please don’t give me an oral history of your oral history
not to victim blame but why were thomas and martha wayne in crime alley looking like a lick expecting anything but crime
fellas, is it gay to exist — i mean you living in another dude’s reality
felony would be a lovely name if it wasn’t for, you know, the crimes
we not talking enough about detachment styles (and why is it always ironic)
some of y’all nonchalant niggas could do with some chalance
a real sentence heard during a conversation about ice spice: “is she a little…you know…grrahtistic?
digital footprint gotta be a size 6Y
“did you send it to wumbo” gotta be one of the coldest pieces of advice ever
it’s pride mfs – be proud niggas, niggettes, and niggxs (although i treat the former as gender neutral)
i’ve always felt…off. off the beaten path, a little different, got a lil sumn sumn going on — i’m sure some people have picked up on it. when it comes to me, i gotta get some words to understand.
scene kid? lmao, i wasn’t allowed to rawr with y’all – i was in the crib listening to afi, death cab, and my chem at very low volumes. i’m scene adjacent.
autistic? nah, i’m a little neurodivergent, sure, a lil neuroflavorful if you will, but i don’t think that label matches my freak
ADHD? nah, i match people’s speed and energy, have a process and discipline to lock into, and my brain has been a perennial problem but never debilitating like my real ADHDers
fellas, is it gay to ask what is and isn’t gay?
first, time i heard the word “gay,” like most young late 90s/early aughts boys by being called it by another boy for no real reason. i was wearing traditional clothes from west africa for picture day. random kid called my fit gay and i knew it was heat – see, he’d never been outside of the zip code so i knew he ain’t know the drip code. didn’t bother me too much but it made me think about what was gay and what wasn’t a lil bit.
i grew up post-AIDS crisis in the gay panic 90s watching gay panic sitcoms. okay, that wasn’t all those shows were but don’t let two men deviate from traditional masculinity because either the live studio audience was gonna laugh at them (at the barest of minimums). at the medium, ace ventura was gonna plunge his face in the shower (this scene is wild in retrospect, and, i’ll say it —super wild then, too). at the max, someone gay was gonna get stomped out or killed. that was just gay rep in the mainstream 90s: you were either a sissy, sassy, a scarlet letter, or ended up bloodied; that was regularly scheduled programming.
i saw with my own two eyes queerness and middle school in middle school when i caught [redacted] and [redacted] lunging each other down after school before the buses came. it struck me as different but not strange. i shrugged and hopped on the bus. tf was i gonna do? hop in like “alright, alright, break it up you lustful harlots, back to tumblr.” nah, that was their business and i was raised to let people handle theirs how they handled it — this was probably because i already had a bundle of identities that were different than my peers, i could relate on some level.
in college, i was around mad gay niggas — that’s how college is, i guess? one of my brothers, antwan, big gay dude. i fw him the long way and we had a system on campus: 1) i was the first responder for white nonsense (mostly n-word related), 2) if they still was wylin, i had to tap in Twan and he was gonna put you through the earth, 3) if you got through him, well, now i gotta use this first degree black belt because, tyler, my pal, you gotta learn today.
the first time i had to engage with lgbtqia+ history academically was in a women, gender, and sexuality class – as a neuro student, i was coming in with some bioessentialist programming for sure. there was a gay dude in class who came in with all the terminology – like he was smashing words together that i ain’t ever heard and other people were just nodding like “mhm, yup, exactly” so i agreed. there was a moment of deprogramming transphobia for me when we started talking about biological sex vs gender and boy oh boy, i was lost in the jargon sauce. i left that class annoyed with dude but the more i looked into the words i jotted down from that barrage of facts, my son was right – all the neuroscience in the world i was studying never took into account sociological and anthropological factors as it pertained to queerness. it was in this class that i exercised my freedom of shut the fuck up and learned so much. biggest takeaway? not gay (although i appreciate their contributions).
