Sexuality is a social-political arena constantly reshaped through cultural, economic, familial and political relations, all of which are conditioned through prevailing social organizations of gender, race and class relationships at given points in time.
In Africa male and female sexualities have been patterned by cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity. Female sexuality is seen as something to be contained and controlled; this can be traced in the well known dichotomy of labelling ‘good’ women as virgins and ‘loose’ women as whores. Such labels depict
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Mumbi Machera
female sexuality as evil and dangerous if not constrained and imply that ‘good females’ should repress their sexual feelings.
Even though people like to think of sexuality as a private matter, social institutions (the family, church, schools) direct and control sexuality. For example, some forms of sexual expression are seen and treated as more legitimate than others. In Africa, heterosexuality is a more privileged status in society than is homosexuality. In general, heterosexuality is justified from a religio-cultural perspective. Because cultural proscriptions define sex primarily in terms of heterosexual monogamy or polygamy, our orientation of sexuality has fused sexuality and reproduction. More recently the separation of sexuality from procreation through widespread availability of birth control is revolutionalizing sexual behaviour. This means that gradually women can focus their attention on pleasure rather than on possible conceptions. However, some African scholars and politicians are not comfortable with notions of ‘sexual liberation’ fearing that this would promote homosexuality, which is ‘unafrican’. One of the arguments posited in this paper is that sexual preference should not be regionalized. Individual freedoms should include freedom of sexual choice without fear of social ridicule. Across cultures, human expression includes a range of behaviours and attitudes. Although society tends to think of sexuality as internally situated, sexuality also involves a learned relationship to the world. The feminist movement has inspired a new openness about women’s and men’s sexualities—and to a large extent has helped free some women’s sexual behaviour from its traditional constraints. Yet the persisting beliefs in Africa that heterosexuality is the only natural way of expressing sexual feeling need further probing.
To wrap up this presentation, I need to state that writing this paper was rather unnerving. Issues of sexuality in Africa, especially when they touch on the pleasurable aspects of sex are rather touchy, most of the reasons have been provided in the discussion. The paper title was derived from this apprehension, the fact that I geared up to Open a Can of Worms not because I think that female sexuality stinks—far from it, I enjoy my own sexuality to the fullest—but because of the reactions I expect from the readers, scholars and lay people alike. I am enthusiastic that society, as a result of the feminist movement must envision new sexual paradigms to change the norms related to female sexuality. Such paradigms should enhance the value of female sexuality, including issues of sexual pleasure and well-being, thus promoting basic sexual freedoms.