Getting It & Feeling Good: A Message to My Ladies

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“…whatever good there is to get
get it & feel good/ get it & feel good
snatch it & feel good
grab it & feel good
steal it & feel good
borrow it & feel good
reach it & feel good
you cd
oh yeah
& feel good.”

Ntozake Shange (get it & feel good)

I read these words by Ntozake Shange when I was about 18. This poem CHANGED MY LIFE, do you hear me?

I was given the book of her poems, Nappy Edges , by a good friend and being as though she had been my favorite author since I was about 10, I was turning pages eagerly, letting each piece slowly pull me towards the surface of my own angsty, teenage, emotional ocean.

And then, on the very surface of my raw, shimmering feelings, this poem was a life raft. I could date who I wanted… love who I wanted… be friends with whatever man I wanted… or not.

Social Media is rife with disdain for women who like to get it… and feel good.  On Twitter, you can barely scroll your timeline without reading something about what “hoes love” or “hoes be like” or “hoes hoes hoes blah blah blah.”

Why has it become so mainstream and almost trendy as of late to try and make women feel horrible about doing things that normal people do?

Why is it OK for men to date and/or sleep with several women without being emotionally attached or to basically collect a harem of women to meet and suit their needs but a woman can’t do a fraction of this without being ridiculed and called all kinds of promiscuous hoes?

How can we be asked to be a lady in the street and a freak in the bed, even if we never had a chance to discover our own inner freak? If we never let her out to play, or worse, let her out to play with people we don’t want to because we’re told it is more acceptable… and less hoe-like?

Have a seat, lemme holla atcha…

I’m not here for that. EVER . If you have read any of my posts in the past, then you know that I am not one for holding my tongue or for sugar-coating topics.

The fact is that women are out here getting it… and feeling GOOD ! If you have a problem with it as a man, I contend that it threatens you to know that women can find a certain kind of power in not being obligated to you and you only by way of her vagina…

I just need answers. We are fine with this fact; it’s YOU who needs to relax. Some of us like to date, figure out what shelf to put you on, and place you there accordingly.

Some of us like to sleep with you and not worry about calling you the next day… some of us just want to get it… and feel good.  If we didn’t, you would hardly ever get laid and then what would you be calling us?

If this one is good at rubbing feet, well, he could be a friend who rubs your feet and that would be just fine. If that one is a great cook and a phenomenal, err, “plumber,” then he could make you dinner and lay some pipe and that would be fine too.

He doesn’t HAVE to be your boyfriend. You could get it… AND you could feel GOOD . What a concept!

Prior to the moment that these words became my new mantra, I was a serial girlfriend. If we kissed, we went together. If you held my hand too long, we went together.

If we fell asleep on the phone together? Oh. We’re engaged! LOL! I exaggerate, but I’m not that far off. I was taught that if a boy/man is in your space, you need to be focused on the next level of whatever that relationship is, and that’s where I stayed.

It caused me plenty of grief during high school when my first love turned out to be a jerk… and I stayed. Or when I absolutely ADORED the guy I dated my Junior year but I was panicking on the inside due to weird commitment issues… the knowledge that I could still have them in my life, but not as boyfriends was foreign to me.

The thought that I could have sex and not be tied to that person for the foreseeable future… was… just… incomprehensible. From how I understood it, either you had a boyfriend and that was that, or you were a hoe. There was no in-between and definitely no area in which you could just be who you were without being labeled or judged for it.

But then, in my 18th year which was insane all on its own, I read these words… get it AND feel good…

Ladies, too often we settle into situations that we aren’t happy in. We stay with a jerk because he’s familiar and because we’re taught that once they touch the goodies, we’re obligated to stick around for a while.

We stay with the guy who is awesome, but not for us and end up breaking his heart because we’re still trying to play the “good girl.” NO!!! We don’t have to…

Go… get it… and FEEL GOOD .

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