Sex Lives of African Women and Raising a Body-Positive Daughter with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah | Transcript
Find the episode shownotes here!
CW: mentions of miscarriage and FGM
Hannah Witton
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Doing It, the sex and relationships podcast where sex has never been so nerdy, with me, your host, Hannah Witton.
This week I'm joined by the magnificent Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah. Nana is the author of The Sex Lives of African Women, a brilliant anthology of stories from a diverse collection of African women exploring sexuality. Nana is also the co-founder of Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, a website, podcast, and festival that publishes and creates content that tells stories of African women's experiences around sex, sexuality, and pleasure. Nana is also a communication strategist with a deep understanding of digital technologies for feminist activism, and is widely recognised as a key African feminist working at the intersections of gender, sexualities, and technologies. She is also a mother and lives with her daughter in Accra, Ghana.
I was super keen to have Nana on the podcast to speak all about her book and the breadth of sexual identities and experiences across Africa, and how her book is challenging narrow stereotypes of African women. Nana and I had a brilliant chat all about the big mix of sexual experiences of the people she featured in the book and why she wanted to put these stories about African women and sex out into the world. She spoke about how African women often feel pigeonholed into conversations around FGM rather than representing female sexual pleasure, and how the book also offers new perspectives on polygamy, and challenges perceptions of the sex lives of women who have HIV or women who have experienced FGM. Nana spoke about her own journey with sexuality and pleasure as a queer woman, and how working in sex positivity interacts with your personal life. She also talked all about raising a body positive daughter, and we chatted about Nana's experience of solo parenting and the importance of communal parenting when you are a single parent. I loved this conversation with Nana as she truly exudes sex positivity from the representation of African women's sexuality all the way to sex positive parenting.
Please note that we mention miscarriage and FGM in this episode, so please take care of yourself before listening.
And as usual, you can find more info and links to everything that we talked about in this episode in the shownotes over at doingitpodcast.co.uk. And please let us know what you think over on our Instagram, which is @doingitpodcast. And if you liked this episode, please give us a rating and review over on iTunes and Spotify. It is really, really appreciated. And without further ado, here's my chat with Nana Darkoa.
Hello, Nana, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you and get into all of the brilliant and exciting work that you do.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Thank you so much, Hannah! I'm super excited to be here too.
Hannah Witton
Yeah! So I guess first of all, you wrote this book, Sex Lives of African Women. What made you want to research and write this book? And how did it come about?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yes. Well, I've been blogging about sex for, gosh, it feels like a long time now -about 12 years.
Hannah Witton
Oh my god!
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
You know? Exactly. Yeah -
Hannah Witton
I've been doing it for 11 years. So look at us! Amazing.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly. Look at that. Yes. So I started a blog in 2009 called Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women with my best friend, Malaka. And on the blog, we will share our own experiences of sex and sexualities. But over time, we started to encourage other women to also share their own stories. And I just felt at some point in time, like, with all these incredible, fascinating, interesting, fun, freaky stories we had on the blog but I never felt like I saw those same stories out in the world when it came to the portrayal of African women and sex. And I just thought, actually, what I'm going to do is interview as many African women and Black and Afro descendants women as possible and put their stories in the book. So that's how the Sex Lives of African Women came into being.
