This is pretty long. I started this last week but it took forever for me to get out completely so I’m going to try again today. All capitalization is intentional.

The title of this post is inspired by a tweet I read from Dr. Zalika U. Ibaorimi a few years ago which said “Desirability is not a safe space”. This is one of the most memorable statements that I’ve read regarding desirability. It is such a short sentence but one that made question what I had learned regarding the subject before reading that tweet.

Before then, I understood the politics of desire/Desirability to mean that those deemed desirable (thin, light skin or white, loose hair, able bodied, muscular, etc.) were safer from poverty, harassment, violence, abuse, and more. This was also reinforced by my understanding of a related concept: the libidinal economy. In the same way that the political economy is about the exchange of materials and decisions on their worth and value based on how much capital one can accumulate from it, the libidinal (related to libido) economy is about the exchange and valuation of desires, fears, pleasures, and enjoyments. It is also about consumption both violent and enjoyable. One can accumulate more fears than desires compared to another based on their embodiment. And such accumulation of either desire or aversion reflects in how, when or if others choose to act on a person’s behalf or violently against it.

Now, what I knew about desirability is not wrong because if those who are undesirable, or Ugly as Da’Shaun Harrison often writes, have less access to housing, fair employment, “health” and security. They are overrepresented as victims of state violence and in prisons. But it honestly is not so simple and this is something I am still trying to understand. “Desirability is not a safe space” does not just mean that skinny girls can be insecure about their bodies too but that desire does not mean care or love is present. When I named all of the things that undesirable people lack access to, I did not say care or love. Although I believe that people that are fat and or darkskin for example are denied love, care, affection and intimacy from many (maybe most?) because of antifatness and antiBlack colorism, I’m not sure this means that those are what thin, lighter skin people are finding in all relationships because they are desirable. This is seen whenever a Beautiful celebrity woman is publicly cheated on by her male partner an overwhelming response from the general public is “How could you cheat on [enter literally so many women’s names lmao] !????”

But I don’t want to just focus on Desirable people because even people who are Ugly still experience desire from other subjects or people. So often I have seen or heard fat people attempt to use desire as a reason why they are still valuable and worthy as a person. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a fat woman say “I may be fat but I still get fucked” or something along those lines… Desire is nothing more than a strong feeling of want. A strong corporeal want. Ugly people are not devoid of attraction, seduction, lust, or sexiness but none of those things translate to love and care. Love is a manifestation of continuous intentional support and care not just a feeling and not someone wanting to have sex with you. And on the other side there are people believing that Ugly people should be grateful to get fucked or be in relationships because why would anyone want them anyway? All this does is deny the very real and material issues that Ugly people face because of Desirability.

This came to mind when we watched the Aftershock documentary in class last week. That film was so hard to watch because I could only think of the amount of Black women who did not have men like those featured who loved and cared for their partners to fight for and with them despite the violence they experienced through lack of care from medical systems. Seeing a dark skin, Ugly (please don’t take this as me saying she wasn’t beautiful, I mean socio-politically. But maybe it’s not my place to say that so I’m willing to be wrong here) woman have a safe labor surrounded by people who prioritized her wellbeing and the safety of her baby was one of the most beautiful things I have seen because I know how easy it would be for a woman like to her have a completely different experience.

Despite the reality of Desirability not translating to love and care, so many of us still want a piece of the Desirability pie. Not too big of a slice though.

Why do we work so hard to lighten our skin or lose weight or straighten our hair or contour our noses or be sexy when we are still going to experience violence? So much of desirability is performance and we do all we can to put on a great show.

I’m using the song below and these lyrics specifically as a soundtrack to this post because it is true that these women or people who are deemed more Desirable often do get the “soft life” compared to the reality of so many Black women but what are we fighting to have their life for? In this (libidinal) economy??

“Tired of seeing all these
All these (All these)
Spanish and these white bitches
Living they soft life
With they feet kicked up
And they glass in hand
Bills is paid, thanks to the man” —Summer Walker, “Hardlife”