Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Ancient Traditions That Change How We Think About Sex with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

What if sexual freedom isn’t something we need to fight for, but something we’re being invited to remember? In this episode of The Language of Love Conversations, I sit down with Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, one of Africa’s most influential feminist voices and the author of the powerful new book Seeking Sexual Freedom: African Rites, Rituals, and Sankofa in the Bedroom. Nana is also the award-winning writer behind The Sex Lives of African Women, and her work has sparked global conversations about pleasure, liberation, and the deeper truths women share across cultures. In our conversation, we delve into her new book, which is part travel log, part cultural excavation, and part manifesto. Together, we explore African traditions around sexuality and pleasure that existed long before colonization and how those traditions challenge many of the stories women have inherited about desire and shame. What I love most about Nana’s work is that she doesn’t frame sexual liberation as something women must rebel toward. Instead, she invites us to remember. We talk about traditions like the “sex auntie,” communal rituals where women gathered across generations to share wisdom, and the importance of embodiment. Nana also shares how reconnecting with movement and our bodies can help us step out of shame and rediscover sensuality. If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your body, burdened by shame you didn’t ask for, or curious about what pleasure might feel like if you could unlearn everything you were taught, this conversation is for you. We dive into: The meaning of Sankofa and how reclaiming the past can restore sexual freedom How colonialism interrupted natural freedom, leading to modern shame, homophobia, and marginalization The role of sex aunties (Senga) in guiding young women toward body confidence and pleasure without shame Rituals and rites of passage that created safe spaces for learning about sex Embodied practices like dance and movement as pathways to pleasure How sexual confidence influences confidence in the rest of our lives The trauma of female genital mutilation (FGM) and efforts to preserve cultural rites without harm What sexual freedom actually feels like in the body How we can all create new rituals for ourselves, our daughters, and our communities Why intergenerational conversations about sexuality matter Remember, sexual freedom may not be something we need to fight for. It may be something we’re being invited to rediscover. To learn more, check out Nana’s book Seeking Sexual Freedom: African Rites, Rituals, and Sankofa in the Bedroom. You can also connect with her at darkoathewriter.com or on Instagram at @thesexlivesofafricanwomen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, and for more than 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better across every kind of relationship. My intention on Language of Love Conversations is simple, to help you learn to love and be loved better, deepening your relationships, expanding your capacity for connection, and living with more presence, honesty, and love. Let's get fluent in the language of love together. In this episode of Language of Love, I am joined by Nana Darkoa Sekiyama. She's one of Africa's most influential feminist voices and the author of the powerful new book, Seeking Sexual Freedom, African Rights, Rituals, and Sankofa in the Bedroom.

You're going to find out what that means. The book is part travelogue, part cultural excavation, part manifesto. Nana is exploring African traditions around sexual pleasure and challenges. So many of the stories women around the world have been taught about desire, about shame, about freedom. What I really enjoy is that Nana doesn't frame sexual liberation as something that we as women need to rebel toward, but It's something many of us are being invited to remember. That's where Sankofa comes in. On Language of Love, we talk a lot about intimacy as a path back to wholeness.

And this conversation is definitely that. It's about pleasure as an inheritance, sexuality as a form of wisdom, and what becomes possible when women are able to feel at home in their bodies again. I'm so excited for you to hear this conversation. on Language of Love. Nana Darkoa-Sichiyama, thank you so much for joining us on the Language of Love. Thank you so much, Laura. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited to talk to you about this book and all you've been learning and sharing. People often ask me how I got into the field of sexuality. And, you know, there are lots of reasons. But

when I was in college and university, what really got me going and really inspired me to pursue it professionally was I was an anthropology major and I started taking these cultural anthropology classes and started learning. I remember the first thing I learned about were the masculinization and feminization rights for adolescents in Papua New Guinea and just all the different traditions around the world and the way in which back then, I mean, this was in the 80s, we called it westernization, you know, the way westernization had changed things. Now, you know, we identify that more as colonialism or colonizing, I should say, different traditions and the patriarchy and all that. And I know we're going to get into all of that because this book, Seeking Sexual Freedom,

