I always fall in love with the mythology

Oh Johanna, Oh Johanna

I loved you better in my imagination

Only love you coz I can’t have you

You only exist when I miss you

Oh Johanna , Oh Johanna

I made a religion out of missing you

Oh Johanna , Oh Johanna

I would sacrifice myself to you

Right here tonight

Because you know that I love you

I would slit my own throat just to see if you’d mourn me

Oh Johanna , Oh Johanna

You’re always my muse

Can’t you see that you’re lost without me ?

I mistook carnations for roses

That’s us

Oh Johanna , Oh Johanna

They said that I loved the ache more than I loved you

Perhaps there is a word for this kind of wanting: Limerence

Oh Johanna , Oh Johanna

Who am I ? Who am I ?

Do you even know my name ?

You couldn’t even tell my

I feel used and confused

How can you be mad at gods ? blasphemy

Heard you got your happy ending

I want that for you

But two things can be true

They can love you and baby I can love you too

Oh Great and noble Johanna

Though I know I am not worthy of you

I offer you my unwavering dedication

I beg to serve your wish as my law

Now close those eyes and let me love you to death

Perhaps Limerence is its own kind of dance macabre

Oh Johanna , Oh Johanna

Meet me in the pale moonlight

Let’s dance till we die

sent me the song behind the inspiration.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0hWD4quyea8bHiRp9EjRKH?si=DwtYkxJMT5iw4YloeRU4vQ&utm_source=copy-link

Unlike most religious people, I do not find the Bible to be comforting the way it’s speculated to be but rather I find most stories involving women and children unsettling and very disturbing. Which made me rethink on whether I should have changed the title to “The Bible Hates Women”

Disclaimer, if you’re a christian then this is not for you. And no, I did not read and get it out of context.

My very good friend Shelby and I don’t find god, Jesus and the bible to very fascinating- but we’ll give the authors credit for their creativity or should I rather say for their plagiarism and a bit of adjustments to make it fit and satisfy their sexual kinks. Currently listening to Dogma as I’m writing this, you know the anticatholic women’s only band.

Source, the Bible.

Numbers 5:11-30 -The Law of Jealousy

This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, while under her husband’s authority, goes astray and defiles herself, ³⁰ or when the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man, and he becomes jealous of his wife; then he shall stand the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute all this law upon her. ³¹ Then the man shall be free from iniquity, but that woman shall bear her guilt. Would recommend reading the whole chapter for context.

Notice the wording, “when the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man”. And that’s an interesting gender dynamic there: the ritual specifically deals with a suspicion, a mere intuition rather than proof for it to happen. And the woman drinks water + dust + written curse. Sounds like witchcraft to me. And the guilt is determined by whether supernatural things will happen to the woman such as having a miscarriage.

The passage is specifically structured around a husband suspecting his wife it doesn’t give an equivalent ritual of a wife suspecting the husband and the husband being made to perform the ritual.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21-

verse ²³ Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged to be married and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a town, you must take both of them to the gates of that town and stone them to death. The woman is guilty because she didn’t scream for help. The man must die because he violated another man’s wife.

This verse creates an assumption that the situation as consensual adultery if she did not cry out. People often victim blame and you wonder where they got that logic from yet it’s in their guide book. So much for a girl dad. And the most disturbing part is that the man is not punished because he wronged a woman but rather a fellow man .

On normal circumstances, the woman would have been married off to her rapist.

verse ²⁸ “Suppose a man has intercourse with a young woman who is a virgin but is not engaged to be married. If they are discovered, he must pay her father 50 pieces of silver. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her and he may never divorce her as long as he lives.”

The woman’s future is tied to the man who violated her. The law has actually recognized her as a victim, yet it does not appear to give her the right we would expect a victim to possess. Her violation becomes a matter to be resolved through male controlled compensations and marriage. Everyone other than the woman benefits from her suffering. The father clearly gets some bride price and the woman’s consent isn’t really needed.

Remember when I once wrote a note that said the bible is present day Afghanistan but much worse. If you as a woman wouldn’t want to live in Afghanistan, then why do you even support religion? And no , your cult is not even that special.

And if the woman has been sexually violated, then why is marriage the prescribed solution? The woman’s body has been violated yet the recommended solution potentially binds her for eternity to the person who violated it.

