New York:
Love/ Sex/ Death

Kofi Fosu Forson


A Brooklyn girl listening to Johnny Cash is fundamentally American. A Bronx girl in a bikini dancing to Fat Joe is well… urban.

New York is governed by a means of self-identity, race, power, class and sex. The binding truth overwhelming everyone is money and death. Together they form a sense of disillusionment one cannot escape. In a sense, both money and death are inescapable.

A city like New York is a combination of culture, history, business, racism, violence, immigrants and singularly forms as a unique voice metamorphosing from borough to borough making it distinctively a crush of greed and power, love and sex.

There isn’t a unified conscience in New York. If at all it’s based on cultural identity and that of the individual. He or she is defined by their prowess within the realm of vernacular, sexuality and money. No matter what a person does for a living or how they make their money, shelter is singularly the most important reality to every person.

Homelessness as a conclusion due to fire, rent due, lost of job or whatever else is a harsh truth New Yorkers reluctantly embrace.

The typical New Yorker is confident, almost brash. He is constantly aware of his surrounding. This is always due to impending danger, especially in an unfamiliar neighborhood. However, New Yorkers tend to be respectful of people in need, whether it’s a street musician, some one seeking direction or a person hurt from an accident.

Socially, a New Yorker can start a conversation anywhere, whether on the subway, at a bus top, from a passing stranger or certainly at a bar or club. Women in general are sophisticated of mind. They don’t always appear sophisticated, from the girl in the East Village with tattoos to the girl in Harlem wearing Daisy Dukes. But the New York woman is tough in her decisions because everything is crucial.

Money has to be made. Things have to be bought. The New York woman loves the company of a man. She does everything to make this possible. New Yorkers are however lonely. Sex is the equation when it should be love. New Yorkers are content on looking for love but they settle for sex.

There’s sex in a hotel with a stranger. Sex in a bathroom stall… Sex in a stairwell… Sex on a rooftop… and the old fashioned sex in an apartment with a boyfriend or girlfriend…

Those who find love are fortunate. The very reason one gentleman walks a dog is the same reason a man and woman hold hands walking down the street.

Love, Sex and Death define most New Yorkers. Money and shelter is our reality. We exist in it. The psychic precautions one takes, define him or her as a lover and as an honorable citizen of New York with hopes to live another day.

Photo by Kobina Annan, Jr.