African rights rituals in Sankofa in the bedroom. And it's really about some many of the original traditions before westernization, colonization, the patriarchy, all of those things kind of shifted and changed, resulting in what we see today in the Western world and certainly in United States where I'm located, which is a lot of repression. And that I want to start and we'll get into all of this, but I want to start with this word Sankofa, which kind of is the idea of going back to retrieve what was good and life-giving right in your past. Absolutely. So let's just start there because I love this idea, which to me is one of the premises of your book, that this isn't something that we need to fight for. It's a remembering. Absolutely. Yes. So Sankofa is

the concept that really underpins this book and it literally translates as go back and get it it comes from the adinkra system of language which is a visual language system of my people from ghana their cans and it's represented visually by a long-necked bird that looks a bit like a swan if you were to imagine a swan sort of turning backward and looking back at itself that's literally what the symbol sankofa looks like and you captured the meaning exactly right it means that it is always worthwhile to go back into your past identify what's good from your past and bring it into the future and so when i decided to explore the idea of sexual freedom i thought i want to provide a guide to women and people in general on how we can get sexually free in the

here and now and I thought well we don't start from nowhere right there's always a basis on which we can build so I felt I needed to start by research and African rites and rituals those that have existed pre-colonization and in many cases still persist today but in I guess I would say adulterated forms or very different forms however you want to look at it and to identify what was good about some of those rites and rituals, and in a sense to also consider how we can apply some of those good lessons from the past to our present and also to our future. Yeah. And you may have already just answered that, this question in the answer you just gave, but your last book before this, which did, you know, I know did very well, Sex Life of African

women kind of was the lead in or what inspired this book. And I'm wondering if you can talk about that transition and the underpinning of your inspiration for this. Absolutely. So when the sex lives of African women over a period of five years, traveling not just across Africa, but also the diaspora, speaking to people in the United States and the Caribbean and South America in the UK, because obviously we have people of African descent all over the world, right? I asked women about the experiences of sex and sexuality, what had influenced their sexuality growing up, how they identified in terms of their sexuality, the kind of experiences they had, and basically put together a book where each chapter was a different woman's personal story.

So you have a whole spectrum of womanhood represented. I interviewed a woman as young as 21, a woman as old as 71. And that book really resonated with women of all backgrounds across the world. I had people telling me how much they resonated with the stories, even if they came from very, very different backgrounds, right? Because there are always these things I feel we have in common as a woman. I remember a Filipino journalist who interviewed me saying to me, she identified with my personal story because like me, she went to a Catholic boarding school. So there were all of these threads that women across the globe really connected with. And I divided the stories into three broad sections, healing, self-discovery, and sexual

freedom. The stories that were in the healing section were stories where women were either consciously going through a journey to heal from harm they had experienced. It could be child sexual abuse, for instance, self-discovery. It felt like there were lots of women in that category. women who were questioning everything they had been told growing up and trying to chart new paths and then there were a few women who I felt were almost like unicorns because they seemed to have figured it out right and seemed like they were 11 they are best sexually liberated lives and I felt

like those were models for the rest of us and those women were in the sexual freedom category and even after I was done with that book I kept thinking about how do we provide a roadmap for everybody to figure out how to get sexually free. And that's really what led me to start researching the idea of sexual freedom and to think of African rights and rituals as a basis on which some of those freedoms could be found. A lot of your own story is in there as well, of things that you had, because you kind of not only were exploring these as a researcher, but as a participant, you know, whether it was a class in Tantra or an erotic massage, and you shared some of your experiences in school as well. And I thought that was a really

beautiful part of the story. Also, it was a very personal accounting and, you know, I have some specific things that I just, you know, that struck me that I wanted to speak to some of the traditions that you spoke about, but let's just start with, cause you know, it's this idea of sexual freedom. And the premise, as I understand it, is that we come from sexual freedom. There are all of these inherent cultural traditions in Africa and probably underneath everyone, right? Since we all ultimately came from Africa that are purely sexually free. And then with colonialism and all the religions and all of the repression and all of the mass, you know, going from a matriarchal society to a patriarchal one, that a lot of that has become repressed and

