My boyfriend was asked: ‘OMG! What is it like to kiss a Black girl?’

Growing up in Dublin in the Nineties, I looked very different from everyone else. Back then, the beauty standard was to be blonde and extremely thin. If you had blue eyes, even better, and the only place any fat was permitted was your boobs. Born to an Irish mother and Nigerian father, I was far from this perceived ideal, and often the only Black girl in my social group, I got used to being the object of intense scrutiny.

My afro-textured hair, bum and thighs were a different shape from those of everyone around me. I was bullied about the size of my mouth and the shape of my lips. It’s ironic that many of the features I was teased for are the same ones people try to reproduce today cosmetically. Back then, being called nasty names was par for the course.

There was inordinate pressure for all women to look a certain way, but on top of that, I had racism to deal with too. From about 14, I became aware of the potent ideas about the sexual availability of Black women and got used to fetishisation and sexualised comments from those around me.