31| Exploring Transactional Modesty, Body Liberation, and Adultification: A Deep Dive into Black Women's Liberation with Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons

Have you ever wondered how societal norms of modesty and beauty shape our thoughts, feelings, and even our interactions? I sat down with the brilliant Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons, and together we unpacked the concept of 'transactional modesty' that she developed in response to the backlash Ciara received for her outfit choice. This episode promises an in-depth discussion on the societal implications of our appearance and behavior, encouraging you to question your personal preferences and their origins.

We also ventured into the concerning trend of adultification, particularly regarding black girls. This phenomenon, where children are seen and treated as adults, brings dangerous implications, and we discuss this in the context of safety in relationships and how we dress. We emphasize the need for comprehensive sex education and the importance of restorative justice in holding adults accountable. 

By exploring how these concepts are uniquely applied and enforced in different racial contexts, we aim to provide a fresh perspective on these pressing issues. So, tune in for an enlightening episode that will challenge your perceptions and inspire you to think differently about modesty, beauty, safety, and liberation issues.

Click HERE to join the email list and receive your FREE Expanding Your Vision guide

Transcript

TaReon Jael: 0:02

Welcome to the Black Woman in Bloom podcast, a semi-monthly podcast designed to uplift, encourage and empower Black women by exploring wellness topics that promote self-care and mindfulness. I'm your host, TaReon Jael, a certified health educator and medical lab scientist. For more information, please visit blackwomaninbloomcom. While I hope you enjoy listening to and learning from the podcast, please remember that it is not a substitute for a relationship with a licensed health care provider. Hello and welcome to Episode 31. As promised, I'm back with a brand new episode after taking a short break from the podcast to rest and recharge. For this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Candice Nicole Hargons.

TaReon Jael: 1:05

Dr Candice Nicole Hargons is an award-winning associate professor of counseling psychology at the University of Kentucky, where she studies sexual wellness and liberation. She hosts Fuck the System, a sexual liberation podcast, and How to Love a Human, a liberation podcast that asks people with multiple marginalized identities what the world would be like if it loved them. She's published over 50 research articles and has been featured in the Huffington Post, the APA Monitor, Good Housekeeping, Women's Health, Blavity, Cosmopolitan and The New York Times. It's been a while since I've interviewed anyone, so it was refreshing and fun to have Dr Hargons on the podcast. She truly is a wealth of knowledge, and the work she does around sexual liberation for marginalized folks is necessary and so important.

TaReon Jael: 2:08

During our conversation we discuss some topics like transactional modesty, body liberation and more. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Let's get into my discussion with Dr Candice Nicole Hargons. Dr Candice, I'm wondering if you could just kind of introduce us to the topic of transactional modesty and just kind of what that is and kind of just get us going this morning.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 2:37

Yes, okay, so I came up with the term. When Sierra wore that beautiful and sheer dress and so many people had stuff to say about it negative stuff to say about it, specifically because she was a married woman, she was a Christian woman, she was a mother I was like what is this I've been sitting with, why we call some black girls fast and the way we label and police black girls and women's sexualities. And I was like what do we think she did to transgress these ideas of motherhood and wifehood and Christianity and wearing this dress? And so the concept of transactional modesty really speaks to this idea that if you portray a certain standard of womanhood a really small, narrow window of acceptability, respectability and you do that because it brokers you access to the husband and to kids and to a secure life and all of these things And that women who transgress that standard don't deserve it. They aren't worthy of it. So the women who have upheld the standard and feel like I've gotten the things that I deserve based on this, feel especially affronted when they see a woman who's not upholding that same standard have access to the same things.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 4:05

I think it pisses people off And I was like why are people so mad right now. What about this? anger some people and not others, and so that's where the term came from, and so I put it out there on Instagram and I was just kind of playing around with him. People were like yes, yes, and then they talk. You know, some folks talked about how they used to buy into that and kind of let it go, and some folks are like no, this is real, it's real in my community.

TaReon Jael: 4:34

Yeah, that's really interesting. It's really interesting that you came up with this and you were playing with this idea of like, well, what is this thing right? And especially the part about this idea of oh, it's somebody's wife, it's somebody's mother.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 4:59

It's like if you were just unattached then maybe, but now you got to represent your family And to do that you have to have your nipples and like what covered in the certain way.