disconnected. And yet there is this potential for uncovering those again. So I'm wondering, let's just start with, and then we'll get into some of the traditions that I found, you know, that I can think of. And I hopefully you'll share some others that really you have found to be beautiful aspects or, or inroads to sexual freedom. Give us the rundown. I've, I've mentioned these terms right but give us the rundown of how we lost it in your words because I'm bastardizing it myself trying to explain it you're the expert so tell us how this all happened where we were sexually free and now so many of us except for those unicorns as you say uh really struggle with repression I actually think you said it beautifully I agree very much with you that we

are all born free right I feel like I see this in my little girl right like children are just so free in their bodies and then as adults we put shame on them we make them conscious of certain acts we say certain acts are bad without really explaining you know I'll just give you a little a small example just from last week when I went to pick up my daughter's almost six from school and she's in a mixed gender school and then a slightly older girl came up to me and said you know her name is Asantua and she said to me my girl was lying on Asantua like as if Asantua has done something bad you know so when we came home I said to Asantua why was my girl lying on you and she was like we were just playing or her ma who's also a girl was lying on me too and and

there was an innocence it was just kids playing but I think obviously the older girl saw this and for her there were like warning lights going off in her head so then I was trying to explain to her I understand you're just playing but some people feel concerned when they see little boys lying on top of little girls so trying to do that at school right and and that's just like I think a small example yeah um of how we start to make children really conscious of their bodies and how they interact with children of the opposite gender sometimes and and we make a big deal out of it even if we can just sort of simplify it but in going back to african rites and rituals i found that to my reading a lot of the rites and rituals that we had created spaces for

conversations about sex and sexuality yeah especially if you looked at traditions like puberty rides girls would go into situation with older women who would teach them about their bodies who would teach them about how to care for home how to care for family how to prepare for sex and what I think was valuable was the creation of those intentional spaces to have that conversation right I don't think all aspects of those traditions were helpful for me that's a beauty of you don't go back and take everything wholesale you take those aspects that are relevant a lot of that education that was done for girls was very patriarchal it was really about sex for a man's pleasure right was for me if I'm to reimagine that ritual from a feminist lens which is basically

what I say we should be doing with all our rituals is teach girls that you know sex is for your own pleasure it's for your own well-being if you choose to have sex and there's so many ways to have sex and sex that's valid is not only sex with somebody of the opposite gender or only within particular constraints obviously you factor the education with the right age in mind you know with a full awareness of the risks that could come with having sex with a deeper emotional connection with someone or stds you tell them about contraceptives those are not being done with the traditional sex education, right? But I feel like what was valuable was that space,

that intentional space that was created, bringing some girls of a similar age group together so that they can learn together. Yeah, I loved that. And I loved the idea. I've been this person to many of my friend's children of the sex aunt. I mean, we didn't call me a sex aunt.

Yes. And for people hearing this phrase for the first time, who were the sex aunties and what role did they play? Yes. So I learned about this from the Baganda of Uganda, who are a dominant ethnic group in Uganda. And they have this role called the Sasanga.

And that's a paternal aunt, a very well-respected paternal aunt who is explicitly given the role of preparing her young niece for womanhood, right? And part of what we are meant to be able to do is the idea is it can be awkward to talk to your mom or your own parents about sex about your body but your sesenga your sex auntie which is just how I'm capturing it should be able to develop a relationship with you such that you can go to her with anything yeah and I thought that was

brilliant right a bit like you I have a friend that we agreed that I would be the one also because i write about sex and sexuality i would be the one who you know could also talk to to her kid about these subjects that sometimes parents just have no language for right and again i feel like oh that's such a great idea and that's something that i feel like more people could learn from and and adopt if you have someone in your family who you're lucky enough to have to be a sexuality expert like yourself laura it makes sense to ask that person but everybody can come to you right And hopefully people can identify women that they trust, you know, women that they admire, women who they are happy to put such a responsibility on to play this critical role in the lives of particularly young girls. Yeah. And I feel so, I mean, I I've written a book about sex education for kids years ago. The title

of the book is turning the talk into a conversation for life because it's yes, there are those one individual talks, you know, here and there, but it's really this ongoing conversation. So I'm just thinking about this one moment with one of my goddaughters where I was visiting them and the mom wasn't there. The daughter was there with the babysitter. She was maybe three years old And she was getting in the bath and the babysitter starts saying, wash your new new. So it isn't stinky. And in that moment, I said, that is your vulva, you know, made sure she knew the correct term. And I said, and it is not stinky.