Hannah Witton
Nice. So what were the stories that you were seeing out there that you wanted to kind of create an, you know, a different view from? Like, what was - what were you seeing?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I think I was seeing, like the whole mix, right? People, you know, writing about threesomes they've had or fantasies they had or people who are really young and had never had sex before and had all of these questions. And I was seeing how people were grappling with, you know, their spirituality and sex or seeing sex almost as a spiritual act, right? So as I felt like in the mainstream, whenever the question of African women's sexuality came up, it was about you know, FGM or periods or - I just felt very, very limited, almost like we weren't allowed to the full spectrum of our sexuality, right? And we were seen more from a development lens or from a lens of chronic illness. And so I just wanted that full spectrum to be out there a whole lot more.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And was it - like, what was the experience of getting that published? And like, because you were, like offering this like more sex positive, or at least like varied, like, a diverse narrative of African women's sexuality compared to kind of, like you were saying, that more mainstream narrative that we get, was there any pushback from that? Or has the response been largely positive?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I think what was also interesting was when my agent, Robert Caskie, was selling the - sending my proposal around, you know, and a lot of publishers were like, "Oh, this is really interesting. We think this absolutely needs to be out there in the world. But we're not sure it's for us." You know? And to be honest, I'm not surprised that in the UK, we ended up being published by Dialogue Box, run by an incredible Black woman publisher, Sharmaine Lovegrove, right? I almost felt like this was a book that needed somebody who just gets it, as opposed to people who were like, "Oh, yes, this is a book that needs to be out there in the world. But I'm not sure if I can publish it."
Hannah Witton
Yeah. "Not with, you know, our logo and name on it."
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly! But what's been interesting is I've also seen, like, times change, right? And I've seen, more recently, other Black writers get really great book deals for writing about sex, which I am happy about.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And I think also, like, in the UK, I've definitely seen a lot more publishers in like the fiction world as well like publishing African authors as well. Which is really cool. You mentioned your friend who you started the blog with. Is that the same person who you do the podcast now with as well?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yes, yes. Yes.
Hannah Witton
Okay, can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I loved in your Instagram bio, it's like, what it's about and then "and random naughtiness." Because sometimes, sometimes I feel like in the sexuality space, we're often quite serious. And like, you know, it is a serious topic. But the random naughtiness element just like made me chuckle because I was like, oh, yeah, like, we should be playful and joyful about this as well.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Absolutely. And I feel like that's what sex should be, right? Sex should be fun, it should be random, it should be naughty, it should be teasing, you know? But yeah, Malaka and I became friends when we were 16. We're now both 44. So it's been really incredible to have been on this journey together for a really long time, and in a sense to be taking, you know, our platform into, like, different spaces. We're so enjoying doing the podcast, because I think there's something - and you know, this because you've been podcasting for a long time - but there's something very special about having a conversation with someone, especially a conversation about a topic that's as intimate as sex, right?
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
It's just, it's just really different. And we feel like we're learning a lot. And we also feel like we're being challenged along the way. So we recently did an episode on kink and both Malaka and I were like, we're like, we feel like we're kind of fairly vanilla. And we're like challenging ourselves to try new things before we do season two of the podcast. But it's been so much fun. And I think for me, this is the thing that writing about sex is always done for me. It's also a way of me holding myself accountable. Me pushing myself outside of what I was told growing up, outside of almost like boundaries that were set for me by society, right? And having conversations with people about sex as a way to learn and also unlearn.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, 100% Do you feel like - because sometimes I feel this way, where like, my work is impacting my personal life and then also, like, my personal life impacting my work and it being like this dialogue between the two?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Absolutely. And I feel like that's how it has to be, right? You can't do this work - it's not it's not work that's done out there. It's work that's primarily being done in here within you, right? I mean, when I started blogging, I could literally have sex with someone today and blog about it tomorrow. Because the blog was the way I would process, it was the way I would think through what happened and say, "Okay, this was actually really good. And maybe this was not so good. And next time, I want to challenge myself to say, 'No, I'm actually not enjoying this, can you stop or can you try something differently?'"
Hannah Witton
And just being able to process it all.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Absolutely. This work is deeply - this work is deeply personal. This work is deeply personal.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. So the book is called Sex Lives of African Women. And I'm curious, like, we talk about sex lives and like having a sex life. But what does that actually mean? Like, how would you define what a sex life is?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
It is a great question. And I don't think it's a question that anybody's asked me. But funny enough, my dad, who passed like, a year and a half ago, he actually used to ask me from time to time, "How's your sex life?" Right?
