For My Unborn Daughter -A Peom

​Your mother found her voice at 28.

Just incase you’re wondering, this poem is to my daughter – at 12 …
Sorry, I changed that to 5, because these kids are much smarter these days.
Your mother found her voice when the world had stopped talking
It was late.
She had swallowed the world too many times, all those times; the only sound that came out of her mouth was the swallowing.
She swallowed everything through a listening pipe, filled her belle with seasons and wars, and war cries and goings and cumming and everything else that made the world go round.
There were days – silence was the only sound you’d hear no matter how loud you tried.

And so, your mother mastered the art of swallowing her screams.
Conceiving everything – even the things that have no place inside a mother.
Your mother was once a world – a world, pregnant with its past… a past so present she could feel her future kick –
In pain, she swallowed her scream…
There were still days when nothing seemed to be coming out of anywhere – no matter the force you try.
The only time something tried to break out, was the world forcing it’s way out of your mothers mouth,
Not knowing whether to come out as a scream or a whisper or even … a song…
That was the day your mother – for the first time, tasted the lisp in her mouth,
Everything she could have said but didn’t say, all those years stood wobbling with buckled knees on her tongue,
Her lisp had grown with age – she could even taste how sour it was.
The salt in her saliva couldn’t save the world in your mothers’ mouth from decaying.
Every night, she dreamt of the oceans, of the dead fishes still floating, because she was taught that salt is the only reason dead things float  in deep sea. 

Your mother sinks in her dreams, unable to scream out and beg the salts to leave the oceans for a second to wrap her up in a heap and wait for her to climb back up before the salt return to where they belong. 

Your mother never came back from that dream. 

Daughter, wherever you find yourself, if you’re ever wondering if you should be somewhere else, don’t be confused with the words on the map except where it says “you are here.” 

Patience Tiencepay Lawal. 

Feminism 101 – The Basics

Feminism, women and sometimes men have expressed it through their art, policy-making, and scientific theories. In and of itself, feminism is both personal and public(?), but the basic tenet of women’s rights remains unchanged. So whilst one may not call oneself a feminist, one’s choice(s) may be. As has been said many times before, the feminists that came before us enable us to make the choices that we do.

Feminism has recently become a hot-button topic, thanks to the likes of Chimamanda Adichie, Beyonce and many more. There’s a lot of misinformation floating around as to what feminism is or isn’t.  This article aims to provide a brief overview of Feminism, not an in-depth analysis.

With all that out of the way, let’s start:

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, feminism is:

1:  the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2:  organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests

The modern-day feminist movement, started in the West during the 1800s, said movement can be divided into three eras. They are the first, second and third wave;

First Wave: This era covers the 1800’s to the mid-1900s, voting and property rights were the main concern of this first wave.

Second Wave: From the mid-1960s to the 1980s -some sources put the end at the early 1990s- a new era of emerged in the feminist movement. A main concern was reproductive rights.

Third Wave: The most recent era started in the late 1980s/early 1990s, intersectionality is an important concern of this era.

During the aforementioned eras, different forms of feminism emerged; some of them are:

Womanism

Third world feminism/Post-colonial feminism

Islamic feminism

Christian feminism

Socialist feminism

Sex-positive feminism

The following are arguably the most relevant to the Nigerian condition:

Womanism: This form of feminism addresses the lack of representation of African-American women in the mainstream American feminist movement.

Post-colonial feminism: Deals with the feminist movement in the “Third-world” i.e. formerly colonized countries, as most feminist discourse is filtered through a Western lens.

All of the above fall under the umbrella of feminism; sometimes they’re in step with one another, at other’s they at cross-purposes. This is to remind one that there’s no one way to be a feminist and we all don’t have to agree on the method(s) to reach our common goal of women’s rights.

At the end of the day, feminism can be personal but it is necessary, get in where you fit in.

-Emike

ON YOUR LIPS – Laura M Kaminski

Each conversation begins with mourning, words of loss on your lips.
Grieving phrases hang suspended like an albatross on your lips.

Do you ever feel enslaved? Indentured to others in power?
I have seen you sleep, tears on your cheeks, name of your boss on
your lips.

