"Let's talk about sex baby"

I’m going to start with some disclaimers:

• I can only write this post from my personal vantage point which is limiting and potentially dangerous because I’m opening myself up with a topic that’s shrouded in shame in spite of the access to sex via porn and pop culture.

• I’m writing this post as someone who grew up on really warped ideas about sex thanks to my Christian upbringing which made sex shameful unless it was in the context of marriage.

• I’m also writing this in a context where sexual violence is the cloud that hangs over all of us. Most people experience sex through violence and shame and there’s little support to talk about this in safe space or in public discourse. This post could even be potentially triggering and unhelpful for some people because it assumes so many things about sex.

Like my previous post about divorce, I’m writing this blog as part of my own exploration and experiment with honesty in the public space. In a Facebook post about this I said I’ve decided to be that self-appointed auntie who talks too much. I have nothing to lose in writing about sex because I own each experience I have. My hope is that more people will have these conversations and hopefully get a step closer to healing and healthy sex.

From Afrosexology: Instagram

While I want to start with my post-marriage experience with sex perhaps it’s more honest to say that like most women who were socialized through Christianity: sex was a no-go area. I learned about sex via Days of Our Lives and the Bold and the Beautiful. I can safely say Hollywood has been responsible for my sex education. "Pretty Woman" was the first movie I remember being a vivid moment of learning about sex. Not very helpful at all. BoysIIMen's "I'll make love to you" was equally as significant with "Pretty Woman". I then had to deal with “no sex before marriage” which I lived by until I left the church and Christianity for 9 years. I had to work through the feeling of guilt before I could have sex, let alone enjoy sex.

When I did eventually start having sex when I was 25 I had to mentally go through “worst-case scenario”: what do I do if I couldn’t negotiate a condom/fell pregnant/ got assaulted? An endless list of all the things I know can come as a result of sex. I had to make a conscious decision about each of these scenarios as I way to feel like I could protect myself if anything went wrong. I was aware that I would be at my most vulnerable during sex and safety was my responsibility rather than a shared commitment.

This experience was unfolding while I was contributing to a blog about sex, sexual experiences and life nje in general “My first time” which culminated in a book edited by Jen Thorpe. Reading the experiences from other women showed me how fraught sex was and the myriad of ways women were finding to liberate themselves from unhelpful tropes about sex. In spite of this blog I still found I was scared of the prospect of sex before marriage. The narrative was so deeply ingrained I had so much internal work to do before getting to a place of freedom to explore sex.

I also intuitively knew that uDays noBold, RnB songs and Hollywood were insufficient sex education. My school sex education was even worse after spending twelve years in a conservative girls school. So I decided to watch porn. I had a hunch that there was more to sex than rolling around in sheets (get rid of sheets when having sex; they’re such a drag) and porn confirmed this. I tried to find the kind of porn where people were experiencing pleasure. This was a challenge. Like everything that has been tarnished by racism and sexism, the porn industry is a minefield of navigating the harmful images about women; particularly black women. While I found examples of helpful representations of pleasure I also found violence and penis-centric images of sex rather than intimacy. While porn was a starting point I’ve had to think carefully about how, when and why I consume porn. I’ve been advised to pay for porn in order to get the kind of experience that is humanising. I haven’t got there yet. As a feminist I have to sit with the emotions and complexity of what it means to continue consuming images that are dangerous for women. A conversation for another day.

Fast-forward to post-marriage sex (marriage sex implicates someone else so out of respect for that relationship I’ll leave that out). I felt like I was starting from scratch. I had to experience my body anew with a different person and it was daunting. I spoke to a friend who shared her log in details for the website OMGYES which helped me with thinking and participating in self-pleasure. Other than my childhood fascination with my vagina, the first time I had touched my vagina was when I was using my moon cup and I had to genuinely feel for the first time what my vagina felt like so I could become comfortable with using the moon cup. Self-pleasure(I hate the word masturbation) wasn’t something I’d thought about even when I started having sex in my 20s because sex was in relation to the male body whom I was having sex with. Watching OMGYES was like being in conversation with regular women who had a vocabulary for pleasure outside the confines of pleasure with men. It was liberating and scary. I thought I was doing something wrong. I decided I had to actively rewire myself and develop a whole new relationship with myself if I was going to have sex after all the narratives I had fell apart during my marriage. This meant developing a f**k it attitude. I had to court territory I’d never courted before and admit that I loved every moment of it. Initially it was my little secret and then I spoke to friends about it and discovered people just like me who enjoyed self-pleasure without any guilt. I finally bought my first sex toy last year when a friend told me Clicks was selling them. I bought a pink bullet and some lube and loved every single moment of the experience.