It is beautiful. Washing it because it's beautiful and it deserves to be clean, just like your elbows and knees and ears. And, but I was sort of modeling for that babysitter. don't you call my genitals dirty and stinky, but that, you know, just reminds me of these little ways that we can influence. And I know in the stories you were telling the aunties show up at the house, they not only collect all the girls, you know, they're sort of there and they are coming around. What if every woman, like, just imagine if every woman listening had grown up

with a sex auntie, what do you think would be different about how she related to her body and pleasure today, how women relate to their body and pleasure today? Oh my goodness. I think it would be so incredible because I feel like a lot of women hold a lot of shame, right? A lot of sexual shame, also a lot of discomfort with their bodies. And I feel like if you had a great sex auntie that you could have been able to talk to about your body from a very young age you'll probably have a greater sense of self-confidence I think you'll probably be better informed as well you know you know how as a teenager sometimes kids are just passing knowledge on to one another because there isn't an adult that they can speak to openly and honestly your sex auntie is that

person that you can speak to openly and honestly the one who won't judge you the one who will be able to say, hey, this is the information, but I don't think you need to do this right now, right? And I feel like we'll probably all just be so much more confident in who we are as adult women. Because for me, the important thing about sexual freedom is not just that it impacts you personally, but it impacts your confidence in the wider world, right? I think if you're confident in private, you're able to take that into public. You're able to make more of a difference in society able to stand up for yourself you know everywhere yeah it all starts with sexual confidence I think or it's one of the key why you even trace which makes sense but this concept of

twerking and erotic dance back to African and Caribbean traditions and so like what are those embodied expression and you were sharing I'm the same way I wish I could twerk I cannot twerk I want to learn. Neither can I, Laura, even though I went for a three-day workshop. You can't. I know you described that the first, second, by the third day, it sounded like you were getting it. But what do these embodied expressions teach us?

You know, because everybody jokes about twerking and there are ways that I think women use twerking as a self-objectification, let's just say, you know, maybe not in the most empowered ways in social media and whatever. but however they're using it how do you see this as an expression of embodiment that can help teach us joy and erotic power i feel like so let me just tell the story briefly for folks you know who haven't yet read the book um working i went yes i traveled to tanzania to study with an older woman called Zai Shanga and she's a traditional Tanzanian sex educator and basically in the first couple of hours of our lessons I was like wait she's teaching me how to twerk you know

but she was also working on a man I mean it wasn't it like teaching you positions for she was teaching me how to twerk she was teaching me positions where if you're like on top this is how you need to be you know to move your hips yeah exactly how to move my hips and I was just like oh my god my waist is not this flexible but it was it was day one was really really hard day two got a bit easier by day three you're right I could do it a bit better but I don't think I'm going to ever be somebody who's ever going to win any sort of twerking competition you know but part of what I took away from that was the importance of really being in your body yeah and the importance of dance as a way to access you know yourself to get in touch with your body to feel your erotic power

as a tool for seduction and I think a lot of time when it comes to sex a lot of us are in our heads right? And just dancing and moving your body and just take it out of your head and right into your body, which is super, super important. Yeah. And, and a lot of fun, a lot of fun. And I think it's also sometimes just to not think about the audience, not worry about moves, not worry about whether you're a good dancer or not, you know, just have fun, let loose, get in touch with your Well, these guys know many of them follow me on social media and they see me in my kitchen dance parties. I use dance to stay in my body and I'm not a particularly good dancer. I dance. I just let my dorkiness out, hang out loud. I don't try to be a good dancer. I don't, but I dance like no one's watching. And it really is a beautiful way I find not only to stay in my body and I can imagine I've never danced.