Victims are frightened, embarrassed, ask themselves if it’s their own
fault.
Outsiders echo that question. Silence is a cross on your lips.

They have made a suggestion to limit entry to non-Muslims.
But you cannot pick faith from your teeth, heretic floss on your lips.

Survival instructions are applied to our lives with a wide brush.
Layer after layer of silence, hard lacquer gloss on your lips.

Why should we wait for resurrection? One Love brings heaven here
now.
A little light is enough. Smile creeps slowly like moss on your lips.

Bring your own kettle-drum, set it on fire, cooking up your own
words –
Halima would dance to such salsa, hot pepper sauce on your lips.

Laura M Kaminski (Halima Ayuba) grew up in northern Nigeria, went to school in New Orleans, and currently lives in rural Missouri. She is the author of three full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks, most recently 19 GHAZAL STREET.

This poem, from 19 GHAZAL STREET, includes sher regarding some of the current disturbing political rhetoric in the US and elsewhere.

A brief conversation with Mandy Brown Ojugbana: … we are masterful, spiritual, and all powerful beings…

From the Editor’s Desk: In 1986, around the time Nigeria was reinventing hip-hop and reggae to suit ourselves, the way we have always done, Mandy Brown Ojugbana burst on to the music scene with a remix of Taxi Driver (Taxi Driver – Mandy Brown Ojugbana) – an highlife song originally done by Bobby Benson in the late sixties and turned it into an instant hit that had people of all ages and convictions moving their bodies to its rhythm.

Before the Blackky’s and the Ese Agese’s and Mandators was Mz Ojugbana, a sixteen year old who was rubbing shoulders with the greats like Mike Okri and Majek Fashek.

Ms Ojugbana’s music was a welcome departure from American music which had taken over the airwaves in those days and your party was considered incomplete without a track or two from her first album, Breakthrough.

In 1988, at the age of 18, Ms Ojugbana released her second album and almost in the same breath disappeared from the Nigerian music scene.

In an undated interview with Funmi Iyanda on New Dawn, one of the biggest talk shows in the history of Nigerian television, Mandy Brown Ojugbana talked about her need to spread her wings and find herself (New Dawn Interview with Mandy).

And that was exactly what she did.

She attended London Academy of Film and TV, worked with Channel 4 TV in the UK and then returned to Nigeria and worked on Radio and Television for some time.

She presently lives in the United Kingdom and is constantly reinventing herself and changing things around her.

9jafeminista: How did you cope with the patriarchal structure of the Music Industry while you were the queen of pop?

Mandy Brown Ojugbana: There was no perceived structure of that nature, I was completely focused on the work at hand which was touring and creating.

9jafeminista:  Why did you drop off the radar andwhat have you been up to?

Mandy Brown Ojugbana: I started in the music business quite early and was signed up to a record company called Otto Records at 15 or 16. I was working with them when Faze 2 records brought me in to work on another record. .I had been working constantly and needed time to discover myself and explore other avenues. This led me into the world of media . I went on to work in TV and Radio which I thoroughly enjoyed.

9jafeminista:  Were you friends with Tina Onwudiwe?

Mandy Brown Ojugbana: Tina Onwudiwe was more of a big sister mentor figure . I looked up to her and admired her work both in music and fashion. She also used to design outfits for my shows .

9jafeminista:  How did it feel like being a superstar?

Mandy Brown Ojugbana: I don’t think I ever once felt like a superstar, I was living in the moment and doing the work .I have always loved to be in a creative process be it song writing , creating new dance routines . Researching and creating programming for radio and TV.

9jafeminista:  Are there any changes in the way women were treated in the past and now? Any better any worse?

Mandy Brown Ojugbana: Women have always had to fight harder and be smarter for their voices to be heard. I think men are beginning to get the message . We are a powerful force that cannot be quieted.

9jafeminista:  In which ways do you feel all powerful as a Nigerian woman?