From Afrosexology: Instagram

My first post-marriage sex experience was with someone I considered a friend. I had a list of things I knew I needed from the experience and being with someone I was familiar with was important. The thought of introducing myself to a stranger and being vulnerable with someone I didn’t know was debilitating. It was while chatting to the friend on the phone that the thought crossed my mind. I told him about the marriage and divorce and the rollercoaster ride of healing and putting myself back together again. He listened and was respectful. I felt safe with him. We met a few weeks later for drinks and spoke about sex. I told him what I’d like. He was taken aback by my proposal of having sex followed by “what do you like” kind of questions. It was a thrilling conversation for me. We met a few weeks later and had sex for the first time and continued for a few months. This experience taught me the importance of feeling empowered and taking a risk. Rejection and insecurity and constant negotiation were a strong part of this relationship. I learned about parts of myself I had never anticipated. I had to learn about catching feelings and realizing that that would not necessarily lead to a relationship. I learned the importance of boundaries. I learned that part of the dangers of sex is about relying on the practice of one moment leading to the next moment without checking in with the other person. I’m still working through this.

From Afrosexology: Instagram

Last year I started a podcast Umoya: On African Spirituality and one of the episodes we had was about the "Metaphycis of Ukujola"; navigating sex, intimacy and spirit. This episode was part of negotiating post-marriage intimacy and sex. I was also working through the harmful messages where sex was a sin and therefore outside of spirit. While the episode was using African spirituality as a starting point, the end point of the conversation was about choices and integrity. The episode was not about right and wrong. It was about learning about love, spirit and sex anew. I no longer believe that sex outside the context of marriage is a sin. I’m still grappling with the sacredness if sex even while it’s a seemingly carnal and physical experience. In the podcast episode we discussed the connections that form through sex. I still believe sex is an energy (and physical) exchange. Something shifts in every sexual experience; for better or for worse.

And then there is the reality that a lot of the sexual experiences are mired in lies and violence. This is part of the reason I’m writing about these experiences: it seems untenable to pretend as though things are okay in our bedrooms. The statistics about intimate partner violence and rape means that there’s evidence that something has gone deeply awry. That even in the context of relationships there’s violence and shame. One of the ways in which I know to break shame is by talking about the silences in the open. Find a friend or therapist to talk about what’s happening in your bedroom. Talk about it honestly. Talk to your lover, partner, person you're having sex with. It’s a healing experience because it demystifies the silences around sex.

I’m still torn about questions of privacy and my sex life. I’ve tried to write this piece as honestly as possible and hopefully it’s the first of many. I started following Afrosexology on Instagram. It’s a platform that centers sex-positive conversations for black and queer people. It’s a liberating online space I find deeply affirming. I’d encourage anyone to find such a space if talking to people in your life is still difficult. I recommend you begin with their most recent offering the Intercourse Project which is described in the image below:

From: https://www.intercourseproject.com/the-challenge

I'd love to write more about negotiating condoms in sex and the conversations I'm having with friends about this. Or the conversations about falling pregnant even while using a condom. One day I might even tell you about the three hour sex experiences I've had with a lover and passing out every time. Maybe I'll even tell you about the conversations I've had with the lover about sex which have contributed to my ability to even share this post. There's so much to talk about when it comes to sex and intimacy.

While this blog has been about my personal journey with sex there’s still so much ground to cover. There’s the conversation about the historical narratives about sex which show the recency of monogamy and how it’s contributed to the unhealthy relationship many people have with sex. There are examples from other parts of the world where pleasure and sex are not taboo so there’s no need to report on the sexual trysts of politicians because that’s not newsworthy. Only in a country where there’s sexual violence and serious repression is sex newsworthy. We need to have a better relationship with sex. When you google the word kunyaza you will discover the approach to sex which is not about male dominance in countries like Rwanda.

Recently I read an essay by Toni Morrison, The Site of Memory. She writes about memory and narrative in her work. One of her paragraphs is about imagination. I’d like to conclude with this paragraph as it feels apt for this post which is an invitation to examine our relationship with sex and intimacy which requires an imagination:

You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. "Floods" is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, that valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory--what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared. And a rush of imagination is our "flooding...Still, like water, I remember where I was before I was straightened out.

I think of this piece as being like a river and talking about something mired in silence and danger like sex in spite of the exhilarating beauty of sex. I am remembering parts of my sexuality before I was straightened out. In fact I am resisting being straightened out with every word I write about experiences which I have been afraid to claim because of fear.

From Afrosexology: Instagram