Hannah Witton
I love it.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
And that question used to make me laugh and it also makes me - used to make me feel a bit embarrassed, right? But then, you know, I feel like the question of "what's the sex life" is "what's going on in your intimate life," right? "What's going on in your body?" There's something about the sex life that's very - it is deeply personal. It really is about what's going on in your body, what's going on in terms of your relationship to your body, and how you and your body are relating to other people, right? And it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be having sex. But I think it's really about being in touch, you know? And I think, especially in this world, it's very easy for us to be disconnected from our bodies.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
And I think, you know, having a sex life means being connected to your body. It means touching yourself, it means feeling joy in your body, it means feeling pleasure in your body. It means being aware when you're off balance, you know, and maybe being proactive to do something about it.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And one of the things that comes to mind for me as well about like having a sex life is like thinking about sex, and talking about sex, and all of that just kind of like being a part of it. Because the actual, like, having sex part doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Absolutely.
Hannah Witton
It happens with all of, like, these conversations that you've had, all of the beliefs and the values that you hold about it as well.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yeah, I think there's a lot of intention in terms of having a sex life, because depending upon what's going on, I think it's very easy to forget about that part of yourself, right? To forget about being a sexual being. I became a mother at the start of the pandemic. And I became a single mother at the start of the pandemic, you know, like, I had just started seeing, you know, an infant with me, when I became a mother, I adopted my daughter. And, you know, I mean, we were in a pandemic, you're not going anywhere, I had never looked after a child before. And it took me like, a while to be like, "Okay, I need to find myself, I need to find my - I need to get in touch with my body, I need to have a sex life again." You know. "It's time for me to move my daughter into her own room, so that my room can be a place where, you know, sex happens, as opposed to a place where my daughter and I sleep." So I think there's definitely a lot of intention one has to take to have a sex life. I feel like even in long term relationships, right, it's very easy for a long term relationship to become sexless. And I think in this busy world, we do need to make time for sex and intimacy and pleasure in our bodies.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. I wanted to ask you about being a single mother as well, and how that like, interacts with your sexuality. I'm, I'm with my partner, and we actually just recently became parents.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Congratulations!
Hannah Witton
Thank you. So yeah, I'm curious, like, how does being a mother, like, interact with your sexuality, like now that your daughter is in her own room? Like, what have you been able to do to, like, get in touch with that side of yourself?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
It's so interesting, because one of my best friends was saying to me, like, "Oh, it was like, your sexual feng shui came back on when you moved your daughter into her own room." And it was only when he pointed it out and I was like, "Oh, yes, you're right." You know? But I think again, it's also, like, mum guilt is the worst, right? It's also like saying, "Actually, it's okay for me to go out. It's okay for me to have a drink. It's okay for me to have somebody come around. Even if I have to say, I need you to leave before my daughter wakes up in the morning." Right? Like, all of that is okay. It's okay for me to get my physical needs met as well. To make space and time to do that and not feel like I have to be, you know, going from work to full time motherhood and back to work with no time for the pleasures of the flesh. That too is important.
Hannah Witton
How old is your daughter now?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
She's about two and a half years old.
Hannah Witton
Okay, so, yeah, how are you introducing conversations with her about, like, consent and boundaries and her body? Is that something that you've started doing?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yes. And I feel like she's the one sitting there peace, right? Kids do that. Like she says to me all of the time recently, and I don't know where this is coming from, "Mummy, your breasts are nice."
Hannah Witton
I love that!
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Because she just loves to like hold my breast and squeeze it and then she's like, "Mummy, your breasts are nice." You know?