Mandy Brown Ojugbana: Nigeria has made me who I am today , being raised in a “can do” society has given me the tenacity, drive, and confidence to believe in myself and the power I wield as a woman . Even though it appears we live in a male driven society when we look through African history there have always been strong black women, Amina queen of Zaria in the 15 th century , Makeda Queen of Sheba 960BC and Candace Empress of Ethiopia . These were strong warrior queens, military tacticians. We need to remind ourselves as women never to sell ourselves short, we are masterful spiritual and all powerful beings responsible for bringing life into the world. I remind myself as I wake to walk in the light of powerful women both past and present ,in them and there successes lies my strength . Lies our strength . We as women need to band together as a sisterhood stemming our petty quarrels the world is for the taking and we are the takers!

 

What if Hillary Clinton was a Nigerian Presidential Candidate… Aishatu Ella John

If Hillary Clinton was a Nigerian woman and APC Presidential Candidate this is how her interview will go:

Nigerian Journalist: You have been a First Lady and Senator even the Secretary of State in all this how did your husband cope?

Hillary: I thank God for my husband he is very good and supportive, in fact as I was making his breakfast this morning he was happy (shows pictures of herself making breakfast for Bill)

Nigerian Journalist: You mean with all your campaign and busy schedule you still find time to cook for your husband

Hillary: Ah yes oh, that is my primary duty, I cook for him and wash his boxers no one can do that while I am alive. In fact if I have to travel for meetings when I was Secretary of State I will cook and send it through private jet hot and fresh. Immediately I return home I will rush to hand washing boxers.

Nigerian Journalist: Wow madam you are a real humble African Queen, how did you handle the cheating Scandal with Monica, I mean why did your husband have to cheat, were you too busy to satisfy him? And how are you sure that if you become President now you won’t be too busy and push him into the hands of other strange women!?

Hillary: Hmmmmmm, you know as a woman everything is prayer, one has to be steadfast, when my husband cheated I realised it was because my hair was too long since then I cut my hair and to the glory of God no more cheating since then, in fact even as President if my husband wants me no matter who I am meeting with I will excuse myself and go and meet him, you know the home is in the hands of we women. Men are babies.

“You must be kidding me!”

In fact there is this movie War Room, I advise every woman whose home is being threatened by a STRANGE woman to buy and watch, don’t let STRANGE women ruin your home be prayerful

Nigerian Journalist: You have only one child and you have not given your husband a son are you not worried?

Hilary: It is well God that did it for Sarah will do it for me.

Nigerian Journalist: What is your advise to young women, you know many young women this days are saying they want to be equal to men they want to be like men, the divorce rate is so high because of that.

Hillary: Young ladies should be humble, they should stoop to conquer and talk to their husbands with small voice.

Nigerian Journalist: Finally, your daughter just had another baby how will you cope with campaign and omugwo?

Hillary: aah leave campaign first I am on my way to Omugwo, election can wait this is my duty.

Nigerian Journalist: Thank you Ma, you are very humble

Aishatu Ella John

 

 

 

 

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf on Bey’s Lemonade and bell hooks’ critique

Bibi

Just finished reading bell hooks analysis of Bey’s Lemonade and I am struggling to understand what the attack on her is all about. Even though I have been the subject of a public attack by bell hooks in my mid-20s, I always appreciate her theorising.

In relation to Lemonade, hooks has provided a necessary critique that builds on and expands the scope of the film’s narrative arc beyond just the naming of: black sisterhood of pain and trauma, our power of self-objectification and naming, our continued investment and participation in both the white scopic regime and our excavating of a repressed and liberating Africanity.

hooks’ critique is an invitation to enjoy Lemonade without completely losing ourselves in the saccharine and slick celebration of freedom and black female empowerment. It is very easy to be seduced by the self-styling, the gorgeous presentation of the black female body in pain and in exquisite defiance and camaraderie; and we must be allowed that therapeutic moment of total absorption and sheer pleasure in watching black/female ownership of the means of production, naming of pain and its transcendence.

Lemonade is mellifluous, a sensuous and mesmerizing visual feast. We should enjoy it, without apology. Yet, so that we don’t completely fall, we need to be vigilant about the global status of women who do not have the economic freedom that Bey has or the ability to always participate in the very sensuous commodified fetishsation of the black female body that assures Bey’s own economic freedom and defiance.