(un)hating the game and the players
as i say to mad people navigating identity crises (whether it be race, religion, gender, or sexuality): “it’s i-dentity, not “y’all niggas-dentity.” labels are temporary until we find out who we are, what values we have, and ultimately what we like and dislike. i come from a sterile science background that has an irresponsible history regarding labelling queerness, womanhood, and race but the basic core of science that shouldn’t be forgotten: life is trial and error. try a label, try an experience, get a takeaway (for better or for worse, and either try again or avoid, simple as that — building blocks of learning who you are and who you aren’t.
the pressure to find a partner, a shorty, a shooter, a passenger princess, a boo thang, a pookie (you get it) only intensified with time — the people i rolled with ran from date to date, bf to gf, and for me, it was a race i never wanted to warm up to run. i have a strong boundary as it pertains to sex and dating when it comes to friends. this dates back to high school, i was never the dude in the group chat sending flicks of cuties and crushes; got a long history of not giving a fuck which only evolved with time.
the code: if someone’s got you excited, would love to hear it. if someone’s fuckin up, would love to hear it and make sure you’re good. but the constant carousel of one-night stands, 3 week situationships, uninteresting lore, keep that away — only tell me if it’s serious. plz don’t get me excited by day players and co-stars if they not gonna become series regulars.
i feel there’s a pressure in finding your other half before learning yourself (and honestly, vice versa too) that i never particularly ascribed to but felt like i had to date because everyone else was, i was getting left behind! i tried to catch up but learned quickly the apps were not for me — they felt gmo when i preferred organic. furthermore, cultural differences continued to become very clear (don’t get me started on the goofy shorty who told me i was lying about muslims not dating during ramadan…)
even with TV and film, the austenian longing for connection and ships passing in the night yet still searching for each other was more interesting than the horny content — like, okay i get it, they’re both hot for each other and my son is about to splack the cheeks — get back to the story. get back to the romance! [note: i said this exact thing to a friend once and they called me gay (hurtful yet somehow validating)]
i got read to filth by some people who read my work and found that i didn’t luxuriate on lust and extreme horniness. it felt especially like a read because i wrote what i knew: communicative yet tense relationships trying to survive under [insert 3 of today’s crises here]. i wasn’t particularly drawn chaotic romance, putting the L in lust, or delulu dating games. it wasn’t my race.
i learned more through therapy and conversations with friends who sought companionship more than anything but i was in a world of sexual renaissances. don’t get me wrong, i love seeing the art of one’s humanity flourish and evolve but it wasn’t a scratch i was particularly interested in scratching. not in a prude way – i understand the appeal of sex, sexuality, and that one person that makes you go awoogah like a looney tune.
it’s just not the prism of how i see people. i’m not samantha-pilled like that (i’m deffo charlotte). sex to me was a thing to do sure but it wasn’t the core of my interest in a partner or a stranger.
we’re all looking for love but we’ve gamified it, sought impossible perfection, all ups, no downs, romanticized romance itself. all wandering while running a race that ends up in bed — a finish line i’m not particularly interested in.
while a bunch of my friends still date a lot, it dawned on me that most of my closest friends are already married. q and yuki, ashley and [redacted], mikey and ana, jordan and amelia, lucas and nour— all of these people don’t feel like they carry the anxiety of “will i ever find love?” or romanticize the ups and downs of their dating life. they just were…comfortable. they just were safe. they just…were. some think that’s boring but that’s love to me. it can be passionate, it can be loud, it can be lustful, it can be anything you want it to be. but for me, i sought quiet, peaceful, calming, safe, communicative— conflict can exist but it’s overpowered by mutual genuine care.
it was almost as if i was catching a contact from their stillness, trust, patience, and love. but how did they do it? a question a lot of people have.
but when was it my turn? a question both me and my mom both have. speaking of—
unsealing the cultural documents
i was hopelessly NPRpilled as a child; pops, being a professor, always was listening to the news whether it was RFI, BBC, or morning edition on NPR. on the weekends, it was car talk (real ones remember), all things considered, and, of course, wait wait don't tell me (my favorite phrase to get out of a conversation). i remember looking up the humorists on “wait wait” and learning paula poundstone’s sexuality— “like, bitch, a sexual what?” i didn’t dig deeper too much deeper.
i grew up in a west african and muslim home. both my parents displayed love for each other and me and my sister but i never knew how they built it. being mauritanian and marinating in that culture, there is a simple code: be born, be Muslim, grow up, get a job, take care of your family, get married, have a family. whoa whoa whoa — back tf up, where’s dating? mom says “we don’t do that in our culture.” okay, but…we ain’t there. how am i supposed to-” focus on your studies, get a job, and then you’ll figure it out (a narrative many first-gen kids can relate to).