Hannah Witton
Aw.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
And then obviously we like we're naked around each other quite a bit. Like when I'm bathing her, she's like pointing to different parts of her body naming them: my tummy, my elbow, my knee, you know, and I think that's what it starts from really getting them comfortable with their body. I'm also potty training her so half the time she's running around with no underwear, you know, and I'm being very deliberate about not saying to her some of the stuff that was said to me as a young girl, like, "close your legs," and I mean, it's just the two of us in the house. Right? So I just want her to feel comfortable with her body and and just to be, yeah, at home in her body, which I think a lot of adult women are not. So that's, that's what I want for her. And I feel like that's where it starts, right? And, you know, my intention is to allow her to lead me but also to be proactive in teaching her about sex and sexuality. Like, one of the things that I really want to do even more consciously is read books to her which show a diversity of families, right? Because we live in a society that makes it seem like the only valid form of family structure is having a mum and a dad. And she doesn't have a dad, you know? That was one time when she said to me "I want daddy" and I was like, "I am both mommy and daddy." You know? So it's those kinds of things. I just plan to deal with as as they come up.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And yeah, all sorts of different family structures. And speaking of, like, diversity and experiences and stuff, back to the book: how was it approaching basically the biggest continent on Earth, and all of those different cultures, religions, languages, politics, people? And like, how did you go about trying to, like, represent that as best as possible in the stories that you chose to tell in it?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
So when I first had the idea for the book, I have this rather way, like, unrealistic goal of interviewing a woman from every African country. You know, so not realistic, there are 54 plus countries on the continent. Sometimes some countries break apart and become two countries: Sudan in case. You know, it didn't take long for me to realise that was idealistic, but I just wanted to go for as much breadth as possible. And pre pandemic, I used to travel quite a lot for my job. So anytime I went somewhere new, I would just try and find somebody to interview.
And for the longest time, I'm almost ashamed to mention it, but I didn't realise how many vibrant, you know, Afro descendant communities were in places in Latin America, places like Costa Rica, Honduras. And so for me, it was also really important to, in a sense, claim Afro descendants as Africans, because that's who they are at the root, you know, and also include perspectives of people from the Caribbean, from the UK, from the US, from Canada, you know, as well as continental Africans from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, São Tomé, you know, in a book called the Sex lives of African Women. So of course, it doesn't cover everything, right? I had limitations. I mean, English is the language I feel most comfortable speaking. You know, there's so many languages on the continent, right, apart from the continental specific languages, even in terms of the colonial languages, there's Portuguese, there's Arabic. You know, I can get by in French but not enough to interview anybody in. I definitely don't speak any Portuguese. So when I interviewed somebody in São Tomé, which is a former Portuguese colony, I had a translator for that. I didn't interview anybody in Arabic, in Amharic, in Swahili. So there are those kinds of limitations for sure.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. When you were putting together these interviews and writing the book, was your target audience other African women? Or like, or when it comes to non African and non Black identifying women who read the book, what is it that you hope that they would get out of it?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
You know, the thing I really strongly believe is when you write something, or do anything, even if it's for a very, very specific audience, other people will always be able to find connections to the story. You know? So I wrote this book for African women, because I felt like we don't ever really see our own stories, you know, represented. And at the same time, you know, I know it's a story that will connect with women from all over the world. Because we also have a lot of commonalities, even though we have a lot of differences, right? We definitely have way more in common than we have that divides us. I remember one of my very first interviews was with a journalist from Singapore. And she was saying how she really identified with my story, because I was writing about the experience I had in a Catholic boarding school and she went to a Catholic boarding school. You know, people who have gone to Catholic boarding schools around the world will probably identify with that story. So yes, I mean, I feel like women wherever they are, will definitely find something to connect with in the book, whether they're African or not.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I love that because it kind of shows that, like the specificity of it, but then also the universal - the universality. Is that a word?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yeah, it is a word!
Hannah Witton
It is a word! There we go. Like, my brain. Gonna blame it on baby brain. So you identify as queer, and I was wondering how you came into your own identity as a as a queer Ghanaian woman, and what was that experience like for you?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I feel like I'm a little bit old fashioned because I tend to identify as bisexual.
Hannah Witton
Okay.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I think it's because of when I started to come into my own sexuality, which was when I was 19. Actually, when 'dI just started university in the UK. And I started reading books by people like bell hooks.
Hannah Witton
Oh, yeah.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
And then I was reflecting on my own sexual experiences to date. And I was like, "Well, my first sexual experiences were with girls. Like, why did I think I was a virgin when I'd have sex with girls and I hadn't had sex with boys?"