I have to think about that. I've never danced as like on my own to like get myself in a sexual mood. I certainly from the clubbing days and going out, even dancing with my husband that can be erotic and foreplay like, but it's interesting thinking about it now because most of my dance certainly over the past several years has been to move energy out of me, right? Or to shift out of a really stuck place because it gets me in my body and also moves emotions through. It kind of shakes the energy through me. And that's really how I use it the most. It sounds like you have a new challenge to try, Laura.

Twerking. All right. I don't think anybody wants to see me twerk. No, but just what you said, like dancing to access your erotic power, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've danced with others and when I go dancing in that kind of way, but dancing by myself in the kitchen, I haven't been like, woohoo, let me do this to get sexy. I do it because I'm feeling anxious or scared or sad.

So I'll have to proactively try it in the other way. And I think you'd need a different location. is a kitchen associated with, you know, a different music. Exactly. Yes. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex, love and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not check out my free course on quantum sex it's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level capable of full body orgasms how to use sex

magic to manifest your dreams and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner Just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the quantum sex free course. Check it out. Let me know what you think. So what are some of the other traditions? I mean, we talked about the sex ante. We talked about the twerking.

There was some tantra stuff happening. What are some of the other traditions and rituals that stood out to you? I know you cover so many in the book, but what are some of your favorites which felt really instructive around sexual freedom? I mean, also from Tanzania was this concept of what they call kitchen parties, although they're not parties that happen in the kitchen. But the idea is, you know, pre-marriage, women get together across all generations to gift the woman items for her household hence the name kitchen party but that's also the space where they share advice with her tips you know on living in a happy marriage tips on sex if they have it it's just like a woman

only space designed to just help and prepare and give the woman resources towards her marriage and I just really, really loved the idea. Also from Senegal were just little tips and tricks on basically how to be seductive, even in like a modest society, right? So Senegalese women wear these, sometimes they wear these really large waist beads around, you know, around their waist.

But then they wear like really these big elaborate gowns. And so one of the things at Senegalese, Someone was telling me is if you're trying to attract a lover, you might wear one of the bigger beads that sort of make noise as you walk so that the guy can hear but can't see. And so it becomes curious. Does he know about the beads? And so he knows, oh, she's shaking her hips and those beads are rattling.

I wonder what's under that muumuu. Exactly. That's the idea. and sometimes married women who want to get busy at night take off their gown they also have this traditional underskirt called a becku which is a bit like a slip that they wear underneath so they're just wearing the slip and the beads they then pretend to look all around like they've lost something but the whole idea is that you're just giving the man glimpses of your body glimpses of your waist beads to turn him on and I thought that was really really cute

to just be like wandering around your room in your underwear pretending you've lost something yes like let me lean over and show you yeah give you a little glimpse while I'm looking under the bed for something but the beads I yeah I remember reading about the beads and trying to envision how that I mean I guess it would work under if you're wearing loose clothing yes but with our sort of traditional western more fitted clothing I was trying to because I was liking the idea of the beads it's like a reminder of for yourself you know what I mean it's like like one of the things that I'll talk to women about sometimes is playing with yoni eggs which is you know much more intrusive than than beat waist beads but yoni eggs are these crystal small eggs that you can

pop up inside your vagina and wear you know like during the day yes and squeeze around and feel in there. And also you get all the crystal healing properties while you're at it. But that's something that I find women, especially who are wanting to kind of like build inherent desire and body genital awareness will, you know, really enjoy often. And this is kind of a less intrusive version of that in a way. Yes. And there are many different types of beads and somehow quite small so I wear beads myself I wear the smaller type for the reason that you said right they're not really visible underneath clothes but you know you have them on which I think in and of itself is like quite sexy yeah you know when you're wearing something close and

intimate to your skin depending on what you're wearing sometimes you might let a little bit yeah yeah yeah I mean it's like a belly chain but more exactly it's like a belly chain but more that's a that's a great description and during sex another tip was you can just be rubbing your waist beads up and down your own body to turn yourself on so that's another handy thing that you can do with your waist beads when you have them on multi-purpose multi-purpose yes so how would you describe and all the women that you've interviewed because I know you've spoken to so many women what does sexual freedom really feel like in the body as women experience it obviously it's an individual experience but what are some of the common threads yes I mean I think