Yes, I do think she glamorises violence. But I also believe that there is a space

Bell

fortherapeutic violence. Bey’s anger and glamorisation of violence was just not excessive enough, it is too demotic and sugary. The only excess was the sugar in her lemonade which tamed the tartiness of the lemons (lesbians).

It would have been a more empowering and radical gesture had she performed an artistic death on the cheating man. Abeg, where else can we go if not to the imaginative or the thought murder of our minds to exert bone crushing revenge that would not land us in jail?

Instead, with all her performativity violence and righteous anger, she simply returned to the cosy embrace of the Cheat, an act no different from the demotic.

For me, she therefore lost an opportunity to be truly radical or transformative. At the end of the day, both patriarchy and the heterosexual script remained intact and unworked. Had Bey killed the Cheat, I am sure hooks would have been on her side because she would have read it as defiance against patriarchy and the ‘straight mind’.

I like artistic or literary deaths as an unwillingness to accept or continue with norms; it is an opportunity to really jam the convention and ensure that all subjugating powers always sleep with one eye wide open. With Lemonade, the power structure is unprovoked and remained unshaken. This, is at the core of bell hooks’ critique, I believe. This is one of the reasons why I think a mother killing her own child in Morrison’s ‘Beloved’, is such a stunning and painful moment in literature, but a revolutionary act, that threatened the core of white plantocracy.

Bey

Bey should have gone all the way jor. And not doing so made the whole thing ultimately unsatisfying for me.

Personally, I believe Bey’s presentation of her autobiographical moment and bell hooks critique of it should be consumed side by side; they are both a reminder that there is still much work to be done in dismantling patriarchal domination and destructive hetero-normativity which Lemonade rightly names and then reconstituted in the family romance at the end.

We need both Beyonce and bell hook’s brand of feminism to continually interact and intersect, this is the only way each can refine and strengthen their position. I am grateful that they both exist.

 

On Abortion – Bunmi Tella

I was asked where I stood on abortion in Africa….here’s my response…..

I’m definitely pro-choice and hate to see men legislating on matters which they know nothing about.

Just a couple of months ago the Sierra Leonean government tried to pass a bill legalizing first term terminations and it was vetoed by male religious leaders on the basis that it’s a sin. Meanwhile that country has the highest rate of maternal deaths in Africa and since the war a steady increase in incest and rape.

It is unfair that men get to decide such matters without much consideration for the mother – who is essentially then victimized twice.

The uncomfortable truth is that even if it’s not rape or incest, a woman should have the option to say ‘I’m not ready – I cannot handle this’.

A woman having unwanted babies is the fastest path to poverty and misery.

The other day I saw a video of 2 men “fishing” a baby out of a river. It had been abandoned by its mother.

When we force people, who are not ready to be mothers, into motherhood we sentence the child to a lifetime of neglect at best and outright abuse at worse.

Its unwanted children that become victims of sexual, physical, emotional and psychological abuse. Its unwanted children that become thieves, murderers and rapists.

During the first term, the fetus is barely a fetus and if i was a fetus I’d rather be terminated than condemned to a life of misery.

There is a reason China had its one child policy and African governments should be embracing terminations en masse to stop poverty if nothing else.

I don’t understand how you can care so much about some cells the size of a grape in a woman’s body but you can’t bring yourself to care about the abject poverty and the miserable life a huge chunk of your population is condemned to.

 

How to Identify Witches

Witches are the bane of our lives in Nigeria, and that’s a fact! After spending years avoiding them by not going to the village or having anything to do with our illiterate relatives (because those people are prone to witchcraft), it appears that these people simply refuse to leave us alone! They’ve moved their ministry to towns and cities all across the country. The end-of-the-world is truly nigh! In fact Jesus should just come now!

As if we don’t have enough to deal with, everything is going to hell in a hand-basket! There are the feminists, the gays, the Illuminatis and all sorts that we have to battle with on cyberspace, now the witches are trying to take over!

Don’t get us wrong, we know that witches don’t really exist, it’s just that they do! They eat pregnancies, kill children, steal destinies, make people’s private parts disappear and sometimes make announcements in the newspapers concerning political parties!

Witches have taken over *insert hysteria*!