Judges 19:21 -29 The Levite’s concubine

verse 25 “But they wouldn’t listen to him. So the Levite took a hold of his concubine and pushed her out of the door. The men of the town abused her all night, taking turns raping her until the morning. Finally at dawn they let her go. verse 29 “When he got home, he took a knife and cut his concubine’s body into twelve pieces.

This is the most disturbing story that I’ve ever read followed by Lot’s. We don’t even get to learn more about the woman but all that we know is that the men around her made decisions for her.

Her father controls when she leaves

Her host offers her to the mob just to protect a man ( according to them violating a man is more shameful to the man than to the woman )

The mob uses her body for sexual violence

The levite then dismembers her body and her body is used as the catalyst for war.

Esther 2:12- 16

And what did Vashti do ?, the Mbappe special (nothing ) but she was still punished because she refused to appear naked except for her crown. And which criteria do you think King Xerxes was using to choose the queens?

Verse ¹² “Before each young woman was taken to the king’s bed, she was given the prescribed twelve months of beauty treatments”. ¹⁴ “That evening she was taken to the king’s private rooms, and the next morning she was brought to the second harem where the king’s wife lived. …………she would never go to the king again unless he had especially enjoyed her and requested her by name”

It’s almost as if Esther wasn’t chosen because of grace or favor but because of her bedroom skills. It just shows that before a woman is allowed to become powerful, she must pass through a system in which her body is evaluated by a man who possesses the power to decide whether she is worthy of the crown.

2nd Samuel 13:18- Amnon and Tamar

¹⁴ “But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her and raped her and since he was stronger than she was , he raped her. ¹⁵ Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he loved her. Get out of here!” , he snarled at her”.

Tamar is raped by her half brother, yet after the assault she is the one left carrying the consequences. Amnon who is the perpetrator just discards her while Tamar is left devastated and isolated. Why is it that the woman becomes so often becomes the vessel through which sexual shame is carried , even when she is the victim?

And this contributes heavily to why victims especially of Sexual Abuse never speak up because they’ll be stigmatized and shamed heavily even though they are the victims.

Lot

Both stories of Lot are utterly disturbing. Him horrifyingly offering his daughters to protect mere strangers whom the bible claims to be angels. And also the story about Lot’s daughters sleeping with him to procreate. That’s pretty weird and I truly think that Porn Hubs tend to get most of their script ideas from Bible stories.

Brandy, but… but…. that is the old testament and Virgin Mary /Mother Mary is highly respected in the Bible. Now why can’t we just mention Mary as her own person .Her value is constructed around her being a virgin mother. Two most important things in patriachy. It’s almost as if people love virgin Mary because men wished that they could have sex with women and women should still be able to maintain their (hymen)virginity.

Why is Mary’s virginity made central to her holiness and worth?

As if catholics don’t hold women high and even praise Mary. Spoiler I went to an all girls boarding primary catholic school since grade 4 and that’s where I discovered lesbianism. 10/10 experience other than the nuns mistreating us. Would highly recommend.

But a woman can’t be a priest/father, bishop or even a pope. Women just hold the sister roles where they are required to take a vow of poverty meanwhile the others get paid.

John 8:1-11 -The woman caught in adultery

A woman is publicly brought before Jesus after being caught in adultery. As if someone can commit adultery alone. Takes two to tangle. The woman is displayed but the man who supposedly committed adultery with her is not present. It’s like they were using the woman’s body as evidence .

Perhaps the bible fixation isn’t simply on women’s bodies. Maybe it’s fixated on purity.

The virgin must remain untouched but it doesn’t apply to men

Wife must remain faithful but they don’t talk about the husband

The adulteress must be exposed but not the adultoter

The violated woman becomes dishonored

The submissive wife becomes virtuous

So much for double standards while the man who participates in that transgression can disappear from the narrative that’s the worst that could happen to him or just retain his authority.

Biblical stories don’t just describe women’s suffering but rather repeatedly turn female vulnerability , sexual purity, submission and violation into objects of fascination.

Part 2 coming soon.

Alcohol and I have an understanding.
It ruins me slowly,
and I romanticize the damage.

I call it comfort when it burns my throat,
call it company when it keeps me awake at 3 a.m.

Every bottle feels like a confession
I’m too afraid to make sober.

But don’t worry , liquor will keep me up at 3.00 tho

I’m too sober for this life and everything in life

My favorite sentence, “Tina , Twende tushike ka quarter “ and if it’s not a ka quarter at Pozze’s liquor store , it’s shots at Tots . How I love love liquor

It’s my safe space.

