This book offers a unique understanding of African American populations and their articulation of sexuality and race by introducing a comprehensive sexological model, Black Sexual Epistemology.
Tracie Q. Gilbert draws from theoretical perspectives of anti-Blackness, ethno-sexuality, Performative Blackness and African-centered epistemology to implicate race as an inextricable factor in the sexual structures and schema of African American people. Chapters identify and introduce a sex-positive and comprehensive sexological model, Black Sexual Epistemology, through which Black sexuality can be understood and navigated in the contemporary era. This model presents empirical data for effectively applying previous critical race perspectives and uniquely demonstrates how Black sexual experience can be better understood and reimagined for greater community development and healing.
This book is essential reading for practicing sex therapists, marriage and family therapists and clinical social workers working with these populations as well as for academics and students of sexology, sex education, sex therapy, social work, marriage and family therapy, public health, Black/African American studies and LGBTQ studies. It will also be of interest to general audiences who appreciate culturally centered sexological scholarship.
Biography
Tracie Q. Gilbert is an educator, researcher and consultant who pursues sexual healing for Black people and racial justice in sex ed spaces. She is the owner of Thembi Anaiya LLC and an assistant professor at Widener University's Center for Human Sexuality Studies.
"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!
- James C. Wadley, Ph.D., CST-S; Editor in Chief of the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships, Lincoln University
"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."
- Elizabeth Schroeder, EdD, MSW; Sexuality Educator and Consultant
