The Book
Black & Sexy: A Framework of Racialized Sexuality
Black & Sexy: A Framework of Racialized Sexuality is Dr. G’s first major research project in book form. This book sheds light on the relationship between sociohistorical conceptualizations of race and their contemporary manifestations in the experience and ideation of sexuality among African American populations in the present day.
Book Synoposis
This book shares portions of a grounded theory research study centered on African American populations and their articulation of sexuality and race. It utilizes the theoretical perspectives of antiBlackness (João Costa Vargas, Nicholas Brady, George Yancy), ethnosexuality (Joanne Nagel), performative Blackness (E. Patrick Johnson), and African-Centered Epistemology (Naim Akbar) to implicate race as an inextricable factor in the sexual ideations and expressions of African American people. It then identifies and explains a comprehensive sexological model (Black Sexual Epistemology) through which the cognitive schemas and structures of this framework might be best understood and navigated in the contemporary era.
Four major topics make up the sections of the proposed work. It begins with a brief validation of Black Sexual Epistemology as a useful grounded theory, emergent from a moderate discussion of social-historical factors necessitating the cumulative intellectual consideration of sexuality and race in American racialization processes. It proceeds by laying out the logistical legwork involved in the study’s data collection and analysis, before continuing through a comprehensive explanation of the BSE model and its components (The Erotic Self, Eight Channels of Sexiness, and External Influences). Finally, the work concludes with implications and suggestions for how individuals and sexology practitioners might employ these concepts in their personal lives and professional spaces, respectively.
“What’s compelling about Dr. Gilbert’s book is that she invites us to think critically about the convergence of sexuality and race and frames the two elusive constructs in a manner that is engaging and insightful. This book is timely given the sensitivity around the necessity of expanding light and discourse about the sexual expression of persons of African descent. Dr. Gilbert paves the way for scholars and practitioners with her work as Black and Sexy will be used in collegiate classrooms and lay communities for years to come. I wholeheartedly endorse this masterpiece and look forward to many conversations with my students. Bravo!”
Chapter Review
Take a first look at the chapters.
Chapter One
Introduction
Before expounding into the present sexological theory, it is important to establish the rationale for why it matters to study race along with sexuality.
Chapter Two
Sexuality As “Sexiness” Engineering
Chapter Two provides a general introduction to the foundational mechanism of Black Sexual Epistemology, that of sexuality being the universe through which sexiness, aka “the stuff of sex” is negotiated, or “engineered”.
Chapter Three
Exuded Being
This chapter introduces the reader to the concept of Exuded Being, referring to dimensions or characteristics of sexiness that are exuded, or given off by the individual in question.
Chapter Four
Sensory Experience
Using examples supported by sample responses and explanations, Chapter Four describes the four channels of this theme: Sensual Pleasure, Mental Excitation, Positive Emotion, and Relationship.
Chapter Five
The Erotic Self—6 Personas
The Erotic Self is established as the chief engineer in the control panel of Black Sexual Epistemology. That said, no erotic self is exactly the same as another, existing solely according to the self-definition of the individual in question. Within the present sample, a total of six personas emerged within the data, including one in particular—the “Sexual Brand”—that explored relationships between sexual behavior and sexual identity.
Chapter Six
External Influences
External Influences were not imagined as an explicit part of the original research design for this study. As such, those discussed in this chapter do not represent a total list of all possible influences on an individual’s sexiness development.
Chapter Seven
BSE In Action—A Tool for Black Sexual Liberation
This final chapter closes out the book by articulating BSE’s place within the canon of sexology research to date, while highlighting several opportunities from which new theoretical exploration could emerge.
“Black and Sexy does something other texts do not: It contextualizes race as not simply a social construct, but as a sexual social construct that white supremacy culture uses to pathologize the sexuality of African American and Afro-descended people. After naming the negative, traumatic roots of this framing, Dr. Gilbert brings the reader into a space of reconceptualization and healing, inviting Black individuals and communities to own, embrace and celebrate their sexuality. This should be required reading for all current and future sexologists.””
The Book
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