But then I ask myself :)

Are drunk emotions real emotions ?

“Get drunk , I want the truth “

I tell that to myself while holding my shot as I imagine telling her that

Somethings are better left unsaid but I’ll probably get drunk and say them to you anyway . If I love you , I’ll set you free , and if you don’t come back , I might as well drunk text you (it’s my favorite hobby)

I’ll finally get the courage once alcohol is in my system

“Let’s get drunk together so I can kiss you and it on the alcohol ( kwanza KC citrus ) “

They ask why I drink like I’m trying to forget something.
Maybe I am.
Maybe the glass just understands me better
than most people ever tried to.

I don’t love alcohol because it tastes good.

I love it because for a few borrowed hours,

it makes loneliness quieter

One day , I’ll solve my problems with maturity ,

They say that alcohol kills slowly, and who told you ati I’m in a hurry to die ?

I might as well drink and smoke , coz they may kill you , but so does loving someone

Smoking and drinking kills but we were born to die anyway

But today , it will be alcohol coz sometimes all you need to do is drink and be drunk ( might get drunk and cry tonight idk )

Hopefully I get married to a bartender who will hold me all night in the bar as we drink every wine , vodka and beer .

I knew from the beginning that loving her would not be something I could confess without consequence. My faith had already drawn its lines in the sand long before she ever touched my life, long before I learned the shape of her voice or the way her eyes could hold me hostage. But still, I crossed those lines like they were nothing more than shadows.

I prayed for salvation and got her instead.

If my love is a sin, then let them call it blasphemy. I’ve made peace with that.

Because the truth is, I have already tasted heaven and it looks like her.

She was poetry in a world that was still learning the alphabet. Everything about her feels divine, like something not meant to be understood but worshipped. She looks like a religious icon . And I do worship her, in ways I am not supposed to. Not the way you bow your head in prayer, but the kind that consumes you, that rewrites your bones, that leaves you on your knees without ever asking you to rise again. She’s the devil’s favorite poem. Her body was church and I needed to confess my sins.

She’s my religion ( Siri , play religion by Lana del Rey )

To fall in love with her is to create a religion with a fallible God.

To love her , is to see the face of God.

Not into worshipping a God but I will absolutely worship her .

I am not good at telling people how I feel, but she makes me want to try. Makes me want to speak in ways that felt too vulnerable, too exposed, like peeling my soul open just to see if she would stay. She doesn’t . Not in the way I need her to.

Loving her was never equal.

I gave devotion; she gave fragments. I built altars; she left fingerprints:- soft at first, then bruising. And still, I convinced myself that even angels fall, so what chance did I ever have? ( always the angel , never the God.

If even they can’t resist sin, then what was I supposed to do with a love that felt like both salvation and ruin?

If she were a drug, there wouldn’t be a sober vein left in my body. I would choose her again and again, even knowing she is the thing undoing me. She tastes like heaven but God knows she was built for sin . Even knowing that when all of this ends, when I am six feet under and the earth claims what’s left of me, every part of me will still taste like her.

I told God about her then I cried “ Lord please don’t take this sinner away from me “ . She’s most beautiful sin and worth going to hell for . Out of all my sins , she is my favorite.

I cried. I begged. I asked for her to be taken away from me because I knew I didn’t have the strength to walk away on my own. But even as the words left my mouth, I hated myself for saying them. Because losing her felt worse than any punishment I had ever been warned about. My own death doesn’t frighten me, but hers , Oh , that’s my greatest fear. And if I die, then who will write my poems for you ?

“Lord, please don’t take her away from me.”

And I mean it.

I mean it even knowing what that would cost me.

Because I don’t mind going to hell for this. Not really. Not when I’ve already lived my share of heaven here on earth with her. Not when every moment beside her feels like something sacred, even if it was never truly mine to keep.

She was never mine to keep.

That’s the cruelest part of it all. Loving her feels eternal, but it was never returned in the same language. I speak in devotion; she answers in distance. I worships ; she exists . And somehow, that is enough to keep me chained to her.

I was born to love her, I think. To spoil her, to kneel at the altar of her existence, to give everything I had without ever being promised anything in return. That is my purpose, as tragic as it sounds. To love her until it destroyed me.

And it did.

It still does.

Because even now, I would choose her.

