African Sexualities

African sexualities are steeped in beliefs, assumptions and stereotypes. These notions could be a result of silence, taboos and privacies in a society where sexuality and the act of are considered illegitimate and dismissed as infernal mischief and deviance. For centuries sex has been negated and something that was hidden unless it was associated with reproduction in a heterosexually based system of marriage. The study of African sexualities is disadvantaged because it was earlier recorded by colonial explores and missionaries. The language of the colonizers dominated sexuality discourse and by this the construction and definitions of concepts were lost in translations. This has posed serious limitations in the research of African sexualities and increased myths and perceptions and validated assumptions that Africans are culturally and morally inferior.

Some common assumptions that have crippled African sexuality are the claim that African men are innately powerful and virile, female bodies can only be linked to activities that deny mind like sex work and domestic work. According to colonial views homosexuality was non-existent in traditional Africa because Africans were considered uncivilized and less than human. They could not possibly display homoerotic desires which were only associated with sophisticated human desire and eroticism. Africans have always been featured at the bottom of the hierarchy although there has been an obsessive interest in African bodies and sexuality by the 'others'. Rather than engaging in impartial research, colonizers adopted an all-knowing approach, where those being researched were considered naive.

These views and assumptions have resulted in the denial and exclusions of varying sexualities on the continent. Cultural and traditional ideologies have colluded to ‘police’ women and men’s bodies and in some cases, sexuality has been criminalized in the efforts to regulate heterosexuality. Public attacks on homosexuality are encouraged. These attacks are crouched under the defense of what is traditionally African and is being contaminated by Western influence.

Like all other sexualities, African sexualities are complex and should be approached with sensitivity and objectivity and beyond the constant correlations to violence, disease and reproduction.