I’ve not really given much of an explanation for why I’ve written two blog posts about men I slept with last week. I just knew I wanted to start a blog about my dating experiences and since I finally had sex last week, I thought it would be a good time to get the ball rolling.

My intention isn’t to write salscious stories about having one night stands. I actually want to dissect my dating and sexual experiences because they’re often quite complicated for me. I’m in my mid-twenties, living in London, and Indian. Not a proper Indian from India – I was born and bred here – but my brown skin and dark hair is very visible, and I’ve only just started to realise how much it’s affected my life. Growing up was a battle between trying to fit into this country and accepting the culture my parents tried to pass on to me.

Up until the final years of university, I actively ran away from my Indian roots. I would be embarrassed when my parents spoke to me in Gujarati in front of my friends. I hated walking down the street with other brown people in case strangers stereotyped me as one of “those” Asians, or thought I was a terrorist, or that couldn’t speak English. Most of my closest friends growing up were white – despite going to a school full of mostly Asian and black people – and I told myself it was because “I’m just not like other Asian people, the other Asians don’t get it.”

I was only minimally different compared to the people I grew up around. I was raised a Hindu and declared myself an atheist around 11, but most of the Asian girls in my school were muslim. That created a huge cultural difference which made me feel I didn’t fit in with brown people. I’m also from a very working class background, like most of the people in my school, but I figured out from a very young age that if I talked “posh” (a.k.a. white) and focused on academic subjects to get into a fancy uni, I could “escape” my non-whiteness, essentially. Again, this made me not fit in with other brown folk that I grew up with. I was often told at school that I talked “sooo white” or was a “coconut”. At the time I thought those were compliments, but I cringe at those phrases now.

I had been dabbling with feminism when I started uni, but it was only when discovered intersectional feminism did I start to understand my own internal racism as a product of the society around me. And I’ve been trying to dismantle my own problematic views ever since.

Anyway, what the fuck does this have to do with my blog about sex and dating? Well, I think my race and my feminism influence how I experience these things. First of all, I’m a woman who likes to sleep around and isn’t really looking for a relationship at the moment. Apparently this is odd for women, but I don’t think so – there are probably a lot more women out there who have this mindset, it’s just that no one talks about it, or dismisses these women as “sluts” or “whores” or “loose” or a “floozy” (if we’re living in the 50s). I don’t think I’m any of those things. I think we need to normalise women who want sex.

Secondly, race has had an impact on my dating/sexual experiences, I want to talk to about those too, like the time I took a guy home and then he said something pretty fucking racist to me right after our sexual encounter…or the time I thought I was racist because I had never slept with an Asian person before…or the times I have tried to date Asian men but it always turns out to be super difficult for some reason. Actually, that last one is kind of a big deal – one of the ways to dismantle your own internalised racism is to stop actively rejecting men of your own race (and yes, in case you were wondering, it is racist to have a preference for skin colour).

Lastly, I also have enough experience with dating apps and sleeping around (not all great) that maybe other people want to hear about it. I also want to share the conversations I have my with female friends where we collectively navigate the confusing world of dating and sex. And I have practical advice on lubes, condoms and STI testing that I feel might be useful too. I know I always enjoy reading the “Woke Men Only” series on gal-dem, because I relate to it so damn hard. So I’m sharing my stories in case there are other women out there (brown or otherwise) who might relate to me, and find comfort in knowing they’re not the only ones out there with all these feels.