How Putting The Breaks on Sex & Dating Propelled Dronme Davis Into Loving Herself

I'm working at this center and I have this necklace that says 'Feminist'. I spend all this time talking about female empowerment and then I'll be in bed with a dude. And like, never, not saying no not knowing how to communicate with... Like, like I'll just turn into lobotomy Barbie. [Lily] So can you just start by talking about how you're feeling right now? - I'm feeling ready and also afraid, afraid of falling into this kind of like pious preachy, sanctimonious thing. Too together. Cause I'm a

fucking disaster. So I don't want to be like, this is what I went through and this is how I fixed and you can too. [Elisa] So can you talk about what your style says about you? - I mean, it's changed so much in the last two years, like in my twenties and since I like became celibate. In hindsight looking back on my style in high school and all the times that I thought I was like doing fashion. It was really just this like physical embodiment of my own captivity. And my style was this like monume

nt to my relationship, my toxic relationship, with the patriarchy and my concept of like, what women are supposed to look like. When I decided to take a break from dating and sex when I was like 19, I was sitting in this coffee shop and there was this cute boy looking at me and instantly shoulders back, like, okay let me eat my salad slow. Like I was very suddenly super, super self-conscious and then I had the like, Oh no, you are alone. And then I was like, Oh well then I can wear whatever the

fuck I want. Really, I didn't expect at all how like not dating shitty boys would make me like dress better. [Lily] Can you talk a little bit about the assumptions that you think people make about you based on your appearance? - My class had, I think 38 people in it, my graduating class and I was one of two Black people. So I showed up in ninth grade, already fish out of water only Black girl. The seniors, like the big joke, What did they call me? They called me big booty Judy. The slave jokes a

nd the like, Oh, like I would be an indoor slave because I'm half white. And then senior year of high school, 2016 election people start writing the N word on campus. Whole conversations in class about how Trayvon Martin had it coming. Reading to kill a Mockingbird and like, they're so stoked to say the lines with the N word in it. Like I never said stop because I think being 15 it's so much better to be the butt of the joke then like not being on it at all. My sole need was to belong somewhere.

But I remember being in high school and like hearing about a girl, girls who were being assaulted at parties by boys and being so fucking jealous of them. Because we're literally taught that male attention is good attention. End of sentence. So all these boys are like doing all this shit and I was still like, I need you to like me. I ended up like, sleeping with one of them. My need to have men, white ones specifically tell me that, like I was the exception or pick me. [Lily] With your relation

ship with your body, when did that start to become something that you were that you were struggling with? What did that whole thing look like? - I grew up in South Lake Tahoe, overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly conservative. I went through puberty at 11 and had double D's in the sixth grade and was suddenly like covered in hair. And I've been almost this tall since then. And I just was this like cartoon character who are already had being the one of two or three Black kids pretty much in the t

own. And then now I have this like ridiculous body that no one knows what to do with. And the like male teachers are commenting on and dudes in the street shouting at me about it. [Lily] What would the male teachers say? - Well, like the need to like tell an 11 year old to cover her cleavage, the need to associate guiltiness with having tits. Like my mom is this fit yoga guru. Ran a yoga studio and was blonde and perfect and like misfit and universally loved by everybody. Really, she was just so

under the thumb of like the patriarchal bullshit brainwashing and what she had been told is what makes you a good mom is having a happy, healthy, peppy well adjusted busy kid. And so it was years and years of ballet and soccer and softball. I did it all, but I was like too big. They wouldn't let me be on the teams with my own age group. In my ballerina outfit, like popping out of it on stage. And then when I was in like the middle end of seventh grade I remember so vividly, like sitting in gym

in the fucking uniform that doesn't fit me correctly. And I'm watching this girl from across the floor. And she has this long, long brown hair. And like, she's playing dodgeball with a bunch of boys. And every time she lifts her arms up can see your flat stomach. And I was like, I mean in hindsight I probably just had a crush on her, honestly. But at the time I was like, that is it I'm going to do that. Went home for the summer and stopped eating and started jogging all the time and like subscri

