[Music]
so basically we live in a world that is
so sexually powerful and electric but so
sexually violent that you don’t know
whether to masturbate or carry a machete
it’s true it’s true the thing about sex
is that it’s so taboo but we wanted so
damn that we want to feel it we want to
stand by it we want to engage with it we
want to take it out for dinner and
message it a little too soon but we also
want to pretend that it doesn’t exist
the thing is speaking about our sex in
groups is hard and it seems that there’s
a little bit of a mass silence when was
the last time you spoke about your
staying power or your favorite sex
positions or even your orgasms with
those around you it would seem that
there’s a little bit of a mass silence
and we’re hiding gems of goodness and
guidance from each other but we’re
actually here to tell you about women
talking about their sex most
specifically African women and why this
is important for us to do all the time
because the thing is as women we don’t
properly actively engage with our sex
even because we tell ourselves to not be
open about our trust game oh we are told
that we shouldn’t as proper women be
chatting about it but when it comes to
ideas of our bodies our sex and our
pleasure were more often than not silent
and this hush-hush attitude allows for
ideas of rape culture and accepting bad
my rape culture let me clarify my rape
culture will mean ideas of women’s
bodies as something to be owned
something to be conquered things like
smashing the giving her the D
penetration all of these words imply
being overpowered was we wait idly by as
women for the phallic symbol to orbit
and prepare for entry and the thing is
were silent because how can we speak
business that isn’t ours but it is our
business were not meant to be silent
during sex but active willing and
engaged participants who know who what
and why they are doing what they’re
doing and this takes time and knowledge
you don’t just simply wake up a sensei
of sex and throw tricks around the table
right you’ve got to study and this
knowledge of how to handle your hotbox
is going to come from within our own
ranks it is some of the most powerful
helpful conversations about a woman and
her sex come from other women it’s not
always Cosmo but that’s another story
for another day and in order to like
have this conversation you need to talk
to each other and change the ideas and
the narrative but in order to change the
narrative we actually need to think
about where we get these warped ideas
about our sexuality from so African
women are being silent about sex why
let’s take it back a bit so colonization
and religion have completely reshaped
ideas and ultimately the expression of
African sexuality um African women and
men have been and to a great extent
still are defined in terms of body
deviancy and bestiality one only needs
to look at pornography and the way that
the black body is portrayed right it’s
more often than not portrayed in a
violent and animalistic way because no
sensual sex for us no you know and
another example is a photography project
called jungle fever and this is done by
a photographer called jean-paul good and
the photographs over sexualized black
women and exaggerated black features so
much that it made them seem extreme
natural and very very ridiculous and a
painful example of how the female body
was dehumanized as the story of Starkey
Batman in 1810 20 year-old South African
sake was exhibited in a cage in
Piccadilly London she was forced to
irate for curious onlookers who paid a
couple of shillings for the fun and when
she died in 1815 audiences gathered to
see her bits her genitals were dissected
in public and zoologist georges cuvier
later presented circus genitals in a way
to allow for spectators to see the
nature of her labia and he wrote we did
not at all perceive the remarkable
particularity of her organization see
genitals she held her apron carefully
hidden between her thighs it was not
until after her death that we knew she
had it and by her apron they meant her
genitals so it wasn’t until 2002 that
you could see sad Keys pickled privates
in a museum in Paris until 2002 and
after which they were returned with the
rest of her remains to Cape Town it’s
painful isn’t it and then on top of that
we were told how to dress by religious
practice right where our bodies were was
so over sexualized to the point where if
we showed just a bit of skin we are
flaunting our bodies and we are showing
disregard for the body’s sacredness
which is only meant to be for the eyes
of our husbands where a naked woman or a
partially covered woman may be raped and
intimidated because she has seen a
seducing men there is an idea within
culture popular culture and amongst many
African societies that Africa is very
very conservative and male centered
which actually undermines African sexual
practices which has a deep deep history
of not like putting to the side female
pleasure we haven’t been a silent as we
think about sex we actually haven’t in
fact we have been so chatty about it
because across the country
they existed and continue to exist
sexuality training schools in her paper
oceanology the African erotic nakeeran
seungu actually mentions a couple of
these schools which um excuse me one
second I have a list here they’re very
hard to say so
she mentioned these schools which
include the Gullah and bass of Guinea
Sierra Leone and Liberia the lower bit
of Senegal the Depot of their dad way of
Ghana the Tonga of the of Zambia the
Makua of Mozambique and many many more
across the continent and all of these
schools were created to impart girls
with the knowledge on sexuality pleasure
and to create a female identity they
were taught things like sexual cues they
were taught sexual enhancers for example
these waste beads that were made of
glass and pearls and sometimes clay and
they functioned the sex toys I mean
these women were taught to ignite
passions through a look a walk dance
moves gestures pelvic movements
aphrodisiacs everything that you would
want to know about sex even the sounds
to make during the act and apart from
this some tribes had marital advises
that it that advised the goal or the
married couple in the art of sex for
example in Mali the advisor joins the
