The African Homophobe Is Not Special. He Is Simply Behind Schedule
There’s a faux attempt by some members of the African public to paint their homophobia as something new and special, to see it as a vestige of our burgeoning religious and moral fiber resisting Western ills. Nothing could be further from the truth.
First, as a people, we’re not some bastion of morality. Don’t deceive yourself. We simply have a series of rules we choose to follow when it suits us.
Next, we’re not some radically different entity from the West. We’re not better than them. Like most things, we’re simply behind schedule. The West has run its race. They’ve gone through the whole gamut of homophobia, criminalizing homosexuality, trying to change homosexuality etc and have come to accept that Homosexuality is not some disease or disorder that needs changing.
It wasn’t until 1967 that the United Kingdom signed the Sexual Offences Act decriminalizing Homosexuality. Before then, homosexuality was a crime punishable by jail time or medical castration.
It wasn’t until 1974 that the American Psychological Association declassified Homosexuality as a mental disorder as studies continued to point to Homosexuality as a variation of human sexual orientation. It still took until 2015 before people of the same sex could marry each other and have their marriage recognized by the state. America was the 22nd country to legalize gay marriage. The way homophobes in Africa say it, you’d think Americans were the first and that since then, they’ve spent every waking hour trying to “convert” other countries. As with every other thing, you’d be wrong.
In the 1900s, psychiatrists and psychologists started a conversion race of sorts, each more keen than the last to prove that they could “cure” homosexuality. The conversion treatments varied but the aim was the same. They would use testicle transplants, bladder washing, lobotomies (brain surgery), combine electric shocks with homoerotic stimuli, force people to repeatedly have heterosexual sex and more. When it yielded no success, the definition of the term “cure” shifted from abolishing homosexual urges to establishing heterosexual urges to give more wiggle room for success. Here, success was defined as the development of heterosexual inclinations even if the person still retained their homosexuality. They still failed.
All of these supposed treatments have faded into the background because they don’t work. There was no attempt at cure that wasn’t tried. They’ve all failed. Even today, conversion therapy continues to be attempted but it has fallen into the recesses of alternative medicine. And that is not because of political correctness or liberalism. It is simply because it does not work.
I like that Africans like to feel special and superior morally. It’s cute. Like a bunny hopped up on cocaine or a dog chasing its tail, ever certain that if it runs in a circle just a bit faster, it can catch it.
But dear African homophobe, you’re not different from the more developed countries that have largely ditched their homophobia. You’re not better than them. You’re simply behind them. Is it about criminalizing homosexuality? They’ve done it. Saying that it’s a choice? They’ve done it. Advocating a cure? They’ve done it. All these things have been done. Every time, they’ve been proven wrong.
Your homophobia doesn’t make you “woke” to some sinister Western agenda to make us all gay. It doesn’t make you more special in the eyes of whatever god your parents told you is the one true God.
You think you’re a special bastion of morality doing something that has never been done before, when in reality, you’re no more special than a man unwittingly reenacting a history book because he couldn’t be arsed to read up on it.
The earlier you homophobes come to terms with this, the better.
Written by Vhagar
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20 Comments
pete
November 25, 07:31If only they know.
Zilayefa
November 25, 08:21Bless you vhagar….. please i need to arrange one special cloth for you this Christmas, especially for all the beautiful articles You have been churning out within these few weeks. The one on effeminacy was lit, and i was going to talk to madam pinky about something i want to do for the effeminate community. Thanks again vhagar…??
Foxydevil
November 25, 08:31People have every right to be homophobic.
I don’t have a problem with homophobia, what I have a problem with, are the crimes perpetuated on the alter of homophobia.
You do not get to hit people because they’re gay, you don’t deny people employment because they are gay, you do not get to Kito people because they’re gay.
But walking up to me and telling me ” foxy, I don’t think our friendship can work, I can’t be friends with a gay man ”
That I can totally relate with.
I’ve dismissed friends for being talkative, unhygienic, too smart, too pretty or handsome, overwrought, even straight, so why the hell can someone not dismiss me for my sexuality?
Gay people are getting way too entitled, and seriously, it’s getting a bit ennui, and the fervent ranting is starting to sound like cacophony to my ears.
This article is laughable at best!
No one thinks being homophobic is special, homophobia is something that has existed in Africa and around the world way before gay people started having rights.
The average Nigerian expects that everyone that isn’t a homosexual should be homophobic, they don’t act like they’re doing anything special, they act like they are doing something natural.
The people who this article should be directed to are the ” liberal Nigerians ” the people that leave those haunting comments on blogs ” I don’t have problem with homosexuals but….. ”
“who cares who a person sleeps with as long as….. ”
Those patronising straight men that you people so love to celebrate here, lashing at out at any patronising comment they throw your way like a hungry bitch , that saw a bone.
Now those are the ones that think they’re doing something special!
Sheesh
?.
And take it from me (someone that has actually lived overseas)
The whites are even more homophobic than Nigerians.
