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A Primer on Homosexuality in
Nigeria
- Some People Go the Extra-Mile to Seek Sexual Satisfaction
By Kelechi Obasi, © The News 1999.
Distributed via Africa News Online
agos (The News, May 24, 1999) - Not
everybody loves sex, straight. There are those for whom masochism is it. Leather garb,
boots, handcuffs, whips and hot candle wax are the trademark tools to take a partner to
seventh heaven. Others prefer voyeurism, and spill their nuts watching other peoples
sexual organs and acts, often hidden from view. The former Zimbabwean leader, Canaan
Banana, it was alleged, relished doing it with little boys, and big boys. Margois de sade,
Donabien Alphonse Francoise took the prize for Sodomy in his day. He just loved
subjugating others, the very young, the very poor and the not overtly bright to his sexual
perversion. In 1763, he was accused of locking one Jeanne Testard in a house, and ordering
her to whip him and join him in masturbating into a holy Chalice.
Five years later, he abducted another woman, whipped her silly and as he poured molten
candle wax into her wounds, he experienced orgasm. His under aged male and female servants
were not free from his paedophilic clutches. Throughout history, homosexuality, the
preference for members of ones own gender for purposes of sexual gratification has
commanded much interest and concern.
Homosexuals or lesbians, may be male or female, and temperaments towards such sexual
preferences have varied in different epochs and among diverse cultural and sub-cultural
groups. In ancient Greece, homosexuality was only generally acceptable in the narrowly
defined terms of a pederastic association of a grown man and a pubescent boy. The
relationship was regarded as much educational as sexual. Rome had a similar outlook. Its
demeanour was one of measured tolerance. Homosexual relationships were acceptable
alongside by-sexuality, where beauty had everything to do with age and gender. However, in
the Holy Bibles old testament, sex between members of the same sex is considered an
abomination and the punishment for homosexuals is death. This condemnation has affected
the Christian attitude toward homosexuality for centuries. Very recently, the Lambeth
conference of the Anglican Church reiterated this stance by voting overwhelmingly against
the ordination of gay priests.
In contemporary times, ambivalent moods have prevailed.
Most societies consider homosexuals as normal and socially acceptable. In central
Australia, to the primitive "Aronda," homosexuality is almost universal.
n other nations such as Great Britain,
United States of America and Germany, Gay relationships are legal between
consenting adults. The laws of the Federation of Nigeria and Lagos, Chapter 42 of the
criminal code, section 214, states that any person who "has carnal knowledge of any
person against the order of nature" or "permits a male person to have carnal
knowledge of him or her against the order of nature is guilty of a felony and is liable to
imprisonment for fourteen years." However, the spectre of a spell in jail is not
haunting members of a steadily growing clan of homosexuals in Nigerias commercial
nerve centres. A once strange gay culture seems to be thriving in Lagos, Kano,
Port-Harcourt and many cosmopolitan cities in the country. A recent study of Kano and
Kirikiri, Lagos maximum security prisons showed that out of every 200 men, 30 confessed to
having had sexual relations and about 20 in the latter.
The average age of the prisoners was 29 years. Another study in Kenya confirms that sex
between men is common in prisons in the military boarding schools and colleges.
In Nigeria the gay-club is exclusive. Big players in industry, law, the military and
even the academic all form part of this association. One of the many reasons Major Gideon
Orkar and his gang adduced for their April 1990 coup attempt was that the Gen. Ibrahim
Babangida led administration was crawling with homosexuals. The high and mighty prey on
young fortune-seekers. The name of the game is usually sex for money or connections.
While the crusade for gay right is still unheard of in Nigeria, many organisations in
the U.S, such as the Gay Activist Alliance and the Mattachine Society have attempted to
influence public opinion and legislation towards greater tolerance of homosexuals.
Although their efforts have led many to state their sexual preference publicly, there are
many gay-haters who would readily kill to demonstrate their aversion for homosexuality.
These however, have not stopped gay and lesbian couples from marrying each other. In
1996, San Francisco, one of Americas largest gay communities, witnessed the first
same-sex marriage ceremonies as 200 couples were joined in (holy?) wedlock.
Some homosexual unions now parallel conventional heterosexual relationsh ips. Recently
partners in some stable homosexual relationships have been given the go-ahead to legally
adopt children.
What is the cause of this preference that is to many a perversion? In the 19th
century, homosexuality was labeled a disease. Baron Richard Von Krafft-Ebing, a German
neuro-psychologist described it as a "hereditary neuropathic degeneration,"
sparked off by too much masturbation. For Signmund Freud, the cause lay in the existence
of a constitutional predisposition.
He also suspected the determining effects of childhood experience, and the frequency of
male adolescent homosexual experience . However, in 1957, a study at the University of
California at Los Angeles (V.C.L.A), in which psychological tests were given to both
homosexuals and heterosexuals showed no marked pathological differences. Nigerian
psychologists seem to differ on the issue of homosexuality, and whether it constitutes
sexual deviance. Dr. Peter Omoluabi, a clinical psychologist at the University of Lagos,
Akoka, holds that homosexuals are normal people who are only exhibiting their sexual
preference.
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