Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, African feminist writer, blogger, and Director of Communications and Tactics for the Association for Women's Rights in Development, is committed to documenting the lives and experiences of African women. When she co-founded Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women in 2009, she created a safe space for African women to share, explore and learn more about sex and sexuality. Her forthcoming book, The Sex Lives of African Women, features the stories of dozens of women across Africa and the African Diaspora and Nana assures that we have much to learn from them. Here, she shares about her journey to sexual freedom, the young African feminists that make her hopeful, and what she hopes people take away from her book and the stories shared within. 

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve shared that you co-founded Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women (Adventures), for African women to discuss sex and sexuality, openly and without fear of shaming/repression. Who are women, those who you know personally or through literature/film/popular media, that shape and influence your relationship to sex, sexuality, and sex positivity?

A couple of people come to mind who have inspired me, especially when it comes to African women’s sexuality. Sylvia Tamale, as I like her blend of activism and academia and the depth of her research on sexuality. I really appreciated the work of Hakima Abbas and Sokari Ekine, editors of the Queer African Reader. Sokari Ekine’s blog, Black Looks, is incredible. I admire their work because of how it resonates with me politically and think they’ve made important contributions when it comes to African women's sexuality.

Your recent Adventures blog post, “Get the State, Media and Church out of our bedrooms – or wherever else we choose to fuck,” gives an overview of queerphobia from Ghanaian government officials and members of the press. Based on your experiences, what is your analysis of the state of sexual freedom in Ghana and Africa at-large for women, and LGBTQ+ women more specifically?

There is a clear lack of sexual freedom—especially when it comes to legislation. We are still working with colonial era laws and it's really disheartening to hear politicians reinforce those laws and go further to attempt to ban any kind of advocacy for LGBTI rights. During this wave of intensified homophobia, we are seeing the increase in influence of far-right actors in Ghana, people like Foh Amoaning, having free reign because of his connections to politicians. We are also seeing the huge influence of religious institutions on the Ghanaian population. If they're “anti” something, it’s incredibly hard to make cultural change. 

If you can stay underneath the radar, you're okay. But if you try and lift up your head and say, “we are here and we are proud that we are queer” then people are going to come for you. We can't have sexual freedom if we prescribe who can have sex with who, and its ironic because the reality is Ghanaian society is actually a very sexual society. It’s mind boggling to me. In our society, heterosexual men aren’t faithful. They can have a wife, a girlfriend, and a mistress. Everybody can know that and they're not judged in any which way. It’s just that we're very hypocritical. Anything can happen and anybody's down for whatever, including pastors, so-called respectable men of God, but then we like to put on this other face of being super righteous people. 

We live in a contradictory society where people can find their community but they have to be discreet and that's not freedom. If you have sexual freedom, you can be yourself. You don't have to hide aspects of your sexuality. You don't have to fear that there'll be consequences for you if you speak up for your rights. 

Who/what makes you hopeful and what do you think warrants closer societal interrogation and intervention?

We need to be able to work with and educate people on sex and sexuality. There was a space to do that last year when the government itself wanted to implement compulsory, comprehensive sexuality education, which we still desperately need. And it was a huge brouhaha and it was quietly shelfed because the religious mafia said educating children about sexuality was “a gateway to homosexuality” that would corrupt our children. Meanwhile, nobody issues statements condemning young girls being sexually assaulted and molested, but somehow we don't want children to learn about sex and sexuality and we for sure do not want a queer group to have a community space.

The young feminists make me very hopeful, you know, the young activists in Ghana and across Africa. I've attended many conferences and festivals in different parts of the continent and often have young feminists come and speak to me about how much Adventures means to them. I think their political clarity and activism is inspiring. I also really admire groups like Drama Queens and the Young Feminist Collective. Even with little resources, sometimes no resources, they're really doing important work. 

You’ve shared that “pleasurable sex is about knowing yourself, it is about allowing yourself to explore your sexuality, it is about recognising that sexuality is on a spectrum, that many of us are fluid (or not), that we as individuals have an inherent right to choose how we identify, that we get to say who we are—that we are women, that we are queer, that we are here, and we are not going anywhere.” (Adventures, 2021). How did you arrive here and has Adventures been an attempt to get more women in Africa and the diaspora to this same understanding of sexuality?