I'll talk about how sexual freedom for me feels yeah you know I describe sexual freedom as a journey. Because I think what makes you feel free today might not necessarily be what makes you feel free in two years time, five years time, right? But for me right now, sexual freedom feels like feeling at home in my own body, loving myself as I am, being comfortable in my skin. It means being physically active, you know, and feeling good in my body. It means being able to pick a lover or lovers of my choice it means having space to experiment and try new things it means being able to speak to my lover and say what I desire and what I do not desire it means being true to myself I feel and I can be I can show up as my true self in any relationship I find myself and

and that's what sexual freedom means to me and I feel like for women that have interviewed and asked about sexual freedom there are definitely commonalities in there i interviewed women from different backgrounds right um including sex workers and i remember some of the sex workers i interviewed said you know sexual clients that wasn't about sexual freedom that was about earning money but sex of their lovers was about sexual freedom right and they're expressing themselves and you know and then there were some sex workers who said well sexual freedom for them was actually also about sex work and being able to do the work that they wanted to do

and not to be judged because that's how they take care of their families. So I feel like, like you said, it means different than everybody, but I think it means, first of all, people not feeling a sense of shame and stigma for the choices that they've made in terms of who to love and how to love.

Yeah. And speaking of which, you're reminding me because there was a beautiful thread throughout the book of the traditions and built-in traditions that certainly have been lost through the years in many of these cultures for the reasons we've already described around normalizing and incorporating and making space for a range of gender expression and even a range of sexual orientation. Although I know since colonization and since, you know, certainly in Africa, there's sort of a lot more homophobia built in. And you described that some of the

conversations you had were these kind of throwaway comments that would shock you. It would shock anyone around that were pretty sex negative when it came to same sex relationships, but that there are built in. I mean, I remember in graduate school learning about the burdashism in Native American populations, which is in most cultures, and you seem to describe this in Africa as well, that people with different gender identities were considered to be spiritually elevated. Yes. They were kind of the shaman and, you know, in the Native American traditions, they were often the shaman or the spiritual leaders of the community, two spirit kind of

things. And it sounded very similar to what you were describing in the African tradition. So I thought I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit because I found that really beautiful and and interesting also yeah and it's always like amazing to to like excavate these stories right because these are histories that sometimes it feels like they're being erased especially in contemporary Africa where unfortunately it feels like a lot of societies are leaning more to the right a lot more countries are passing explicitly anti-lgbtq laws including the country i live in now ghana but then when you look at our histories especially when you look at our pre-colonial societies there was always a lot of space for people

of different sexualities of different genders gender was definitely seen in a more expansive ways you even see that in the african traditional religions where you can have gods and goddesses who are known to have more than one gender right and and when you think about it if the gods and goddesses are multi-dimensional why would the people be one dimensional right doesn't make sense at all but there's been a lot of documentation about homosexual relationships and homosexual, yeah, homosexual relationships across the continent, really, from the beginning of time. Lots of documentation of woman-to-woman marriages in Eastern Africa and Southern Africa, in particular, which were done traditionally, you know, women were married according to

traditional custom. Whereas I feel like if you go to some of those countries today and you try and suggest that a woman should be allowed to marry another woman legally, people will react and horror, but in their own history, and that was not that long ago, this was very much something that could happen, right? Traditionally. And was totally normal. Exactly. Yeah. That's also something that I wanted to just shine a light on as well in this book. Yeah, I think that's important. And when you think about it, you know, the first missionaries went over and they were coming from a Judeo-Christian or Christian in this case, very repressive, very homophobic inherently back then, especially, but even today, right. They were going into these,

into these communities and trying to convert the, uh, the people that live there. And it were inherently like teaching them that what you're doing is a sin, evil, wrong, bad, getting them to believe in the one God and the one God says you cannot, you know, men and women are the only ones that can be together and only within marriage. And then you had the British come in and take the whole place over. And they, I mean, no offense to the British, but they're pretty darn repressed. So. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, a lot of the homosexuality laws are actually colonial era laws that never got changed on the books once African countries became independent. And so that's still the consequences of which we're living.

