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One can turn on his or her computer and find just about anything these days. Whether a new apartment is needed or an easier approach to crème brulée, it can be found in the internet. Sex advice is surely part of that body of information, and the Atlanta-based cable access television cum youtube.com star Alexyss K. Tylor makes it virtually impossible for you to ignore hers. She tells it like it is, shooting her messages of female empowerment straight from the  hip to an audience that is unsure of how to take her. I was first introduced to Tylor’s youtube clips by way of a facebook message assuring me that I would die laughing, but after a few giggles, I decided to review more of Tylor’s videos, and discovered there was more to Tylor than just outrageous statements and an undeniable large stage presence. Alexyss K. Tylor was onto something: female sexual empowerment in the black community.
Though she tackles the issue in a completely less-than-subtle, borderline pornographic way (at least in terms of her language choices), and is (thankfully, to some) limited solely to cable access television and the internet for media exposure, her unforgiving method of discussing sex is pretty powerful considering the limited number of voices in the black community on the subject. Though young black/Latina/multiracial women are constantly on display as sexual objects, very few women of similar backgrounds have been afforded the opportunity to speak out about how they feel about sex in general.
While there is very little information about Tylor beyond the limited information on her website, i.e. that she is female, based in Atlanta, Georgia, grew up poor, and may be the child of performer Jackie Wilson (the background information pretty much ends there), her videos, e-statements, and podcasts speak for themselves. Accompanied by her mother, Tylor’s show, entitled “Vagina Power,” along with her website of the same name, offers the following mission:
It’s time for us to graduate Ladies into a new awareness into our consciousness about our bodies, our minds
and our sacred vagina! I am asking you to venture into a new world of existence where you give yourselves permission
to imagine that you are greater than you could ever comprehend.
You are magnificent a wonderful Goddess to behold because you have the time portal of all life between your legs.
We have to know this, feel this honor this knowledge and stand in it because as we speak there is an infant, a
female child, a woman is being raped, murdered or castrated that doesn’t know that she is powerful. WE need to
Stand up for her because we Give her permission to stand up for herself!. Our vagina has been used as a Sperm
Wastebasket, a weapon against us and seen as a curse given to us by God? It is time that you realized that you [e]
mbody the life force of Gods because all life must be projected into the uterus of a female to exist in third
dimensional time!
It is time for You to stand up goddess Your Man is waiting, Your Daughter is crying, Our children are Dying. We
need each other to Survive. It is because of our ignorance and lack of knowledge of ourselves that we perish and
allow others to destroy us. Please Stand in VAGINA POWER !!!
In summation, she advocates not allowing women to become the sexual playthings of men and encourages them to be in control of their sexuality—to embrace it and not be ashamed of it, and to educate themselves more on the power they possess as women by the very virtue of being the bearers of the birth canal. Her method of conveying said message may not always be the clearest or most politically correct way of doing so, but considering the limited knowledge of safe sex, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, and the silence surrounding black female sexuality within the black community, Tylor’s voice, as outlandish as it may be, lends itself to possibly solving this greater issue. Much like politicians, activists, and religious leaders who seek alternative means to reach younger, urban audiences of color, Tylor employs a similar technique in reaching her target audience: Southern blacks.
Considering the highly socially conservative and religious nature of the Southern black community, one that I considered the backdrop to my own childhood, save the influence of my mother’s more open-minded, unconventional parenting, it is no wonder that Tylor’s message stands out. Sex education programs in the South suffer greatly due to limited state education funding and even more so from the conservative religious opposition to the presence of such programs to begin with. As the population of teenage mothers and the contraction rate of STIs continue to grow each year, little is being done to educate black Southern youth. When the aforementioned are coupled with high incarceration rates (which only further exacerbate the problem of STI contraction, as safe sex is hardly ever an option in prisons), one cannot help but ponder the bleak future of sex as a healthy activity between partners. The fact that Tylor’s show even exists is a statement in itself.
But as a youtube superstar, her message of sexual empowerment falls on deaf ears as she is rendered to fulfill the role of yet another “crazy” using the internet to propel him/herself to wide acclaim and popularity. Sure, most of her commentary is little more than armchair psychology, refashioning of outdated Freudian theories on male-female, parent-child relationships and how they translate from subconscious to every day life peppered with quasi-Evangelical remarks, and her flamboyancy is off-putting to many members of the public who feel that sex should be discussed in a very serious and sterile manner. Yet could it not be this lacking in “realness,” a loss of being fully in touch with one’s target audience, that also makes sex education and safe sex programs poorly suited for the groups they aim to help? Hormone-led teenagers and sexually repressed housewives may desire a similar message, and it is not one that comes draped in a white lab coat or that lies in between textbook pages.
If anything, Alexyss K. Tylor can be thought of the Southern black community’s answer to Dr. Ruth or Canada’s 77 year-old sex educator Sue Johanson, though Tylor is a long way from obtaining their technical edge. Her seemingly unintentionally humorous delivery lacks the sexologist spin. After all, cable access, youtube, and the internet as a whole allow for the democratization of speech—meaning that any and everyone can say exactly what they feel, even if they do not possess the audience or credentials to keep them afloat. Her assertions, while empowering, often fail to meet the needs of people looking for real answers about sex, which is just as dangerous as the selling of sex in the media with little opportunity for women to discuss it. Nevertheless, Tylor’s rants on “the power of the penis” (using genitalia as a metaphor for men, of course, in her discussions on misogyny and sexism in relationships) and the need to find one’s ‘sexual spirituality” speak to someone who is looking to catalyze their sexuality. Now if only Tylor’s powerful vernacular could be fused with equally powerful academic credentials, the gap would be closed. Yet unfortunately for the Southern black urban community, at the rate things are going on a wider social scale, that may be a long time coming.
To hear Alexyss K. Tylor’s message yourself, click any of the following links. However, please note that some of these are not so safe for work!
Vagina Power website http://www.vaginapowertv.com/” http://www.vaginapowertv.com
Alexyss K. Tylor’s myspace page “http://www.myspace.com/alexyssktylorvaginapower” http://www.myspace.com/alexyssktylorvaginapower
For youtube.com videos, go to youtube.com and type in “vagina power,” as Tylor’s name is often misspelled and her videos cannot be found by name alone.
By Wendi Muse
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