“Comfortable in My Skin”: Cozy Actualization as a Mitigating Factor in the Link Between Gendered Racism and Sexual Development for Black Women and Femmes

In this paper, I summarize the extant literature that focuses on the role of (sexualized) gendered racism in Black women’s sexual development and well-being. Using Beyoncé’s song “Cozy” as a theoretical framework, I consider the potential transformative power of Black women’s positive gendered racial self-concept—or Cozy Actualization—to mitigate the deleterious outcomes linked with heightened exposure to gendered racial discrimination and victimization. I also highlight the potential fault lines in Black women’s pathways to sexual self-acceptance, including the associations between elevated exposure to gendered racial sexual stereotypes, stereotype internalization, and diminished sexual self-concept. I argue that supporting Black women’s cozy actualization requires that we pursue strategies to enrich sexual development in ways that directly combat the internalization of a negative self-construal derived from systemic misrepresentation and misogynoir in mainstream and digital media.