A Nigerian might insult you, lynch you, steal from you or take you to deliverance .But the whites will kill you. Forget the painted picture their main stream media shows, the greatest act of homophobia are being committed in foreign countries.
Compare the rate of teenage gay suicide here and there, or the career trajectory of openly gay actors (Matt bomer comes to mind) what about the discrimination in sports locker room, that have driven many athletes to suicide ,even the so called president of the greatest country in the world and his vice are renowned gay haters, yet the supposedly homosexual embracing public voted them in.
Even if your spasm of thoughts are ephemeral, you couldn’t have forgotten about the Orlando shooting that soon. Can we recount the many incidences fathers allegedly shot their sons for being gay.
I rest my case.
Delle
November 25, 09:00The whites would kill you. Ah yes, we know about the Orlando incident.
Nigerians would maul you! They would drag you out in public and set you on fire!!!! (take this from someone who’s been in Nigeria all his life).
What were you even driving at? So because the whites are homophobic, we shouldn’t stand against the local homophobia? No homophobia is greater than the other. We should frown at them all.
You try so hard to antagonize everything just to be relevant. It would be cute seeing as the drama is one of the things that’s been keeping this blog going but yours is draining. Even when it’s glaring what the message being passed is about and how accurate it is, you want to give your input (no matter how off-the-mark). Seriously, I’m tired of seeing your comments and overlooking. Because I do know you and what you are like, this charade you’re putting up here, the whole hype and exaggerated facts about yourself, what’s it for? Validation? It only screams insecurity.
Oh well, it’s you. If this platform makes you feel good about yourself, you can keep indulging yourself but I’m really tired of looking the other way until maybe, I find that one genuine comment from you. You make fake a virtue.
In your words, Sheesh! ??
Zilayefa
November 25, 09:16Word Delle…… Word!
People come here to find hope. There are tons of people who read these things but they never comment. I know someone who reads the comments in here because in his words, they are the real stories, these are the comments that have Made him realise that indeed there is nothing wrong with him…. and then you have very depressing and pessimistic comments just like the one before that just makes you wonder what happens in the cerebral faculty of some individuals existence
Pink Panther
November 25, 09:03People have every right to be homophobic.
Wow.
You are truly toxic to the advocacy for LGBT equality.
Gad
November 25, 09:38If the writer of this article gets a pair of clothes for writing this “beautiful” article then you deserve a wardrobe.
Sens8
November 25, 17:38This dude is just a fucking waste of space. You are as retarded as your use of the of the word ‘alter’ for ‘altar’. You lived abroad……so fucking what?!!! If everyone is entitled to their homophobia, you’re entitled to some arse whopping. For all your self absorbed sense of intellect, a bowl of chicken broth left outside for six days has more sense in a drop than you have in your whole body.
Take a hike. Off a cliff into a ravine would do us all some world of good.
Oh wait! That’s cruel but I am entitled to my own comments, aren’t l?
FYI, you replying would only make you a goddamned hypocrite but we already knew that.
Baddest
November 25, 18:38Foxy u sabi abeg. Sharp guy,I know how many gays that has been beaten to death in U.K few years ago
Higwe
November 25, 19:37Foxy, you’re intelligent, and I’ve certainly learnt a lot from you. But you need to tone it down a notch. You can make solid points without being rude and nasty. I think you always make valid, fresh points, then you foul it up by cutting too deeply. It upsets people’s sensitivities.
The thing I love most about your arguments, is that when I look at them from an objective angle, not as a gay man, they make perfect sense.
Vhager, the article is wonderful, I love every bit of it.
Edafe Okporo
November 26, 17:16@Foxy Mr living abroad you are advocating for equal employment what can guarantee you equal rights with someone that is homophobic, you are the typical defenition of stigma.
Colossus
November 25, 08:51?????
Delle
November 25, 08:52Yasss Preacheeetttt!???
Gad
November 25, 09:45In our advocacy we should guard against oikophobia. Its not a virtue. It can never be. The best it can achieve is make people look stupid, worthless and senseless.
Phoenix
November 25, 19:17?
Pjay
November 26, 02:10Can’t Foxy be blocked from commenting on the blog?
Gad
November 26, 02:41Of course he can but first of you have to spell out how each person here should comment and make it clear that any contrary opinion WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. I think that will be fair and just except if you are saying that apart from intolerance, injustice is also your part of you
Malik
November 26, 22:33Well said Higwe. Foxy, you should listen to those that care about you.
Higwe
November 27, 00:29This vile character he displays here, is very far from who he is .When I had a false HIV positive result, I was almost ready to kill myself, foxy was the one that talked me out of it, even encouraged me to post my story here. You can imagine my shock when I found out he is foxydevil.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t oppose him, because I know this is a character created out of spite /boredom. But as delle said, at a time it gets tiring and you looks like you are trying too hard.
trystham
November 27, 08:16Aren’t u lucky u spoke out b4 he did? We’d be seeing the sordid details chalked to an act of benevolence sooner than later