Qissa Reviews: The Sex Lives of African Women

When we imagine a book about sexual experiences, what do we expect to find? Titillation? Humour? Trauma? All of this is certainly the case in Sekyiamah’s work. The book includes the stories of 32 women (one of whom is the author) and in this relatively modest selection, we experience a huge breadth of experience and sexualities. There are pansexuals with many partners and heterosexuals practising celibacy. Dominatrixes and sex workers. Women in their 20s and women in their 70s. The geographic spread is huge with women in South Africa, Kenya and Egypt alongside women in the diaspora living in Canada, the UK and the US. It is an impressive feat of Sekyiamah to conduct and compile these interviews and bring them into a cohesive narrative. 

Each story opens with a couple of biographical lines; something along the lines of the now very creepy, but back in the noughties very common, ASL (age/sex/location). However, in this case the S mainly stands for sexual orientation rather than gender (though gender is touched upon as well). The majority of the women are anonymised, but a good number do choose to use their real names, sometimes it is shared with the reader their reason for doing this - such is the case with Salma who feels she lost her voice in a bad relationship and now wishes to reclaim it - other times we are left to make our own assumptions. The concept of voice and claiming back one’s narrative is a theme that runs throughout many of the stories. A lot of the women experienced sexual abuse as children and it took them a long time to view sex through a positive lens, as something to bring pleasure and connection. Some of the women still struggle with this, they are bound by societal, religious and cultural expectations to just give pleasure and not expect it in return. However, they seem to be in the minority in this book, with a lot of women feeling positively towards sex and sensuality, whether that is with oneself or with others. Perhaps it is due to the age range featured? While, as mentioned previously, the book spans women from their 20s to 70s, the majority of the voices are from women in their 30s and 40s. Perhaps that slightly greater distance from childhood trauma means that the women have had more time to process and work through their feelings. It also felt refreshing to focus on this period of womanhood: a time when the media seems to render women invisible in terms of portraying sexual/romantic relationships, but a time when most women’s sex drives are at their peak. 

As well as exploring sexuality and all the many variations of that, The Sex Lives of African Women is also an exploration of religion, culture and Blackness. The book is split into three sections: Self-Discovery, Freedom and Healing. While these are important themes to pull out, they all run through most of the stories so the classification felt a little arbitrary. That being said, the brief section introductions from Sekyiamah definitely added some much-needed context and also a little break from the stream of voices, albeit voices with incredible stories to tell. Some of the insights were truly fascinating. Take for example Helen Banda’s story, a cisgendered woman who identifies as pansexual, polyamorous and kinky. She discusses aftercare in the kink scene:

‘Once you finish a scene there’s aftercare. Whoever is domming has to make sure the sub is in a good place because in a scene you get all these hormones that fill you with euphoria, and you can crash if the person in the scene just walks away from you. Even the domme might need some aftercare to help them come down from the high.’

Snippets like this help to expand and add a universal element to stories that are rooted in the personal. 

Consent is obviously a huge part of many of the stories, often in relation to rape and sexual assault, including establishing boundaries and knowing the strength of your own voice: 

'When you've hooked up with someone before, they tend to think that there's no reason for you not to hook up with them again unless you're in an exclusive relationship. That's been my experience with both men and women.' - Naisha's story

Though one story in particular spoke about how the woman and her partner were having sex next to their sleeping friend and they began to touch her during the act. The story didn’t acknowledge the issue of consent and it was shocking to see someone ignore someone else’s boundaries in real time. 

The stories move between trauma and positivity quite fluidly. One story on sexual assault by FGM is followed by one about a woman's family's acceptance of her and her trans partner. The positive right next to the negative and the stories that included both of these elements and emotions simultaneously were frequent and were clear examples of how women’s concepts of sex and pleasure are often tied to feelings of shame and repression. That being said, many of the women embrace their sexuality and I was personally surprised by the percentage that were in polyamorous relationships. I’m sure part of this is due to the different cultures encompassed in the book and the legalisation of polygamy in many countries in Africa, something that is unfamiliar to a Western reader. But Sekyiamah also acknowledges this in the opening of the ‘Freedom’ section:

‘The women featured in this section show that there are many ways to be free in sexual relationships. It’s no accident that the vast majority of women featured are from the lesbian, bisexual and trans community, and/or practise polyamory. These are women who have resisted societal norms of compulsory heterosexuality and monogamy, and have searched both within and without for other ways of practising love.’

I also wonder whether the way the author conducted these interviews plays a part in this. People that are more willing to talk about their sexual preferences and history are perhaps people that have more interesting stories to tell, have certain personalities or have strong opinions about the subjects in question. While anonymous reporting might have allowed for more voices, being able to conduct the interviews face-to-face clearly gave these women the confidence to share their own truths. This is something Sekyiamah touches on in her epilogue, though I felt it might have worked better in the introduction, allowing the reader to hear each story with additional context.

‍The Sex Lives of African Women finishes with the author’s own personal story. She says she would have felt uncomfortable sharing everyone else’s stories without contributing her own experience. It felt like a really inclusive and brave way to end the book. It demonstrated her passion for widening conversations around sex and sexuality in the Black community and how it is important to walk the walk when you’re talking the talk. Sekyiamah began (and continues) this work with a blog Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, which has since launched a podcast, YouTube series, magazine and festival. Overall this was an incredibly important and insightful read and one that adds to the much-needed literature of women’s sexuality, particularly as it relates to different bodies, races, gender identities and sexual orientations.