most kids my age when we were stateside knew everything about their parents: when they met, where, why, how. okay, where? mauritania, boom simple. when? duh, before i was born, layup. how? why? euhhhh…
i wanted all that information but it was a sealed document (wouldn’t be declassified for me until i began my 30s). finally learning, i was able to have an open conversation with my parents about why finding a partner is hard: i really had no model of how to do it and couldn’t do it how they did because…there’s new things people want from partners and i started running that race late on a track that don’t make sense to me.
through my life, i wasn’t a huge dater for several reasons: a) my parents ain’t let me (lmao), b) i wasn’t particularly interested in it, c) i didn’t have model to lean on – my culture doesn’t date like that. it’s something my my mom and i didn’t have a conversation about until 2023.
my parents came here with all of the pre-loaded ios west african software meanwhile me and my sister were fighting for our lives trying to jump between windows, mac, and linux with no crash course outside of our peers (who also had no idea what they were doing) and tv (not known for great relationship dynamics).
this conversation, happened well after i began questioning what tf is wrong with me. but it finally gave me the language to explain why i’m not locked into dating like that. i’m not supposed to be running everyone else’s race — my parents, my friends, my colleagues. i needed to stop and go at my own pace. to stop catching up to everyone else and catch up to myself.
achievement unlocked 👾
summer 2015, middle of the night
i was on a rooftop in crown heights in a full-on yap session with the most hippie white woman you can imagine at an art share. as these conversations normally go, one person trauma dumps for 45 minutes and the next person goes for 2-4 minute increments while being interrupted by the first person. but this time i wasn't annoyed because she was talking about her understanding of her own sexuality and she went through each of the letters. when she explained asexuality (same shit paula poundstone was on) i can only describe it as feeling like it was an achievement unlocked in a video game – like, damn, trickle-down yapanomics really might work a little bit lowkey…
i finally had a label for something that i was feeling. i knew why I didn’t like running the race — i didn’t care as much about the sexual, carnal finish line. i felt like in a world of trauma dumps, catching up on lore, and situationships, it’s the only common finish line a lot of peers cared about. but i only cared about everything else around that line, before and after.
but i didn't want to just run around with the label without being sure – it felt like a golden ticket but i didn’t know what factory i was gonna get to tour.
new research, new labels. real inner monologue:
“asexual spectrum? it’s always a fucking spectrum…okay let’s browse…
sex-averse? nah, i’m not scared of it — it’s just not how i connect with people.
sex-repulsed? sex isn’t repulsive to me — get your back cracked or crack a back any way y’all want, i just don’t care. beat ya cheeks on your own time.
sex-favorable? not really for me but if it’s what a partner needs…maybe?
sex-indifferent? yup, ding ding ding, got it — sex is whatever to me even though it feels like it’s everything to everyone else.
bet we are done here— wtf…there’s a romantic spectrum, too? i stay on that damn spectrum. shit, okay, okay…aromantic? i mean, I smell good now…”
i tried dating in nyc, you know, the fallback thing every stand-up comic talks about? i was in the city in the opening days of the tinder/bumble/hinge era — although, again, i met many dope people (and exactly three people who i hope sought psychological help) but i wasn’t hungry for the game. the way that my homies of all sexualities were just open about talking about sex, dating, and telling me all their stories, i still felt like i needed to match or just bow out of the game to begin with. but i’m not a quitter — i tried to get back on the track.
there's no easy way to explain it but being a black man comes with a certain amount of stereotypes, entitlement to our bodies, and complicated romantic or sexual fantasies projected onto us that never let me really feel like I could be open about even talking about asexuality — the safety i sought wasn’t easily cultivated.
fall 2015
ray was on an all-black team at in new york city improv theater. as a young dude spending time in a mostly white community, when i saw a black person, i locked the fuck in [note: i don't think that people realize that when two black people see each other at a party, they might not know each other at all but it's a trauma bond (i'll let you do the math on what the trauma is)].
we sat at the bar at ucb east and i told him how i was feeling: different but none of the labels were fitting except for asexuality but i didn't have a lot of references to define that. and just as casually as you like, ray told me that that was actually liberating because i get to kinda create what it was for myself.
