I was nine years old when I first heard the classic New York greeting “Suck my dick!” screamed into the air. My friend Devin was standing outside of the 1111 Ocean Avenue building steps where we left the babysitter to walk to school. He belted it while holding a nylon lunch sack with a bright blue strap.
Our babysitter, Lynette, was a no-nonsense Guyanese woman whose gold tooth and glimmering smile only peeked out for our parents and the daily screening of Oprah. Otherwise, she tolerated no mess and would bend deeper in her already-hunched stance to tell us about behaviors we could “leave in the street.” She didn’t know Devin had screamed at a rival to suck his genitals.
I didn’t understand what it meant other than a major insult to whoever had to do the sucking. Later on, I met a feminist writer and by dating her started to learn what made the phrase offensive. She taught me that the penis is, by patriarchal measures, the ultimate weapon. It plunges men into insecure rage about its size, its presence, and its usefulness. And whether or not women like, love, appreciate or touch it makes it either cause for romance or a mortal threat. Men learn that it’s the only real tool to pleasure our partners and that it can only act and not be acted upon.
In bell hooks’ The Will to Change, she writes about translating sex, an intimate act, into this limited version of male domination saying that men fuck to match the most violent sense of that word. But no one told me that growing up. So I was chasing love only to the tip of my penis and no further.
I’m reading that book because I joined a black Tantra group led by a feminist woman. I went to her workshop retreat in Costa Rica 4 months ago to enjoy the lush jungle rejuvenation of nude yoga at sunset surrounded by black skin and still blacker courage. The group convened to create a forum for Black people who needed liberation through the spiritual vessel of our bodies. But it’s been hard to see my body as spiritual or divine or worthy when all I’ve known is that it’s violent and terrible and frightening since I knew I had a dick.
That organ is a point of pride and fear. I’ve sent pictures of it, the welcome type and the unasked for. I’ve laughed at it. I’ve flaunted it. I’ve feared its weakness. My dick is my absolute best friend or fickle sworn enemy with nothing in between. And the first time I heard Devin scream the proverbial phrase, I had to ask myself the question “Why would anyone want to touch that or touch me?” The sadness I felt knowing that the very existence of my thing would cause people to run from and malign me was too much to make peace with.
According to my father, it was also a man’s double-edged sword and what gave women an advantage over us because once the dick was subdued, the man was placated. I didn’t get his logic at the time nor did I give it much credence. But when I started to cultivate romantic relationships, his theories got inside me a little more. I saw myself as wielding only physical and sexual power and that these forces were part of the small fleshy package in which I contained my masculinity.
I can admit that when I arrived in Costa Rica, already more than a year into a pandemic and feeling worn down and twisted up by the wiles of capitalist pursuits, I thought I’d increase my skepticism of all things New Age-y. The retreat housed mostly women, some who were coupled and some who’d left their partners at home. The contract we make with ourselves on trips like this is to come back renewed, holding space, compassionate, self-caring and whatever terms are popular that year. In the generous version, I was there to take in the sun and establish a deeper connection with the self through a yoga practice. I also, less charitably, wanted to be like the tantric experts I’d read about, floating on a cloud with an ever-erect wand ready to please my partner ad infinitum. The way I saw it, if I learned some breathing tricks, and some new ways to pretzel my limbs, I’d soon become the lover I’d always dreamed of being: irresistible.
What came next was unlike anything I could have expected.
Once, while lying down on my back doing the same lung-filing exercises I’d read about, I felt a full body wave of ecstasy overcome me. I heard the siren songs of 40-plus women climaxing at once under the tutelage of a master. This was not sex, at least not in the way I’d known it. It was akin to the highs I’d experienced on psychedelic drugs or after a particularly intense workout. It felt like I had reached a state of bliss that relinquished thought and accepted both vulnerability and the ineffable swells of energy that come with lovemaking. The wildest part is that my dick had nothing to do with it. I didn’t feel aroused and I didn’t check to see how I looked or need to touch any part of myself to achieve the feeling. For the next four days, the group gathered to learn different aspects of Tantric realization. And each teacher imparted on us that black bodies and black sexuality had long been denied their wingspan in the Western Hemisphere under colonialism and patriarchy. Freedom represents the very purpose of pleasure and, absent that liberty, we can’t reach our true sensory heights. Ironicallly, I’d need to see all parts of me, even the nefarious penis, as capable and deserving of pleasure for me to know what freedom smelled, touched, and tasted like. I couldn’t do that yet.
Ask the men in your life what they think of their penis. There will be a range of answers but few will say that it scares them, disappoints them, makes them wary of people who have one. We treat it like a pet or an object, divorced from ourselves and serving a narrow set of functional objectives. If we could detach it and put it into a case, and that case into a drawer, we would. This part is an inconvenience; it’s a bother that we can’t imagine ourselves losing but have no way to keep and nurture.
The user manual for the penis goes:
Step 1. Pull it out
Step 2. Hope for the best.
Nowhere did I learn to massage, cherish, moisturize, uplift, stretch or care for my parts. That is by design. The major bodily effect of colonial rule has been the complete disconnection of the flesh-and-blood self from its inherent spiritual value. What we have in place of autonomy and respect for the body is a reductive self, only as good as the work it produces or what it’s able to give. Our genitals become a proxy for profit gains, a slim margin for success, a cash bonus.
So I decided to take my penis out of it. (Probably the first time I did that.) I enrolled in a class for men who want to learn Tantra and read feminist books. It has been life-changing. To say that I have learned more about my body, my essence, my reason for being in the past month than in all the years I’ve spent as a man prior would be a criminal understatement. With these men I’ve learned to accept that my body is whole and began to unlearn the effects of patriarchal masculinity.
So far, I’ve learned that it serves the status quo for men to be detached from all access to pleasure. A joyful bite of food. The sound of early rainfall. These register as only appealing to the realm of feminine and steeps us in a brew of anger and denial, only to be released in sex. I’ve learned that the shame response that comes from patriarchal sex rituals is a form of subconscious shackling that puts undue emphasis on one body part when we could be enjoying everywhere else too. I’ve learned that my futile quest to have my penis liked, touched, and appreciated runs counter to my search for love, passion, and intimacy. These all can be achieved outside of my pelvis and its desires. I’ve learned that I’m still learning and that I could stand to be more honest about how embarrassing it is to be learning in every phase of life that I thought I should know better. Like the best lessons, it’s hard-earned.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Andrew Ricketts' work on Medium.