Over my faith. Over my salvation. Over myself.

In loving me you hold a knife to my throat

In loving you I tell you exactly where to cut

If loving her is a sin, then I will continue to sin until my heart gives out. If this is wrong, then wrong is where I will stay. Let heaven close its gates to meI have already stood inside it once, and she was the only reason it existed.

I accept it.

And I’m jealous of your tattoos and how long they’ll stay with you after I go .

Born to love you like a poem

Forced to yearn for you like a miserable poet

I hate how I was born into Christianity

How I was forced to go to church without being asked of my own opinion

Sometimes I sit and think,” why is it that for years and years I was made to do something that I had not chosen, yet it was not out of myown will, yet I have my own life and free will for that matter to control?”

Being exposed is one of the greatest things I’ve had to experience with my 19yrs of age cause I got to meet multiple people who had so many different ideas and opinions on religion which made me rethink the life that I was living

I do believe in God

The god that we find in nature

The god that is in everything

We are all god

And no, this is not blasphemy

What even IS blasphemy??

Your GOD would introduce himself as ‘I am..’

Do you not introduce yourself as ‘I am…’

Isn’t it said that our bodies are the temples of GOD? So how can this one God live in all of us? How is it that we’re all made in the image and likeness of this one being? BECAUSE WE ARE ALL GOD

Now I know some of you might sit and argue because you have “evidence “ to prove your point

Now let me prove wrong some of the things you believe in

According to the Bible that was written by human beings who were supposedly inspired by the Holy Spirit; jealousy is a sin, being selfish is also said to be a sin but in the same text is says that , that GOD is a jealous God because he gets mad when you worship someone or something else

That same GOD is selfish because he wants you to worship him and only him???

Seems like your GOD isn’t so perfect after all

Okay, another thing, why as human beings do we find some things inhumane? Things like killing each other out of invalid reasons?

In the same bible, GOD says that it is wrong to kill one another because?? It is a sin!!

But he points out Abraham’s obedience as faith?

What faith then are we expected to have?

Abraham was said to be full of faith and obedient because he agreed to killing his own son!?? This is the same inhumanity we are calling out today

This is the same inhumanity religious people would see and call it out but since it was said to be ‘FAITH IN GOD’ we should just take it??

Isaac, Abraham’s son was supposed to sleep in the same house as his father comfortably after all this?? He was supposed to spend his days without expecting his father to switch up on him again in the name of faith?

This boy was expected to go work in the fields and see lambs around and not compare his own life to that of theirs??

He was supposed to sharpen blades and see his own reflection there without feeling anything?? For fuck’s sake

Okay okay, the Africans whose school’s were closed down so that mission schools are opened were supposed to be comfortable with that in the name of spreading ‘Christianity’ ?? If as Africans we were not colonized we would have never known anything about Christianity and we would have been all living our lives comfortably in our own diverse cultures

But you as an African want to come up to me and talk to me about some religion? Some religion that you had to forcefully adapt to while suffering?? Please!!

I love African people more than anything in this world but if there’s one thing I personally feel as if you failed in, is whole heartedly taking up religion from these people who came and took your lives away from you all in the name of a ‘creator’ who you never knew anything about

so, respectfully, when you choose the spiritual path you want to take, do enough research and think about it deeply as if it’s something you have just found out about

Humans were never meant to suffer and worry like this. We are living a life that we were never meant to have. We work, scroll , suffer, repeat ; the script that we never signed up for.

I believe that life was never really meant to be like this. You know , a never ending cycle. Being a kid, going to school for almost 20 years. Graduate then getting a 9-5 job and working your ass off as you wait for retirement. Eat your pension as you wait for your death. We are constantly living in a never ending cycle and loop. There has to be more to life honestly.

Where is the part that we actually live and enjoy life to the fullest instead of always worrying about everything every time. And what do we get out of it ; nothing other than losing sleep over bills . I loathe the fact that we are busy working our asses off, and living paycheck to paycheck just for the elites to simply enrich themselves from our hard work and exhaustion. It’s just so pathetic honestly. Every single day in this ‘‘natural world’’, we follow the same hollow script'; go to work, scroll, suffer and call it a life. Every single day in the natural world.

I believe that things like food, medicine, water, hygiene and education should be free, but of course the billionaires and elites have to continue getting richer and secure an endless generational wealth. Money and capitalism ruined everything . I loathe the way we’ve been taught to trade our best years for a paycheck. Fuck.

