Join us on Women & Children First’s Crowdcast Channel for a virtual event celebrating The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah. For this event, Sekyiamah will be in conversation with Charlene Carruthers. 

“Dazzling… the tone is hopeful, resilient and accepting. Marked by the diversity of experiences shared, the wealth of intimate details, and the total lack of sensationalism, this is an astonishing report on the quest for sexual liberation.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

A conversation starter like Three Women but centering the experiences of women of color: a mellifluous chorus celebrating the liberation, individuality, and joy of African women’s multifaceted sexuality.

Thanks to her blog, “Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women,” Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah has spent decades talking openly and intimately to African women around the world about sex. For this book she spoke to over 30 African women across the globe while chronicling her own journey toward sexual freedom.

We meet Yami, a pansexual Canadian of Malawian heritage, who describes negotiating the line between family dynamics and sexuality. There’s Esther, a cis-gendered hetero woman studying in America, by way of Cameroun and Kenya, who talks of how a childhood rape has made her rebellious and estranged from her missionary parents. And Tsitsi, an HIV-positive Zimbabwean woman who is raising a healthy, HIV-free baby.

Across a queer community in Egypt, polyamorous life in Senegal, and a reflection on the intersection of religion and pleasure in Cameroun, Sekyiamah explores the many layers of love and desire, its expression, and how it forms who we are.

In these confessional pages, women control their own bodies and pleasure, and assert their sexual power. Capturing the rich tapestry of sex positivity, The Sex Lives of African Women is a singular and subversive book that celebrates the liberation, individuality, and joy of African women’s multifaceted sexuality.

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah is the author of The Sex Lives of African Women, which Publishers Weekly described as “an astonishing report on the quest for sexual liberation” in their starred review. It was also listed by The Economist as a best book of the year. She is an award-winning blogger, and co-founder of Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, a website, podcast and festival that publishes and creates content that tells stories of African women’s experiences around sex, sexualities, and pleasure. The impact of Nana Darkoa’s work has been documented by CNN in a film titled, Not Yet Satisfied. In 2016, she won a prestigious Hedgebrook fellowship. Nana Darkoa’s opinion editorials and articles have been published by The Guardian, open Democracy and Essence. She has contributed to anthologies such as Feminist Parenting: Perspectives from Africa and Beyond as well as The Routledge Handbook of Queer Africa Studies. Her short stories have been published in It Wasn’t Exactly Love and The Pot and Other Stories. Nana lives in Accra, Ghana with her daughter Asantewaa, and her dog Romeo.

Charlene A. Carruthers is a political strategist, cultural worker and PhD student in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her research includes interrogating historical conjunctures of Black freedom-making post-emancipation and decolonial revolution, Black governance, Black feminist and queer theory. Her work spans more than 15 years of community organizing across racial, gender and economic justice movements. As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national base of activists in a member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. She is the author of the book “Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (available in English and Spanish language).

**All of our virtual events are recorded and viewable anytime on Women & Children First’s Crowdcast Channel. The recordings are later uploaded with closed captioning to our YouTube Channel within a week or two of the event. **

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Tags: Charlene A. Carruthers, Chicago, Edgewater, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery Freedom and Healing, Women & Children First Bookstore