In terms of how I got where I am now, I’ve consciously been taking myself on a journey. Many people don’t know this but I was married at a very young age. I got married at 25 and by the age of 27, the marriage was over. I felt like I wanted to sleep with other people and I just thought, “Oh my God, is this the only person I'm going to sleep with until I'm 80?” And the answer for me was no. 

So when my marriage ended, I was like, “this is my chance to hoe around!” and I stepped out to live my best hoe life! I think that's how I got to where I am now, because I was learning by doing, by allowing myself to experiment, by being deliberate in my choice to have sex with whoever I wanted to have sex with. And part of what I was doing was writing about those sexual experiences, because writing helps me question and process, you know? I allowed myself the space to figure myself out and encouraged and pushed myself to do what I felt like I really wanted to do within me, as opposed to what the outside world tells me that I need to do.

You are among a cohort of African feminists who transformed digital space for both intimacy among and activism led by African women. The news of your upcoming book The Sex Lives of African Women’s publication has been greeted with anticipation among African/African Diaspora women. What have you enjoyed most about the journey from blog to book?

So the blog doesn't have a direct connection to the book. How did I go from writing my own short-form essays about my sexual experiences, and encouraging other women to do the same, to this non-fiction project? The connection, for me, I wanted to hear. I wanted to go deeper. And I knew there were more stories. Sometimes, somebody would tell me something casually and I'd say, “Do you want to write about that? Do you want to blog about that? Can you write about that for Adventures?” I’ve always been encouraging women to write ever since the blog started 11 years ago. Writing about sex is a way to think through whatever you've done or not done. Sometimes people say, “Oh, I have nothing to share. I haven't had sex” and I respond “That's interesting. Why haven't you had sex?” Sex is not about literally having sex. It's also about sometimes choosing not to have sex. 

I was also thinking about some of the books I had read about sex and women, and none of them were about African women. And I wanted to speak to African women about sex. I knew that we had interesting stories to tell. 

          What can readers (old and new) expect from your book and the women you interview? 

The book has three themes: sexual freedom, being on a journey, and healing. There were many, many women who I feel provide models of how to live your best sex life, in terms of how to explore, how to feel confident in your body, how to own your sexuality. And it wasn't surprising that the majority of these women were queer or polyamorous—people who were living outside of societal boxes. And then there were also many women who felt like they were on a journey, sometimes literal journeys from one country to another to find love. The concluding section focuses on healing because unfortunately in this extremely fucked up world we live in, so many women have experienced sexual trauma and abuse and to get to sexual freedom, healing is essential.

This book has lessons from women in whatever phase of life that they find themselves. I personally found a lot of inspiration from the older women who I felt were living their best sexual lives. It was inspiring to read about woman who were in their seventies who were in love and were having great sex lives because we never talk about older women's sexuality. Society treats older women as undesirable. And it was actually really nice to know that there are older women who know themselves, their bodies, and have great sex lives. 

How has your relationship to your sexuality evolved throughout the research and writing process?

I feel like my sexuality is constantly evolving, even now, and I feel like that’s a good and healthy thing and that will continue to be the case. I don't want my sexuaility to be static. Writing The Sex Lives of African Women’ has been a part of that evolution.

Speaking to these women was really inspiring. Whether it's someone exploring polyamory or an older woman speaking about how the act of nurturing and literally feeding each other is a sexual act, and foreplay. Some of the practices women told me about may not have resonated with me, I might not be inspired to do them. It’s not for me and that's okay. That’s important, you know? To learn, to experience, to determine what is and isn’t for you. 

What do you hope African women/women of the African Diaspora readers take away from your book? What does it reveal about womanhood and sexuality across the continent, and the Diaspora?

I hope this book inspires people to find freedom for themselves, whatever that means. I hope it encourages people to break out of boxes that we are all in, in one way, shape, or form. I hope it allows people to be gentle with themselves, to give themselves permission, to play and to experiment—even if it's in their mind. I hope it encourages people to question, to try something new, to show themselves some love, to get out of bad relationships, to start new relationships, to break up with people. I think breakups are really healthy and I'm a big advocate for people not staying together if they're not happy. I hope it encourages people to travel, to find love, to travel to find love within themselves. I hope this book inspires people to seek healing for trauma that they may have experienced.