I don’t know about you guys but I don’t want to work 90% of my life for the 10% to be me being old and not getting to live my life to the fullest. I WANNA BE FREE.

I feel like I’ve honestly been trapped in a nightmare or a prison and I loathe it so much.

We weren’t meant to work this much and worry this much and I don’t know but I think that’s why mental illness and depression is rising. Our bodies were never designed to live like this. And that can actually be seen with the current sleeping schedule. Science says that we’re supposed to sleep for 8 hours or more continuously but that’s wrong. We are supposed to get segmented sleep; in splits of 4 hours, 4 hours. That’s how humans used to do it before the industrial era. But modern life optimizes productivity instead of natural rhythms.

Coz why is life basically a ‘‘a wait for retirement trap’’. We are basically living in a ‘‘generational wealth of the elite vs our daily struggle’’ mode lol. Coz why is freedom basically a luxury that we can’t afford?

We weren’t born to be units of productivity. We were born to breathe, to touch some grass (lol) and to exist without a price tag , ( my hot take is that money shouldn’t exist) .

The loop only continues because we keep walking the circle.

I can’t help but wonder; if we all actually stopped agreeing to this nightmare tomorrow, what would actually happen? Lol not me trying to be a revolutionist ( I actually am guys).

Precolonial Africa had words, roles, and sacred spaces for love and gender beyond the binary long before colonial laws imposed silence and shame.

To define anal sex, words such as ku’nyo in kirundi (language of Burundi) or kufirwa in Zanzibar (Tanzania) were used. Kulamba and kusagana were used respectively to define cunnilingus and tribadism ( present term referring to the act scissoring among lesbians) in Tanzania. Kitesha was the term used for the people scissoring. Okays guys I finally caught your attention….Let us navigate The Rich History of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Africa before colonization.

A common mistake in modern history is to project Western "identity" labels onto the African past. However, indigenous African languages show a different logic: they prioritized social function and gender roles over personal "orientation.In pre colonial Africa , identity was rather defined by your role in the tribe or spirit world.

As the proverb says ,” until the lion has his own storyteller , the hunter will always be the hero “. “Sighs because colonial fatigue is real”. Modern rhetorics often claim that gender and sexual diversity are new , foreign and “un- African . Calling homosexuality 'un-African' is like calling the Nile 'un-African' just because a European mapped it. However, the historical evidence and cultural practices in pre colonial Africa reveals a “ Sacred Third Space” : ancient roles where individuals transcended binary lines to serve as social and spiritual anchors. In my previous article I argued that homosexuality is African while homophobia is the real colonial import and most agreed while some wished that there was more historical and cultural evidence. In this follow up article I want to go deeper, and not with emotions but rather documented history and cultural practices.

Homosexuality has always been known and practiced in Africa

Historical evidence

The Quimbandas- An ethnic group in Angola where men used to have sex with other men and they were also referred to as the quimbandas. The specificity of these ethnic group was that these men had sexual intercourse while being dressed as women .

Ganga-ya-Chibanda- or the high priest of the Quimbandas. the superintendent of ritual sacrifices who dressed like a woman even though he was a man. Even outside of religious services. He made a point of honor to what is called: spiritual leaders whose gender fluidity granted them the authority to bridge the human and spirit worlds .

The ancestors didn't stutter, they named us clearly and gave us terms for these.

• Don kashili/ Yan daudu (Hausa language)- A term used by the Hausa people of Nigeria to describe men who had sex with other men. The “Daudu” refers to men who act like women and sleep with men. They also served as agents of prostitutes. Proof that not only women are or can be prostitutes. When the Yan daudu meet they are called “Kawaye ( girlfriends), and when they have sex they called it “kifi” to say lesbianism even though the people involved were basically men.

• Same-sex practices such as anal sex were also found among ethnic groups including the Bafia of Cameroon and the Ovambos of Namibia and Southern Angola.

• The Wawihe- aka builders of the high plateau of Bangalla ( still present day Angola) .

Homosexuality was confused with bisexuality and was a designated omututa ( means the activity of anal sex / “paedicatio”.

Mundu Mume ( Kenya )- Akamba term for “woman husbands” who utilized traditional marriage instructions to secure wealth, lineage and social power.

The Gaglos ( in present day Benin) -Term used for male teenagers who often practiced anal sex.

