Why Can’t I Talk Dirty?

Oct 21

Am I the only one who gets embarrassed talking to their partners about they sexual turn ons? I wanna know, y’all — for realz!

Maybe it goes back to when I was a little kid. My parents got me this cool ride-on train that ran on a track all through the house. Could I go! I had to be two or three. It’s my first memory, other than the occasional snatch of visual from the crib. I used that train for exactly one day, then it got boxed up and put on a high shelf. It never came down again, and I would just look at it, wishing. For whatever reason, I had already learned not to ask for what I wanted.

I was talkin’ to my bestie and they was telling me about another friend who refused to say out loud what they wanted from a sexual partner. What is that? I identified like a mo’ fo’. It’s like a recurring nightmare, where I know I need help—there’s danger—but my voice doesn’t work and I can’t move! It’s sex for frig’s sake. I’m already nekked. I’ve likely had this person’s sex organs in my mouth, but I can’t say out loud that I’d like to do this or that?

How else has my tongue been tied and my primal urges been domesticated to the point I can’t even say ‘em out loud? I’d bet money that not a single person I had contact with as a kid would take credit for it. I’m sure everybody who reads this post is thinking of they self as damn ass sexually liberated, but I doubt nary a one of y’all will type up in the comments then unique things you like done to you during sex. You gonna claim it’s because that’s private. Lol!

I wish I lived in a world where talking about sex was something could be done in casual conversations. It could at least be as common as talking about the last movie a person saw, or what book they are reading. What makes those things okay to talk about, yet sex (the required behavior for the survival of the species) taboo? I’m sure more people have sex that read! I’d put down cash more people have sex than watch television.

There’s a challenge in there for anyone daring enough to meet it. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for some good BDSM and nipple play.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

Why Can’t I Talk Dirty?

Au Revoir Les Enfants

Didn’t Date Me ‘Cause I’m Black!