The Spectacle and Commodification of Sexual Liberation with Kimberly Foster (For Harriet)

Listen to "The Spectacle and Commodification of Sexual Liberation with Kimberly Foster (For Harriet)".

In this episode, Hannah is joined by Kimberly Foster, who is the founder of For Harriet, a multi-platform digital community for Black women, and they discuss sexuality, race, sexual liberation, and pop culture. Kimberly and Hannah talk about the difference between the spectacle of sexual liberation as we see it in the media and real, personal sexual liberation. and how to critique the media messages we receive about Black peoples and especially Black women. Finally, Hannah and Kimberly discuss blackfishing, the “mixed race aesthetic”, radical imagination, and, of course, the Kardashians.

Read the episode transcript here!

SHOW NOTES

What we chat about…

What is For Harriet? How did it begin?
What topics does For Harriet cover and why was it so important for Kimberly to start the project?
Specific Black feminists that originally inspired Kimberly
Did For Harriet always include topics around sexuality?
Why it’s important to criticise and analyse media
What is blackfishing?
Everyday uses of theory
How much are the Kardashians to blame for the continuing rise of blackfishing?
The “mixed race aesthetic”
The spectacle of sexual liberation
What real sexual liberation looks like
How there’s no one way to be sexually liberated
What tools do we need to be able to spot and critique these messages about Black women and sexuality?
Being able to imagine how things could change
Did Kimberly get any backlash from her video about the WAP music video?
When it comes to the hypersexualisation of BIPOC artists, how does that impact or influence your own sex/romantic life and your relationship to your own body? (34:30)
How do you engage with such serious topics without the despair overwhelming you? (37:50)
Thoughts on how sex positivity is acceptable but only if you’re white/thin/young? (41:30)

USEFUL LINKS

bell hooks: http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/
Audre Lorde: https://alp.org/about/audre
Patricia Hill Collins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Hill_Collins
Blackfishing: https://www.papermag.com/white-women-blackfishing-instagram-2619714094.html
Kimberly’s video “Ariana Grande really, really wants to be mixed”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmt_s_dRtBQ
Kimberly’s video “WAP and the Spectacle of Sexual Liberation”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILApR36KgQw
The WAP music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsm4poTWjMs
Audre Lorde’s The Uses of the Erotic: https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11881_Chapter_5.pdf
Alice Walker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker
Jennifer Nash: https://scholars.duke.edu/person/Jennifer.Nash
Joan Morgan: https://twitter.com/milfinainteasy
Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Maree Brown: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/pleasure-activism-the-politics-of-feeling-good/9781849353267

MORE ABOUT KIMBERLY FOSTER

Kimberly Foster is a writer, cultural critic and founder and editor-in-chief of For Harriet, a multi-platform digital community for Black women, and Black Girls Gather, a national live event series.

Founded in 2010, For Harriet is a leading voice for Black women’s journalism and storytelling. Kimberly began For Harriet while she was an undergraduate at Harvard University.

The site has been featured in the New York Times, ESSENCE, and Forbes and Huffington Post. Kimberly has written for The Guardian, Newsweek, Quartz, and Fortune, and appeared on OWN, Huffpost Live, NPR, MSNBC, BET.com, and many local radio stations across the country commenting on culture and current events.

Kimberly's video commentaries on current events and feminism have been viewed millions of times.

In 2016, she was named to Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30 list. In 2017 ESSENCE named her one of 50 founders to watch. In 2019, her video appeared on OWN’s “Black Women OWN the Conversation.” She has also been recognized as a leading voice online by Teen Vogue and Huffington Post.

Kimberly has been invited to give talks at dozens of universities across the country including keynotes at Cornell University, Boston College, and Emory University. She holds a degree in African American Studies.