Whenever I raise the issue of homosexuality in class, students are up in arms. They say “it is not African, that it is purely a Western development”, “our cultures do not condone such behaviours”, “it is deviant behaviour”, and so on. I often ask them: “what would you do if your own sister is ‘a lesbian’? Or if your brother chose to be gay?” This always elicits another onslaught on me: “that is impossible!”, “it can’t happen!”, “if it does, they will be cast out!”, “I would advise them to go to America”… the suggestions are endless—no compromise. What does this tell us? That the belief that heterosexuality is the only natural form of sexual expression is rooted in a cultural framework that defines heterosexuality as compulsory and homosexuality as deviant or pathological. The question of sexual identity has been debated upon actively in the West but not without controversy. Jeffrey Weeks observes that:
[T]he very idea of sexual identity is an ambiguous one. For many in the modern world, especially the sexually marginal, it is an absolutely fundamental concept, offering a sense of personal unity, social location, and even at times a political commitment… Not many say ‘I am heterosexual’ because it is the taken for granted norm, the great unsaid of our sexual culture (1987:31).
In most African countries homosexuality is suppressed as an alternative expression of sexuality though isolation and a conspiracy of silence (Pisani 2001:169). The social sanctions brought against women who are not identified as attached to men in African societies show how heterosexuality is maintained through social control. For example even if women remain single and couple with no one, they are ridiculed and ostracized. My female students frequently complain that men (and society) do not respect single women, poor or rich, literate or illiterate. In fact such women are easily labelled negatively as rebels or prostitutes. In Nairobi, it is not uncommon that single women out for some fun will be accosted and sexually terrorized for being unaccompanied by men. Thus phallocentricity advances
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Mumbi Machera
sexual terrorism against women. Moreover, if women love other women, they are seen as deviant or sexually pathological.
In the course of writing this paper, the Daily Nation, a daily newspaper published in Kenya, put out an article entitled: “Bi-curious: An emerging trend.” The article (published on November 17, 2001) addressed an “emerging breed of young Kenyan women who are choosing a different kind of sexual relationship— they love occasional dalliances with other women, which is considered a bit of fun”. What I found very curious about the bi-curious girls is the difficulty they face in self-defining their new sexual identities. The girls interviewed reiterated that they are not lesbians; so what are they? They admitted having sexual intimacies with their girlfriends “but they do not consider these trysts as cheating on their boyfriends.” The girls interviewed also said that they are not bisexual.
Jeffrey Weeks asserts that emerging sexual identities should be seen more accurately as a powerful resistance to the organizing principle of traditional sexual attitudes (1987:42). Though a discussion of sexual identities is beyond the scope of this paper, after reading the bi-curious article I noted that the girls interviewed did not identify themselves either as lesbians or bisexuals. This brings up the issue of sexual identification as a choice. Weeks observes that
sexual identification is a strange thing. There are some people who identify as gay and participate in gay community. And there are homosexually active people who do not identify as gay. The development of a homosexual identity is dependent on the meanings that the actor attaches to the concepts of homosexual and homosexuality (1987:42).
However, he goes further to argue that these processes (of identity) depend on the person’s environment and wider community.
Gloria Wekker introduces the subject of multiplicitous sexualities. By analyzing ‘mati work’,[105] an institution with its own rules and rituals, Wekker demonstrates that women may be in a variety of relationships with men (e. g. marriage, concubinage, visiting relationships) and also have sexual relationships with women. She contends that “the distinctions often made in a Western universe between heterosexual and lesbian women—based on women’s sexual identity and the supposed underlying psychic economy—do not correspond with realities in the Afro-Suri — namese universe” (1997:336—337).
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The tendency to single out heterosexuality as the acceptable mode of sexual relationship is reflected in the students’ belligerent responses to the issue of homosexuality in a class discussion. It is a well known fact that sexual orientation as a discursive issue is closely linked to radical feminism. Regrettably, feminism is a very controversial subject in scholarship today especially among African female
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Opening a Can of Worms: A Debate on Female Sexuality in the Lecture Theatre
scholars. Feminism (speaking out against women’s rights abuse) is confused with ‘man-hating’. Quoting Ama Ata Aidoo, Mary Kolawole in Womanism and African Consciousness (1997) posits some of the sentiments African female scholars bear towards feminism: “Feminism. You know how I feel about that embarrassing Western philosophy? The destroyer of homes. Imported mainly from America to ruin nice African homes” (1997:11).
I strongly feel Bell Hooks in Feminist Theory—’from margin to center (1984) provides a broader view of the link between feminism and sexuality:
All women need to know that they can be politically committed to feminism regardless of their sexual preference. They need to know that the goal of feminist movement is not to establish codes for a ‘politically correct’ sexuality. Politically, feminist activists committed to ending sexual oppression must work to eliminate the oppression of lesbians and gay men as part of an overall movement to enable all women (and men) to freely choose sexual partners (1984:152).