Black Men and Sexual Addiction
In my work in sex addiction therapy, I come across men of all ethnic backgrounds struggling in this area. While the White sex addict may have just as many partners as the Black addict (some with over 200 partners while with their spouse), there is one major difference. Can you guess what it is? It’s the condom. The tendency is for white guys to act out sexually taking more precautions to use a condom while black clients ignore the need for contraception, thus perpetuating the trend of single-mothers left to fend for themselves.
What I see and hear are Black men steeped in their addiction having indiscriminate sex without protection only to suffer the consequences of being a father to numerous out-of-wedlock children with multiple mothers (aka “baby mommas).
Statistics show just over 70% of African-Americans births are out-of-wedlock compared to nearly 30% of Whites. In other words, the Black community is facing a continuing trend of having another generation of boys and girls being raised with limited adult supervision, role-modeling, or parental care. Without the necessary attachment of love, care, and connection from a father or father-figure, young Black men and women will remain stuck in a cultural cesspool of poverty, crime, and social and educational inequity.
One client shared of being one of nine children and having several step-fathers in his life which impacted his sense of relational safety. Also, the large family meant having difficulty garnering his mother’s attention while competing with other siblings. “I just wanted more of a mother-son relationship such as going out with my own and doing stuff with her. It just felt like her love with me was diluted and I wanted more time.”
Black fathers need to step up and start raising their families instead of abandoning their babies and leaving children feeling unwanted, neglected, and left to the vices of the streets. Black celebrities and other high profile African-American leaders need to send a strong message that songs, shows, and other forms of entertainment that cater to glorifying drugs, sex, and violence need to stop being marketed to young, impressionable youth (Black or otherwise). The following are lyrics from some of the top hip hop songs of 2012:
NI**AS IN PARIS Jay Z and Kanye West
I got that hot bitch in my home
[Kanye West]
You know how many hot bitches I own?
Don’t let me get in my zone [x4]
THE MOTTO by Drake Featuring Lil Wayne and Young Money
I’m calling niggas out like the umpire
Almost drowned in her pussy so I swam to her butt
New God Flow Lyrics by Kanye West Featuring Ghostface Killah & Pusha T)
[Verse 1: Pusha T]
I believe there’s a God above me
I’m just the god of everything else
I put holes in everything else
“New God Flow,” fuck everything else
Supreme dope dealer, write it in bold letters
They love a nigga’s spirit like Pac at the Coachella
They said Pusha ain’t fit with the umbrella
But I was good with the Yay as a wholesaler
I think it’s good that ‘Ye got a blow dealer
Pro basketball player Lawrence Hamm at his sports camp for kids
When I was growing up the music was a bit tamer but the themes still revolved around sex and money. The message (as I interpreted them as a boy), was that having multiple sexual partners was the means to feel strong, masculine, powerful and important. Song lyrics can leave an indelible and subliminal mark on a young mind. It took a lot of time to change my own distorted perceptions of women, relationships, and healthy sexuality based on what I absorbed in this context.
If we want to change the urban culture, we need to address the messages inundating the communities through music and pop culture. I was fortunate enough to have other Asian-American role models, sports programs, and churches that kept me off the streets and rebuffed the lure of gangs, drug-dealing, and violence. It’s time more African-Americans invest in their communities and show the younger generation how to be real men.
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Sam Louie is a psychotherapist in private practice licensed in the state of Washington as a mental health counselor and sex offender treatment provider affiliate. Sam is a first generation Asian-American who grew up on the border of the Rainier Valley. Consequently, he is keenly aware of the role of multi-cultural sensitivity when working with minorities and Asian populations, especially when it intersects with compulsive/addictive behaviors. He received his master’s degree in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in marriage & family therapy from Azusa Pacific University in Southern California. Sam is also a lecturer at Northwest University on cultural and race issues to help foster better understanding, sensitivity, and awareness of issues related to Asian and ethnic cultures. Find out more about him at www.samlouiemft.com
Category: Men's Issues
Lack of condom wearing is not just an African American problem, this has long been a black people throughout the world problem! I just don’t know why. All over the news and fundraising shows for HIV/AiDS research, I’ve heard how in certain parts of Africa men have been known to rape mere babies because they heard rumors that ‘sleeping with a virgin will cure you of AIDS’ and I’d read an article many years ago about a journalist in Brazil interviewing prostitutes there and asking because the journalist was researching how well (or not) AIDS prevention and education was going on in Brazil and he interviewed one light skinned mixed race prostitute who said some of her ‘johns’ don’t like using condoms but she usually wouldn’t turn them away instead she would just take their penises and squeeze them out beforehand and she really thought that she would be safer that way even without using a condom. Statistically, one country in Africa has very, very low rates of HIV infection and AIDS and that’s supposed to be Senegal.
But what excuse is there for anyone living in Western industrialized nations where they have access to HIV preventative education and sometimes free latex condoms all the time? In the state I grew up in back in middle school we had a class called ‘Health’ which advised of the all of the different ways to stay healthy including proper nutrition but which also included sex education where the teacher showed us tapes of shows explaining about STDs, HIV/AIDS and preventing pregnancy. These tapes, textbooks and other resources all warned against having casual sex which meant sex without contraceptives of any kind. Of course I wasn’t alone regarding those classes so again what the heck has been going on?
For those who still date black men or who have relatives, friends or acquaintances who do, especially if they’re very young, Google or tell them to Google ‘AIDS during the 80s’ or to type this into YouTube. It wasn’t pretty without the medication and the prevention for a reason.
If a latex condom is that uncomfortable for a black man to wear then THEY have to come up with the alternatives, it’s not up to anyone else. If a black person can come out with the Bump Fighter razor that properly gives men with afro-textured hair a shave without causing unsightly razor bumps then a black person can come up with a condom that feels comfortable and still keeps the wearer and the person they’re having sex with infection-free.
I used to work with a young gay AA man who was from San Francisco several years ago and he even moved to the UK to dance with the Royal Ballet company for a few years before I’d met him. But he told me he had come up with a device that helps a man put on his condoms properly and comfortable so that they would stay securely on the penis and that he was trying to market this device in order to get it sold. He claimed that once a condom was securely put on in the correct way that it would feel comfortable. I remember one morning that he came in late to work because he had an appointment to go to meeting up with a company who was interested in his idea and wanted to see the prototype of his device and I remember him saying that he didn’t think that that company had the right platform to sell his device.
My point is that this young black man at least came up with some kind of innovation to help improve the whole condom wearing situation and he even wanted to market this innovation in order to share it with the world instead of just complaining and giving up on using condoms and catching every STD under the sun.
In the UK I’ve seen billboard ads from a couple of years ago advertising some new kind of condom that was supposed to be better than latex or more comfortable than latex but I can’t remember its brand name now so if there are more innovations coming out today then there shouldn’t be any excuses tomorrow then should there?