bed to all the blogs that tell teenage girls how to like eat cotton swabs to hide it from your parents. Came back for 8th grade and I was like thin and wearing Abercrombie. Eating disorders are so funny because when you start, you draw a line in the sand of like how far I'm going to take it. Like, I'm just going to lose this amount of weight and get this Jean size. And then I'll be done. It'll be normal because my life will be better. And so there'll be no reason to do this to myself anymore. An

d so I would like, you know, do all this stuff get to the first line on the sand, get to the pants size look around at my life and be like, this doesn't feel the way I thought it was going to like I'm thin but I'm tired and nauseous constantly. And so then I would move the line in the sand to a more severe place because I'm just not thin enough. By the time I went to high school, when I was like 15 or 14 I started going to meditation retreats. I put on this show of like being so amazing and so l

ike centered and into meditation. And then like every day between lunch and the next meditation period I would go like puke in the bathroom. And then I would be sitting in meditation doing zero loving kindness work because I'm worried about if my back fat is seeping out of my bra and like, can the boy over there see my cellulite beneath my shawl. I was so full of shit. That just went on and on and like took all these different forms. It was like anorexia for a long time. And then trying out buli

mia and then in high school I discovered like going to the gym aggressively. I would go to the gym and run until I almost passed out and then go home and like eat carrots and hot sauce and log how many calories are in my gum that I chewed. At this point I was like size Abercrombie 2 maybe 102 pounds. I fell down my stairs. So I'm like nauseous and dizzy all the time. And I like fucked my back up and bruised some ribs and I had to go in for all of these x-rays because they were worried that I had

bruised my kidneys because I just fell, like I had no padding, or anything like that. This was when like, yeah my hair was falling out and my skin, like I was noticeably ill. So my parents, the deal was you go to therapy basically or meditation retreats. And I took the meditation retreats and just found a new way to be full of shit. But the real in-depth conversations about the real body stuff and all of that didn't start until like three years ago. It didn't start until my mom gained weight. T

hat's when we kind of started processing the stuff together. Me growing has given us the space to grow together. [Lily] You just seem so at peace with yourself and and it's so inspiring. And, and with your body, like what, so what happened? - Being celibate. I was in college and I was dealing with like all this new race and gender stuff that was like same but different that I hadn't anticipated. And suddenly like boys were interested in me and I never really had that before. I was doing all the

things I was like, thought that I was supposed to be doing. And it was a disaster. I'm sleeping with a guy and he's been brainwashed by the patriarchy and porn and his brothers and everything to like only care about his own pleasure. And I've also been brainwashed by all those things to only care about his own pleasure. Then I might as well not even be there. And so then I swore off of it and like it changed my relationship with my body so quickly. No one's going to see you naked so whatever, ea

t what you want. It doesn't matter if he thinks your outfit is cool. So wear what you want. I was just with myself and and it was all happening at the same time because I was also shedding my like deep internalized anti-Blackness that I had been inundated with. And like all of these things about my body that I hated because they were so Black. When I was growing up I like really kind of foolishly believed that the root of my issues was like, I'm not around any Black people. And like, I don't hav

e any Black friends. And so all I need to do, I just need to go to a school and make Black friends and be in Black community and then I'll find my place and automatically I'll fit in and it'll be perfect. And like, I'll have an identity. And then I got there and like very quickly was like, Oh, that that's not correct. Because now all I'm hearing is like you think you're white, you dress white. Now I'm like too white. And I was like, I need to prove to everybody that I'm Black. So I like got a jo

b at the community and diversity center and was putting on protests and doing art displays and and leading women of color circles. It all just blew up in my face. I couldn't go to a protest or an event or a class or whatever, without some sort of like extreme, sometimes sexual harassment. And I felt, like am I allowed to be upset about this? Like, like first of all, because again male attention is good attention. So shouldn't, I be honored because I spent all of high school wishing I could be of