Among the Mossi of Burkina Faso, young men would be dressed as women and presented to the village chiefs for intimate relationships. A similar practice was present in Kenya (among the Maasai and the Meru) as well as in Cote d’Ivoire (among the Ashanti)

Superiorrity

In various African cultures, homosexual activities were often practiced and even encouraged. In present day Gabon ( among the Fang) and Equatorial Guinea, homosexual inter course were believed to transfer wealth through Anal sex.

In Libya, such practices were believed to transfer the “art of war “ during initiation rites by the Siwi people.

Linguistic Erasure

Unlike the colonial "one-size-fits-all" criminal labels, African languages focused on the mechanics and social dynamics of intimacy:

Homosexual terms also labels definitions mostly represent the concept of homosexuality in Western societies. But numerous precolonial African countries and tribes also had terms to define and represent these people.

In precolonial Africa men and women who used to perform these sexual acts were not called “homosexuals” but other specific “labels”.

In Kirundi ( the language spoken in Burundi), some authors and researchers have found five words used to designate and describe homosexuality. These are :

1. Kuswerana nk’imbwa - making love like dogs

2. Kwitomba - Making love

3. Kunonoka - literally being flexible ( in the way of being able to do those styles if you understand )

4. Kuranana inyuma ( originated in Swahili but it is badly written in Kirundi ) - It’s Kiswahili version is Kuralana nyuma which means making love in an anal way.

The Kalawai- A Hausa term for male prostitutes or pimps .

Nsagaji ( present day Zanzibar) - A term used to identify females known today as “ lesbians” .

Okuliweka- A term used in Angola for mutual masturbation which can be present in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships ( lonely masturbation was looked at socially with much disdain ). But the term was heavily used for male - male or female- female sexual intercourses.

Among the Kaffirs, members of the Ngoni group still called Xhosa, solitary onanism is called gui guisen, that is to say, literally making one's body (penis) stiff. Mutual masturbation is called oa -/huru or /huru. The tribadie is referred to by the term/goe-u.

Lonely masturbation was called “, okuripikapikisa and “okutirahi , “amongst the Ovambo tribe of South Africa. Male pederasty with anal penetration was translated by the expression okutunduka vanena, literally "mounting boys", as you ride bulls.

Two lovers ( from a homosexual relationship were known as “eponji ( aponji which is singular ) meaning the lover of a man because he is different from the “motmukuetu”( term used for a friend whom he had no sexual relationship with ).

Otjizenja- Term used for inter -femoral coitus in heterosexual intercourse by in Angola.

Kuzunda- A term also used in Angola for frotting (is a form of consensual, non-penetrative sexual activity where individuals rub their genitals against another person's body (such as thighs, buttocks, or genitals) for sexual pleasure and often associated with male- male sexual activity).

K’wazo- A term used in Hausa to refer to the insertive partner and “Baja” was a term used for the receptive partner in a male- male sexual intercourse.

In East African coast they had Kiswahili terms to describe homosexual people with slight variations. Terms relating to homosexuality which were used were

• Shoga- used in Mombasa ( specifically for the receptive partner in anal sex) . Active partner of the shoga is the “basha”/ “haji” . More precisely the “Basha” is the “ mwanaume anamwingilia mwenzake” , meaning the man who enters his partners, while the “haji” is the “mwanaume rasmi rijali” meaning the real man; the powerful man.

• Kanith/ Hanisi- spoken in Zanzibar .

• Senge - Kiswahili dialect of Tanzania.

All these plural terms take the prefix ma : Mashoga, mahanisi.

It was discovered among the Luba, a group from Congo (former Zaire) in the eastern Kasai province, that there was another gender role outside the male and female role known as kitesha (bitesha plural). They didn't like to work, they didn't like to stay with other men, they behaved like women, dressed in women's clothes.

In this light, pre-colonial Africa was arguably more linguistically advanced than the colonial systems that replaced it. Our ancestors didn't need a single word for "homosexuality" because they had many specific words for the different ways a person could love, lead, and serve their community.

Far from being "primitive," as the colonizers said ( which is a lie ) , these languages were advanced enough to create entirely new gender categories and share roles. They acknowledged diversity without needing to force people into a singular, fixed sexual label.

