Scarleteen

Hi,
This topic has been on my mind À LOT, I do hope this is the right place to ask. I recently finished my first year of university, I am quite a progressive and open person, surprisingly as my origin was pretty fundamentalist Christian. I am also a black queer woman who is agnostic.

Being a minority at my university (tho it does have a strong black population), I initially thought the freedom of university would quickly provide the romantic and sexual opportunities that I had been desiring for years. I’d say im quite sexually open and I really want to explore this while I am still at university. Especially being on holiday and realising how sexual opportunities are harder to navigate at home.

Anyways, I’m not sure how to navigate second year as I still desire these new experiences but am not sure how I am going to get them. I downloaded a dating app but did feel some shame for being on it, despite meeting two cool people and having my first make out sesh. Mostly fear of being found out.

I don’t meet people and experience that mutual attraction that could unambiguously lead to this sort of thing. The black community in my university is also highly religious so I often feel a bit different pursuing sexual relationships.

I would say I would be open to a romantic relationship but primarily I want to explore my sexuality in a safe way. Being an academically inclined woman, who is feminist and trying to deconstruct the impact of misogyny on her life I do feel guilt (randomly, but not most of the time - mostly when my romantic/sexual pursuits don't work out) for being “weird” and caring about sexual/romantic relationships. As I was raised with the idea that men are trying to prey on me and only care about sex while sapphic relationships are ignored.

In the back of my Mind it’s like being smart and career oriented, it’s like why do you want to put yourself in the position to be preyed on?

I was also kinda humiliated for liking à boy à few years ago, and I feel like that impacted how I behave around theoretical attractive people (I speak to them but assume they couldn’t be into me.)

I know quite a few people and go out to events, work and volunteer. I would say I am quite social and wonder if I should just give up on relationships, repress myself further, focus on my studies and just use my vibrator.

Any advice for a girl who often feels nervous and wants to navigate moving forward. Gaining new opportunities and balancing all parts of my life. I’d really love practical advice as I feel no resources really deals with my specific intersections of being horny (but focused on safety and comfortability) and knowing societal phenomena (misogyny) that impact me.

Hey Blablapineapple, welcome to the boards, and congrats on finishing your first year of university ^_^

It sounds like you've been able to identify what you'd like to achieve in relation to your sexuality. But you also find yourself becoming anxious due to the ideas about sexuality from your family, former faith, and larger community not aligning with what you believe--is that right? Being surrounded with folks that aren't on the same page as you can definitely feel isolating and anxiety-inducing, even if you understand that it's okay to have different values. For one, you value openness to trying new things sexually, but you were also raised with the idea that embracing your sexuality (especially as someone socialized as a girl) means you're degrading yourself as a "prey" to cisgender heterosexual men. From the things you mentioned, which ones do you think stress you the most? I hope it's okay for me to ask, since I think this could help us figure out what works best for you in dealing with those stressors.

You've also mentioned using dating apps and finding cool people through them, as well as going out to socialize. That's great--I'd highly recommend doing more of the latter if you can. Have you been able to find local/regional communities (especially if there isn't any in your university) for queer folks, particularly those who are also Black/other people of color and are/were raised in a religious family? I think finding folks like that could help you feel less lonely and give you more emotional support. It could even be a gateway to new relationships (romantic, platonic, etc.).