Yeah. Those are still the consequences which we're living with. And even if they get turned over, the society now has digested that. Exactly. And believes it. Yes. Yes. Absolutely owning it.

Back to Sankofa, right? Yes, back to Sankofa. Like, let's go to the good old days, right? Where if a woman wanted to marry another woman, they could. You know, people who were known to be queer, for example, were revered as people with special powers, you know, had special roles in society and were respected. And there was definitely a lot more tolerance than there is today. Same thing with older women. That's one of the things that I love most about just all indigenous cultures and pre-colonial cultures, this idea that older women are revered and seen as these like amazing fonts of knowledge and spiritual wisdom and elevated capacity, you know, versus being marginalized and seen as less valuable like they are in most Western societies. yes that's part of it absolutely yeah I wrote about that a bit as well because unfortunately

one really horrible trend that at least in Ghana is present in some regions is this incident of having to create they call them camps for witches right because these old women have been accused of being witches and have literally been chased from their villages so they've had to go seek refuge in these camps and when you sort of drill down into it it's because people feared them it's because people accused them of somehow having mystically caused harm to their children all sorts of false accusations but it's really the fear of old women and for me that was puzzling you know for all the reasons that you said like traditionally Danians really respect old women there's an expression when somebody wants to go and consult somebody wise they say we're going to

consult the old woman so I'm like how can a society which says we're going to consult the old woman then turn around and turn against some old woman just because they are old yeah that's very disturbing and very reminiscent of what we saw in this country a couple hundred years ago yes and i want to ask you about this too you didn't write about this but i saw in the book but it's something that comes up a lot certainly in many african traditions certainly not all of them but the issue of female circumcision i'm sure you've come across that talk to people about it, explored it. What is, what can you share about your perspective and how that plays into sexual freedom? Cause I've heard, you know, I try not to look at it with my Western white woman's

eyes. Right. But when I look at it with those eyes, including a sex therapist eyes and educators eyes, I'm appalled at the idea. And yet I've worked with enough women who have been circumcised. Many of them are, I'm treating for trauma, but many of them are like, no, this is empowering to me. You know, this is freedom to me to be able to do this for myself and my daughter. And so I'm just wondering what your take on that. Well, first of all, explain it, but also what your take is on it. Yes. So, I mean, I actually call it female genital mutilation because that's is what I believe it is and I also work with survivors of FGM and the survivors I have spoken to and I have interviewed you're right I didn't feature survivors of FGM in this book but I did

feature survivor of FGM in my previous book you know they speak of the lifelong trauma yeah that they live with and that they continue to struggle with and I feel like it's a patriarchal form of violence as child sexual abuse is designed to take away from the pleasure of women and there are some societies that are looking at how can we keep the in a sense the good aspects of the rituals that surround FGM and remove the mutilation so in Sierra Leone there's something that they're calling the bloodless rites you know because the female circumcision in quotes is done as a part of a rite of passage and they're saying that we can have that same rite of passage we can have that ceremony that in a sense you know socializes and trains women to become a

memorable for particular society without cutting them, without causing them harm, right? And that's something that I'm very much in favor of. Yeah, me too. I wanted to get your take on it because I don't, you know, I feel the same way. It's traumatizing to me and to the people that most of the people that I've treated. But, you know, for you guys to understand, it's a range between cutting and destroying the woman's clitoris to sewing up everything, you know, except a teeny tiny holes for her menstruation to get through. And the idea is that this keeps her quote unquote clean and virginal and prepared for a husband, but it completely destroys her capacity for pleasure and it makes sex unbelievably painful. And it's very, very hard. I know there are a few people,