TaReon Jael: 5:11

Yeah, yeah, and I don't know if this could just be my perception, but it seems when it, when it's black women that seem to really get those criticisms of that. A lot of times we hear it towards black girls, black women, but especially within our own community.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 5:39

Yeah, there's definitely a racialized, racist component to it. I don't think it's exclusive to our communities. I think most communities police women, sexualities and expression of their sexuality. So there's a Madonna horror complex version in every culture, every racial culture. But I think because I'm in the black community, i'm attuned to how we talk to each other, how we regard each other, and so I can name what those labels are and with a little bit more precision, and I care more about how we treat each other than how other communities treat each other at this stage in my life. So that's where that centering black women's experiences comes from for me.

TaReon Jael: 6:25

Okay, i appreciate you saying that and clarifying that for me.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 6:28

Yeah, Because I don't think we're unique in that way. I think that there is a racist component to it in that other cultures think they get to police black women, sexualities and expression, whereas it doesn't go the other way because of the way we organize our humanity.

TaReon Jael: 6:49

Okay, okay. So this definitely brings to mind right now Janelle Monae's new album, the Age of Pleasure, and leading up to promoting the album, and we've really just been seeing her evolution as an artist and as a woman, or well, she uses a gender expansive person?

TaReon Jael: 7:14

Yeah, She's using more, yeah, gender expansive and she's identifying as non-binary right now. It's just for to me been very beautiful to watch and just seeing her be so liberated in that, and definitely I've been hearing a lot of conversation about oh well, and she's even spoken about this on interviews that she's done how, when she used to wear a suit, people would say would try to use her as this example of, oh, this is how a woman should dress. She's covered and she did not like that.

TaReon Jael: 7:58

She said no, you know, this is my way of honoring my parents the uniform and this. I feel sexy, i feel fly in this. And now that she said, you know she tweeted titties out for the next 15 years And she's like all of those versions of that, this is us, all of these versions, whether we're in a suit, whether we have our titties out, she said this is us and this is The Age of Pleasure. Oh, that's Yes.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 8:37

I'm living for it. I am living for, i'm living for black women assuming dynamism like that. We get to be multifaceted in many different things in our lifetimes And sometimes that does look like you know suits, and sometimes that looks like a beautiful pair of breasts that you want on display And when they're no longer what society deems beautiful like.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 9:05

I love the imagery she had of her and her aunt or an elder black woman Yes no-transcript Whose breasts sagged and they were chilling and vibing and it's like both of those breasts should be on display. It wasn't. It wasn't just like they have to be perfectly perky, you know. So I like, i love that nuance, like if it's gonna be for the next 15 years, 15 year later, but you know.

TaReon Jael: 9:33

Oh, that's true, isn't it? It's just and just like it. Just embracing all of that, and in an interview that they did recently, they also said I. Of course they worded it so beautifully. It was something along the lines of I'm no longer dimming my light or dimming myself to make others comfortable. And just the and you could just see the liberation, just the freedom. I was just wondering if you could just kind of speak on just that the liberation for black folk, you know, black women, black black, non binary.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 10:25

I think that we are so worthy of the liberation we desire, but some of us have had our radical imaginations compromised, and so we can't even imagine liberation until someone shows us what it could potentially look like. From their estimation, their liberation was in both the suit and in, you know, in a more like, physically exposed, like. Both could be liberated, and I see it the same way, and so it's for me about self definition, as opposed to assuming that stereotypes society imposes on black people have to define you or you have to react to them all the time. It's about autonomy and agency, being able to say this is what feels right for me right now. Being able to entrust your body and your intuition and your wisdom, being able to challenge norms that maybe have been familiar but no longer serve you. So those components are liberating for me.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 11:32

That's what I when I think about sexual liberation, but when I think about collective and global liberation, they're they're tied together in that way, and so for black people women, films, gender expansive folk, non binary folk, men like I really think that we all should take a moment. Sometimes you just need to take a pause and determine who you want to be, and sometimes it does align with what your community or your friends or your family seeing you or want you to be, But sometimes it doesn't. And are you willing to take the risk, you know, to lose a little bit of that social capital or clout for a little while, to find yourself and to find yourself? Yeah, that's really beautiful. I love that. You, you know, gave some, gave some terms to to think about and gave some language.