Hannah Witton
Is this also at the Catholic school by any chance?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yes! All the freaky things happen in Catholic schools, right. And so I started to think about my own sexuality. And I was like, "I'm not just attracted to men, I'm also attracted to women," you know? So later on, I'm like, I am going to be more intentional and deliberate about like seeking sexual relationships with women as well as men. But yes, queer is the more expansive identity, but I still feel this fondness for for the word bisexual.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. I mean, you can choose as many labels as you want really?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Absolutely.
Hannah Witton
Um, what do you think are like some of the myths and misconceptions that exist around like African women and sexuality?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
It feels like there are usually, like, extremes, right? When it comes to African women, people from the continent, I think sometimes people, you know, do not see us as women with a lot of agency in our lives. You know, women who are able to make choices, or people may not understand the choices some women may make. So my very - my book actually opens up with a story of a Kenyan woman who chose to move to Senegal, to become the third wife of a Senegalese man, right? And she, at least in the story, has a lot of agency and she has a lot of freedom. She has her own apartment, she has domestic staff, she sees her husband, you know, once a week when it's her turn to, in a sense, host him and the family, and she has all of the rest of the time for her creativity. You know? Whereas I feel like, in general, in the West, polygamy is portrayed as this - as this like repressive regime. And of course, it can be. But so can monogamy, right?
Hannah Witton
Yes!
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
And I don't feel I don't feel like we should reify one relationship structure over another. Or, you know, when it comes to sexuality of African woman, sometimes women with chronic illnesses, like HIV or AIDS are portrayed as not really having a life. Nobody really portrays them as having full lives, as able to, you know, have families, have children, you know, still have an enjoyable sex life. Or women who've experienced FGM, for instance, and are portrayed as women who are still able to access pleasure and joy in their bodies. And for me, that's part of telling the fuller story when it comes to African women and sex.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What kind of like - what's happened in recent years, do you think, that's been like, the best thing or like a positive thing for African women's sexuality? But then also kind of like looking to the future, like, where do you want to see it going?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I think probably like lots of people around the world, the fact that there are more digital communities where people are able to share sex positive content, where people are able to access, you know, sex positive information. I think that's definitely, you know, contributed to a huge shift. You know, more LGBTQI communities online and offline, you know. Where I'd like to see a shift is the decriminalisation of same sex relationships. A lot of the criminalization actually stems from the colonial era and, you know, we're never taken off the books, and with sort of like the increase of religious fundamentalism is being sort of reinforced and even more harmful ways, I'd like to see people go back to more openness and recognition of more openness and fluidity of gender identities and roles, which you saw a lot more in like precolonial Africa. And, yeah, I also just want people to have the space to be - to live their lives as who they are, you know, without any pressure to conform to like a binary relationship.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And kind of on that, how did you decide to become a mother? And that process of adopting your daughter? And is there like a taboo or a stigma, like, around that? Because I feel like, you know, making that decision, like on your own, even, I think in the UK as well, there'd be like, some raised eyebrows of like, oh, okay, you know.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yeah, you know, for me, I've always felt like adoption makes sense. And for me, personally, I was never really convinced I wanted to be a biological mother. I just felt like, okay, if I'm going to be a mother, like, there's so many children out in the world already, you know, I don't need to make my own. I can, you know, provide a loving home and, you know, experience motherhood by giving a child who needs a home a home. So that was something I always wanted to do. For many, many years, I felt unsure what I wanted a child of my own or not, you know, and there was a time when I unintentionally fell pregnant. And then I had a miscarriage. And that was like, earth shattering. And there was also a time when I was in a relationship, and my partner really wanted us to have biological children. And so the agreement we made was, we'll have one biological child, and then we could adopt another, which was what I wanted, you know, and so we were actually doing IVF. And then, the first round was unsuccessful, anybody who's done IVF knows you need multiple rounds. But by the end of that first round, I was just like, "Why am I doing this? Why am I like injecting myself with hormones when I'm not even sure that I feel like this process of carrying a child and literally passing a child through my vagina is what is going to make me a mother," you know? I somehow had this eureka moment and so I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm going along with something that's not even what I want for myself. I'm trying to do this for my partner. This makes no sense."