We at 9jafeminista, your ever-so-helpful-blogzine, have taken it upon ourselves, at the risk of losing our vaginas, penises, boobs and destinies,  to help you identify all the witches that might have moved into your neighbourhood, churches, offices or (horror!) homes. These helpful tips might be the saviour of your destiny, and maybe some money because you won’t have to take these people to spiritual leaders (who might charge you an arm and a leg because money is the vehicle of the ‘good news’ or is it that money is the root of all evil? But we won’t worry about those distinctions now)

The steps:

Skin tone: the first thing you have to do when meeting new people is to gauge their skin tones. As we all know black is the colour of evil, so how many shades of black is this black person you’re meeting? Is it warm brown? Dirty brown? Black-black? Dirty black? Blue-black? Night black? B-b-b-b-b-black!? The darker the skin tone of a person, the more likely they are to be witches. There are some yellow witches too but those ones are related to Mammy-Wata, so we won’t bother with those just yet. On the other hand, too much of a good thing is bad. So, those extremely yellow persons, who look as if they are newly ripened mangos, might just be witches!

Age- this is another telling indicator of witchcraft. Really old people are witches! Honestly! Look at it this way, Nigeria is the worst country in the world to grow to a ripe old age! Studies have it that the life expectation of an average Nigerian is forty years. What with the bad roads, terrible to non-existent health-care facilities, lassa fever, etcetera, forty years is even too long! So why would anyone dare to live for more than 60years and then get wrinkled and stooped, and black and talking to themselves and confessing to witchcraft… in saner climes some of these old people would have even been diagnosed with dementia, or Alzheimer’s, or depression, but luckily we are Nigerians and sanity is not our strong suit. All old people, including your granny, are witches! Avoid them at all costs! Encourage your children NOT to visit their grannies, aka your parents, because ALL OLD PEOPLE ARE WITCHES!

… Wait a second, young people are witches too! Yes we said it! Especially those ill-educated young girls from the villages. They usually come to town with all their earthly goods in a black polythene bag, most of the stuff in the bags are rags sef, in fact they wear rags all the time! We’ve heard of a young village girl whose clothes would turn to a rag as soon as she wears them, yup, like reverse Cinderella! These girls are about seven or eight years old and they’ve never been to school before in their lives! And their parents have sold them to be given out as housemaids! And they are poor because of the state of the economy and their parents can barely afford to feed them. These young witches are wicked! They don’t even take their baths even after being brought to the city! They are not to be trusted with babies! We all know there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with employing a six or seven year old as a housemaid, especially to take care of 3month old babies. There is NOTHING wrong with waking these children up at 5am to take care of our ajebutter children who can barely lift a finger! Please, please, as soon as you employ any of these children… better still don’t!

Sex – not that type you perv! We mean the sex assigned to you as soon as the doctor pulls you out of your mother’s womb and either spots a penis or a vagina. Sex is a huge determinant of whether you’re a witch or not, because, this might come as a shock to you, so brace yourself… women are witches! Yup! How many men have been accused of witchcraft and stoned to death? While you’re counting let’s just tell you something, it’s only women that are witches, especially and particularly poor women, or single to stupor women, or women who do not meet up with the current societal standard of beauty, or women who have not taken refuge under the benevolent patriarchal arms and conformed to societal rules or women who have crossed eyes, or women who have beards or women whose mouth are too sharp, or women who don’t have children, or women who are really not womanly enough, but most importantly, they are poor women, disempowered women, women suffering from mental health problems, women who are not soft enough.

There are too many women out there who are witches and we need to strip them down (very important to humiliate them) and then stone them. We’ll need a lot of stones though because these women make up the larger part of the society. But we can do this! Stone every single one of them, one woman at a time! Are we misogynists? No we don’t hate women! We are Nigerians, and we love our women with big bum-bums and tits! It’s just that those women who have turned down our advances and women who think too highly of themselves and women who don’t have big yanshes are witches! Women who refuse to SUBMIT, should be stoned to death, all of them!

