erotic embodiment and delayed becoming

girl, fuck them kids

the birthplace of becoming is in the ruins of your past.

it dawned on me not too long ago that: from the moment i graduated high school, my life has been met with a series of unpleasant events. for a period of seven years, I have found myself battling some enemy or another. for all this "hardship," what has resulted is wisdom.

ever since i was 15, i’ve held certain fantasies. fantasies i relegated to specters of the future while i figured out a sure-fire way to arrive—elegantly, and on time, if possible. but you see the issue here.

you can’t time time. you can only ride it. but for the longest while, i tried everything in my power to control the uncontrollable: light-handed witchcraft, ancestor worship, christian-pagan devotionals. and in all that prayer, what i discovered is this:

things come and go, but the truth stays.

what is the truth?

i’m no student of nietzsche, but i recall his theory that truth is a function of power. meaning, she who gets to set the terms is the one who gets to decide what is “true.” we’re witnessing that now, in our era of word-bending, code-switching, and slight revisionist history.

the truth is, i can rarely trust my emotions. monday, i’m in love. wednesday, absolutely manic. by sunday, completely restless with my decision. an unreliable narrator if you’ve ever met one.

and even now, you cannot trust what i’m saying, as it’s filtered through the uneasiness of being seemingly watched. either by future in-laws or my past and future selves.

so, what is the truth?

i’ve begun to investigate a notion i had previously held as empowering, if not absolute.

i told you of my decade-old fantasy. well, i hinted at it. when i reflect in my journals and recall my memories from then, what i had wanted as a teenager was a sense of edge and permanence. this manifested in desires for nipple piercings and a tramp stamp.

the same bookish teen who found solace in her studies thought it fun to mimic the bad gal’s iconic nail piercing and play at being the west african pamela anderson in her free time.

but play is all i was doing. i told myself these desires, although fun, were silly. that they should be reconsidered with care when i was of the age to have children, as that surely signified wisdom. better yet, i told myself it would be better to wait until after the arrival of my children.

it sounds strange, but my thinking has always been that my body, mood, and even wishes would change once i bore children. so, it was better to save anything permanent for the final sign-off of a woman much wiser, more knowledgeable, and more established than me: myself with children.

if they never come, did you still make the right decision?

recently, i’ve begun to reflect on the primacy of children in all this decision-making.

children that, if i’m being honest, have no chance of coming to this earth for at least another seven years.

the desire to have children has infiltrated every decision i’ve made—at least the ones with the most causal effects. notably, the men i’ve allowed to stay in my life and the degree to which i’ve modified my body.

the men question is simple: if i examine who he is in the present, what he has or has not done for me, and how our rapport has developed, and i get the inkling that motherhood through his lineage would mean nothing short of headache and heartbreak—especially where my fantastical dreams are concerned—i no longer consider him viable option. but you see the issue here.

again, children take on a primary role. a role which, given their unborn status, is honorable at best but short-sighted at worst.

one can point fingers at patriarchy, or the oppressive facets of west african culture which sees women as maids and broodmares, but there’s more to that story.

i desire children. i believe that, in the absence of all material longing, rearing children is a worthwhile pursuit. in the absence of mortgage rates, grocery bills, and the cost of socialization, having children really is the coolest thing: to see them grow, develop, and become their own people.

to speak to them as they discover the world, and rediscover it through their eyes. to deepen your understanding of what love truly is: not a condition, but a state of being. that is what children provide. a reason to keep the show going.

but again, this is coming from a woman who has never borne a child. but who has spent enough of her formative years around them to know what she’ll do when she has her own, and what she’d like to avoid.

and all of this is beautiful, and perfect, and incredibly heteronormative (which is okay, by the way). but the question remains: who are you outside of your desire to have children?

who are you without your self-imposed rules?

for so long, my life choices had been laced with the undercurrent of reproductive futurism. every decision made with the understanding that it would lead me to the motherhood i desired.

you’ll say this is oppressive thinking. that a woman is more than the children she bears. and i agree.

it’s just, if i’m going to do it then i intend to do it my way. and my number one requirement is that i cannot suffer questions of material circumstances. money can never be the issue. if i lived my early adulthood in an economy of love, then motherhood must follow the same narrative thread.

a motherhood built on an economy of favors is one where you find yourself bartering with time, money, and your husband to do his “fair” share. it’s exhausting. and it steals the joy from what is a sacred condition: bringing life to earth, and committing yourself to see them through to self-sufficiency.

but all of this—this dance with future children and wiser, older selves—is also about control. it has been my way of controlling life in the absence of certainty. and through that control, i constructed a moral system: delay this until you're wiser, choose that because it's smarter, wait here until you’re more established. but what if wisdom isn’t always in delay?

