and what happened between us (this relationship definitely proved to be one of those "can't see the forest for the trees" types of things) and in those realizations I came to understand that while I might miss what we had, I don't really miss HIM. Because to be honest, I no longer know him and the more we speak, the more I see we've both changed so much since we were once together. That's not to say that we've become two people who are incompatible, but rather I can't honestly say I miss a person I don't know. So when we talk and I'm reminded that we don't have what we once had (as messed up as it may have been) it's like opening a sore that hasn't had time to fully heal yet.

So, am I going to call him back? Probably... but hopefully I'll be able to genuinely have a conversation (even if it's only 3 minutes that I can make it through) with him... we'll see...