Pinkies Up!

 

An Open Letter to the Editor of the Park Hills Journal from Frances Sexy Madeson

                          Re: A Correction

     

Recently an article appeared that mentioned an organization that I belong to and hold dear: the Sexy Black Hat Society. Our group's name was cited incorrectly in your paper; instead of the word Sexy, Stunning was substituted. It would be risible if it were not so pandering to the anti-sexuality forces in this community who, thank God, are still vastly outnumbered by the wet and wild among us.

I suppose I could ask why you took it upon yourselves to rename us, and I'd dearly love to hear the official answer, I bet it'd be a hoot. But I too am a writer, and possess a vivid imagination, and I would suspect that our name was altered so that certain censorious church ladies do not have to appear in print with the word “Sexy” within copy-inches of their names. Am I warm?

As a (potentially) scandalously sexy word lover, I apprize all variations on the word s-e-x very much, and would wish to see it appear more not less often in your presses. Not, however, exclusively associated with offense, criminality, sociopathy, and utter perversion, as is your current practice.

As I read the tacit editorial policy of this newspaper, you seem to be invested in using the word's sensation value to reinforce a suffocating atmosphere of unlocalized fear and anxiety, and to deliver some pretty gross and brutal threats of arbitrary and endless punishment from above in order to keep people like me and my friends down, and I'm having none of it. Am I warmer?

You do us no honor by disrespectfully infantalizing and “flattering” us with an alluring adjective not of our choosing. Though we don't (yet) have a Sexyblackhatifesto, and I couldn't reveal its contents if we did (we live and die by our confidentiality and mutual trust), I think it's safe to say that we, in both our words and our deeds, live out all the aspects of the Greek conception of love, especially our love of children, both those who belong to us and to the wider community, which we define very broadly, even across state borders. [If any SBHS sister disagrees with this statement, please avail yourself of the comment section either here on this blog or on our private Facebook page to set me straight.]

So why Park Hills Daily Journal can we not be accepted for who we really and truly are? After all, one of our founders graduated magna cum laude from UMSL, and we number many seriously accomplished women among our ranks. I know from observation, from witness, and participation, just how beautiful many of these women are, inside and out. We say that we are sexy, and you have a problem with this. One wonders why? If we are deluded, may we not keep our delusions as you keep your many abundant delusions even as the evidence of collapse mounts up all around you. And further, speaking of evidence, at least as presented, above and below, would anyone deny it's so?

Furthermore you overestimate our capacity for patience at your unwarranted condescension: we do not suffer fools. We do not suffer, period. We have a blast every single time we get together. So you could not be more wrong in presuming our passivity, in thinking that we would accept your pale version of our robust self-description. As Frederick Douglass said every chance he got, and he got many chances to say it on behalf of his brothers and sisters held in the bondage of chattel (not wage) slavery: Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand.

Now, I know my SBHS sisters want me to be sweet, to be kind, and try to be as nice as they are to each other, and to me. Impossible! Not because I've been "de-niced" from 27 years of living in New York City, but rather because as I say in my Written Word, Spoken Word brochure:

...while kind words are always appreciated, they are not always sufficient. We rely on our words to get us out of life's toughest situations—conflict, stalemate, even abuse.

And this feels like a version of abuse, to me at least. An abuse of our good will, our good faith, that we will give our all, and be our all, and therefore should not have to suffer the indignity of being subject to our "betters" who are, I assure you, wantonly misguided to think they can trick us, or manage us by redefining us, acting like some Taliban cleric who stays up nights spilling his seed while thinking of ways to disempower (repress) women, especially sexually. Am I hot?

In point of fact, though I do not presume to speak for anyone else in the SBHS sisterhood, your outrageous overture to co-opt us into your unjust and never-meant-to-be-just status quo, while attempting to efface our mission, values, and aims, is herein marvelously, collaboratively, and wholeheartedly answered.

All images created for this post by Liziz Photography; models supplied by In-the-Black Modeling Agency (contact me for further information on this blooming enterprise).

In-the-Black Modeling Agency encourages you to shop locally.