TaReon Jael: 12:27

Yeah, or just expanding and being able to explore that. I've been thinking a lot about self expression When you mentioned that sometimes the way we like to present does align with our society or culture and sometimes that's comfortable for us or that's that's our true. I love the movie The Woman King and I think about this scene it's pretty much in the middle of the movie where Malik he comes to the the Kings Palace and he sees Naoui and they're talking through the palm line and he asks yes may I come in?

TaReon Jael: 13:23

and she says no, you know, no men are allowed past the palm line. And she asks are foreign men allowed to look upon the Kings women? and Malik says well, in Brazil, because he's from Brazil. He says well, in Brazil, women cover their bodies with long, long sleeves and long skirts. And Naoui says, well, how do they run? you know it's not the best example, but to me it kind of speaks to.

TaReon Jael: 14:01

You know, for Naoui and and the Agoji women, they dress in this way, you know it's functional yeah, it's functional, right, because where they live, the climate it's hot, and then they're warriors, they fight, they need to be able to run and jump and do all these things and then, whereas for Malik, in Brazil, maybe the women are not running you know, but it's also still hot and in Victorian dresses we're not hitting like that's. That's where I start thinking, okay, so I wonder is it, was it a component of, you know, catholicism? but I just I think of that scene and she says well, how do they run? you know?

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 14:47

and it was so curious, it wasn't even judgmental, it was like huh well, how are you all supposed to figure out that part? but I think if we approach ourselves and our, our customs, our traditions, our norms with that type of curiosity, we give ourselves permission to rethink it. Like for me some days I show up as a professor and I'm in sweats. My intellectual capacity remains the same if I'm in a suit or if I'm in sweats, and so you know that that's just how I want to be represented today, how I want to represent today, and a lot of my colleagues do that. And so when I think about like these standards of professionalism or these standards of beauty, these standards of modesty, people say, well, you shouldn't wear bonnets to your doctor's appointments and stuff like that. And it's like, okay, everybody gets to have preferences, but are you willing to examine them, even if you keep the same preference after that? could you potentially examine where it may come from, how you got that idea, what it means to you and why it means that to you?

TaReon Jael: 15:58

I like that you said to you know, be willing to examine. Because in preparation for our interview, i I started thinking like well for myself, like how do I like to? you know, i kind of do this anyway. I just I kind of overthink things. It's the scientist in me. I start like, well, why do I like to wear this and not that? because so.

TaReon Jael: 16:27

So, doc, dr Candace, so in one one instance, if I'm home, i might like to wear, just you know, a little wrinkly t-shirt and some booty shorts, you know, and be like ease of dancing in my booty shorts, you know, and just dance around, or just because I'm comfortable, i'm at home and then as soon as I'm I say, oh, i need to, i need to go to the store, i'm going to change for me personally yeah but I know there are plenty of folks, plenty of women, who will grab their keys, their purse and put on their Gucci slides and go to the store in their t-shirt and their booty shorts and not give it a second thought yep and so I thought about well, oh, my god, you know this.

TaReon Jael: 17:18

Where does it come from? is it? was it what I saw where I was raised? I started just examining that and just thinking about that and then also thinking about how I relate to others, mm-hmm. So if I'm out and about and I do see another person, another black woman or man, and and they're in there, you know their booty shorts and their Gucci slides and their bonnet what, what do I? what are my thoughts?

TaReon Jael: 17:49

how do I how? what is do I say in my mind? about that person or myself what story do you tell? yeah, and I started thinking okay, well, oh, my goodness, like, where does that come from?

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 18:03

you know, mm-hmm, and and the thing is so for you and tell in the story. I really appreciate the vulnerability in that, because I think a lot of us have moments where we're like I'm judging, where is the judgment coming from?

TaReon Jael: 18:19

yes, mm-hmm yeah, and it's like, and but when it? but then I thought past that it's like okay, well, i'm judging, but here's the thing is like first of all, they're human, just like me, and especially if I see another black woman, another woman of color, another person of color, and we're in these black bodies. So, whether I'm in t-shirt and jeans, or they're in a tee, a t-shirt and booty shorts, there there could be instances where we may encounter folks who, regardless of how we're dressed, that's right regardless of how we're behaving, whether I'm quiet and soft spoken or whether they're loud or you know demonstrative expressive, they still they see.