i don't know how i've been blessed to be friends with so many gay black men who are open to let me talk about my experience with queerness but no one has been more helpful than my man ray.
i identify as ace. full stop.
books that you read and books that read you
through ups, downs, trials, tribulations, terrible dates, wonderful relationships that were right person wrong place wrong time, and relationships that made me understand the L in lessons, i’ve slowly learned myself and learned others. not in the psychobabble/self-help way but in another increasingly common way — reading, nigga. i was raised with maya angelou and toni morrison texts in the crib and access to angela davis and octavia butler but no one has made me understand myself more than bell hooks.
when i first read all about love in the mid-2010s, i still had that scientific lens on – “all about love? all in this book? nah lemme lock in rq.” but, like most bell hooks, it took me on a journey into the self that finally let me be free of the programming of religion, science, hetero-coded relationships, queerness and apply the love and companionship i wanted to all aspects of my life, spreading the love fr fr.
life is a science to me but also an art; artists don’t pop out because they do the same as everyone else. they build their disciplines off of packaging and capturing their humanity in their work or, if they’re lucky, having rich parents. we all got a different brush and brush strokes and we have to create the relationships we want with ourselves and with each other. even in my own actual art, other readers illuminate how i write found family and romantic chaos well but don’t really get into the sex of it all – art imitating life subconsciously, i guess. another place to explore and i’m game to go on that adventure in due time.
VIP, invite-only, privé
not every piece of us is for public consumption much like all of an artist’s work is out in the world. even to this day, i’m trying to interrogate my feelings and fight a constant battle to understand where i fit in the queer landscape, in relationships, how much is my problem, how much is another’s. at the bare minimum, i have a word to describe how i identify – every other part of my identity (muslim, black, african, scene adjacent, knicks fan, hater, silly little guy) is out there with plenty of examples. this one was one i wanted to explore on my own terms before i brought it out into the world.
i’m a writer, a performer, and comedian – there’s a pressure in all of those spaces to either disclose or commodify all of your identities and i don’t rock with that.
in 2021, a friend and ace activist was pushing me to be part of a netflix project highlighting ace representation. even though i was busy, i met with a producer who himself was very kind and sweet but it became very apparent that i was to be a subject followed by cameras to see what “real aces” live like – it would include my friends, family, and put me on blast, probably elevate my platform…and i didn’t want to do it. i don’t want to be a posterboy for literally anything.
i felt bad – my homie put her name in for me and i just couldn’t put on ace face and talk about it in this doc. the questions felt too intrusive, i wasn’t ready for all that – talking about black hyper-masculinity, black sexuality, navigating the spectrum of sex-favorability to sex-repulsion, steering around latent homophobia and ignorance in some parts of femme and queer community — nah, i’m still learning. there's a performance of queer identity that I am not interested in engaging with and i’m in my fight niggas era.
james baldwin’s philosophy informs so much of my own, but nothing more than the concept of “inviting in” rather than coming out. whether it’s social media or trying to lock in a job, so much of our lives is public and needs to be a press release. for years, i chose to invite my friends and family in – some way back then, some more recently.
i’ve been fortunate to only have a handful of people who try to tell me who i am (nothing gets me more heated, on god) but the vast majority of people in my life – men, women, masc, femme, trans, straight, gay, lesbian, bi, pan, and so many more – have accepted my life and i theirs. this sort of reciprocal relationship we’ve built, validating each other’s humanity, doesn’t exist everywhere and i’m blessed to have invited and have been invited to so many people’s deeper self-discoveries. i’ve even got like 5 ace or ace adjacent friends — a lot more prevalent than i thought.
i write this to invite a few more in – not a coming out party, but a regular ass party that’s been going for me and mine for almost a decade now. just act right or i’ll get antwan to jump you. and if you get through him, you don’t wanna deal with me twice. ✨
look, everyone defines their relationship to sexualities and labels differently — my definition is gonna be different than the next ace person but if you wanna understand more, here are some books.
refusing compulsory sexuality: a black asexual lens on our sex-obsessed culture — sherronda j brown
ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex — angela chen
sounds fake but okay — sarah costello, kayla kaszyca
“teaching is learning twice” — my dad, with a bar yet again
next time: ace jokes i’ll never bring to the stage 🌱