f getting this sort of attention. And then also like am I Black enough to be mad at Black men? Because you know, I am Black and I walk the world as a Black person but I also I'm light-skinned and biracial. And my parents are white and I have a fucked up relationship with my Black dad. Like, am I allowed to be mad at the like constant sexual abuse and misogyny that I'm experiencing in these spaces? And so I would like pack it in and be cool girl and go to the parties and host the parties and let

the boys but their arms around me and whispers shit in my ear and overhearing one conversation about how women just to need to watch what they wear or being called bitch, like I was one moment away from like fucking losing it. And so I did, I fucking lost it. And I made a poster that said "Black men watch your male privilege," and it just fucking blew up. And like went viral on the internet. I was really just rapidly, kind of like pushed out of this community that I had spent years and years try

ing to earn my spot and like ran away for the rest of the semester. I can totally see why making this blanket statement of Black men, watching them male privilege when Black men are being shot by police all the time is like a conflicting statement and the freak out around it and the way that I was treated around it. And the way that the men who had been like harassing me in a lot of really intense ways were immediately like protected. The slut-shaming really points to like the lack of intersecti

onality in this space. Growing up I was like straddling white and Black. And now I am more feeling like I'm straddling like Black and woman, which is, they're not inherently separate but our systems make them that way, like pick an identity and run with it. And either one you're betraying part of you. [Lily] When do you feel the most vulnerable? - When I'm angry, when I'm really angry I'm still like getting to know her. And I have this like thing where, when I'm really mad I start to cry. It's j

ust like a physiological response. Like my eyes mist up, my face gets red, my voice will crack. And so I'll be in class debating with like the devil's advocate who has some hot takes on immigration or I'll be at home fighting with my dad about misogyny. Even if everything I'm saying is like on point. Like, even if I'm like citing James Baldwin to the letter and you know, talking about the Harvard date rape statistic down to the decimal point, my eyes mist up. I get, you know, I get emotional. I

can literally see the exact moment in the man's face when they stopped taking me seriously. Wars have been waged over my father's use of the word hysterical. [Lily] When do you feel the most beautiful? - Back to the celibacy thing. Like just being, being alone, it's terrifying and then also, like, I just feel so, I just feel beautiful. I just I feel like, like I'm okay. And also when I'm with my mom, we go and sit on the cliffs And like for hours And the sun goes down and we drink hard kombucha

and smoke cigarettes and like dance a lot. I feel so beautiful when I'm with her. [Lily] What's your favorite part of your body? - It looks like my mom's. There's these pictures of like just random candids of anytime my mom and my grandmother and I are together and we'll like, walk, like looking at the beach or looking at anything. And we stand in the exact same. Like we stand like prison guards. Like we have this like very like, you know and it haunted me for so long and the way that I was able

to be kinder to myself and and feel less hatred towards my body and like the individual physical stuff is just being like I stand like my grandmother and like me and my mom have the same belly and I don't hate it on her. [Elisa] Last question. Why in your body, in your skin, in your journey, why is it a good place to be? - I spent so much fucking time like punishing her [my Body] and like, trying to force her to adhere to this standard of beauty that was like, not only completely out of reach a

nd impossible, but also like objectively pretty overrated. And so now I'm just like letting her do whatever she needs to do. I feel like I'm in the process of letting out this like massive, murky, deep polluted breath that I've been holding since I was like 10. And so if like, if a side effect of that means that now I have like a hairy pussy and back fat that sweats in the summer, then fine. [Elisa] So amazing. Thank you. So, so, so much, how do you feel now? - I don't have a vulnerability hango

ver whatsoever and it's so funny because I've literally, I mean, I've been watching these videos since I was like 15 and like full of concepts of of what I was going to be like when I was a big kid. And I'm like, I'm nothing, like I thought I was going to be. And thank God. I'm so grateful that all of my like hopes for what I would turn into when I was 16 were wrong. [Elisa] Hopefully we contributed to that. - Oh massively, like massively.