Some People Go the Extra-Mile to Seek Sexual Satisfaction
Africa News Service, May 24, 1999
By Kelechi Obasi, The News
Lagos—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 people’s 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 one’s 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 Bible’s 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.
In 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 Nigeria’s 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 America’s 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 relationships. 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 (U.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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