Hannah Witton
It's such a huge thing to do for somebody else, as well.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly, you know. So I was just like, "You know what, actually, I don't even want to be in this relationship anymore. Let's break up."
Hannah Witton
Having all of the epiphanies.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I had all of the epiphanies. And then, you know, a few months later, I put in the application for adoption. And, yes -
Hannah Witton
Oh wow. You move fast.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yeah, I move first that I definitely do. But I also have to say, people have told me "Oh, it'll take like two years to get a baby." And that was not my experience. It actually all happened really, really quickly. And there is yes, stigma, especially in Ghana, and probably like other parts of the continent around - like motherhood is reified, right, to be a mother is that they expected to do. But there's so much pressure on people to become mothers, but those people are still not accepting of like, broadly, people adopting, you know, so people might adopt and keep it a secret. And I didn't want to do anything like that. I wanted to be really open about the process. Because again, for me, it's really about emphasising to my daughter that there are many legitimate ways to be a mother and many legitimate ways to create families. And, you know, the thing you should not do, in my opinion, is to keep it a secret. Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Have you felt any of that stigma yourself? Or have you managed to, like, surround yourself with enough kind of like accepting and positive circles that you've not really experienced that.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I'm so lucky. And I think it's the great thing about being a feminist, right? You have like community of people who have similar values, who are really open. So you know, my best friend is a guy, and he's also a single dad. And, for example, right now, my nanny is on leave, and he and his kid have moved in so we can support one another.
Hannah Witton
Oh, I love that.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yeah. I'm also trying to be really deliberate around surrounding myself with community and where that community doesn't exist, co-creating that with like minded people. And I think that makes all the difference in the world.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, this is something that I've been thinking about quite a bit like since me and my partner had our baby as well of like, society is really set up for these, like, nuclear family units. But it's lacking that kind of like external support, because like we don't live near our families. And so when we do need support - like we recently our kid just - "our kid," he's not a kid, he's a baby. He just started in childcare. And we had to put down emergency contact numbers. And we were like, "Well, we can't use our parents like his grandparents because they live too far away." And we were just thinking, like, which of our friends do we trust to that level? Do you know? And actually was thinking like, oh, you know, thinking of our community and our friends, in a completely different way of like, "Okay, these are our local family." But it's really, yeah, it's, that was kind of like a bit of a weird eye opening experience of like, "Oh, this, this should be more common, of like, the community that's not just like, the nuclear family unit."
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
And I think kids need that, right? Like, they need like a whole lot of people. Plus, there's so much work, like if you have to deal with it all on your own, oh my god, you're going to go crazy.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, definitely. We've had a few questions from people on Instagram, who would love some wisdom from you. Somebody asked: do you have any advice for women of colour in general for feeling beautiful? I compare myself to white women.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I mean it's heartbreaking to hear that. And I also understand that people may feel like that if they live in like a white dominated society. And for me, this is where social media can be really helpful, right? Because I really strongly believe that we have to curate our social media. And so I would recommend this person that if they, I mean, they posted this on Instagram so clearly they're on Instagram - is to be really intentional about the people that they follow. To follow Black women and Black people from different countries, of different body sizes, you know, to affirm to them that Black is beautiful. Like I have done this with plus size models, plus size stylists, plus size fashionistas, because I feel like I've had body image issues from when I was a teenager, right? And seeing fat people wear crop tops and look good makes me think, "Oh, I can look good in the crop top. Maybe I just need to make my skirt fit this particular way." Right? Yeah. And this really made a difference. It sounds really, really trivial. But this is why representation is important. Because if we don't see ourselves reflected around as, it's easy for us to feel we're not beautiful. So I would just say be very intentional, be very deliberate about curating your social media, and, you know, full of more Black people, more people of colour, from different backgrounds. Yeah. That is my tip for you.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Because we often like what we find beautiful is familiarity, like you said -
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly.
