Another day, another red pill bromance gone wrong.
Unless you're on a social media strike, you're aware of Klay Thompson dating Megan Thee Stallion and the bros are in an uproar. So much so there was a false story circulating that the Houston bombshell had been banned from Dallas Mavericks games.
Personally, I’ve never understood the penis policing among straight men, but it’s your pity party, and you can glaze if you want to.
These men are spitting mad that their big bro is dating a woman they believe to be unworthy.
Now, to be clear, Megan Thee Stallion has been labeled a hoe and a setup queen by the manosphere ever since the Tory Lanez debacle. So, of course, the only expectation is for her to fade into oblivion.
I mean, imagine her having the balls to date a wealthy baller and live her best life out loud, right?
So, the narrative is, Klay’s a simp and Megan’s just with him for the money…you know the drill. A successful man like Thompson has infinite options, so why would he choose a toffee brown skinned Black woman who has been through some struggles and stood up against her abuser?!
At the end of the day, darker-skinned Black women are not allowed to live, love, and make mistakes; one false move and you’re ostracized forever. Interestingly enough, in this case, her main mistake was dealing with one of their own, to begin with. But known cybercels, i.e., DJ Akademiks and his followers, just refuse to let a good sister live!
The fact that a prominent Black-ish man seems seriously interested in her is enough to send their collective hollow heads into orbit.
I’ve seen enough.
Despite being well educated, Megan has the persona of a carefree party girl. She was having the time of her life until Tory Lanez shot her in the foot, and then she was forced to confront the rampant misogynoir in the rap industry.
In this moment, her rage revealed that she is a victim in a world that doesn’t afford victimhood to women who look like her. Her values have been recalibrated and now include a tad more empathy for her fellow sisters.
But the collective outrage from men revealed that a) there is no protection for Black women, and b) men will further victimize you simply for being a victim of one of their own. All these men hate Megan because she spoke up about literally being shot and because she has moved on with her life and instead of cowering she held her head high and is now in a relationship with a far more successful man.
So, above all, it would seem that these men value the ability to humiliate, ostracize, and subjugate women who dare speak out against their abusers while also being unapologetically themselves.
Listen, Megan was thee it girl among many of these same men prior to the incident. She’s sexy, fun, and has skills on the mic; what’s not to love?! But as soon as she became a victim, they all turned on her.
Suddenly, she was just some whore who had been sleeping her way to the top; never mind the fact that she was infinitely more poppin’ than Lanez at the time of the grand reveal.
Once she demanded protection and retribution from a successful Black man, she was washed up and bad for business. Once she started demanding justice for other Black women, she became a joke.
Now, men who will never be able to shine her cowboy boots at a Houston Rockets game are pretending that she’s the one who is undatable.
OK, cool.
Whether we’re at the point where we’re ready to admit it or not, all this policing is only about control of darker-skinned women specifically. Megan’s body-ody belongs to Black men or so they think, and they have decided that since she can’t suffer in silence and take a few bullet fragments to the foot for the greater good, she’s out the game.
Now, they look at men like Klay as though they have betrayed the entire male collective. The goal is to punish her back into submission — into cowering and begging for acceptance, rather than moving around and going where she’s celebrated. And if she doesn’t comply, they’ll stay angry and take every opportunity to tear her down for the rest of their natural days.
But if a man steps in and steps up, they become powerless and thus will have to choose easier targets.
Boo-hoo!
Cue violins…Video source: Giphy
Megan saw into the deepest crevices of the entertainment industry and has had enough. Although she very much still seems to be living in a perpetual hot girl summer, she also seems far more selective about the company she keeps. She rarely addresses the Lanez situation and has even found a hot boy to spend her time with.
Nevertheless, they’re still painting her out to be the villain, as though she shot herself, arrested Lanez, tried and sentenced him. They pretend that her outrage is fake and her followers are evil; anything to avoid admitting a Black man with money did something bad to a Black woman. Her rage enabled her to set boundaries, but the problem with boundaries is that people must respect you to adhere to them.
As a so-called hoe and setup queen, she’s not allowed to set goals, raise her standards, and move on to find happiness. No, she’s supposed to be in the corner crying, and never dare smile or look as though she is at peace.
At the same time, she’s not allowed to fall apart and be the damsel in distress, because, indeed, who would be there to catch her? This is misogynoir in a nutshell; you’re damned if you win and damned if you lose. If you win, you think you’re better; if you lose, it’s because it’s all you deserved anyway.
Honestly, no shade to Megan, but she strikes me as a woman who is recovering from being male-identified. I can relate and have told my story several times.
In general, when you like to have fun and want to avoid drama, as a young, hot woman, men are much easier to deal with, but those men are never the ones with whom you can build community because they only want you for what you provide them: fun, escape, a shoulder to cry on, etc. And when you dare to show up in a way that centers your own needs and casts the fun aside, they disappear just as quickly as they came.
This was likely her wake-up call and why she felt the need to put out the “protect Black women” message, even though she knew she would be mocked and ridiculed. As Black women, we can only ignore the facts for so long. Yes, our female relationships are…complicated, but it’s worth putting the work in because that is where the true community building starts.
Now, I’m going to waste a line pointing out that it’s “not all Black men” to appease you bitter Billies. But at the end of the day, it’s enough of you that women have to come to this brutal realization over and over, no matter how cute, rich, fun, or submissive they are. The rules are the rules, and in the world of misogynoir, you are here for convenience, not protection.
The ultimate goal is to shame Thompson so much for dating her that he eventually leaves, so they can continue running the narrative that darker-skinned Black women are undeserving.
Thompson represents something most of these men could never be: a level-headed leader who sees the value in Black women, even when she’s been abused, even when she’s not quite healed, even when she owns her sexuality, and even when other men have decided that she was unworthy.
He’s cybercel’s worst nightmare because he proves that many women aren’t broken, they are just the victims of broken men. Also, by stepping up when others stepped away, Thompson is a reminder that men are fumbling (or in this case turning over) good women and despite the fact that they try to condemn them to perpetual loneliness, they could actually move on to someone bigger and better.
But, again, the penis policing is weird. Thompson can only date one person at a time, and last I checked, he was straight. Sorry to disappoint you guys.
And with that, I leave you with this:
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission.