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By Suzanne
Leclerc-Madlala, Ph.D.
As in all other domains of human life,
the definition of what is normal and natural sex varies
drastically from one cultural setting to another.
Categories such as ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual’
or ‘bisexual’ as defined in Western societies do not
necessarily carry the same meaning elsewhere. Homosexual
behaviour for example, while occurring to some extent
in every society, is as variegated in its form, content
and meaning as heterosexual behaviour. How we interpret
sexual desire in its multiplicity of contexts and
expressions is one of the most important theoretical
debates in the study of sexuality today.
This is the problematic that President Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe alluded to in his now-famous 1995 public
statement that homosexuality was ‘un-African’. Unwittingly,
the President’s view (and the wide support it drew
from other heads of state at the time) had a catalytic
effect on the development of sexuality as a field
of study in Africa.
Along with the unfolding HIV/AIDS epidemic that gave
a special urgency to sexuality studies, Mugabe’s controversial
statement forced us to think more seriously not only
about same-sex sexual activity, but also about all
manner of issues related to sex and sexual behaviour
on the continent. We began to ask ourselves in earnest;
have some expressions of sexuality come with colonialism,
or Christianity, or Islam? Were they of more recent
origin, possibly products of globalisation or foreign
media influence? Was it a question of only the labels
that were new? Was ‘homosexual’ as an identity or
lifestyle choice something that originated elsewhere,
or was it the actual practice of same-sex pleasuring
that some contend is foreign to our shores?
With all these questions in mind, we were reminded
of pre-colonial practices such as that of the Azande
of Sudan, whose un-married warriors were once expected
to take ‘boy wives’ from age-grades lower than themselves.
How could we explain the ‘yan dandu cross-dressers
amongst the Nigerian Hausa who have sex with men,
or the seemingly bisexual gordjiguene, well
known amongst the Wolof of Senegal? What about the
practice of bukhontxana on the mines in South
Africa or kunyenga amongst contemporary street-boys
in Tanzania, are there no historical or cultural antecedents?
As is the case throughout the world, increasing research
on sexuality in Africa is showing that Africans have
had, and continue to have a very rich and diverse
experience of human sexuality.
This is what the new field of sexuality studies is
all about; trying to understand people’s conceptual
categories related to sex and their shaping influence
on constructions of erotic desire and sexual experience.
Sexuality is an exciting and rapidly developing field
of academic inquiry that embraces a dual perspective.
Firstly, it includes ideas about male and female anatomy
and physiology associated with the act of having sex.
Secondly, it includes ideas about erotic pleasure
and fantasy as related to sex. This dualism points
to both internal and external phenomena that are relevant
to our lived lives as gendered sexual beings.
The historic roots of contemporary sexuality studies
can be found in fields as diverse as anthropology,
literary history, gender studies, psychoanalysis and
western biomedicine. The term ‘sexuality’ as a way
to define meanings of human eroticism, along with
a few prefixes such as ‘hetero’, ‘homo’ and ‘bi’ to
describe types of persons embodying particular desires,
gained currency from the mid-19th century Victorian
Europe and America. It developed simultaneously with
the development of western biomedicine and the scientific
method, typified by preoccupations with classifying,
determining, and producing predictable outcomes.
Sexology as a field of study emerged at that time,
with attempts made to give names to and describe the
nature of diverse desires and sexual types. Certain
sexual behaviours were codified as categories of disease,
with terms like sadism and masochism denoting pathological
styles of sexual conduct. With the dawn of the 20th
century, psychoanalysis and the theories of Sigmund
Freud and his followers displaced sexology as the
leading paradigm for the study of all things sexual.
Emphasising the lasting impact of childhood experience
and the role of the unconscious mind with its ‘unconscious
desires’, psychoanalysis was the first body of theory
used to argue the now-widely accepted view that sexual
desire must be understood separately from reproduction
and the instinct to perpetuate the species.
In more recent times, the work of French social theorist
Michael Foucault (The History of Sexuality 1976-1984)
has had a major shaping influence on the development
of theoretical approaches and debates in sexuality.
His treatise on sexuality as a means through which
power is organised in society, has inspired many contemporary
sexuality researchers.
Acknowledging the Western and Victorian-era roots
of the study of sexuality is important for imagining
the future direction of this growing field. The historic
legacy still impacts on the way we conceptualise,
interpret and write about sexuality around the world.
A good example here is the study of sexual exchange
practices sometimes called ‘transactional sex’. Reference
to the western-derived notion of ‘prostitution’ has
provided the most common starting point for our research
on this topic during the past quarter century. Exchanges
where cash or kind are given in return for sexual
favours have been largely conceived within the narrow
confines of Victorian-inspired assumptions that link
sex to money to immorality to social pathology. Today
the term ‘prostitution’ conjures up all those historic
meanings.
 |
| Exchanges
were cash or kind are given in return for sexual
favours have been largely conceived within the
narrow confines of Victorian-inspired assumptions. |
For scholars like myself who try to write about contemporary
sexual exchanges, especially in the African context
of women’s poverty and economic dependence on men,
we are greatly hampered by limited and inappropriate
vocabulary that is the product of Victorian-era sexology.
Such dilemmas should serve to alert us to the need
for Afro-centric conceptual frames for understanding
sexuality, and to motivate us to develop more culturally
sensitive ways of engaging with sexual phenomena.
African scholarship is well positioned to take the
lead in moving the field of sexuality forward into
becoming a more critical and truly universal area
of academic inquiry.
It is in the context of our current HIV/AIDS crisis
that students of sexuality in Africa are being called
to action. In common with many parts of the developing
world, issues of sexuality in Africa were, and are
to varying degrees, often shrouded in customary prescriptions
and practices that are seldom discussed openly and
directly.
With the rapid growth of the AIDS pandemic on our
continent, we can no longer afford the luxury of innocence,
including some much cherished mythical ways of thinking,
or innuendoed ways of teaching lessons or passing
on collective wisdoms about life, love and sex. The
cruelty of AIDS has demanded a brutal boldness, a
new directness and a de-mystified way of approaching
the most intimate aspect of our lives…. our sexuality.
It is up to us to rise to the challenge and ensure
that the world’s understanding of sexuality in Africa
is first and foremost an understanding that is crafted
within the hearts and minds of Africans, and grounded
in the dynamics of life in the villages and cities
of Africa. Then, a more sensitive and effective public
response to our many sexual health challenges should
be possible.
*Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala is Professor
and Head of Anthropology at University of Kwa-Zulu
Natal, South Africa.
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