Hannah Witton
- of like, what we are in proximity to, what's around us. And it's not objective at all.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
No, no.
Hannah Witton
Like beauty is so subjective. It's really political. It's cultural. That's really good advice. So someone else asked - I mean, you kind of talked about this part of kind of like how this impacts African sexuality - someone said: in what ways was the sex life of African women influenced by white supremacy and colonialism? Big question!
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yes, I feel like African sexuality has definitely been influenced by colonialism and white supremacy. I spoke to the fact briefly that, you know, actually, the criminalization of homosexuality came about through colonial era laws, but also beyond that, in a lot of African societies, Ghana, specifically - I always cite Ghana as an example because I like to speak concretely from my own, like, context. You know, polygamy has been a way of life for so long. And during the colonial era, you know, we were told, "No, like, polygamy is wrong, you should only marry one woman." But that didn't change the fact is what would happen, and still happens to this day, is people will then marry one wife and then it's almost like have like girlfriends and mistresses on the side. You know, so they don't have the protection that polygamy gave them where their marriages were socially recognised and socially sanctioned and the man had particular responsibilities, right?
Hannah Witton
Oh, I see. Yeah. Only the legal wife has that.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly. Exactly.
Hannah Witton
So what happens when the man dies and how do his assets get split up? Into which families?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Sometimes when the man dies is when all sorts of children pop up because nobody knew about these other children. And back in the day, it wouldn't have been a shame for him to have these other children. They would have all been part of the extended family structure. Right? As opposed to, you know, people on the side. Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that again, it's like, so much of what we think or what some people might think is like 'natural' part of relationships is just like, these made up structures -
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly.
Hannah Witton
- like these made up things like marriage, where it's just like, there's nothing natural about it. It's just a legal piece of paper. And we created that. And then, you know, spread it to other parts of the world, where it's like, "That's not how we do things." But then it creates, and it destroys other, like you said, social structures and recognised social dynamics.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Exactly.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, once again, I'm like saying all this whilst also very much being married and in a nuclear. But I might, I will question it all.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
I completely- I've been married before. I'm married and divorced. So yeah, yeah.
Hannah Witton
Is there a stigma around divorce in Ghana?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Oh, there is. People don't get divorced. They stay married forever. They may be unhappy but they stay married forever. Yes.
Hannah Witton
Wow. Yeah.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
So I do all of the things that are stigmatised. And I do them proudly!
Hannah Witton
Good. I respect that. I very much respect that. Um, yeah, well, thank you so much. Nana. This has been such a - such a lovely chat. And I can't wait to like dive into more of your work and like read all of the different stories. Where can people find you online? Where can people find your book, your podcast? Please let us know all the details.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
So my book, the Sex Lives of African Women, is available in all of the UK bookstores and really all around the world, in the USA. It's available in audiobook format. It will soon be translated into Italian, which I am also super excited about. Yes. And also my podcast, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women is available via all the podcast streaming platforms. On Twitter I'm @nas009. So N A S 009. On Instagram I'm @dfordarkoa so D F O R D A R K O A.
Hannah Witton
Amazing. And actually, I thought of one more question to send us off because you mentioned that you started - you mentioned that you're 44 now and you mentioned about knowing your best friend since you were 16, who you do a lot of the podcast and that you did the blog with. What would you like to say to your 16 year old self now in terms of like sex, sexuality, relationships?
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Yeah, I think I would like to say to my 16 year old self, you don't need to be this goody two shoes. You know? Just be you. Just take time to explore your body. Just have fun and just be safe. Just be healthy. And just love you.
Hannah Witton
Oh, I love that. I feel like that's something that we can all take away now at any age. Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you all so much for listening. Goodbye.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Thank you!