TaReon Jael: 19:15

What they see is a black woman yep, and no matter how we're dressed, if that person has their, their issues, whether it's sexism, racism, classism, whatever is them, mm-hmm, they will treat us the second yep.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 19:35

So it's kind of like I just started thinking about I had all these thoughts yeah have lots of thoughts and lots of feelings, but you get your good net, something about that transactional modesty piece, because a lot of times the messaging we get around it is that it's protective. You know it's protective to be modest And when, in fact, the way you described it is the way I experience it and observe it Not usually. No, we would hope that it would be, but it isn't. And so, since it isn't and we recognize that, if we're honest, then why are we upholding that standard? Like, if we think that a woman should be more protected if she's modest, that's problematic as fuck. Like, if you know, like it's like, hmm well, she had pants on today and the other girl had booty shorts on, so she deserved protection and she didn't from violence, from sexual assault, from harassment.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 20:36

We really and that was one of the questions I asked because somebody was like upset with the dialogue They were like no, you need to be dressed this way and this way. And I was like they were like because then you be regarded as a sex worker. Or I was like do you think sex workers deserve protection? Cause I do. Do you think that they deserve care and love? And the person did not answer the question. I mean and I think that gets to the heart of a lot of us feel like care, love, respect, attention, protection are reserved only for people who uphold certain standards, and some people do like to act on that. But most people are going to treat you the way they want to treat you violently or not, based on their stuff, whatever they're dealing with.

TaReon Jael: 21:25

So my question is where do you think it came from, Just this notion of if I dress this way, I'll be protected from, like you said, the, the violent.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 21:43

I think. So you know how, when you're in an experience that's oppressive, your brain has to come up with some ideas about how to save yourself or how to survive. Regardless of whether they're true, sometimes it's a little bit of magical thinking to feel like you have some control over a situation over which you do not have control, and so I think some ways it's an understandable coping mechanism with oppression to to exhibit a type of perfectionism where it's like there are all of these things that I can do to maybe help myself be better protected, and society's messaging legitimizes some of them. So it's not like we were crazy and just making up stuff. Like the messaging in society is that there is a standard to get to for success, for protection, for worthiness. But some people are just born into stuff Like you think about wealth.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 22:45

People are like you need to cut your hair or you need to wear your hair in this way for wealth. You know to move up the professional ladder. Some people are born into nepotism and they're going to move up the professional ladder regardless of what their hair looks like or regardless, and so we we begin to make these associations that are not causal. It's like if I act more like a white person and if I you know if I embody more misogynistic ideas or if I like all of these things, because that's what we're observing in the power structure, you're like there's a correlation there And it's like, no, that's just how people who dominate other people act And it's not necessarily going to afford you the things that you're looking for.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 23:28

And when it does, on those rare occasions and it reinforces it, then you know folks can uphold that like see how that worked. But usually it's not working And I think if we were honest about how often it works versus how often it does not work, we probably would have a better handle on how we release some of it. So I think it's an understandable reaction to oppression And it's not one that continues to serve us or maybe has ever served us. Maybe it's been harmful in some ways that we need to consider.

TaReon Jael: 24:26

Now let's get back into the interview.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 24:31

Well, i was curious of what you came up with. So when you did examine, like, oh, where does this idea about why I like to wear, you know why I like to put on pants, which is for me totally understandable, but where did you have any insight into where it came from?

TaReon Jael: 24:50

I was never like told you need to wear this or that, but for me, especially during teenage years, I was very uncomfortable in my body and having like any like any of my shape show, it was just like no which I think a lot of us during that that I adolescent time.

TaReon Jael: 25:17

That's kind of calm, kind of common, just the way our right, the way our brains are reconfiguring. I felt, and sometimes still do feel, safer by mm-hmm, by being covered. Especially where I live right now it's, it's predominantly white. When I go in spaces I have to present a certain way to feel safe. Like I'll look at my clothes and I'm like, oh, if I wear this and I'm going to the mall, what could happen? my legs are out? what if some like? what if somebody says something? what if some men say something? and even to this, even kind of like adds to kind of what people were saying about Sierra is like if I'm with my husband, if I'm out and about with my husband, then I'll feel more comfortable wearing my dress like like, oh well, if I'm with him, people might, might look, but nobody's gonna be like hey right right, baby, you know cuz they're gonna recognize his authority yeah, and it's really interesting because it's like, well, he's my husband, he's not my overseer, you know, it's like he's my husband.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 26:50

