Why I Get Horny When It Rains (And What It Means for Black Joy in Dark Times)

Black gay writer embracing thunderstorm's fierce beauty, finding liberation in rain's baptism while lightning crowns the dark sky.

I need to tell you something that might make you uncomfortable, and frankly, I don't give a damn if it does. I love the rain. Not in that cutesy, "I love cozy sweater weather" way that makes white girls post aesthetic coffee shop photos on Instagram. No, baby. When those dark clouds roll in like they own the sky, when that first fat drop hits the pavement and releases that earthy scent that has its own name—petrichor, look it up—something primal awakens in me. I get horny.

There, I said it. Sue me.

The rain doesn't apologize for disrupting your plans, for making you cancel your picnic, for forcing you inside when you wanted to be out. It just is. It falls because it must, because the sky is heavy with all it's been holding, and sometimes you just have to let that shit go. That's the energy I'm trying to channel—the unapologetic downpour of being exactly who you are, consequences be damned.

I watch from my window as the world transforms. The concrete gets slick and reflective, turning every street into a mirror that shows you twice as much reality as you bargained for. People run for cover, hunched over their phones like they're protecting sacred texts, and I want to throw open my door and run into it like I'm Drew Barrymore having her viral moment—but without the white girl weirdness, no offense, Drew. Your joy is valid, but mine hits different.

More like Gene Kelly if he was black and had all that ancestral soul running through his veins—dancing through puddles with that rhythm that's been passed down through generations, spinning away from the darkness that's been clinging to my shoulders like a cheap suit. Picture it: me, channeling my inner Alvin Ailey meets street corner cypher, letting the rain baptize me while I move like my ancestors did when they needed to shake off the weight of the world. That's some real liberation theology right there—getting your soul wet and your body free, boo. Because that's what the rain does for me—it washes away the bullshit, the anxiety, the weight of existing in a world that keeps reminding me I'm black and gay and therefore double-dipped in other people's problems.

Now, before the universe gets any bright ideas, let me be clear: I'm going to the beach soon, and I need sun that week. You hear me, cosmos? I know you be listening, lurking in my business like that friend who always knows your drama before you tell them. I need vitamin D and the kind of warmth that bakes the worry out of your bones. But right now, in this moment, the rain speaks my language.

It's moody like me, unpredictable like my mental health, dark like my skin, beautiful like my soul when it's not buried under the weight of... well, everything. The rain and I, we're kindred spirits. We both need to fall sometimes to feel alive. We both carry more than we show. We both know that sometimes the most beautiful things come from the stormiest skies.

Speaking of storms, can we talk about this political nightmare we're living through? This Trump administration is fucking scary, and I know that's not exactly breaking news, but Jesus on a cracker, it's been less than a year and I feel like I'm aging in dog years. I try to live in the moment, to turn off the news and focus on what I can control, but the doom and gloom seeps in like water through cracks you didn't know you had.

Here's something that might get me canceled in certain circles: sometimes—sometimes—there are things he does right. I know, I know, grab your pearls and clutch them tight. But I refuse to be so blinded by justified rage that I can't see the occasional sliver of sense in the madness. That's maybe 2 percent of the time, and 98 percent terrifying is still an F minus in any reasonable grading system, but I'm trying to find something good in everyone, even monsters.

Call it a character flaw, call it survival strategy, call it whatever you want. But in times like these, when being black and gay feels like wearing a target on your back while juggling flaming torches, I need to believe that humanity isn't completely lost. My heart is heavy, y'all. Therapy is needed. Meditation is needed. Good old-fashioned self-care is needed like oxygen.

This blog has become my journal, my confession booth, my therapy session with the internet. I pour my thoughts onto these pages like rain onto parched earth, and for a moment afterward, I feel lighter. Free. Like the sun might actually exist somewhere beyond these clouds that have been camping out in my sky for too damn long.

But how far away is that sun? Some days it feels like it's in another galaxy, like I'm sending smoke signals to a star that burned out years ago. My voice feels muted, trapped under layers of fear and frustration and the general exhaustion of existing while marginalized. The clouds won't move, won't give me even a glimpse of blue sky to remind me that this too shall pass.

The rain must fall, though. It always does. And maybe that's the point.

But here's what I know about rain that the meteorologists won't tell you: it doesn't just fall and disappear. It seeps into the ground, travels through underground rivers you'll never see, connects to vast networks of water that span continents and centuries. Every drop that falls today becomes part of tomorrow's ocean, next season's snow, some future storm that will water gardens not yet planted. The rain I love so much—the rain that makes me feel alive and electric and beautifully unhinged—it's not just washing the world clean. It's carrying forward everything it touches, making it part of something bigger, something that will outlast any administration, any fear, any moment when the sun feels impossibly far away. And maybe that's what my voice is doing too, even when it feels small and muffled by the thunder. Maybe it's seeping into places I can't see, connecting with other voices, other storms, other people learning to dance in their own downpours. The clouds will move—they always do. But the rain, the beautiful, necessary, life-giving rain, becomes eternal.