my entire early adulthood thus far has been me negotiating the present as a hedge against a future i did not want: one where i’m overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated.

but the funny part is that this future i’ve been frantically planning to avoid is currently my present. so either i’m terrible at hedging my bets, or i’ve been making the wrong ones.

that’s where the motherhood question begins to feel less like a commandment and more like a choice. i can want children, but i no longer desire to filter every permanent decision—my adornments, my lovers, my aesthetics—through a hypothetical future version of myself as a mom. and a milf at that!

i arrived at this conclusion by surviving a seven-year war with time. by walking through public humiliation, private longing, the indignity of unfulfilling jobs, and the audacity of imperial men. by understanding there is no perfect decision, only the ones i make with my spirit intact.

adulthood has become for me, not a moral hierarchy, nor a checklist, or a static truth passed down from someone more senior, but a constant shifting in orientation.

it’s become a return to self, marked by understanding and consent:

understanding that your desires shift, and that this is not a failure—it’s a signal.

understanding that sometimes you outgrow the dreams you once prayed for, and in that release is a kind of grace.

understanding that your body is not a negotiation, it’s a landscape. sacred and sovereign.

and consent—especially informed consent—is the greatest gift one can give.

i used to think adulthood was about getting it right. now i’m of the mind that it’s about living in real-time, staying present, and letting each decision be an act of integrity. even the messy ones. especially the messy ones.

the sexiness of seeing things for what they are

the delaying of my own erotic embodiment—as decreed by my 15-year-old self—because i believed my unborn children deserved first pass at recontouring my body was lackluster thinking. it was unimaginative. and offensive to my autonomy as a woman.

the delaying of the tramp stamp until i’m more politically stable (e.g., with a husband who loves me and children i adore) is understandable. the “stamp” in question continues to oscillate between the names of my unborn children à la amber rose’s forehead tattoo¹ or a simplistic message like “live free.” better to save that until i have a clearer understanding of what my message should be. perhaps “return to sender” could be a cheeky nod to my christian-pagan, god-as-the-supreme-masculine ideals.²

the appeal of the piercing to my 15-year-old self was twofold: both a “fuck you” to all expectations placed on a bookish, slightly nerdy, culturally repressed brilliant teenager, and a way to say something without saying anything at all. i just wasn’t sure what i wanted to say at 15. hence, i delayed it. i thought that decision should be reserved for a wiser me.

i thought it would be the version of myself who had figured out how to achieve the motherhood she wanted; one free of capitalism’s ills. but now, i’m unconvinced she should be the one to decide. for all the reasons above.

now, i believe it should be me—present me—who decides. not because i no longer want children, but because i no longer wish to delay my erotic embodiment, which is sacred to me, until the day i meet them.

i’ve committed to living fully in the body, without waiting for the moral or material sign-off of some future version of me.

and i actually have something to say now. for all seven years of treachery i’ve endured, i finally feel i’ve arrived at the base camp of my becoming. i haven’t climbed the mountain yet, but i’ve done the hard work of identifying which mountain to summit. i’ve assembled my gear. i’ve filled up my tank. and the silhouette of the mountain is in sight.

in approaching this base camp, all i can think about is who i had to become to be survive the coming thin air of the mountain. the pain of the past fortified me. and in my refinement, i want a token of my pre-becoming.

so, if my 15-year-old self wanted to say, “fuck you,” my 25-year-old self follows it up with: “pay me.”

and that’s what the piercing represents: debts paid in full.

sweet dreams,
a diouana woman

p.s. truth or dare

you know how in your diary, you write something down then rip it out and place it in the tiny makeup bag you keep in your purse as a manifestation method? yeah, these p.s. truth or dares are the digital versions of my little ripped off notes.

truth: if you haven’t already, create your diouana womanomics account. by tracking your beauty expenses through the platform, you’re contributing to the world’s first dataset on erotic capital. this means we’ll finally have the hard data to answer questions such as, “what is the psychological, financial, and social return of skincare products for black women in their 20s?” and “which archetype of women are most likely to actually receive money and other tangible assets because of their beauty expenses?” these are important, mission-critical questions babes. create an account and contribute to the mission.

dare: letting your teenage self dictate your 20s. you’re grown! make your own decisions. for more on this, read my essay, “it’s time to kill your inner child.”

disclaimer: the views expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not reflect the views of any employer, past or current.

1. do you understand the face card you must possess to continue to be within the category of most beautiful women alive—even with a face tattoo?!

2. gotta love a west african jesus freak.