Roles like the 'yan daudu or the Ganga-ya-chibanda are understood as "transgender roles." The community didn't see a "man who liked men"; they saw a ritual officiant or a social actor whose identity was defined by their gender performance and spiritual duty. This proves gender to be sacred office. it was a recognition of a person's sacred duty to the community. When colonial laws replaced these spiritual titles with legal insults like' sodomite ,' they didn't just change the law-they attacked the spiritual heart of African diversity."

It is clear as day that African languages were not "missing" words for diversity; they were simply using a different, more advanced logic. The modern claim that these identities are a foreign import is a direct result of this colonial erasure, which effectively "muted" the ancestral vocabulary of sovereignty.

History is a lot more colorful when you stop reading it in the original British English. And the only the only thing truly 'imported' to Africa in 1885 was the Victorian shame that arrived in the same crates as the colonial uniforms.

The ancestors didn’t stutter; neither am I . They named us clearly. We aren't 'coming out' of a Western closet; we are 'coming back' to the center of the village square.

The late former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, said “ Homosexuality is a white man’s disease and was brought about by colonization”. I laugh at that statement everytime because of how ironic it is.

While we use “homosexual” today, pre colonial Africans saw this concept as part of social roles rather than “identity gay”. Same sex intimacy was always a normal integrated part of social, military and spiritual life.

The world without colonization would be so peak , I tell that to myself everytime.

For decades, the narrative that same sex intimacy is un-African has been used to say that homosexuality is a Western concept. However, historical and ethnographic evidence reveals a much different reality.

Homosexuality in Africa has always been indigenous, while homophobia was the actual colonial import. Evan’s’ Zande informants told Europeans that men in Angola had sex with boys “just because they like them”. They recorded this but did not understand sexual and gender diversity in Africa. In the late 1640s, a Dutch military was shocked when he made an observation that Queen Nzinga of Angola was addressed as “king” rather than “queen” . She also dressed masculine and had a harem of about 50-60 wives. This was something that they’d never seen.

Notice how most of African languages have no term and words for he and she. Realizing this would be the end of our depression

Linguistic Heritage- Ancient African words to represent gender diversity

The Sithembile : An Old Zulu term meaning men who behaved like women

The Ashtime: An Ethiopian term for men individuals who lived as men.

Spirituality

The Mwari: A Zimbabwean religion that believed their supreme being was often viewed as having both male and female characteristics influencing how people viewed gender roles.

The Pangwe of Gabon : Believed that same sex acts were a way to transmit “ wealth- getting “ power

The most striking evidence comes from formal social structures.

Kabaka Mwanga II - The bisexual King of Buganda, had male lovers and was openly gay. And he was called “Omwumbu “ to his male lovers since he was the husband.

The Azande Boy Wives-( In modern South Sudan and Congo) warriors would pay a bride price to the family of young men. These young men would perform domestic duties and engage in sexual activities with the warriors. When the boys grew up , they would eventually become warriors and get themselves their own boy wives and the cycle continued.

Female Husbands- In the Lovedu tribe of South Africa, women especially with wealth, would become the female husbands and could marry another woman legally by paying the bride wealth. They wife would now get kids by a male partner but the kids would socially and legally belong to the female husband.

In over 30 African societies, including the Igbo of Nigeria, Zulu of South Africa, Nandi, Agikuyu and Kamba of Kenya, women could marry other women.

Isn’t it so funny how the rules placed by African leaders ( The likes of Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni, Ibrahim Traore and many others ) against homosexuality were originally written by the British and French during colonization in the Berlin conference during the 1800s ? ( Berlin conference literally messed up Africa).

Section 377: The unnatural Offenses

The text and law criminalized “ carnal intercourse against the order of nature “. The British used the term order of nature to ban any sexual relations not leading to procreation specifically targeting same sex relations.

Breaking this law could cause life imprisonment. Apparently these laws were to “ civilize” Africans since they lacked moral behaviors and behaved like beastly creatures. Just like Mugabe had said it “homosexuals were worse than pigs and dogs” . Sighs, colonization really did a number on us and heavily white washed us.

To look at a pre colonial Africa is to look at a continent that understood and accepted human diversity long before the rest of the world caught up . Pre colonial Africa was a space of profound and sexual complexity. The criminalization and demonization of these identities was a product of colonial era laws and religion. African heritage has always been inclusive.

Same sex traditions flourished long before colonial borders were drawn. Homosexuality in Africa has always been indigenous and homophobia is the real Un-African and foreign concept !.