The Sex Lives of African Women is a book everyone needs to read. Comprising over 30 confessionals from a diverse range of women across the continent and its global diaspora, it is an intersectional exploration of relationships, sexuality and love that is at once honest, brave, liberating and deeply moving. This brilliant work is the result of five years research by feminist activist and author Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, and stems from her award-winning blog, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women.

“I started out writing about my own experiences on the blog in 2009, and three years into it, I went to a residency in Nigeria by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was after that workshop that I began to think of myself as a writer,” says Sekyiamah, who also works as the director for communication at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development in Accra. “When I began the interviews for the book, most of the people had heard about the blog. This made it easier for them to open up to me because I had already put my own business out there and made myself vulnerable.”

She initially intended for it to be a celebration of true sexual freedom but the scope swiftly widened to encompass more complex and nuanced experiences from those still on a journey of self-discovery and those seeking healing having survived trauma. “I wanted to find stories of women who were living their best sex life, you know. The women who had found the magic sauce! But after a couple of interviews, I realised how many people’s earliest sexual memories are bound up in child sex abuse. So, I felt it was a responsibility to show other sides of the story too. What you can learn from those stories is that in spite of these beginnings, they have gone on to define their own sexuality and independence. I hope the book leaves readers in a self-reflective mood, understanding themselves a whole lot better.”

With nothing taboo, the book spans everything from polyamory to polygamy, swinging to celibacy, BDSM to divorce. Along the way, Sekyiamah (whose own chapter charts abuse, miscarriage, emotional growth and bisexual relationships) also learnt and grew. “When I interviewed Waris, who had experienced FGM, she was telling me about her pleasurable sexual experiences. In my head, I was thinking, ‘How is that possible?’ and then I remembered that the clitoris expands throughout the body. So yes, that was an important reminder,” she recalls. “Another thing I had to check myself on is being ableist. Elizabeth talks about dating while using a wheelchair, which made me ask why I haven’t tried to date somebody who has a visible disability. How do we decide who is a legitimate partner or not?”

Ultimately of course, sex and relationships speak to much more than the bedroom. They are a reflection of religious, social and state constructs and wound up with how so many women confront patriarchy, racism and religious conservatism every day in their quest for personal fulfilment. This is what Sekyiamah calls “the politics of pleasure” and is a topic she will no doubt address at her upcoming talk at Africa Writes 2021, London’s literary festival by the Royal Africa Society.

“For me it’s important to recognise the fact that it’s political to talk about sexual pleasure. Sex between heterosexual couples is centred on the men’s pleasure, so the minute you centre the women’s pleasure it becomes political. It also speaks to the fact that sexuality is legislated in a lot of countries. In Ghana right now there is an anti-LGBTQI bill that a committee is considering to be put to a parliamentary vote. There is a larger politic at play when it comes to women and to those who are from minority and LGBTQI backgrounds as well.”

Having recently become a mother to a baby daughter, I ask what Sekyiamah hopes for her future? “I hope that by the time she’s an adult, more people and countries recognise that everyone has the right to love who they want to love, that different relationship structures are valid and people can live lives that are free and true to themselves.”

Here is an extract from the chapter, Miss Deviant. She is a 52-year-old Black lesbian living in the UK who recalls experiences of working in the sex industry, being part of the BDSM subculture and ending up falling in love with a younger woman.

I spent the whole of my twenties being fucked as opposed to me fucking whom I wanted to fuck. In my thirties it became really important to me to lead my sex life. I would say to guys, ‘If you let me take control you will have the best sex of your life,’ but I still wasn’t managing to do this successfully. I was still passive during sex. I started to take a bit more control with husband number three who was more open-minded. . . he liked anal sex, and having his bottom played with, but he was also dominant, and liked to tie me up.

At work I had a close male friend, every Friday we would go to his for drinks. We called it ‘washing off the week’. One night we were very drunk and he told me that he was a submissive, and a masochist. I remember thinking, There is no way in hell that is for me. He said, ‘If you are not submissive and you’re not a masochist what do you think you might be into?’ I could literally feel a light bulb switch on. I got a really weird yummy feeling in my stomach. It was the same feeling I had had when I was seven or eight. I was a tomboy, and brought up in a very middle-class family surrounded by lots of books. The boys in particular had war books. I remember reading one of my brother’s books and there was a passage where someone had a flannel over his face, and water was being poured over the flannel so he had a sensation of being drowned. I remember reading that passage over and over again and it gave me that same tingly feeling in my stomach. I now know that was waterboarding.

Still, it took me until my thirties to discover BDSM. My submissive and I started to get emotionally tied to each other. I considered leaving my husband, and then pulled myself together. He was hurt for a while, our friendship came to a halt temporarily, but now we’re good friends again and often speak fondly of our summer of love. I drifted back into my marriage but felt unfulfilled. We had been together for ten years, and married for two. For the first time in my life I was settled and had lived in one place for twelve years; I had never experienced that before. As a child, I had been in care and moved around a lot. I started to feel trapped in the marriage. I was also doing drugs quite heavily by then; that was the catalyst that brought the marriage to an end.

