How to Seduce a White Boy in Ten Easy Steps

By Laura Yes Yes

Laura Yes Yes' sultry, wry first book, How to Seduce a White Boy in Ten Easy Steps, dazzles us with its bold exploration into the politics and metaphysics of identity. From fierce and funny sexual fantasias to cutting observations of interracial dynamics, her work asks us to fully consider what it is to be human in an age of fragmentation and double meanings. There are no easy answers here: the voice of the liberated woman rings clearly as a man-eater in one moment, and shudders under the weight of lost love in the next. Laura skillfully navigates the trauma of being Other while acknowledging the absurdity of our perceptions of race. With precise craft and breathtaking imagery, How to Seduce a White Boy blooms as a ferocious celebration of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Bloody Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781935904175

Book preview

How to Seduce a White Boy in Ten Easy Steps

a collection of poetry

by Laura Yes Yes

Write Bloody Publishing

America’s Independent Press

Long Beach, CA

writebloody.com

Copyright © Laura Yes Yes 2011

No part of this book may be used or performed without written consent from the author, if living, except for critical articles or reviews.

Yes Yes, Laura.

1st edition.

ISBN: 978-1-935904-16-8

Interior Layout by Lea C. Deschenes

Cover Designed by Joshua Grieve

Cover Art by Angela Davis Fegan

Proofread by Sarah Kay

Edited by Alexis Davis and Derrick Brown

Type set in Helvetica Compressed and Bergamo

Special thanks to Lightning Bolt Donor, Weston Renoud

Printed in Tennessee, USA

Write Bloody Publishing

Long Beach, CA

Support Independent Presses

writebloody.com

To contact the author, send an email to [e-mail]

for my mom and dad,

who always wanted me to be just like them:

my own person.

Preface

How to Seduce a White Boy in 10 Easy Steps is a study on fragmented identity. No matter which titles I use to describe myself—brown, black, mixed, feminist, queer, woman of color—these words are only a beginning. As Whitman famously said, I contain multitudes. This study is an attempt to give a few of my voices a chance to speak for and between themselves.

Among the considerations for title was Hydra. Ultimately, we decided on the current title instead. In this context, the white boy represents the normative or ordinary force whose dominant presence renders other groups extraordinary, or outsider.

The final title complements the other perfectly. Like most mythological beasts, the hydra is portrayed as having no apparent agency of its own. It’s a footnote in stories, serving as a vehicle for others’ intentions, interfering with heroes’ destinies only as agents of nature. This is consistent with the mainstream depiction of marginalized peoples throughout history.

Given that, let’s assume it takes an ordinary animal to call a hydra a freak. Growing up within a culture that constantly reminds one that she is outsider can be deeply destructive, especially since that standard voice is so very strong, and becomes ingrained in the consciousness so early. Survival requires finding a way to come to peace with that voice and all the others: to subdue it, or to make it work towards one’s own ends. The tale would be different indeed if Pegasus talked back to Perseus.

Mythologizing the self is a fantastic means of making sense of the world. When we self-aggrandize or turn ourselves story, we make our