I love that you have subtle handcuffs in the background. What are those doing there? 97% safe for work. 

Jermaine: 

Handcuffs are safe for work. Cops have handcuffs right on their belt. 

Vanessa: 

I bet cops store their handcuffs in their beds at the end of the day. That’s just where they go. 

Welcome back to A Slut’s Guide to Happiness, where your body is perfectly imperfect and it’s safe to be as sexual, kinky, queer, or slutty as you want.

Today I have the great pleasure of being joined by my friend, Jermaine Lavender, a thoughtful and skilled porn performer and producer. 

Jermaine is actually the person who helped me get started in this work almost four years ago. The first time we met was filming porn, as we do, in a threesome scene. We joke, but also it’s true, that the hottest moment of the whole shoot were clips taken from our impromptu off-camera hookup sex.

If you’re over the age of 18, you can check out a ton of our videos together on Jermaine’s page, onlyfans.com/jermainelavender and his ManyVids by the same name, as well as on Clif Media’s website cliffmediaproductions.com. 

I especially love the moment we recently reconnected in a video called “Two Besties Reunite in a Kink Dungeon”. There’s nothing quite like saying, “I missed you” while upside down on a kink hardpoint, naked and cumming from sucking dick. I mean, I’m not going to talk about this guy’s dick, but you can go see things. 

Jermaine has a long career. Before he got started as a porn performance and producer.

Jermaine: 

It’s not that long. 

Vanessa: 

Okay. His work is raw, sensual and fun and can be found on all your major content creation platforms. Even before Jermaine started porn, he was deeply involved in the swinger lifestyle, hooking up with friends and couples at sex clubs and parties. If you’ve been to Club Sapphire, which is a sex club in Seattle that you’ve heard about on other podcasts here, you may recognize Jermaine from the lifesize half naked picture of him in the back rooms. 

Jermaine: 

It’s still there? 

Vanessa: 

It’s still there, dude. It’s always made me laugh because even after he moved, he’s still present in this scene. 

So the last thing I want to say about Jermaine is that he’s a really deep thinker. He’s wearing a shirt today called “Danger: Educated Black Man”. Hell, yes. That is so true of this guy.

He watches a lot of educational videos and what he’s taught me to refer to as YouTube University, learning about history and thinking critically about race and politics. And I’ve always admired how honest and unabashed Jermaine is about speaking his mind, even in situations where the social risks of doing so may be high. 

So today Jermaine and I are going to be talking about race in the swinger and lifestyle communities. 

In previous episodes we’ve mentioned the overrepresentation of White people and White culture and swinger spaces. Today Jermaine is going to help us dive deeper into thinking about how race plays out in swinger life, and how we can do better. 

Before we jump in, I think it’s worth remembering that we live in a society founded on anti-Black racism. So we’re going to be talking about the specific manifestation of racism in swinger circles, but this is not unique to non-monogamy or better. Understanding race and creating more anti-racist swinger spaces and porn can help us to make our relationship to sexuality more inclusive, empowering and free. 

Jermaine, thank you so much for joining us today

Jermaine: 

Thank you for that intro. You are just hyping me up. I’m like, I want to hire me after hearing that. 

Vanessa: 

Jermaine, I want to go to a moment where you were performing with a costar and she said something that’s unfortunately common and porn in the lifestyle. So it’s not that woman’s fault, but it’s a common trope that hit you the wrong way. Can you bring us into the moment? What kind of scene were you filming? What were you feeling up to that point, what did she say and how did you react?

Jermaine: 

Okay, so I won’t say who she was or anything. That’s not the point. We were having a very good scene. We were having fun with each other. We were getting to the end at that special moment when, how do I say this to make it YouTube-friendly? It’s time for me to paint her face. So I have to paint her face at the end of the scene, so you know what I mean by that.

Vanessa: 

It’s okay to say it. You were cumming on her face. 

Jermaine: 

Oh, okay. So yeah, I’m about to cum on her face, about to do the facial. Then after, at this point, the director tells me what I’m supposed to say here is, “Oh, what are you going to tell your husband?”

I had no clue what she was supposed to say after that. Not a clue at all. But she’s got me dripping all over her face. My dick is all right here next to her face. And she says “That I finally got a big Black cock.” 

