“What Catholicism and most other
modern Christian churches vigorously deny is just how much homosexuality was
not tolerated, although practiced by many of its founding fathers and the
degree of toleration- if not veneration, that it received.”
Yuki Choe, writer for Reflections Asia.
Homosexuality
is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation, along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, within the heterosexual-homosexual continuum (with asexuality sometimes considered a fourth).
Homosexuality
and Bisexuality are ubiquitous throughout the world. They exist in all
cultures, and at all times in history. Relics of our evolutionary history,
homosexuality and bisexuality are very commonly practiced nearly in every
culture, whether tolerated or not. The differences among cultures are the
openness with which it is practiced.
Some
degree of bisexuality, in the absence of cultural taboos, is not only extremely
common in men, but is probably the rule! “Homosexuality of convenience” which
occurs in the absence of available female partners (such as is commonly seen in
prisons) is widespread even in cultures that frown homosexuality. Most men, at
some time in their lives experience homoerotic feelings towards other
men-whether they admit it or not.
According
to Masters and Johnson, the percentage of men who have had a homoerotic
experience to orgasm is amazingly high in America. By the age of 49, 60% of
American men have had such an experience.
The
argument here though, was, and has always been, that homosexuality is
un-African and that it has never existed in any prominent way in African
societies. Most Africans today argue that Western nations, whilst they
denigrate certain African sexualities like polygamy, are the ones responsible
for past and current attempts to foist acceptance of homosexuality on African
countries and their peoples, a practice many believe to be “Western” or “European”.
History
of homosexuality in Africa
Along with the moralisms of Traditional African religions,
Christianity and Islam –which were brought to Africa by European missionaries
and Arab traders respectively– facilitated homophobia because they regard
homosexuality as sin. Today religion shapes many African social and political
designs. Churches in Africa are major players in the production of homophobia. According
to an article; African Myths about
homosexuality, churches here are the most dominant homophobic institutions.
Not all African and African-American churches, however, are intolerant to
homosexuals.
In
pre-colonial Africa, gender variance and sexual inversion included ritual
incest and celibacy, such as the Mbonga, a female guardian whose celibacy
protected the Shona chief, and the chibanda, a caste of male diviners possessed
by female spirits and referred to in early European sources as “passive
sodomies”. Among the Lovedu people, the gender inversion involved women. The
“rain queen” kept her virginity, but married other girls. In the nineteenth
century, Ndebele and Ngoni warriors introduced the practice of ritual male-male
sexuality as part of war preparations.
In
pre-modern African states, Africans did not conform to the idealized
heterosexuality that contemporary African leaders, like Mugabe, prefer to claim
as “African Tradition”.
Homosexuality
in modern day Africa
From
Uganda, where homosexuality is punishable by life imprisonment, to Sierra
Leone, where a lesbian activist was raped and stabbed to death on her desk last
year. In Kenya, sadly, homosexuals are exposed to both extremes; charged to
imprisonment, as well as beaten up in public. Homophobia has long trapped gays
in a dangerous, closeted life. With no places to meet openly, no groups to
join, it seems sometimes that gay men and lesbians in Africa don't exist at
all.
“The only answer is education,” said Linda Baumann, 21, who grew
up in a tribal community and was expelled from it when she revealed she was a
lesbian. She now lives in Windhoek and hosts a radio program about gay issues.
“We have to have courage and stick up for ourselves.”
It
is important to appreciate the real roots of our current homophobia. There is
little connection between the revulsion we have towards homosexuality with our
pre-colonial ancestors who, despite having strict rules that governed all sexualities,
did not really see homosexuality as ‘evil’ or deride gays as “worse than dogs
and pigs”, as wrote one respondent.
In
fact, the roots of our homophobia can actually be traced, paradoxically, to the
influence of European colonial rule! If we want to argue that homosexuality is
‘un-African’, it is better not to use “tradition” as a justification for our
homophobia because it was actually European colonists who introduced homophobic
sentiments in colonial Africa.