there was one woman when I was living in Chicago, who was one of the few experts in the field, medical experts who could treat a lot of these cases, but it's very, very, very hard to treat medically in a way where you can get to a point where sex is not, not unbelievably excruciatingly painful, much less pleasurable. And then all the layers of emotional trauma. But I was really curious what you thought having kind of been embedded in this, in these communities and really getting a firsthand look and having firsthand conversations with many more people than I have from those communities about how they experience it so thank you for for sharing that yes and also just to say that there are also some survivors i have spoken to and obviously fgm happens on the

scale right like you mentioned i mean i feel like it's all extreme but they are they're even more extreme types of fgm you know where like you said the woman's labia is so numb except for a small hole and there are some where the hood is cut off but then I've also spoken to an FGM survivor who reminded me and for me that was actually a really powerful reminder that the clitoris actually extends inwards right because she was describing to me like how with a particular lover sex got so great and I was just like hazard like you've experienced FGM how can sex be great for and she was like Nana remember that the clitoris is expansive you know and and that's also been really encouraging I have met survivors who are claiming back their power I have met survivors who

when not all the genitalia have been cut off have been practicing labia elongation and literally pulling their clitoris to make it longer and have over time found that they've been able to expand their clitoris and in a sense, expand the surface for pleasure. Yeah, I should have really written about that. I didn't. That'll be the next book. I know, right? Yes. I have to keep some back for future books. Yeah. I remember I was, this was a horrible story, but I was at a conference and there was like a private party for the presenters. I was talking to a group of people. And of course, everywhere I go, people want to talk about sex. So we were talking about sex and orgasms and which orgasms were easier to have. And I was saying, you know, well, clitoral orgasms are much easier,

you know, than vaginal ones. And this woman came up, I don't, I think she's pretty open about it publicly, but in case she's not, I won't mention her name, but she's become actually, this was the beginning of our friendship. She's a well-known author. And she said, you know, I can't have clitoral orgasms because when I was six years old, I was horrifically and ritualistically sexually abused and it destroyed all my clitoral tissue. And I said, you know, my, I don't know, I've like my first reaction, we're in the middle of this, you know, public conversation. And my first reaction was like, gosh, I'm so sorry, you know, that happened to you. But let me ask you, are you still able to have vaginal orgasms for that reason? Because

the clitoris branches out. It's 12 to 15 centimeters in length internally. And it branches out almost to the pubic bone. And I said, are you able to have a vaginal orgasms? And she's like, oh yeah, I have earth shattering vaginal orgasms. I was like, well, you're better than 70% of the women out there because only 30% can have vaginal orgasms. So you're actually in better shape in some ways. And we laugh about that now, but yeah, it's a really important group that doesn't get nearly enough. I mean, what we're talking about is sort of the traditions and rituals around genital mutilation. This woman was genitally mutilated through abuse, which also happens. Yes. Yes, absolutely. What do you hope women outside of Africa recognize in themselves

through these stories i hope part of what women recognize in themselves is the connection with other women no matter how different they are right the desire for ritual in our lives because i feel like ritual grounds us gives us a sense of security gives us a space of ease I hope women recognize the need to gather with other women and share knowledge intergenerationally. I hope women can also take some inspiration to think of new rites and rituals that they can create for themselves and for their daughters and for their godchildren and for their girls and boys and their lives, you know. And I hope we can all figure out how we make sex education fun, because really that's what it's about, right? and like in the broadest of spectrums, in the broadest of spectrums

and that we're all encouraged to go on our own journey of sexual freedom, whatever that may look like for us as individuals. Beautiful, thank you so much. And we'll put the link to the book, Seeking Sexual Freedom, African Rights Rituals and Sankofa in the bedroom. Is there any place else that we should direct people

to find you and learn more about what you're up to? Yes, I have a website. It's Dalkoa, the writer. And Dalkoa is D-A-L-K-O-A, thewriter.com. And my Instagram is the sex lives of African women. A bit of a mouthful. Oh, easy to remember the sex lives of African women. Yes. So that's on Instagram. And there are links from there to like my website and yeah, other pages. okay we'll put all that in the show notes nana thank you so much for joining us and best of luck with the book launch thank you so much laura for having me on the show it's been a real pleasure for me I went to the doctor said I'm crazy