Byron Jamal Is On A Mission To Heal ‘Hoes’
"Love Guru" Byron Jamal sets out to save the sex-scarred with his frank, empowering new book "How to Heal a Hoe."
Though one might not expect it from the title of Byron Jamal’s latest book, How to Heal a Hoe, the author and self-styled Love Guru says he’s here to “give the ‘hoe power’ back, and make it more of a positive instead of a negative thing.”
The former LGBTQ pastor, who also counsels clients — men and women, single, married, of all sexual orientations — speaks his gospel with sincerity to disarm the skeptical. A hoe, he says, is simply “a Human Open to Experiences.”
And with the book, subtitled A Loving Self-Healing Approach to Sexual Stigma, Shame and Trauma, Jamal aims to offer hoes the tools to recognize, and free themselves from, “anti-sexual” behaviors that might be holding them back from love. Because a hoe can be healed. The Love Guru considers himself a healed hoe.
“The whole point of the book is that sometimes you’re unaware of your hoe-dom,” he says, “and how you have internalized sex and sexuality in your life.”
Jamal wants readers to remember “that whatever happened to you that created trauma around you as a sexual being is something you can heal, and you can change your sexual habits to have more hoe-positive, sex-positive interactions that aren’t anti-sexual, but actually create positive bonds with yourself and others.”
You have to own your hoe-dom, he says. “A real healed hoe is somebody who is able to say, ‘I’m a hoe, been a hoe, healed from hoedom, hoe-ness, hoenicity,’ whatever you want to say, and smile and be cool and confident, and not feel like it affected the future potential of love in your life, which is the ultimate goal.” Because hoes need love, too, and Jamal is eager to teach them how.
“It’s all about creating conversations around sex and sexuality,” he says. “So we reduce the level of shame, so that people aren’t blinking and looking away when they have the conversation. They can have the confidence and self-assurance to look people in the eye when they actually talk about sex and their sex lives.”
He plans to follow up the book with a companion card game, called “The Biggest Hoe.”
“We have some cards already printed up,” he says. “So we’re going to have a game night in Atlanta soon, [as] part of the book tour, where instead of doing a traditional [reading], we’ll do a pajama game night with the book. That should be fun and sexy at the same time.”
How to Heal a Hoe is available on Amazon and The Love Guru website. Visit www.byronjamal.com. Follow him on Twitter at @byronjamal.
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.