newlywed couple in the bedroom on the
wedding night I know sometimes we need
that little extra Harold
we cannot be out here but a similar
practice exists in Nigeria amongst the
east Akira tribe the bagna cauda of
Uganda the TTA among the shona in
Zimbabwe and the Kiowa of Zambia these
advisors not only ensured that the girls
first sexual experience was pleasurable
but also calmed all of the anxieties
that we have about sex you know and so
now this space of knowledge sharing was
not only reserved for the experts
sometimes simply gathering was a way of
growing what you knew for example in
Rwanda and other spaces within the
continent is the act of Lobby or
elongation
so this is what you would think but to
give a little bit of context it’s when a
woman or sorry a girl of puberty age
gently pulls her inner labia
out and away from her body this is done
using special herbs that the girls are
taught to look for in the room on these
bushes sometimes this may be a little
bit uncomfortable for people but it’s
done in groups one piece one piece that
we read talks about how girls would sit
in rows in boarding school and gently
pull each other’s l’viyah while catching
up on the latest gossip the piece yes
and see there’s a little there’s a few
shocked faces and thing but this
happened and what the piece then goes on
to speak about is how this gave the
girls a sense of belonging but also
taught them that it was not something to
be ashamed of it prepared their bodies
not only to give pleasure but to receive
it because the act of tapping the penis
on these lobby a would cause a woman to
ejaculate which is actually not to be
confused with urinating when you squirt
ladies you did not pee I mean looking at
these practices you can see that the
community is placed a really really good
great value on a woman’s positive sexual
experience in fact the existence of this
institution strongly suggests the
importance of sexuality in the
well-being of the person and the
community so now these cultural spaces
bring about and instill the idea of the
power of the devouring vagina how
beautiful is that phrase devouring
vagina audience participation now people
say it with me now devouring vaginas
thank you oh this is a phrase lifted
from the paper that we mentioned before
by in Karen’s egg ooh and it’s required
reading for all if you’ve got a piece of
paper write this down in this paper she
begins to unpack the idea of the power
of the vagina within the African erotic
ontology do you see these big words for
big ideas and how this is central both
as a social and individual good
so she speaks about the vagina not just
being a passive organ that awaits
penetration but we actually need to
think of it as engulfing or devouring
the penis because this gives the vagina
incredible
power and makes it a lot more active
right think of it like the act of eating
when you eat something you will set your
power and your will over it but this
does not in any way take away from the
power of what is being consumed so we
are not saying the penis is powerless no
we’re just recognizing the power of the
vagina during no guys before people get
uncomfortable and testy
so we’re speaking about a view of
sexuality that not only celebrates the
penis and male sexualities which is what
our media does most of the time right
and what we do most of the time but
we’re speaking about a view of sexuality
that there recognizes the power of the
vagina and ultimately the power and
importance of female sexuality so truth
be told women coming together to help
each other through deep times is nothing
new and there is no reason we can’t do
it in terms of sex in a modern
Chardonnay sipping session sort of way
and other than bursting into each
other’s bedrooms or wherever else it is
you like to have sex the way to do it is
to speak about it randomly and loudly
and luckily for us not do it do it in
cafes and bars in your rooms whatever it
is and luckily for us there are a number
of women on the African continent who
were doing it in a very funky squat
while you take a selfie kind of way for
example we’ve got dr. T who is a medical
doctor and is wisdom personified not
only offline but online as well because
she hosts workshops she has an
incredible Twitter account and she has a
vlog some other photos as well look
that’s from one of her vlogs and if you
like something a little
not-safe-for-work and a little bit of
the art of storytelling
there’s adventures from the bedrooms of
African women which has a story or two
in terms of podcasts we’ve got black
women be like that’s actually the woman
who runs it who have spoken about things
like masturbation dining below the belt
and also faking orgasms and in Kenya
there’s the spread podcast which is two
women who speak about a whole host of
very very sexy topics
and then holla Africa which is our
organization recently went on a safe sex
and pleasure journey when we hosted a
bunch of dialogues and we had a workshop
and we produced a manual and in these
conversations and gatherings we tackled
everything from kink to keeping your sex
toys clean to consent which is a big
issue right now and to a million and one
uses for clingfilm
there’s a lot to do out there there are
a lot of uses for clingfilm you’ll be
surprised but all of these examples that
we’ve just mentioned of a merely
repackaged spaces of all that African
women are using to discuss this match
and these need to be replicated they
need to be grown and they need to be
done in different ways so when women
come together in these spaces to speak
about their sex they just they draw
strength and because you realize that
there’s safety in numbers you realize
that there is knowledge in numbers when
women speak about these things they rip
apart the cloak of silence that brings
about fear and shame because you realize
we’re all in this together you’re not
the only one who thinks your nipples are
shaped funny or has masturbated you are
not the only one who has fantasized or
faked orgasms you’re not the only one
that what the assault that happened to
you the other night actually shouldn’t
have happened that you are not meant to
be ashamed you are not meant to be
afraid and you’re not meant to be in
pain because you know what you are actually not the only one