Ahead of the February 11 Residence 11 Desire Summit on Sex and Relationships (get tickets here!), we’re conducting a series of livestream interviews with Summit speakers. You can watch them live or after the fact on our YouTube channel, Facebook page or Twitter account, and ask questions for our interviewees.
Watch our interview between Editor-in-Chief Rachel Kramer Bussel and Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women, about Sekyiamah’s work around sexuality, how feminism informs her work, and why all people should talk about sex, the topic of her Desire Summit talk. Find out more about Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah on her website and read her blog Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women. Read an excerpt from The Sex Lives of African Women here and read Nana Darkoa Sexyiamah’s “Five Lessons About Sex.”
Select excerpts from our interview with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah:
On what she learned about sex growing up:
I think the problem was, I feel like I learned very little about sex. Nobody really said anything to me about sex growing up. I went to a very strict Catholic boarding school, an all girls school. [The teachers] were super influential. There was no conversation about sex, I don’t even remember being told the basic biological stuff. I mean, I’m in my mid-40s. So this was being in school in the 90s. Right.
don’t know how much things have changed. From what I hear not very much. There used to be this really popular show on TV in Ghana, which is where I grew up. What would invariably happen was a young teenage girl will get pregnant, she will get thrown out of school, and you know, her life will be miserable. And at that point in time, my mom always turned and pointed to the TV and said, ‘See, this is what happens when you mess with boys.’ So I was really fearful of messing with boys, even though I had no idea what messing with boys really, truly meant.
On blogging about sex:
I had finally found the space where I could pull out all my thoughts and my questions. I remember the very early days, I would like blog every night. And I started very much from the self; it was me sharing my own personal stories, sexual experiences. And then what was really surprising and I hadn’t really thought about that was the reaction. Lots of people were commenting. Lots of people started to message me and ask me questions. Other people started to share their stories with me.
And then it dawned on me that what I needed to do was also to encourage other women to share their stories. So somebody would usually reach out to me and say, ‘Hey, I had this experience, too.’ And then I would say, ‘How about you write about it for the blog?’
Usually their reaction would be, ‘Well, I’ve never written anything before.’ And then I’d say, ‘Go and just try it. And if it works, we can publish it.’ Invariably, most of the people who sent me stories, these stories were incredible. That was so interesting. There were different types of stories; people had stories of sometimes really traumatic experiences, people started to write fiction. I think people found the very freeing to explore their desires.
I was getting overwhelmed with the number of submissions I was receiving. At some point in time, we had five or six people who were contributing so regularly that I give them their own usernames and passwords to the blog so they could upload their stories directly. For the most part, these were women I had never met. It was just really inspiring.
It quickly became a collective space where you had women from different parts of the continent and the global diaspora sharing their stories around sex and sexuality.
On how feminism informs her work:
If I wasn’t a feminist, I definitely would not do the work that I do around sex and sexuality. One of the oldest feminist mantras as the personal is political. I think there’s nothing more personal than your body. Right? There’s nothing more political than taking ownership of your body, taking ownership over pleasure. If I, was not a feminist, I wouldn’t feel it was also politically important for women to access pleasure, for us to advance sexual rights for sexual minorities. My work is absolutely because of my politics as a feminist.
Watch the whole interview above and be sure to subscribe to our channels to catch all our interviews!
About the Desire Summit: The Residence 11 Desire Summit, sponsored by sex toy companies FUN FACTORY and Blush, intimate audio platform BLOOM, romance novel publisher Avon Books, and yoga teacher training company Ganja Yoga, will feature extensive educational sessions with over 20 diverse authors and subject matter experts across psychology, physical intimacy, technology innovation, sexual health, music and narrative storytelling. Speakers include, writer Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women, polyamory expert Kevin Patterson, author of Love’s Not Color Blind, sex educator and dating expert Erin Tillman, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling romance author and TikTok favorite Sierra Simone (Priest, American Queen), Mia Hopkins (author of Tanked, one of The New York Times’ best 2022 romances, romance novelist Suzanne Park (The Do Over, The Christmas Clash), and Taylor Hahn, author of swinging novel The Lifestyle, among others. Keynote speakers will be intimacy coach Zoë Kors, author of Radical Intimacy: Cultivate the Deeply Connected Relationships You Desire and Deserve, speaking on 6 Questions That Will Get You Instantly Connected to Anyone, and sex educator Dirty Lola, who appeared as a sexpert on Netflix’s The Principles of Pleasure, speaking on The State of Modern Dating. Get tickets here for the Desire Summit.