Pink Flesh Vol. I
Illustration by Malaika Astorga
Pink Flesh: like Sex and the City but written by a Black woman and significantly less problematic. Tackling subject matter such as hookups, porn, sex work, love, body image, rap music, and Black culture, this ongoing project is an investigation of what it means to exist as a Black femme person trying to be sexually free. Pink Flesh is the means to liberate my own body through honesty, and to offer myself, and you, permission to be dirty, and sexy, and freaky, and messy, and in love with ourselves, with others, and with life.
I realized I was in love while in the midst of a sweaty, sticky threesome with two guys, neither of whom were the ones I am in love with. After I wiped the cum from between my thighs, I called my boyfriend, confessed my true feelings, and told him I want to be with him. I didn’t tell him about the threesome; it seemed irrelevant. All that counted was how enamoured by life he makes me feel and how I want to exist knowing he loves me back.
I’ve never told him about the threesome. That’s part of the thing. I don’t tell him because he doesn’t want to know, because it’s none of his business. I kiss other people, date other people, fuck other people not because I don’t love him enough, but because there is so much love inside of me that it could kill someone by asphyxiation.
The feeling of love is not so different from the feeling of fucking: full and fluid and filling holes. I like the way his affection fills me up, like I love the way their cocks do, their fingers and mouths.
My love exceeds the bounds of monogamy. For now I am happy to exist in this life with my multitude of boyfriends.
Let me introduce you.
At the present moment, I have six “boyfriends” (Here, “boyfriends” refers to sexual/romantic partners that occupy more than five minutes of my time per week, on average, regardless of gender or sexual orientation). For the sake of this column, I will be giving them all pseudonyms, so as to maintain the integrity of the record.
In no particular order:
There is B.E. He has a very large and appetising penis. He also has a son who I have never met but who looks adorable on Snapchat. B.E doesn’t want anything serious, which doesn’t bother me.
There is K.L. He’s almost as fucked up as I am which he frequently brings up as the source of his ghosting patterns. He likes to send me pictures of his morning wood and brings up the size of his cock frequently. Karl wants to be my boyfriend-“boyfriend.”
There is J, who likes to fuck in strange places like stairwells and garages. He is from the Ivory Coast and has a fantastic sneaker collection. We met at Cyberia and almost fucked in the bathroom there, but I decided against it because I have some semblance of self-respect (No offence to anyone who’s fucked in the bathroom at Cyberia – RIP – I’m sure you had your reasons).
There is E.U, recently out of the picture yet an important figure because a) he was one third of the aforementioned threesome, b) he was, for a short time, a joy to be around, and c) there is a lesson to be learned in my taking my therapist’s advice and blocking his number: anyone who makes you feel ashamed in your own body can haul their ass to the curb. He mocked me for wearing makeup and made me feel pressured to swallow, so I showed him the door (Spitters unite!).
N is new. He loves dirty talk (and when I say dirty, I mean send-me-to-church-and-drown-me-during-my-baptism dirty talk). He also offered to be my weed dealer and I say, support your local plug.
And finally, the Holy Grail of boyfriends, B.B, who I am completely and utterly, disgustingly in love with. Sometimes he`s shitty at the whole boyfriend thing, but he’s fun to play house with. My therapist calls it “living my fantasy.”
The other day, my mom called me “friendly,” which is code for the fact that I am a youthful spirit in my 20s, having what my mom imagines to be an astronomical amount of sex with different suitors. I said, “Yes, mom, I am friendly,” meaning I am a grown ass woman and I can fuck whoever I want.
When I was 15, I was the geeky Black girl with nappy hair who thought no one would ever want to touch me. Now, my best friend says she knows no one who gets laid more than I do.
The transformation stems from my belief that I am worthy of pleasure. This is not to say that my value is determined by my ability to give exceptional head, but rather that I am free to give exceptional head to as many boyfriends as I please, and that the desire to do so is not dirty.
People like to call me “friendly;” they like to call me a freak. Boys say I have a dirty mouth then ask me what I’ll do to them with it. They like to take me home, to quiet corners, to empty stairwells.
My skin is just the right shade of brown, they say, just the right texture; soft and slick.
I have a body made for fucking, so I fuck. I have a body made for loving, so I love. I have a body made for being alive, so I live as messy as I may be and I enjoy myself.
Pink Flesh is my liberation, my place to lay it all bare in a real and truthful way. Pink Flesh is for all of us at the club when the lights come on, trying to take someone home. Pink Flesh is for all of us at home on a Friday night with our vibrators and a large pizza from Dominos all to ourselves.
This is for all of us whose moms call us “friendly.”
-WVC
Willow Vimbainaishe Cioppa is an interdisciplinary artist and playwright based in Montreal, QC. They're work focuses on the nuances of sexuality, trauma, self-reflection, femininity, Blackness, and their undying love for rap music. Their life's work is the search of the perfect dep wine to drink while writing about ex lovers who have wronged them.