I’ve never been so glad that the camera was not on my face because I could not hide the cringe. I couldn’t. I’m sitting there, holding my dick, having just cum on my new friend’s face, and she says that, and I just just, cringe, I couldn’t even deal. 

I can tell on her face that she could tell I was like, oh fuck. But she’s trying to hide that because the camera’s on her face. 

After the scene, we’re cleaning up and talking and she said, “I am so sorry. I didn’t know, That’s what I thought he was trying to prompt me to say.” 

I said, “It’s no biggie.” I just said, you could tell I was so glad the camera wasn’t on my face. I know you’re not one of those “Queen of Spades”. I can’t stand that. 

We smoothed it out. It was all good. A lot of people would call Black men simply a BBC, a big Black cock, which is deeply offensive. It’s referring to a person by their parts. 

It’s right up there with calling a woman a skirt or calling a woman a cunt. 

Vanessa: 

Yeah, I have a cunt, I wear skirts but I’m not those. And somehow it’s considered really normal to refer to men as BBC. Like you have a cock and the size of your cock and the color of your cock is specific to you, but it’s not you. 

Jermaine: 

She could have said anything else besides a big Black cock or a BBC. A lot of that is just ingrained into a lot of porn and a lot of lifestyle things.  

Vanessa: 

I think about how many different characteristics of you are so beautiful, you’re good at fucking, you’re nice to people. When people just talk about your cock, it undermines all those other aspects of you. 

Jermaine: 

I mean, imagine a woman coming up to me talking about her tits nonstop or talking about her ass, or just really thinks her ass is her best feature. Like, really? awesome. Come on. Your ass can be great, but yeah, I’m more interested in the rest of you. 

Vanessa: 

I think about when people message me, like on FetLife or Twitter or whatever, and say, I want your cousin. It’s hot. I’m like, okay, like, I appreciate the compliment, but the thing that really I value is when someone says, I love the way that you’re approaching something or how you think about something. My brain is sexy, right? Like we have personalities instead of just one part of our body. 

I think that’s particularly how Black men are characterized. You’ve taught me more about why that is and the history of that. 

I want to briefly go to underscore what you said about the fact that it was not this particular woman from your experience; you didn’t name the actress because it’s so common. She was saying what she thought people wanted to hear. 

It makes sense because according to Pornhub, in 2023, “BBC” became the eighth most popular search term. It’s something that gets thrown around a lot in the cuckold and swinger lifestyle. 

I also want to be transparent that it’s an acronym that I used to use when I first started marketing my content. You can see that on my first videos in PornHub, unfortunately you can’t go back and change the titles after posting. This was before I started thinking more critically about the implications of the phrase, and you played a big role in helping me recognize that. 

Can you help us unpack a little more of some of the different ways BBC gets used commonly in the lifestyle community, and why we might want to reconsider this? 

Jermaine: 

I don’t think it’s a terrible term to use. There are all kinds of acronyms. It’s not terrible, but it’s how you use it. When a Black man walks into a place and you’re thinking, oh, look, a BBC, that is bad. The person is not a BBC. He might have a BBC. 

But in real life, I don’t really mention it. I don’t mention it at all. The people I hang out with don’t really use the term BBC in conversation. 

One time a friend of mine at a party was sitting next to me and she said “Hey, where’s my BBC?” And everybody started looking at me, but she was looking for her dildo that was big and Black, an actual Black dildo. A couple seconds later, she pulls it out. This is a White girl. She had no idea of the acronym. She didn’t really watch porn.

I will say the place where I do use it is in the titles of my porn. Because of what you said, it’s a search term and that makes me money. But even then I don’t say, “BBC fucks girl”. I would say, “This girl came to Vegas for my BBC”.

Vanessa: 

It’s a part of you, not who you are. And I also think that it’s important what you’re saying, that you are using the words strategically to support you as a Black man to make money and survive the system. That feels different than White women choosing to use it. 

It’s like how, for example, I can call myself a cunt because that’s me choosing it because I am a woman and I have a cunt. But I don’t like when other people call me a cunt, it’s not their choice. 

Jermaine: 

I have always wanted to ask you about that. You use the word “cunt” more than I’ve seen anybody in porn. And I watched porn in the 80s. I watched 80s porn. 

Vanessa: 

I think for me, I want to claim that I am a happy whore. I want to take back the stigma against sex work and say, this makes me happy and joyful and connected to people.

