Sex and Sexuality in an African Worldview: A Challenge to Contemporary Realities

Of all the "variations" of sexual behaviour, homosexuality has had the most vivid social pressure, and has evoked the most lively (if usually grossly misleading) historical accounts. It is, as many sexologists... have noted, the form closest to the heterosexual norm in our culture, and partly because of that it has often been the target of sustained social oppression. It has also, as an inevitable effect of the hostility it has evoked, produced the most substantial forms of resistance to hostile categorization and has, consequently, a longcultural and subcultural history. A study of homosexuality is therefore essential, both because of its own intrinsic interest and because of the light it throws on the wider regulation of sexuality, the development of sexual categorization, and the range of possible sexual identities. ¹