Seeking Sexual Freedom: An Evening with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

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While working on The Sex Lives of African Women, acclaimed African feminist and activist Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah had access to the wildest dreams and spiciest realities of women from around the world. But so often, she noticed that something was holding these women back from achieving full liberation and unfettered joy. So, she set out to apply sankofa – which means learning from the past to inform the future – to sex and pleasure, reclaiming African traditions in a quest to achieve sexual freedom.

In Seeking Sexual Freedom, Sekyiamah takes readers across the African continent, from Senegal to Tanzania and beyond, where she meets and trains with gurus, “witches”, and aunties whose job it is to guide girls through puberty rites and later through “marital training.” She discusses practices like beading and pulling, while highlighting the spiritual and gender-fluid nature of African traditional religions.

With the ‘interruption’ of colonialism, Sekyiamah explores how western patriarchal norms led to warped ideals of beauty and shame, internalized racism, as well as to state and interpersonal violence. Sankofa, she explains, can help rid us of these obstacles that stand in the way of our sexual liberation.

“Nana Darkoa tells bold stories for women who need them. I adore the overlaps in this text between spirituality, geography, culture and sexuality… this work will be eye-opening for many.” ELOGHOSA OSUNDE, AUTHOR OF VAGABONDS! AND NECESSARY FICTION

Our host is Jj Fadaka: Jj Fadaka is a writer, facilitator, and radical based in Edinburgh. Their writing explores the possibility of abolition, feminism, and love to create change. Their work speaks to the political urgencies we face while centring community-making in our resistance.

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