TEDxDAR 2011: Leila Sheikh

Leila Sheikh is a feminist activist who is concerned with a constituency that is rarely talked about: sex workers. I like that she's calling it a profession, framing the discussion around the challenges that people who engage in sex work face. Anyways, you can imagine that as a constituency, sex workers face a lot of barriers when it comes to talk about their jobs. There are issues of health and HIV/AIDS, issues of abuse of course, and the protection of their rights to economic justice and social justice.

The attitude in Tanzania is the obvious one: sex work is illegal and immoral. Why do we lie to ourselves like this? Shame on us, even. If sex work was so immoral and illegal, why is it that Tanzania has more sex workers than Kenya and Uganda and pray tell: who are their clients?

There are different kinds of sex workers. The voluntary sex worker who has chosen to pursue this profession exists in Tanzania too, some women see it as a way of reclaiming their bodies and pursuing something that they feel they are good at. There is the involuntary sex worker, people who have been trafficked or otherwise coerced into sex work, which is problematic. It is the second group of sex workers who tend to focus the discussion on sex work.

An audience member brought up a central question: isn't it part of the oppression of women to validate sex work? I think that it is one of those issues where sometimes one has to agree to disagree. While I understand the reluctance of sister and brother feminists about the issue of exploitation, let's not forget that some of the more extreme militants believe that all heterosexual sex is rape. I imagine they have their reasons... I align better with feminists of my generation who are sex-positive and consider sex work to be a valid choice for an individual.

TEDxDAR 2011: Let's Talk Orgasms

A nice break for the liveblogging/livetweeting crowd, we are now firmly in the taboo subtheme of TEDxDAR 2011. Warning: the linked video below contains graphic sexual talk and imagery, please do not click on it if you can't handle the subject matter. Okay. We're talking sex, or rather thinking sex as we watch Mary Roach's presentation at TED Global titled: 'Ten Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm'.

You know, there is something very interesting about the fact that so much research on human sexuality took place in the middle of the last century in the United States. Conservative times, seriously unconventional research. Kinsey, Masters and Johnson took away the taboo element I suppose by making it 'science'. So if you want to study, talk about something really interesting but seriously taboo, do it under the cover of a PhD ;)

On a serious note, I haven't come across much research into African sexuality or much research on sex on Africa in general*. This is not good. The Fifth Annual Conference on Sexual Health and Rights is compromized by its NGO-ish obsession with the political side of the sexuality discussion, but at least it is trying. If I could catch a hold of a sexologist working on the continent, I would have these questions for them: how do the different forms of female circumcision affect a woman's sexuality? And: what was the genesis of the practice in the first place? The WHO mentions hygiene and tradition, but (no offense folks, I know you are health professionals...) I suspect that even they are lost in the woods on this one.

*That's not strictly true. If you Google the term 'African Sexuality' you'll see an interesting phenomenon. Try avoiding FGM, HIV/AIDS, jungle fever etc. I could get into why I think this is the case, but I think you know...

For The Record

I got this link off Bottom Up Thinking, and it is a good one. If you ever wondered about the gender dynamics of development work, you have to read Shotgun Shack's piece. Although it talks about the work experience of women in the NGO sector, in Bongo at least the private sector isn't all that different- the women there just have to experience all this (expletive deleted) while wearing less comfortable shoes.

Actually it is a good thing that I came across that piece of writing. A recent story from a friend about being physically threatened by a subordinate in her own office made me see red, and I have been building up a head of steam about structural sexism. The "post" I was composing about my beef with workplace gender politics is way over 2000 words long now, and I haven't even really started... sigh. So just read Shotgun Shack's piece, again.