Whitney and Robyn didn’t feel comfortable publicly being together, which is representative of so many black queer female subjects across time. They shut themselves off from the joy they brought one another, in part, because of the homophobia projected towards black queer women in particular. Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic as Power provides a point of departure to examine the wealth of potential (for self actualization and self-love/joy) that stems from fully embracing the black queer female subject that, as in this example, is so often ignored.

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