Over ten years ago my aunt sat me down for some words of wisdom as I was on my way to womanhood; she told me that it was not going to be easy but I should try and cut down, instead of four times a week go down to two, then to one and in no time I won’t have the desire to wear pants that often. It wasn’t going to be easy indeed. Between the field hockey practice and lifeguarding training three times a week to the constant movement jumping in and out of matatus, the idea of trying to squeeze a skirt in between did not sound too appealing. And not just any skirt, the long city-council-broom type of skirt that swept the streets as you walked. This was accompanied by the job description that comes at the expense of not having male genitalia; kitchen prowess, not to stomp my heels too hard when I walked and the list goes on. I always wondered about the basis and origin of this fixation on endorsing masculinity and sheltering femininity as rigid construct that makes pathology of anything in the margins.
This text is the exploration of what appears to be a simple concern of preserving gender identity in the larger archaic context of society’s emphasis in defining the sexes [male or female] and prescribing the corresponding gender identity [pink or blue]. This shelving is done without alternate narratives in the name of procreation through what was historically the only existing mechanism then, the traditional one-dimensional framework of man to woman penetration. A historical scrutiny of this agenda highlights a subsequent sexual hierarchy that has given privilege to certain practices and criminalised others, varying from one society to another. What we wear, what we say, our thoughts and actions; essentially, how our bodies move and interact with the self and society, physically or otherwise, are instruments linked to the act of having sex and by default to ones identity and organs that would facilitate a sexual act or lack there of. This is sexuality. The value that society places on particular expressions of sexuality is what leads to the sexual hierarchy that varies across borders. This hierarchy translates into policy and segregation that involves political, economic and legal discrimination against people who express their sexuality in manners not deemed acceptable under the guise of morality by the ruling class – this is apartness of the other subjected to “separate development”; a sexual apartheid.
In the early 19th Century, the normative sexual expression of the Victorian era was sexual acts that would guarantee the survival of the species void of any erotic undertones. This history can not emphasise enough the impact of these puritan values and their exportation. It is during this period that the terms heterosexual and homosexual emerged, both categories used to describe sex driven by erotic desires as opposed to procreation. To date, oldest profession that captures the sex for pleasure practice are female tantric engineers; a profession that has always challenged the notion of sex for reproduction.
Thanks to industrialization, as societies move from production to consumption so have our bodies, our sexuality is not just about procreation as the end result; our bodies are engaged in the pleasure aspect as well if not solely. With this emergence of alternate economies, sexual pleasure became more mainstream in the cultural fantasy that shunned the idea of people expressing their sexuality without the intention of procreation. Furthermore, with technology, reproduction can now be done in more ways than one further challenging the conventional mode of reproduction.
As a result of this slight sexual renovation, some practices in our societies are more entertained and not seen as a threat to reproduction as far as the woman body is concerned. I love the option of wearing pants and sitting without having to cross my legs, and not to mention, order some take out instead of slaving in the kitchen everyday; these practices are tolerated in many contexts and don’t threaten my woman role in society that much. But, what about the boy who wants the option of wearing a skirt or sit with his legs crossed and spend most of his time in the kitchen?
The complexity of sexuality calls for the separation of sex, sexual practice, sexual identity and gender identity to understand misconceptions like men having sex with men being classified as homosexuals and that being born with female genitalia does not equate to identifying as a girl. To put it more simply, the biology of our mouth does not dictate the types of foods that we eat; neither do genitalia dictate the type of sexual practices that one should engage in. As complex and evolving creatures, we can agree that eating is more than just about the ability to chew, swallow and satisfy hunger. This complexity of sexuality has been trivialized under the guise of morality that has fuelled tremendous acts of violence and marginalization in many pockets of the world.
Sexuality is a cross-cutting matter that goes beyond rocking the bedroom. We live in societies where boys commit suicide because of being bullied as “sissies”, health services discriminate depending on who you sleep with and the police can beat up and rape a woman because of her profession. It is absolutely crucial that we engage our world at every social and professional level using a sexuality lens to address the patriarchal normative decay in the struggle to unconditionally celebrate diversity. An end to the sexual apartheid is long overdue.
By Umra Omar
