Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah. Photo: Nana Kofi Acquah/The Protector
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah. Image: Nana Kofi Acquah/The Guardian
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah’s newer guide The gender life of African lady examines self-discovery, liberty and treatment. She covers everything she has read
Finally modified on Mon 26 Jul 2021 15.08 BST
N ana Darkoa Sekyiamah keeps a face that grins at peace. When she actually is speaking, its with a consistent smile, one which only falters whenever she discusses certain tough situation she and other African women went through inside their pursuit of sexual liberation. She talks in my opinion from her residence town of Accra, Ghana, in which she states “no one is surprised” that she has written a book about gender. As a blogger, author and self-described “positive sex evangelist”, she has been accumulating and record the sexual experiences of African people for longer than ten years. Her new guide, The gender physical lives of African people, was an anthology of confessional profile from throughout the African region and also the diaspora. The stories are sorted into three parts: self-discovery, liberty and healing. Each “sex existence” try told in subject’s very own words. As a result, a book that takes an individual to the beds of polygamous marriages in Senegal, to furtive lesbian hookups in lavatories in Cairo and polyamorous bars in the us, but without any sensationalism or essentialism. Their ambition, inside guide as in life, is “to create extra space” for African ladies “to bring open and truthful talks about intercourse and sexuality”.
Sekyiamah grew up in London to Ghanaian parents in a polygamous commitment, but was raised in Ghana. The girl formative decades in Accra had been under a patriarchal, traditional, Catholic regime that instilled in her own a fear of intercourse as free interracial dating – UK well as their possible risks – maternity, shame, getting a “fallen” girl. “i recall once my years didn’t arrive,” she recalls. “I became in Catholic class at the time, and I would go to the convent everyday and pray, because I was thinking that meant I happened to be expecting.” From the moment she hit adolescence she ended up being advised: “Now you really have their duration, you’re a female, your can’t allow guys contact your. That was usually in my own mind.” Later, she got told: “If you set your marriage no-one otherwise is going to would like you. If you have children as just one girl guys are probably consider you just as a sexual item and not a prospective mate.” Her mom would merely speak to their about gender in cautionary means. “The notion of fooling with men was very frightening to me. It kept me a virgin for many years and age.”
Within her belated teenagers, Sekyiamah relocated to the united kingdom to review and started checking out feminist books. She realised how much cash all those things terror quit her, also females, from owning their health, their satisfaction and, by expansion, from “taking up their own invest the world”. She relocated back into Ghana and, in 2009, co-founded a blog, escapades through the Bedrooms of African female. “I going revealing my personal tales, my own personal knowledge, and promoting additional lady to express their tales. Therefore, The writings turned a collective space for African female, whether they had been in the continent or even in the diaspora, to simply thought aloud, show experience, to educate yourself on from a single another.” The blog was a hit, and was deluged with articles from African woman revealing their particular reports of really love and erotica. They acquired prestigious honours in Ghana and made Sekyiamah along with her co-founder, Malaka offer, intercontinental acceptance. But before long, she begun to need see, and create, some thing much longer. She realized that “people have no idea concerning the reality of African women’s encounters about sex and sexuality. I feel like anyone usually consider African people as repressed or continuously pregnant or they don’t need sanitary bathroom towels or they’ve come reduce [genitally mutilated]. I found myself discovering the depth of one’s experiences through the blogs, therefore I believe: ‘i wish to write a book regarding experience of African lady.’”