i don't remove my lipstick for anyone. not even a pew.

Let me tell you about the Sunday I walked into a church in North Carolina and accidentally became the most controversial woman in the building — simply by existing.

I was visiting from Glendale, California — Los Angeles, for those who need the full picture — and feeling a pull toward something familiar. Southern Black church culture has a particular warmth to it, a particular sound, a particular way of making you feel like you are exactly where you are supposed to be. I was nostalgic. I was open. I said to myself: what the heck. Let me find a church I've never attended before.

The church was in the Durham/Chapel Hill area — the same region where I earned my undergraduate degree. Familiar ground. I arrived, lipstick on, dressed like myself, ready to receive a word.

The parking attendants greeted me warmly. The ushers at the front door were gracious and kind. I made my way toward the pews — and that is where the temperature changed.

A few women seated nearby began giving me looks. Not the curious kind. The territorial kind. Through what I can only describe as God's gift of discernment, I sensed the insecurity almost immediately. I was not looking for trouble. I was looking for a seat and a sermon.

I later learned the source of the tension: the pastor — a man well over sixty, single for roughly a decade — had apparently inspired a quiet competition among certain women in the congregation. And somehow, without my knowledge or consent, I had been cast as a contestant.

I was in my early thirties. I was in a loving relationship with a man on the West Coast. I had driven to this church for the Word — not for the pastor. And yet, because I was a woman of God who also happened to be attractive, the assumption had already been made. I was his. I must belong to someone powerful in this room.

This was not an isolated incident. It happened again at a BET event in Miami — though the energy there was entirely different. The women were warm, friendly, genuinely lovely. One older woman leaned over to me with a conspiratorial smile and whispered: "Are you [gospel singer's] wife?"

What she did not know — what she could not have known — was that said gospel singer is a close acquaintance of mine. And as gay as the day is long.

I say this not to embarrass anyone, but to illustrate a pattern. In the church, in entertainment spaces, in rooms where powerful men are present — a polished, feminine, attractive woman is rarely seen as simply herself. She is seen as an extension of someone else. An accessory. A plus-one who must belong to the most prominent man in the room.

Men, I blame you. Not entirely — but significantly. Because the assumption that an attractive, feminine, polished woman must belong to a man in the room is not a female invention. It is a cultural inheritance, and men have done very little to dismantle it.

A woman can walk into a sanctuary, a gala, a boardroom — dressed with intention, wearing her full face, carrying herself with grace — and still be there entirely for herself. For God. For the music. For the moment. Her presence is not an invitation to be claimed. Her beauty is not a signal of availability. Her lipstick is not a question waiting for your answer.

I have been in a loving relationship. I have been single. In both seasons, I have been mistaken for someone's woman simply because I showed up looking like myself. The lipstick was on in both cases. It will remain on in all future cases.

And now that I am single? Well. Good luck out there.