I love that we’re talking about word choice and dehumanization. And you mentioned another one that is a lot more challenging than BBC. It shows up a lot in porn and lifestyle spaces, not quite as common, but it’s there. Can you help viewers understand how this phrase, “Queen of Spades” is used today, where it comes from and what it implies?

Jermaine: 

Oh geez. Okay, so “Queen of Spades”, these days, you often see it as a White woman who’s married and wants to fuck nothing but Black men.

But the thing is, like, they don’t really know. They’ll have a spade, like the card suit, a spade with a Q in it, or they’ll walk around brandishing the playing card, “the queen of spades”. 

But what they don’t know is that spade is actually a slur. It’s a slur for a Black man because we carry spades. Another one of those dehumanizing words for a tool we were carrying working in the fields. Post-Civil War, they would refer to the sharecroppers as the spades. For example, “I got ten spades working in the field.” 

But when I heard that term “Queen of Spades”, to me, it just sounds like she’s saying she’s a queen of these Black men who are her spades or slaves or workers.

It bothers the hell out of me that a slur is used when trying to get my sexuality from me. And the thing is you don’t have to do that. You could just say you like Black men. Whatever. But, assigning that label to it is just, that’s rough. 

When I see it, it lets me know somebody has never read any history. I can’t even bring myself to really talk to somebody who has those tattoos. There’s actually a “Queen of Spades” tattoo. You’ll see a lot of women have it. 

The fake ones, I can understand a lot of people do that for porn. I’ve had a few friends because there’s a lot of people who really believe this stuff and you get traction pretty easily on a place like Pornhub or FetLife, but nobody has taken the time to do any research on the terminology or why it’s a fucked up terminology. Then a lot of guys will just go with it because it equals them being laid.

Vanessa: 

I think that what you’re saying is a really complex and common phenomenon that people want to get popular if they’re in porn or they want to get a lot of attention if they’re in the lifestyle. 

So these phrases, BBC, Queen of spades, they can gain traction and they can also dehumanize and harm perpetuate these talking about like referring to Black men as tools, referencing slavery, as if that’s okay. 

I think questioning the way we represent our sexuality is also part of undoing racism, even if it feels like we’re just doing this for desire and connection. You can question, what is the foundation of your connection? 

Jermaine: 

Yeah, you’re right. What is the foundation of your connection? Because of that, it’s about being lower and higher. It’s really messed up. 

Vanessa: 

Yeah, I was thinking about what you’re describing, where those words came from, I’m imagining  the White woman in the house being like, “Oh, I’m using my Black enslaved people out in the fields”, when we think about that history, it feels really gross. 

I don’t think people mean that. But once someone understands that, I hope that allows them, without shame, to move away from it. 

Jermaine: 

Yeah, I’ve actually written all that on my FetLife. And surprisingly, there’s a lot of people who were like, whoa, I didn’t know that. I don’t get that much traction on my FetLife. But if more people did know about it, there would be more traction on it. A lot of people will overlook that for the fact they’re getting laid.

Vanessa: 

Yeah. I hope that any men who are listening here, who are straight guys, hear that women are attracted to people who think and say things that are smart or kind. It’s useful to move away from this. You will still get laid. 

I want to take a step back to the big picture because you’ve talked about a lot of things. You share a lot of things with me that I think are helpful for people. I think one of the big picture questions is that there’s so many different aspects of our life, of our identity. For example. You are a Black man, but we could also talk about your identity as a veteran or a currently single man, or a straight cisgender man, or an atheist raised in religious family. There are so many different pieces of your identity. 

For the sake of today’s discussion, I’d love it if you could talk about the specific experience of this one aspect of your identity. What has it been like for you as a Black man in non-monogamous communities?

Jermaine: 

Well, I can’t really speak for all Black men but I’d say overall, it’s been pretty welcoming. But it depends on where you’re at because there are lifestylers of all kinds of different groupings, different backgrounds, different music choices. 

For example in Seattle, I hung out with a lot of burners, like people who go to Burning Man all the time. What do you call them? The lifestylers in Dallas when I was there in Texas, were still very, old school, very southern. Everything was a house party. 

You’re gonna see differences in ways that they handled things. How they handle Black men would be how they are in those clicks, in those in those different areas. It also just depends on the person. 

Overall, it would just depend on who you were. Because another Black then won’t have the same experience I do. 