In my forties there was a change of government, the Conservatives came into power, and there was a cut in social workers. I was applying for jobs and not getting any. I didn’t believe in signing on for welfare, so I wondered what to do next. Should I try escorting? I was discussing this with my friend with whom I had the summer of love and he said, ‘Why don’t you become a professional dominatrix?’ I started to research on the internet, I advertised on dating sites as Ms Bossy Boots, I made it clear in my profile that I was expecting remuneration and that I would boss men around. A guy messaged me and told me I was on the wrong website. He suggested I try ‘Informed Consent’, and so I did, and there lay before me the whole BDSM community. I was in awe that there was community, and the range of that community. In BDSM there are no bounds, ‘It is just your consent that stops you from doing whatever you want to do.’ There was a group for pro dommes, I went on that page and said, ‘I want to be a pro domme, is there anyone who can talk to me?’ They were so scathing. Two people sent me good responses, one of whom is R who I am still friends with today. She told me, ‘Don’t become a dominatrix, incorporate domination into your natural personality then you will become a domme that’s you. . .’ I am known as the smiling sadist, I can really hurt people whilst singing, dancing and clapping. I thought, This is awesome, I can do this as me. I felt comfortable in the pro domme community – everybody came to the table as they were. I realised that I could use my sexual being without giving up my sexual being. I started doing sessions topless, I would allow guys to orally pleasure me although I didn’t find it pleasurable. My friend was horrified, he said, ‘I have been seeing pro dommes for years and they don’t do that.’ I believe that as a pro domme you should be able to do what you like. I would do naked sessions, wearing just stockings, and would slap men if they got a hard-on. I started to change the way I dommed. I made it clear on my website that ‘I do not guarantee happy endings’ but still seven out of ten guys would ask, ‘Can I have a happy ending?’ I would say I cannot guarantee you a happy ending and they would say, ‘But I am paying you.’ I had an awakening in the last three to four years about being a woman in this world. I realised that male submission is bullshit. Men can dip into it but when they go out into the world they are not advocating for equal pay. . . I have met a lot of male dommes and I find them very predatory. A lot of men call themselves dommes because it gives them access to women. I was at a party once, and a male domme tied up his female sub intricately and left her in the kitchen where she was struggling to get loose. People were around and laughing, I could see she was getting very frustrated. I recognise that could have been part of their play but I didn’t like it. Her domme was not connected to her. He was talking to someone else in another room. I hate to see a male domme playing with a woman unless I feel a particular connection between them. In the BDSM world you do not interrupt people’s scenes. You can get banned from parties for doing things like that.

A lot of pro dommes have female subs to sexually satisfy their clients. Towards the end of my pro domming days I decided I wanted a female sub for myself and not for anyone else. I was desperate to dominate a woman, I had flirted with women in clubs and the energy was different. I advertised for a female sub and E approached me. We exchanged a few messages on Fetlife, we met up and I instantly fell in love. It was like hitting the jackpot. She had just gotten into kink herself. She is a beautiful Black woman, androgynous, slight build, shaved head, and rides a motorbike. She is seventeen years younger than I am. I think I have always been bisexual but prior to E I had never had full-on sex with a woman. Sex with E is fire. Until I met E, my sexual relationships with guys were all about them asking, ‘Did you cum, did you cum, did you cum?’ It was so irritating. It wasn’t about me cumming; it was about their male ego. E has given me sexual freedom. I am still finding my feet in terms of sex with her. She says that I’m pansexual, that I’m attracted to souls and personalities more than body types or gender. Over the past two years with E, she has made me view women very differently, and myself very differently as a sexual being; she has rounded me up into being a more complete person. E wants to be of service to a mistress, I could give her that experience but it wouldn’t be real, and I want her to find her feet in the BDSM community so I introduced her to another mistress. They had some practice sessions and now E is going to serve her for real. The first time she went over she ended up staying later than she had intended to. I started feeling anxious, ‘What is she doing?’ Jealousy crept in. When she rang me to say she was home, she sounded so excited, I was trying not to rain on her parade, but she could tell something was wrong. Eventually I explained to her how I felt, I asked for one or two days to process, and I felt better after a day. Now we are looking for a playmate for her. There is always going to be a risk that she could fall in love with somebody else, and they could form an emotional attachment, and of course I would be devastated but for all my experiences in life what I do know is that I would come out the other side. I think we would always be friends unless one of us fucks the other over. . . She is such an important woman in my life outside of our relationship. If she formed a relationship with someone else I would have to separate myself for a little while to heal but I like to think that with everything else I fucking got over in my life, I could get over this too.

The Sex Lives of African Women by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah is published by Dialogue Books.

At Africa Writes 2021, the talk Sex Lives of African Women with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah is at 2.30pm on 23 October 2021 at the British Library, London and British Library Player. The event is part of the Saturday Day Pass. Find out more here.

Words Helen Jennings

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Published on 21/10/2021