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Sexual wellness has a serious diversity problem. While the past 10 years have seen sex-positivity enter the zeitgeist, intersectionality remains largely absent.
Too often, conversations around reproductive rights and sexual wellness are whitewashed. Messaging around sexual health still ignores that race plays a huge part in sexual identity, experiences, and access to reproductive healthcare.
Even worse, mainstream education around sexual and reproductive health often defaults to the experiences of white women, leaving out Black women’s unique experiences and perspectives.
Despite the presence of systemic racism, many Black educators, advocacy groups, initiatives, and grassroots organizations are leading the conversation and doing the work to make the sexual and reproductive health space more inclusive.
Keep reading to meet six platforms challenging the status quo and centering Black women and femme’s sexual and reproductive wellness.
1. Decolonising Contraception
Decolonising Contraception is a POC-led advocacy group addressing racial inequalities in sexual and reproductive healthcare.
Founded in 2018, it has quickly established itself as a vital space for people of color to address issues across sexual and reproductive health.
Their work focuses on educating people about the barriers some groups of people face when accessing sexual health services, as well as offering support to Black and people of color via events, workshops, research and policy, and collective care.
Follow them @decolonisingcontraception
2. Kimbritive
Kimberly Huggins and Brittany Brathwaite founded Kimbritive after realizing that Black women and girls were left out of real, honest conversations about sex.
They set out to create a space for Black women to be both sexually informed and liberated, opening the dialogue about sexual and reproductive health within the Black community.
Kimbritive offers consulting services and workshops for Black women and young people that cover everything from birth control and STIs, to pleasure and consent.
Follow them @kimbritive
3. Triple Cripples
Triple Cripples is a platform created by Kym Oliver and Jumoke Abdullahi, two disabled Black women who were tired of never seeing disabled people represented by mainstream media, let alone Black disabled women.
Kym and Jumoke started Triple Cripples to highlight the stories of Black disabled women and non-binary people in the global diaspora, including what it means to navigate sex, relationships, and reproductive health when you’re a Black disabled woman.
Their platform raises much-needed awareness on the intersection between race, sex, and disability to eradicate taboos surrounding disability within the Black community and beyond.
Follow them @triplecripples
4. Afrosexology
Afrosexology is an online community created by Dalychia Saah and Rafaella Fiallo that promotes pleasure-based sex ed for Black folks.
Dalychia and Rafaella started Aftosexology to create an environment for Black women to openly discuss intimacy and sexual health.
They offer virtual and IRL workshops, resources, and content to help Black people unapologetically reclaim and embrace their sexuality, encouraging sexual liberation as an act of resistance.
Follow them @afrosexology_
5. Blex
Blex — a portmanteau of “Black” and “sex” — is a sexual health and wellness space on a mission to empower the Black community to lead a healthy sex life.
The Blex app connects users with certified sex and relationship therapists to help them talk through any issues related to sexual health and intimacy.
The app also features a community message board that allows men and women to openly — but anonymously — support and answer each other’s questions.
Follow them @blex_app
6. Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause
Menopause can be a challenging milestone for any woman, but there’s little information on how Black women and non-binary folks experience menopause compared to white women.
That’s what prompted Omisade Burney-Scott to create the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, a podcast, and website seeking to curate and share the reality of Black women over 50.
The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause project explores the complexities of menopause in a society that presents youth and whiteness as the norm and challenges the erasure of Black women and femmes as they age.
Follow them @blackgirlsguidetomenopause
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