‘I Thought Sex Was Bad.’ – Binyavanga Wainaina

In a Facebook post, Kenyan writer, Binyavanga Wainaina, reveals his earliest turmoil as a gay man.

‘In my 20s, I wanted to be asexual. I let my body grow very fat (safe from desire). I become the group rustic – big dreads to hide under, oversize clothes, never shave, a story of huggable bear who never lets anybody close. I decided to love groups, buddies, cliques. Like many queers, become the class clown. Nobody asks you who u are with. U make sure they have no reason to ask you. You put out the vibe that u are beyond sex and loving. U are available to advise everybody. U are a public person, in your room you wank a lot. Alone. I did the work diligently of guiding everybody to not see me as a sexual person a person needing love. I was the highest defender of all closets. I made all those who love me expect little of me. I expected very little of me. It nearly destroyed me. I buried a friend who died of shame ..I would have expired the same way, slowly degraded again and again. Until I was thirty I really thought kisses were dirty. Every women I kissed sexually left me feeling wrong and dirty. So, I told myself sex itself is bad. It was a male escort who kissed me and made me feel I deserved to tingle from a kiss. Imagine that. A French Canadian man in Montreal. Imagine that. Fucker saved my life.’