“In the media, African women's sexuality is still treated narrowly, through the unique spectrum of disease, HIV or repeat pregnancies,” laments Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, a Ghanaian columnist and author based in London. While universal access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services remains a central issue in West Africa, the co-founder of the Adventures From Bedrooms of African Women blog wants to share other stories. Sex outside of marriage, interracial relationships, threesomes, asexuality or questions of a practical and anatomical nature (for example: “how to react in the face of a nervous breakdown?”)… No sexual subject escapes this one which, however, grew up in a very religious and studied at a Catholic school in Accra.
Polygamy and polyamory
Forget about stories with a procreative objective and focus on the search for pleasure. “It’s a space open to African women where we can talk about sex freely and honestly,” she says. More ten years after the creation of her blog, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah continues her work of sharing libidinal experiences with African women's sex lives (Little Brown Book Group editions, July 2021), a sociological fresco on love and the intimate life of African homes through the testimonies of women from 30 countries on the continent.
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Nura – her first name has been changed by the author –, a 42-year-old Kenyan, married to a Senegalese, tells, for example, her difficulty in integrating into a polygamous family, and explains that she feels that her sex life is submissive to a schedule and her husband's variable resistance. “Oh my God, I’m tired! my husband exclaimed one day. I thought I would only make love once a month.
Kaz Karen Lucas pretends to “decolonize sexuality” by inviting gynecologists, obstetricians and other sexologists
Heterosexual or LGBT, monogamous, polygamous or polyamorous relationships... A wide spectrum of different ways of experiencing sexuality and love in the 21st century is scrutinized by the sex educator, as Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah – herself polyamorous and bisexual – likes to define herself. Sexual practices and incitements she defends while Ghana prohibits homosexual relations.
no judgment
Talking about sexuality without judgment and under the condition of anonymity is also the bias of the Sudanese and Jordanian hosts of the Jasadi (My Body) podcast, launched in 2019 by the production company Kerning Cultures, from the United Arab Emirates. Elected by Apple as the best podcast in the Middle East and North Africa, the program invites women to question taboos related to sexuality and the female body in Arab societies. “No word referring to our sexual anatomy is used in a normal way”, laments one of the guests. Another said she regretted the systematic use of anglicisms to name female genitalia, or the mockery that awake the term “mahbal” (“vagina” in Arabic) phonetically close to the word “ahbal” (stupid), in playgrounds.
Orgasmic gap, solitary female pleasure, sex toys… A freedom of tone that makes sex rhyme with emancipation
For these “sexpertes”, it is no longer a question of escaping and remaining lexical or childish tolerance to define sexual anatomy. On the other hand, it is urgent to free ourselves from the dominant heteronormative discourse. “P for pansexual, Q for queer, R for Kidney Job (anilingus)”… This is the kind of sexual primer that can be discovered on the Instagram page of the successful podcast The Spread (“the spread”), created by A Kenyan Kaz Karen Lucas, 38. A lesbian and non-binary herself – she uses the pronouns she/they (iel) – the former rapper became, in 5 seasons and almost 90 episodes, a reference for the LGBTQI+ community, in a country where the Rafiki (from Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu) was temporarily censored by authorities for advocating lesbianism. The presenter intends to seriously “decolonize sexuality” by inviting gynecologists, obstetricians and other sexologists to speak on her program.
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Episode 80: ASEXUALITY AND SEX WORK https://t.co/4ERdD5O9JT— The Spread (@thespreadpod) August 9, 2021
“Consent is sexy”
British-Nigerian Dami Olonisakin, 31, better known as Oloni, and on the initiative of the podcast The Laid Bare (“Lying Naked”) since 2018, is followed by a community of 500,000 people (all social networks combined). On her Instagram page, she uses filters for sensual looks. At the microphone, she talks about sex without a filter. From the orgasmic gap (orgasm break) between women and men to solitary female pleasure, through the use of sex toys and BDSM practices, its freedom of tone makes sex rhyme with emancipation.
And in the post #Metoo era, sexual harassment and abuse are no longer mentioned. Olini, who proclaims in her biography that “consent is sexy,” even intervenes in schools to educate the younger generation about that notion.
