Random thoughts and questions on Sex and Sexuality

I have never agreed that african women had more control over their sexuality in precolonial times. I think it’s just a figment of our imagination. FGM, all the rites of passage, the child marriages to men who were tons older with tons more wives, the marital rapes(which were universally condoned (at least more condoned than they are now)….which is not to say that it has become better after colonialism. The world where you weren’t allowed to choose or think for yourself if you were a woman (not that that changed any after colonialism, but now it’s getting better). I MAY rebel against all that jazz, back then, u couldn’t) I just think that people overrate the lives of women in pre-colonial times. Actually, I’d much rather be a woman now than then, even with all our wahala

Interesting random thoughts:

I find having gay-rights centered discussions exhausting in Ghana especially at work. Yesterday I had 5 guys insist up and down that gay men wear pampers..Between them they know 0 gay men.

I hear you on the lack of single men. Seems to be a worldwide drought from New York to Johannesburg..Just last night my smart, beautiful lawyer friend in Zambia was telling me about the lack of single guys and being constantly hit on by married men. Lets not even start on the way-too-young guys stepping up.

Relationships may be overrated but society (and our parents) feel very differently.

I agree 100% with Darian on the precolonial African women and control of their sexuality.

“Teenagers should be encouraged to masturbate as part of comprehensive sex education”. Good idea but look what happened to poor Dr. Joyce Elders in the US when she suggested that one in ’94!!! http://bit.ly/tl5MO

My random thoughts…

I find the these questions to be very interesting. Sex especially in our part of the world is a very delicate matter to discuss. I am therefore not too surprised I have never heard of some of the questions you have posed.

Darian, i feel you are making very serious generalisations with this;

“…FGM, all the rites of passage, the child marriages to men who were tons older with tons more wives, the marital rapes(which were universally condoned (at least more condoned than they are now)….which is not to say that it has become better after colonialism. The world where you weren’t allowed to choose or think for yourself if you were a woman (not that that changed any after colonialism, but now it’s getting better).”

my first question for you is this; do all African tribes practice FGM?. followed by these questions; were there child marriages in EVERY SINGLE African tribe?; did all African ethnic groups practice polygamy?; what is so wrong with the rites of passage?; why do you think that pre-colonial Africa women were not allowed to think for themselves? and finally what makes you think that marital rape today is somehow less serious that it was in the past?…oh and how do you know that it was ‘universally condoned’ in the past?

i don’t mean to put words in your mouth or anything but this what i got from reading your comment. it seems you have chosen to believe that there were no love marriages in post colonial Africa which i feel is almost an insult to our ancestors. i am not saying that things were perfect in the past because they most certainly were not. i mean things are never perfect but it is indeed possible that African women in pre-colonial times had more control over their sexuality.

and regarding the rites of passage, there is most certainly nothing negative about that because it provided a situation in which women could freely talk about sex and sexuality without the pressure of society and/or culture. i am confident about this because just a few weeks ago, i read about rites of passages in African traditional religion (and how they actually fostered lesbian and homosexual relationships among certain tribes).

i am assuming you have not read much on women in post-colonial Africa juding by your comment and i do implore you to read more as there is a wealth of information out there. it will then be easier to compare African women in the past with African women of today. it is easy to romanticise the past but the facts will always be facts.

i personally feel that African women in precolonial times were definitely more self-confident than they are today, regarding sexual confidence, well that is debateable…

i also feel that the term ‘pre-colonial’ is just too general. we are talking about centuries here! the role of African women in their own societies differed greatly in the 7th and 14th centuries. i mean there was a time of great African queens, African Amazons at certain points in history in different parts of Africa. things change so it will be more concrete to chose a particular timeline.

I think there are quality single men all over the place. Twist-up your daily routine, where you hangout, and the things you do in your spare time and you’ll realize they are out there.

@ Abena; I can tell when a woman has a man by the way she carries herself. There are times when some women have this air about them and they don’t even know it. Women like that tend to attract young men & married men, and the decent single men stay away.
Your single girlfriends could also try new routines outside of their comfort zone once in a while & that will put them in new circles – possibly new circles with men looking for the type of women they are.

@Darian – You raise a valid point, which is that of romanticising the past. As Africans we are also challenged by the fact that a lot of our history is undocumented. The reading I have done so far on pre-colonial African women has led me to the conclusion that African women were more liberated (especially in comparison to Western women) pre-colonialism and specifically pre-monoethestic religion. Additionally some of the oral stories I have heard even within my own family leads me to form that conclusion. My aged grandfather told me about two of his Aunts who travelled from the environs of Kumasi to Kwahu Twenedurase because they wanted to find men to marry. These two women travelled that distance on their own!!! They chose to travel because the Ashante men were being decimated by the frequent wars they engaged in. Maybe I need to do some research and write a full blog on the subject

@Abena – Gay men wear pampers? Oh dear, I even feel sorry for you that you were subjected to that conversation.
Charle, the drought seems to be everywhere, it makes no sense though or maybe it does…there is a thought running through my mind (another post maybe)
I hear your agreement with Darian. Hmmm Dr Joyce Elders, I remember the controversy, I don’t know why adults want to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to the sexuality of young people

@eccentricyooruba – thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can you share any more information on the text you read about African rites of passage? I think some of these rites were empowering for women (although of course not all the rites were/are)

@Mike – Please, please tell us where these quality single men are. Personally I am not “looking” but I know many women who are and trust me they twist up their routines, they are not desperate or act desperate, they do not have a negative “air” at least not one that I can detect yet they do not meet quality single men. This is not just a Gh situation, it’s the same for the only other country I have significant experience in – the UK and from what Abena says it is a global phenomenon. Also tell us more about how you know whether a woman has a man by the way she carries herself and this “air” you’re talking about.