Vanessa: 

I know you have YouTube videos now on how to navigate this through your lifestyle so you have a lot of experience figuring this out. 

I think about the two different things that you’ve talked about that are going on. On the one hand, there’s the pursuit of Black men as a BBC or this sexualized thing to pursue for White women. And then on the other hand, you’re describing these clicks that maybe like White people who are comfortable interacting with each other are less inclusive or welcoming to Black people in certain spaces.

Jermaine: 

Let’s see, I think there are some who are less inclusive, yeah. Some people are just straight out racist. They’ll just let their racist feelings fly. 

I’ve known this one guy, right around the time that Trump got elected, he just one day said, “yeah, I’m pro Trump and I’m pro wall”. And like, it just makes you look at everybody sideways that still goes to their parties. It makes you look at everybody weirdly like, how can they still do that and still call themselves my friend or and still talk to me like that didn’t happen?

Vanessa: 

One of the things that I found that was strange when I first got into the porn industry is that, sometimes producers who were Black would ask me, would you be willing to work with a Black man? And like the like, I don’t think that a White producer would ever have to be like, would you be willing to work with a White man?

I don’t know if this still happens, but I’ve read in the past people would get paid more for agreeing to work with a Black man, which is wild. 

If I understand correctly, double consciousness is a concept you shared that comes from W.E.B. Du Bois in his book, The Souls of Black Folks, and I’m quoting here from an article analyzing his work. Du Bbois defines double consciousness as the struggle African-Americans faced remaining true to Black culture, while at the same time conforming to the dominant White society.

Jermaine, you mentioned double consciousness as part of how you navigate swinger spaces. Can you talk about what you mean by that?

Jermaine: 

Okay. So I have to take very special care of how I handle things. I was at a party the last time I was in Seattle, I was at a party. First off, there’s only three Black people at this party. So there’s me and another Black couple, and they’re relatively new. At least the girl of this couple was new to the area, new to the group. So not many people knew her that well, but they liked her. She’s cool. 

But she had done this thing. Her hair was a little bit like mine. Not quite as dreaded, but they hadn’t seen it like that. She’s biracial, by the way. And she had her hair straightened and put it natural. 

One of our friends comes up to her and says, “Oh my god, I love your hair. It’s so nappy.” Touches it, gets her hands all in it. The guy and I, we exchange looks like, did she really just do that? 

For people who don’t know, you do not touch a Black woman’s hair. Never. Don’t touch it. You don’t mention that her hair is nappy or comment on the texture, the bounciness, the curling. Just say it’s nice, compliment it, move on. For god sake, don’t try to touch it. 

In a normal situation, you get your arm broke.She would have broken that girl’s hand, or at least she would have gotten yelled at. 

But at the time, first off, we realize these are our friends, but we had to be a lot more delicate than if this was not a swingers space, because losing these people as friends would make us ostracized. You could become known as the angry Black man, the angry Black woman, when all they wanted to do was just touch your hair.

But in our culture, our people, you don’t get to do that. Maybe if you’re intimate with them, maybe. And even then, like, you don’t call it nappy, you don’t comment on the texture, the bounciness, the nappiness, any of that. You just you just move on. 

The couple, the guy and his girlfriend had to ask. I didn’t say anything because I was feeling this is their thing to handle. I wasn’t going to say anything unless they did, because, yeah, you don’t want to create that kind of uncomfortable situation.Thing is, we didn’t create it. We’re just trying to navigate the White fragility there properly without damaging that relationship. 

It’s still messed up the fact that we’re the ones wondering about how to avoid damaging our relationship when she’s the one that got her hair touched. How do you reconcile when you want to be true to your culture, but at the same time, you want to belong to this one?

Vanessa: 

You mentioned an important term that I want to talk about a little bit more. Well actually two, one is the trope of the “angry Black man”, which is a stereotype with some tragic implications. And the other is “White fragility”. Can you tell us more about what is going on in those two and how that has come up, how you’ve seen that come up in swinger life or in porn?

Jermaine: 

White fragility is a concept from Robyn D’Angelo – she didn’t invent the concept, she just wrote the book on it. Check out some of her speeches. She basically put a name to what all Black people already know. 

It’s the whole pearl clutching gasp, “did you just call me a racist?” That whole fragility of that, it makes them go to pieces when somebody accuses them of being racist.

