The Sex Lives of African Women Quotes

“fauxnogamy,” to describe a practice where married men in relationships that are meant to be monogamous have multiple relationships without taking on any of the responsibilities that come with being legally married to multiple women.”
― Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing

“What I have learned over the years is that you don’t discover yourself by sticking to well-trodden paths. You discover yourself by embarking on your own personal odyssey, which is experienced differently by everyone.”
― Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing

“for example, about navigating freedom and polyamory in conservative Senegal, or resisting the erasure of lesbian identity and finding queer community in Egypt in the midst of a revolution. African women grapple with the trauma of sexual abuse, and resist religious and patriarchal edicts in order to assert their sexual power and agency.”
― Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing

“I have learned over time that relationships require work. When you’re younger, you have a sense of love as being magical and so relationships happen in that particular space of magic, and it’s easy to feel that’s all one needs, but now I know that relationships require work, and constant work. The desire that is in the relationship also needs to be nurtured, and thought about, and reentered and reimagined.”
― Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing

“I spent years avoiding sex with guys because I didn’t want anyone to gossip about me. I wish I had realized sooner that no matter what I did guys would claim to have fucked me every which way under the sun.”
― Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing