Gay Naija

I was food shopping the other day in one of our bigger shopping malls, and as I was milling around the aisles I suddenly became aware that the store speakers was tuned to a local radio station, but what had caught my attention was the conversation taking  place between the 2 hosts of the show.

The genesis of the conversation was that ‘do real men cry’? now according to the female host she was of the belief that a real man can cry, the male host was of the other opinion, now by and large this should have been the end of the conversation, however the female host began speaking about how maybe the more effeminate man in Nigerian society (according to her men who wear pink and have high voices) can show this emotion. This somehow segued into a conversation about homosexuality, and while the female host was trying to claim (with little success) that she’s open minded, the male host gave a rebuttal (dumbest in the world) which was ‘well if you saw 2 men kissing what would you think then’, to which she responded that ‘well they are not men then’.

As you can imagine I was about to go berserk, until I realised that I was in the shopping mall and the psychiatric hospital is not too far away so I calmed down and decided that its time I discussed the issue of Gay Nigeria.

First, in response to the male host and the female host whose brain and spine are obviously in conflict, a few issues of fact:

• .       So long as anatomically they have something between their legs that denotes them male, and they also see themselves as male, nobody has the right to call them otherwise.
• .       So what if 2 men are kissing each other, gay people (male or female) are not particularly interested in a man and woman kissing so what business is it of yours what people choose to do with their mouths, and finally
• .       If the only determinate of a gay man is that he wears pink and is effeminate, I am sorry to say that many married Nigerian men are on the down low! Because most men's laughter in Nigeria tend to aim for high pitched!

Second, as a counsellor, I have had the occasion to meet people of varying sexuality, some who battle it, some who want an explanation for it and other who have been so distressed by it they believe the only solution is suicide. The one thing that I believe now and have always believed is that so long as you are not hurting another person, what you are doing is consensual, the relevant persons are above the age of 18 and mentally fit, what goes on in anybody’s bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, car…….. is nobody’s business.

Third,  it is mind boggling to me the amount of time straight people seem to spend thinking about gay people’s sex life, and even more interesting, is the hypocrisy evident when talking about same sex sexual relationships particularly around men. For many men, the idea of two women having sex is not disturbing but arousing, and usually features in their top 10 ‘spank bank’ fantasies. Add to this the fact that many men at one time or another have requested anal sex from their partners, one does start to wonder if certain people doth protest too much.

Finally, to add insult to injury, the Nigerian government passed into law a few years the homosexuality act (or some other dumb ass named law) that criminalises same sex relationship, and added that anybody who is seen to support it can get up to 10 year in jail, (there’s a chance that this blog might land me there). So its not enough that gay people are alienated, they are also now to be jailed. 

There are many gay people in Nigeria today, who are afraid to air their views, because they fear for their lives. I’m not saying you should befriend a gay person if you don’t like the individual, or even that you should festoon yourself in condoms and have a one person gay pride parade, what I am saying is that the same way gay people are leaving you alone to live your life, leave them alone to live theirs. Don’t judge, because I am certain you have enough sexual issues in your life to worry about, why go and poke your nose in someone else’s sex life!