One of the best things about Insecure is the credit it gives the audience. Considering how, in this day and age, just existing as a black person is treated as a controversy in the mainstream media, Insecure is one of the few shows on television in which the point of it all is not to be black but to be human. Everyone on the show is trying to figure out who they are instead of what they are. To borrow a phrase from last night’s episode, Insecure is trying to show us black people 2.0.
I had to remind myself of this when I was watching the scene between Issa, Molly, Tiffany and Kelli. The four women spend a day together at a sex expo, which is the perfect backdrop for them to have a candid discussion about their sexual proclivities, specifically oral sex (for the guys watching Insecure, it was also a PSA that you and your boys might want to try your hand at meeting women at a sex-positive event).
While browsing a table of flavored condoms (a not-so-subtle hint that yes, this show does care about safe sex), Tiffany kicks off the taboo discussion about head by saying she could probably teach the “Blow Job, Good Job” class the women signed up for at the expo. Kelli then confesses she doesn’t give head because of an unfortunate experience she had in 11th grade with musty balls. Molly says she’s down to go down but only as a form of reciprocity to the men who do so first. And Issa says she’s willing but only after she’s serious about the guy, because she believes guys dismiss as disposable any black woman who gives head.
The hot takes give Tiffany an excuse to lecture the women on their hangups about oral sex—hangups she sloppily categorizes as a thing from which black women suffer. The reason so many black men end up with white women, Tiffany asserts, is that they get into formation on their knees for black men. Kelli and Molly rightly roll their eyes at Tiffany’s thesis, but Issa begrudgingly thinks that Tiffany has a point because up until that moment, Issa’s handling of her harem of men (Nico, Eddie and Daniel) has been Knicks President Phil Jackson bad.
Of course, to anyone who has spent any time casually hanging out and hooking up, that whole scene between Tiffany, Molly, Kelli and Issa was eye-roll-inducing. It’s 2017. Who is still talking about the pros and cons of blow jobs? The answer is, people like the characters we see on Insecure.
All of the characters are people who only think they have things all figured out. It’s silly for Tiffany to suggest that she’s engaged because of her head skills, but is it a stretch to think that’s why her man put a ring on it in the first place, considering how many men have said that a woman’s skills in the bedroom make her a viable candidate for us to lock down?
And is it dumb for women to think like Issa, who believes that women who do constantly give oral sex get their text messages left on read, when we know how many guys try to blame their own inability to commit to a woman on the fact that she’s too good in the bedroom, as though that’s a thing? Both sides have people who believe such groupthink, which is why Issa ends up taking Tiffany’s vapid gems and putting them into action on Daniel.
After striking out with Nico and Eddie, Issa finally gets some time with Daniel, and she is ready to apply everything she learned in that blow job class she took at the sex expo. As it turns out, Issa was paying very close attention in said class because Daniel ends up being very satisfied. We know this because, well, we literally see his satisfaction sprayed all over Issa’s face.
But either the blow job class Issa took didn’t teach her about communication skills or Issa didn’t pay close attention to that part because she is livid at the outcome and lashes out at Daniel even though he gave Issa a heads-up on what was about to happen. Her reaction was dramatic and also triggering to anyone who has ever been Daniel or Issa. Sex, oral or otherwise, can be messy—literally and figuratively.
Speaking of lessons, Lawrence is slowly learning what it means to be a diversity hire at a tech company. After presenting a project to his colleagues, the project managers can do nothing but shower him with passive-aggressive praise about his work and his taste in sneakers. And we also see a subtle hint that he and his colleague Aparna might be interested in being something more than colleagues.
Meanwhile, Molly’s undoing with Dro is almost complete, and it’s about time, because his cover-up about his “open marriage” has been excruciating to watch. It was fine for Molly to believe Dro’s trash alibi when she was vulnerable, but now he’s setting up rendezvous with her in hotel rooms, cutting their time together short because his wife is supposedly locked out of their place, and then clearly telling her the next time they will see each other is on a weekend. If Molly keeps carrying on with Dro, Issa won’t be the only one with egg—well, an eggish substance—on her face.