Defying Gravity: THIS RIGHT HERE IS THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL! Kai! How can a mere human being defy gravity! Defying gravity comes in different forms, from jumping all the time, to putting your legs on the wall when you’re asleep, to morphing into birds (big black birds particularly, don’t forget black is the colour of ugly and evil) and to levitating. Hian! We’ve all read or watched badly filmed shots of old black women morphing into birds and FLYING! We all know about planes and helicopters and other things that fly, although most of us don’t know how these things perform this feat but we climb into planes without giving it a second thought! But the moment we smell a human being flying we just KNOW that these people are witches! Especially and particularly if they are dark skinned and are women. Flying is a sin! Are we sinners when we fly in an airplane? No! Should we be stoned to death? No! but the moment we hear that a non-oyinbo person is flying or has flown we congregate and stone the person to death because those people are witches! We do enjoy watching movies about monsters and vampires and human beings morphing into animals, well as long as they are Hollywood movies, those Nollywood people know how to treat such sin! Anybody who can fly in say, England or America would obviously be taken an interest in by the government and scientifically analysed, their methodology thoroughly studied. In Nigeria we stone them to death because we do not tolerate such nonsense! We like ourselves the way we are, our Ministry of ‘Science and Technology’ will soon be inventing pencils… you heard me right! We are just in the nick of time because pencils are yet to be invented. We are not backwards, we are forwards, we are brilliantly, shamelessly, and insanely fearful of anything that’s in the least different! Let fear continue to dodge our footsteps, let it rule us, let fear eat us from the insides out, that’s the way we’ve survived all these years by fearing even our shadows.

We hope these helpful tips will continue to guide and guard us throughout our lives, we shall continually tell our children and ourselves not to read books by Nigerians or other Africans about fantasy, although they can read ‘furreign’ books so they can acquire ‘furrigne’ accents and speak through their nostrils, ‘nspirin nspirin’. Do NOT let us progress beyond an economy of consumerism, do not let us invent anything new. Let our young women and men ‘disrupt’ how we import shit from other countries, while those other countries invent new things.

Finally, if all else fails we advise you to do The Mirror Test

The Mirror Test: This test has been passed down from one generation of witch-hunters to the next, the steps are very simple:-

1. Clean your mirror with soft cloth and white powder. Make sure it is sparkling.
2. Cover the mirror at 12midnight with a white cloth. Note that the mirror must be COMPLETELY COVERED.
3. Have a good night’s rest knowing that the witches haunting you shall be revealed soon
4. After 24hrs (i.e. 12 midnight the following day)
5. Take off all your clothes, including your underwear
6. Stand in front of the covered mirror
7. Close your eyes
8. Shout ‘Yeepa!’ Thrice
9. Pull off the mirror covering
10. The person you’re seeing in that mirror? That’s the witch eating your destiny!

Wait… can any of you explain how the internet works?

A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Consent

One of the most controversial issues that could be raised anywhere in the world is that of sexual molestation or rape.

A victim would claim to have been raped and a lot of people would ask what would be considered legitimate questions, not because they’re being nasty, but due to the fact that they honestly, truly do not understand why allegations of rape or sexual molestation can be leveled against another person under certain conditions.

It is true that there’s a lot of information out in cyberspace, and a legitimate question should be, why can’t you find out? But we cannot all be the same.

In a country like Nigeria, issues of rape or sexual molestation is very tricky, because the prevailing culture, is such that women, children and the sexual minorities are fitted into certain stereotypes that makes them vulnerable to abuse.

But beyond ‘morality’ we all know that this shouldn’t be the norm.

Horror stories abound about religious leaders, teachers, lecturers, fathers, mothers and other figures of authority raping, abusing or molesting other people. But taking reactions broadly, both on and off cyberspace, the prevalent idea is to first blame or shame the victim.

Questions like, ‘what were you doing in his/her house?’, ‘why were you dressed like that?’, ‘why didn’t you scream?’, ‘why wait this long before saying anything?’ or ‘You are his wife/girlfriend/lover/sex worker so how can you claim you were raped?’, ‘When you were eating at Mr Biggs, collecting gifts/contracts/jobs/favors/money from him/her, you didn’t think there would be a price to pay?’

The transactional nature of relationships in Nigeria makes these questions, almost sane and proper.

But these questions are NEITHER sane, nor proper because of one major word, this word is called CONSENT.

