Polymorphous Eroticism: New Paths to Survival in Black Women's Writings

Abstract

Following Audre Lorde’s affirmation that black sexualities can be read as one expression of the reclamation of the despised black female body focusing on female desire and agency, sexuality is seen by contemporary African American women writers such as Sapphire and Pearl Cleage as a site where silence is disrupted, and a positive life-affirming sexuality is imagined. These writers are responding to views that historically have described black women’s sexuality with metaphors of speechlessness, space or vision where black women’s bodies are colonized by the hegemonic discourse on race and sex. In order to contest the historical construction of black female sexualities, and how it can be disrupted, the position of black women with AIDS in fiction is analyzed as a venue for exploring black women’s agency and wholeness.