You know, i, i wear, and I like to think, oh, i wear what I want to wear, but when, when really, it's like, well, i do, but I still give consideration for, yeah, where I'm going to go, who I'm going to be, around the setting, the vibe and I think those are important considerations, right, and so sometimes folks think I'm saying just go to opposite or extreme ends and it's like, no, you do still get to consider all of those pieces and your safety, your sense of safety, is important in this, and so if you know certain things that you wear help you to feel more safe.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 27:34

I don't have any judgment for that, but when we start to police and survey each other and make judgments about each other's worth based on that like you don't deserve a good life if you're wearing booty shorts versus pants or a dress, it's like I'm and people make those leaps. It's like those are the leaps that I'm trying to eradicate, because I think that we can do a lot better and have a lot more compassion and care for each other when you talk about worthiness, and I remember I was an undergrad, okay, and I remember I was sitting with some friends, guys and girls, and this was back.

TaReon Jael: 28:17

This was before our Kelly was you know, muted or deleted or canceled, whatever he was, and but there was conversation about what he was doing with underage girls and I remember saying to my friends like wait a minute, you know he's wrong. Like he's a grown man, these are girls, you know he should be. He should be held accountable, he should be like why are?

TaReon Jael: 28:49

we still supporting him and why are we putting this? at that time there was this conversation of like these are fast hailed girls and so no, it wasn't said at the time. But now that I'm thinking back on it, it was kind of like were these girls worthy of protection from him? and I even had a friend say mm-hmm, who was from Chicago, say, well, i've known some of the girls, or I've known people who've known the girls, and this girl, that girl, they were fast, and so it was almost like said like, oh well, she's fast or they're fast.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 29:42

So this so they got what they got what they deserve.

TaReon Jael: 29:45

And I remember thinking what, being confused because I was like they're girls, he's a grown man it's. It's wrong. It's just wrong. Yeah, and and I I didn't have the language at the time to or just the assertiveness either to question and say well, because they were these. Quote-unquote fast girls. They didn't deserve protection from, yeah, this grown man. And it just makes me think about how, how far we're coming also, how the steps we need to still take, mm-hmm when you hit, when you tell that story.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 30:40

It hits home for me one because I was a fast girl, so I I embraced that as an aspect of my identity because I was always curious about sex and precocious, and I made my sexual debut at 14. Like I, i made, i made the decisions that I felt like I wanted to make, though, and it wasn't with grown ass men, it was with peers, and so had I in that age, made, even made, a decision that I wanted to be with an adult male. The community's responsibility, and that adult males responsibility, was to tell me no, to say absolutely not. You're not at the age of consent to make this decision. You know, like this is not, this is not something that we play with. This is something that you, you don't, you don't want to do, and this is something that I am not going to do because I'm not a predator, and that is the conversation that I think a lot of us avoid having. What was the community around them? What was their responsibility to those girls? What was our Kelly's team's responsibility? What was our Kelly's grown-ass responsibility? to say no and not elicit or solicit attention from girls, from girls, from children.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 32:04

And Then how does that like map on to the adultification of black girls.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 32:12

It was like you're not even at the age of consent, your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed, so no, you cannot consent to having a sexual experience with a grown adult male. You can consent to a sexual exploration with peers and Even in that case, what questions should we be asking? what type of sex education should we have so that Girls around that age can make informed decisions? So we we missed the mark on so many things on comprehensive sex ed for generations of people, on sexual violence prevention and sexual predation Prevention in our communities all communities, but just you know I care most about the black community, so that's what I'm speaking to. We miss the opportunity to have restorative justice and to hold adults responsible for adult decisions. When we blame black girls and women, it's such like we do such scapegoating When in fact we're very vulnerable in our society and in our communities. And I think that the type of mental gymnastics you got to make to come up with well, they're fast, so they deserved sexual violence. Like, how do you sleep?

TaReon Jael: 33:28

well, i don't know and I like that you listed out the different steps that we can take. I really enjoyed you sharing your expertise and Just laying out, you know, explaining the different concepts and laying out solutions.

Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons: 33:49

Thank you so much for having me.