And the thing is, nobody is accusing anyone of being racist. They just said you said something, that you said some racist shit. A person isn’t racist. The actions are. 

But having to navigate that, White fragility is a danger to us in that White people are the ones in charge. They’re the ones with the jobs. They’re the ones with the production companies, for the most part. 

Then in porn, you kind of have to lean into it because of the insecurities of people and their desires are kind of what feeds our business. 

About the “angry Black man”. That’s an easy target. That’s me. The “angry Black man” is anybody that doesn’t put up with any kind of racist shit. But that’s the term a lot of White people not in the know will stick on to a Black man who doesn’t take your racist shit, that doesn’t just say, yeah and then move on. 

Basically, me, the educated Black man, is an angry Black man.

Vanessa: 

Do you identify as an angry Black man, or are you just assertive and educated? 

Jermaine: 

No. Just educated, assertive most of the time. I don’t claim to be the angry Black man, but maybe it could be something to put on a t-shirt, but I’d sooner just wear the ACAB one. 

Vanessa: 

But the angry Black man has sometimes gotten put on you, or that’s kind of been the assumption that results in people interacting with you differently?

Jermaine: 

Not just me. A lot of people. And not even like in the lifestyle, really, because in the lifestyle and porn, really, lifestyle maybe, but in porn people don’t care about my politics.

Vanessa: 

There was a moment that you shared with me that happened during your first year of COVID when you learned about how some of your friends really felt about Black lives and how people responded. What happened? And also, how did that change your perspective on your swinger community and friends?

Jermaine: 

Back in 2020, when George Floyd was murdered, we lived in Seattle. So there were a lot of protests going on there. One of my friends was one of the huge party throwers. He basically played the devil’s advocate game and threw himself in the All Lives Matter crowd. That did bother me.

But what bothered me more was how many of my friends still interacted with him. It made me have to just step away for a second, think about who I’m really associating with and where I really need to be. And that’s wherever I want and everywhere. 

Vanessa: 

Yeah. One of the themes that I’m hearing you describe is that on the one hand, learning and growing together is super important. Like if white people or people of color say something that is racist, like that’s an opportunity to learn. That doesn’t mean you’re racist person. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. But listen and modify your behavior as you grow.

But when people are not able to listen, then that can create a space that doesn’t feel good or safe for some Black people. That was one of your choices in that situation, right? Yeah. 

Jermaine: 

It’s not about feeling safe but good. 

Vanessa: 

Yeah. Loved and wanted? Seen? 

Jermaine: 

Exactly, exactly. 

Vanessa: 

And finally we’ve talked a lot about how White folks and White women I think in particular can improve.

But I want to end with a love note to other Black men in the lifestyle. What would you say to other Black men in this non-monogamous world, whether they’re looking to have a good time or looking to be loved for the whole of who they are? How would you recommend they navigate, survive and thrive in this environment, in the lifestyle or in porn?

Jermaine: 

Guard your reputation. Keep everything ethical. Be ethical. 

Don’t let the bullshit get to you. I guess that’s the phrase I could narrow it down to. Don’t let the bullshit get to you. We Black men have navigated this for, what, since 1619. And we survive and thrive. Well, we are not even supposed to be where we’re at now. So been at this in 1619 and we’ve thrived. We’ve still been strong. We’ve still been able to have a really fucking good time. 

So I would just say stay at it. And don’t allow anybody to make you try to explain yourself or your presence. 

If you are here, you’re here for the same reason as everybody else. Whether you’re single, married, Black, White, you’re there for the same reason as everybody else. Remember that and keep your head high. 

I love that. 

Jermaine, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your experiences and your insight. Access to information about how we can individually and collectively grow and do better. 

And listeners, thank you for joining us. 

This has been another edition of A Slut’s Guide to Happiness with your host, Vanessa Cliff, and our guest, Jermaine Lavender.

You can find his work on his OnlyFans or ManyVids, and on Cliff’s Media. 

You can watch A Slut’s Guide to Happiness wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, YouTube, as well as on cliffmediaproductions.com. 

Please help us out by liking and sharing this podcast, and stay tuned for more deep dives into beautiful, messy, fun waters. 

If you’re over the age of 18, you can also check out our video content on our website, cliffmediaproductions.com

And as he’s over there getting chill most of all, I invite you to join us folks in the pleasure of being awkward, naked and without pretense. 

Let’s get free.