Thug Love: An Oxymoron

I've never been one to date or be attracted to thugs.

You know what...I take that back.

I kissed a dude in high school whose nickname was "Trigger". I thought he was hot as he sported a bandana across his braids a la O-dog from Menace II Society.  But truth be told...he was a poser. He was smart. He wrote poetry. He cared for a mentally disabled sibling. And my HS boyfriend sold bootleg clothes like Jody from Baby Boy and tried to smoke weed and had a gun in his dashboard, but truth of the matter is, he had deeper hurt and was struggling financially. But I wouldn't call them "thugs". Just misguided teenagers trying to find their way.

And I never had or went on a streak of dating "bad boys" either. I'd seen what being attracted to the rough and tumble type had done to women in my family, my mother included: heartache, pain, and overall disrespect.

Thugs are just nice to look at: tattoos, cockiness, hustling and grinding, and the overall well..."just don't give a damn about nothing"-ness makes them so appealing. But the buck stops there. So when I hear women say they want a man who can give her that "thug loving", I find it completely asinine and a little insane.

Thugs can't possibly love.....because they don't love NOR respect themselves enough to think outside of the "thug" box. You cant be a 60 year old hustler. That has to die someday or YOU will die. Thugs find it difficult to commit (i.e. ol Jim Jonez himself). Thugs never stay in one place long, so what makes you think that he'll be around. Thugs come in and out of your life when it is convenient for them.

As for the actual loving, you might like it rough, smacked around and be dominated, but the problem arises when all of that leaves the world of "sexual role play" to actual physical domination in the "real world". Thugs like control. So just when you think the loving was going hard....he's gonna go just as hard with you. A punch there. A slap here. A yell and calling you a "bitch" all recklessly.  Who wants that? And it's exhausting. You fight...then you fuck...then you fight...then you make up and fuck., just like out of that scene in Baby Boy w/ Yvette and Jody.

"I hate you"

"I hate your ass too..."

*5 seconds later*

"Oh JODY! JODY"

Furthermore, for my misguided, wanna be educated sistas, there is no such thing as a "corporate thug": some dude who is hood and street one minute, and business-like the next. Thugs don't have MBA degrees. Thugs aren't running Fortune 500 companies (then again....they are....but not like that). Anyone who is trying to be hard but being corporate...is just frontin'. There is a HUGE difference between having some "street smarts" and being a thug.  Real thugs are in the trap. Real thugs got felonies and can only work construction or "their own bidness". Real thugs aint bout that REAL, mature life, son!

Thug love is a disrespectful type of love that I cant get with. They are disrespcting you and above all else, disrespecting themselves. I think the appeal of the "thug" is that it is a highly sexualized, hyperbolic misrepresentation of what black masculinity and bravado are really about. Somehow, we have constructed a black male gender identity where sex has to be better with a man who is living a highly dangerous, reckless life.  I'll pass on those kind of orgasms. Besides, every thug I know isn't about "making love". Face down, ass up cant be your love-making mantra all the time... It's impersonal. It's indifferent.

I will take  being respected, cared for, and with a man who is respectful of himself and goals over mind-blowing orgasms any day.

If you like thug lovin....to each his own.