eccentricyoruba –
you ARE putting words in my mouth. my mentioning what i feel to be the problems with women and customs and traditions in pre-colonial times doesn’t preclude ‘love matches’, nor does it mean they aren’t true just because they weren’t practiced universally. Nor does it mean ‘love matches’ were then norm. I NEVER said marital rape wasn’t less serious in the past – I said it was MORE condoned, at least in Ghanaian society, it seems to have been (mebbe I should have said that). How do I know that: I know that because when I was growing up, part of the big push to secure women’s rights in Ghana was trying to convince people that forcibly sleeping with their wives was wrong, and the general sentiment was that a man could NEVER be wrong for sleeping with his wife whether she wanted it or not; it was an un-African concept, they said. From back in t he day, we sleep with our women whenever we want, whether they want to our not, it is our right. And people agreed. Now, I can charge a man for marital rape, in the past I couldn’t- hence, marital rape was MORE CONDONED then than now.

Lemme explain what i mean about the rites of passage. Many rites of passage were important, but many of them were also tantamount to abuse. And yes I have read of them – many African girls (teenagers), sleeping with older men who ‘break them in’ or whatever as part of passage rites – yeah, that is abuse. And of course, it wasn’t practiced everywhere, but that doesn’t make it any less abuse because it was practiced among a few people groups rather than the many. As for passage rites being a place where women could freely talk about sex and sexuality, I know that isn’t true, at least from what i have read about passage rights in Ghana (not much unfortunately, so i might be on shaky ground here) it isn’t. I have read of other studies where many people who went through the passage rites didn’t know JACK about sex or sexuality or pleasure or anything about sex. Just the normal – your only purpose as a woman is to bear children and take care of your husband jazz (which we STILL get today, so-called age of women’s empowerment)

As for precolonial African women not being allowed to think for themselves – yeah! I can point to many examples where women were expected to just follow rules prescribed for them by men than ‘think’ for themselves in colonial times that I can when they were allowed autonomy – autonomy was the exception rather than the rule, that is why women in precolonial Africa who did think for themselves and had great autonomy (like Yaa Asantewaa, from Ghana) are such POWERFUL images for women today – if she could do it in THOSE times, then I can do it in THIS time! Hah! In Ghana many people didn’t even CONSIDER women on par with men. I remember in some places in Ghana it was customary to ask (and they might still even be asking it for all w e know) at the birth of a child – “Is it a human or a girl?” That doesn’t point to much respect for women, does it?
As for passage rites fostering homosexuality, I have neither heard nor read about that, but if like you charge me with, my points aren’t valid because I can’t speak for EVERY African culture, then your point isn’t valid unless you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that the book you read speaks for EVERY African culture.

Sorry for my ramblings (I am a rambler)…but all in all, the same points you levied against me I can charge you with.
Are you sure it was in EVERY place in Africa where passage rites were ‘harmless’ and where people can talk freely about sex and sexuality?

I speak generally because it is tedious to qualify everything with ‘some’ and because the charge I was addressing in Nana Darkoa’s comment was general “African women,” she said, not SOME African women, or Ghanaian women. I understand that Nana doesn’t mean EVERY African woman, so I also expect the understanding that when I levy my charges I don’t mean EVERY African woman either. We speak generally because we mean generally – the majority (which may be 50% +1, 70%, or 99.99999%).

I am sorry. I speak with my mind back in Ghana and the examples I saw while growing up. While my examples may not even be representative of Ghana, they are what I saw and thus what i can draw my evidence from. And at least in Ghana, my evidence is valid – just talk to the many women’s rights groups in Ghana – they will tell you so. Sometimes, experience is just as valid as all research collected on the topic at hand. As for reading up, give me time, I am yet young!!

But I still stand by my earlier point that (in Ghana at least) the rapturous sexuality and sexual freedom and general freedom we ascribe to pre-colonial women is overrated, and sometimes, quite vastly. I still firmly believe we are much more empowered as women today than they were then.
Since that has been a mouth-full, a mind-full, and a hand-full to think up, say and type, I better stop here before I ramble on some more.

PS: Eccentricyoruba, if my tone is in any way offensive or annoying, I apologize, for I didn’t find your response like that and most certainly don’t wish mine to be like that. There. Lemme stop now.

The air I’m talking about is not negative. Its just a bunch of things together…. mannerisms, attitude, body language etc.
Lets take one simple one: Eye Contact.
A woman walks into a store to grab a pie or a cup of coffee. A woman that has a man won’t bother making eye contact with other men. When she does, it is more in a business-like way (the eye contact that says “hi. but respect my space”). Some single women do this and don’t realize it. Most of the time, they have a shield they put up in the midst of a lot of men so that they dont get hit on by all men they meet. The unfortunate part is, they do it so often, that shield comes up even when they don’t intend for it to.

Although no one else is talking about it, Nana, I definitely agree that many religious folks marry early to have guilt-free sex! In fact I think that view is actively encouraged in some circles.

@Nana, i’m sorry for being almost a year late with this response! a short while after reading this, i wrote a long post on ‘Demystifying African Female Initiation Rites’. i don’t know if you read it but here’s a link http://eccentricyoruba.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/demystifying-african-female-initiation-rites/

@Darian, sorry for putting words in your mouth. i really don’t have anything to say, if you’re interested please read the link i posted above.

@eccentricyoruba – I loved your piece! Thank you for sharing