According to Encarta Dictionary Consent can be defined as giving permission

1. give permission: to give formal permission for something to happen ·  As soon as they met Robert, her parents consented to the marriage. 2. agree: to agree to do something ·  She consented to appear as a witness. Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

You are a university or polytechnic undergraduate. You are broke. You’ve called your parents and your mum or dad says they are broke too, but they are expecting some money tomorrow and will send it to you as soon as it lands in their account. Meanwhile, one of your friends, who is as broke as you, says she/he has some uncooked beans left in his/her locker. You check your stove/gas and you still have some left, so you ask your friend to give you the beans. You start cooking, just as the delicious smell of beans fills your room, your gas/kerosene, finishes. You run over to the room next door and BEGGED them to let you use their stove. Long story short, your beans is finally ready. You dish the food and as you were about to start eating you discover there’s no water, so you rush out to buy a sachet of pure water. By the time you return to your room, your roommate, who had been out all morning had just finished eating ALL your beans.

Now take that feeling of hurt, betrayal and willingness to commit murder, multiply it by ten, then apply it to someone who has just been sexually molested.

There is nothing wrong with asking, at every stage, just to be sure. No harm in asking about kisses, ‘Is it alright if I kissed you here?’ no harm in finding out, ‘is it alright to touch your breasts? How do you like your breasts touched?’

No harm in asking questions.

More importantly there is no harm in stopping whenever your partner says stop.

People mean stop when they say stop!

Consent is the difference between good sex and  rape. That simple word makes life uncomplicated, helps you keep relationships.

‘Yes’ or ‘No’ can determine whether your name will forever be linked with ‘sexual molester’ or not. It is the difference between having to explain yourself and nobody knowing about your sex life.

Consent is a sweet word, you should try it… everyday.

 

Domestic Violence and the Midget Within

9jafeminista asked me to put down my thoughts on DV. For the uninitiated, that’s domestic violence. She said 300-400 words. That was a week ago. Since then, I’ve written quite a number of articles, but, all in my head. On paper, I managed three puny paragraphs. On evaluation, I found I had written each of those three paragraphs in a different colour (significant?).

They (the 3 paragraphs) did not say much for I was trying to be explicit about my experience in an illicit manner. Not because of fear. My considerations also do not include my abuser, if at all, merely in a roundabout fashion. No, he isn’t any part of my considerations which remain chiefly, my girls…plus the fact that the internet NEVER forgets.

He does show his hidden character… but you must know what to look for or you will miss it.

I am usually reticent, except when speaking privately, but he taught me that privacy belongs only to those who know they are being watched. If you ever forget, your privacy can be invaded for any reason, ranging from the pleasure he takes in snooping to gathering evidence to prove you are a slut.

He knew better than to abuse me physically so he played mind games. Only, I never knew the rules of this game.

Some days, yes was yes but while we played, yes may become a maybe or even no.

The emotional and psychological abuser may be worse than the one who physically abuses. The reason is that with physical abuse, people become aware of your suffering and may intervene and save you.  No one, not even those who care about you can discern what you are passing through with emotional abuse.

Whoever dares to befriend you becomes the enemy or may be accused of being your lover. Depending on this one’s hook du jour, I was either a slut or incapable. Sometimes, you are both and the question becomes, ‘so why are you with her?’

To a certain extent, the one who abuses emotionally speaks the truth…his version of the truth. Constantly, the story evolves, gathering weight and colour as it travels. The intent is to malign, to curry favour and sympathy from the current listener.

I have been luckier than most. I grew wings, I chose life, I refused to be a victim but I ended up a statistic still, but I daresay, the good kind. One of the ones who walked away from all the crap and BS and currently choosing what life it is she desires to live.

My consideration also includes the legal, but has never been regret.

I am alone, maybe even lonely sometimes, but I am the one who chooses when those times are. Unlike with the abuser, who unable to deal with his personal failings and looks at me to find what will make him feel good. Who, upon seeing my awesomeness, goes ahead to try and belittle all he sees in me which highlights his shortcomings.

For that is the biggest problem with DV, it occurs when self evaluation reveals the midget that the perpetrator is.

Dr Adenike Olatunji-Akioye