Et Tu, Riri? Yes, a think piece.

Now I know how you girls like to tussle….

Early Monday morning, the TL was in shambles. Why? Oh, because Rihanna revealed via some pics in People Magazine that she’s pregnant by A$AP Rocky. The girls are not happy!

Though we are all happy for Rihanna getting to live her dream, it has been a very telling moment social media wise about where our values lie around mothering and partnership.

Twitter has long been the place where much commentary between a certain class of Black women (lower middle class really) convene to talk, connect, laugh, and work through the mainstream moments that black feminism has had over the years. Twitter has served as a sounding board and proof that the tides are changing, women are choosing “differently.” To hell with men, to hell with babies, we ALL dream of being the childish rich auntie! Sistas! are doing it for themselves. Right?

Right? We don’t know!

What I saw when I saw responses to Rihanna’s pregnancy announcement was the death of a dream. Though she has been, our Robyn actually is not going to be the rich auntie forever. It’s giving… Rich Mommy + her man?

That’s… that’s not her line. We’re puzzled and befuddled.

I have long been saying in my own personal life that recent events over the past few years have pushed me to this place of recognizing: the black feminist imagination is just that, an imagination. I came across the hard truths that we must live in the world we know and work hard to recreate that world into something else. But for now, this is it.

I’ve been coming up on my own realizations about my desires for companionship, partnership, marriage, and hell … dare I say even… more children? Without giving hoteps too much, the messaging has been over recent years amongst the 22–40 crowds of black women: Desire children? Desire marriage? No! We do not dream of labor!

We’ve reduced relationships to labor markets. Which is funny because most of you bitches are not sex workers. Lol. And so the resistance that has been put up against participating in more traditional ways of relating to men; ways that are based in transactions if you do them right … is odd from the sex worker perspective. This is labor that you’re choosing and choosing to participate in without making sure you get your cut. Because well, that would make you a whore now wouldn’t it? And we don’t want that. To say, “Give me that for this” is too forward. That would reveal that love is indeed not enough.

For years I’ve been really embracing my queerness and honestly living like a lesbian. But while I am 100% a carpet muncher (I whips pussy don’t ever get it confused! Lol), the “bi” in bisexual is about my desire to mate with and have meaningful relationships with both men and women. Though my politic and lived experience (which are both valid) have pushed me towards only being with women. And it feels shameful to say that without the consistent presence of men in my life to love and experience, I feel a bit empty. I know why it makes sense not to like men. They’re generally terrible creatures. I know this.

But I’m also asking myself — — what about me? This isn’t compulsory heterosexuality at this point. I am for sure bisexual. Do I allow what is “acceptable” amongst some of the most revered black feminist thinkers and theorists to be how I live my life? Did I switch one leash for the other when I signed up to live in liberation?

And I love women for sure, but I had a pregnancy scare a few months ago that shook me to the core. I was ready to plan to abort. Honestly. It was like I got a chance to really think this time about the “right” thing to do. I had laid out my terms. It was different. It was calm. I was sure. A baby wasn’t a right thing to do at the moment. The relationship was too new, too fresh. It was almost unanimous — get rid of it.

But I sat. And I sat. And I thought about why I might want to terminate. And given that my daughter is 4, it’s been years since I even really came across the possibility of being accidentally pregnant. That was the first raw dick I had in literal years. Strap don’t have sperm. I was in shock — but I knew that men like abortions and opportunities to re-do mistakes. I knew that I had no intentions on being a mother again any time soon, so I offered one up. It was like being thrown back into the ring of fire. It all felt the same, but it was so different.

And it’s because it was different. My life was different. The almost daddy man was different. I was different.

I had my daughter at 22, fresh off the undergraduate stage and found myself crying in my college apartment into the telephone, struggling with the fact that I knew I would be parenting alone and have been. I had no job and no clue. The only thing I thought to do was go back home. So I did, and it’s been hard but mostly fine. I’m 27 now.

I’ve been out of graduate school for about 3 years. I’m a homeowner with rooms to spare. My oldest is almost school aged. I quit the job that was sucking the life out of me and have been working towards some weird form of organizing entrepreneur stripper-ship thing that’s paying the bills, but the bills are being paid. I drive a small SUV that has room for 2 carseats. I’m physically prepared for a baby.

So what was that thing? What was that thing that told me that I wasn’t? It was the fear of being unloved. It was the fear of it being obvious to anyone who saw me, I had sex with a man. And not only did I have sex with the man, I let him cum in me. And not only did I let him cum in me, without any commitment or promise I was going to keep a baby — I was going to willingly go through labor. We do not dream of labor. We do not dream of labor.

And so I checked the pregnancy tests, over and over and over again. And they came up negative every time. And every time, I wished that it would be like last time — eventually it would come up as positive and I would brave the storm and welcome another baby. That didn’t happen.

I was so confused. I didn’t want a baby. I didn’t want anything remotely traditional and this man had let me know already that if he was to be a father, that is what he wanted. I didn’t want that. I was working the bisexual polyamorous single mom to rich auntie (with one kid) pipeline. Fast tracking with stripper heels in tow. Who was this woman (not girl) who was staring prayerfully at a pregnancy test — — to be positive?

When I saw Rihanna today, I remembered that I wanted that too. And I couldn’t in good conscious tweet or talk as if that wasn’t the case.

It was a moment when it occurred to me that I’m not to woke to be a woman — in the ways that I define my own womanhood. And I’ve never described myself as anything other than a mother first. I had abandoned that idea of who I would become and was ready to settle for a lifetime of singleness. I was ready to pretend that I had everything I needed even without having a family.

But I want children that belong to me in my house. I want them in my yard. I want to fuss and complain about the lights being on and nobody paying the bill but me. I want to hold my nose at the smell of “outside.” I want to settle disputes about the living room remote. I want kids too.

And I want to have them by having sex with a man. Because I like men. And I like penis. Lol. And apparently it likes me back.

I don’t really know what to do with this information. But it’s what I have. Lol.

Godspeed to those of us with unwatered seeds. Hopefully the rain comes, and maybe after that even the sunshine too.