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Tag: lesbian sex

HIV and ME: African LGBTI Women speak on HIV/Aids- Pt I

  •  Posted in Sex, Relationships & Love
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A moment ago we put out a call to start a conversation about how Afro-Queer Women understand, experience and deal with HIV/Aids.  Below are some of the snippets African LGBTQI women gave us. All responses were submitted anonymously through the HOLAA HIV/Aids submission form   We hope that by reading some of these responses you too […]
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Muffmucher – an initial odyssey

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By Lame We had dinner. It was my birthday and such a delightful evening I laughed at everything she said and gleamed as much as the twinkle in her eyes.  Watching her was the only thing I wanted to do. She was my fascination and I know she enjoyed the fact. I didn’t eat much. […]
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priestessamy:kaawoshin:Just some girls being gay 👀💕💋 Have my ocs, Natasha and Harper, being lovey doveyAwesome~priestessamy:kaawoshin:Just some girls being gay 👀💕💋 Have my ocs, Natasha and Harper, being lovey doveyAwesome~Something that we forget that when we are trying to make the world a safe space we are busy making our intimate spaces ones that cannot hold our pain, do not have time to unpack our problems or hold each other through the tough times once the protest is done. http://holaafrica.org/2017/07/25/holaa-loves-healling-to-fight-the-good-fight/HOLAA Loves: Healling To Fight The Good FightFighting the good fight can be tiring, it can be grueling and it can sometimes be downright awful. It can be scary, disheartening and exhausting. And sometimes the pay is… oh gosh.Another thing that can be really crap about the work that is done by human rights defenders is the fact that, much as we are out there saving the world quite often we forget to save ourselves and those around us. There are a lot of times when activists do not take care of themselves, when those social justice warriors are busy waging war against each other.Frankly there are a lot of times when we are sh**ty to ourselves and each other. Something that we forget that when we are trying to make the world a safe space we are busy making our intimate spaces ones that cannot hold our pain, do not have time to unpack our problems or hold each other through the tough times once the protest is done. That sometimes we are not nice to each other after being magical to everyone else. Sometimes we forget ourselves after we have remembered everyone else.Are we taking care of our members after the work is done?Do we know when to walk away from a fight for our own sake?Do we take our mental health as seriously as we do our physical health?Do we know we do not have to kill ourselves for our cause?Do our personal actions match out politics of love?Are we caring for those around us who are also trying to care for the world?Both as individuals and organisations we need to pay more attention to issues such as work based trauma, mental health and all forms of self care outsides taking a personal day and showing online solidarity in the form of emoticons and retweets. There is a need to more and more, establish systems that develop our advocacy skills through the fortification of our mental and emotional health. There is a need to meet those within the realm on a human level.Even, we, as HOLAA could do with a few organisational upgrades when it comes to taking care of the internal whilst trying to tackle the external. So we took a break from speaking sexy safety and partnered with Iranti to host a healing space. In this space we sought to equip those present with tools on how to deal with everyday stress and triggers, give the space to speak about what weighed on them and also simply come together and learn how to do life, because frankly it can get tough out there.Here are some photos of the time we spent with a group of women and gender nonconforming people in a space speaking healing, ways of managing the pain and doing a little meditation and cleansing to boot. Here is an article about sliding into the DMs , checking in and engaging with community care and another piece about the glorious uneasiness of sisterhood and holding each other.Here is a digital snap shot of the time.[View the story “#HOLAAatHealing: A workshop on being emotionally and mentally whole” on Storify]Being forgiving doesn’t mean that you excuse their actions, rather, forgiving allows you the space to mourn the relationship you lost and the person you lost. http://holaafrica.org/2017/07/24/what-happens-when-you-miss-your-abuser/What happens when you miss your abuser?By MaThokoThe first time I told someone I missed someone who had gaslighted me (gas lighting: a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual), the sentiment was pulled me into a dark hole of guilt and shame. I told them:I don’t understand this feeling, how can I miss someone who had discarded me, someone who weaponised silence against me?Missing them brought so many questions and self-accusations. Had I lied to myself about their abuse? Had I exaggerated their emotional manipulation? Perhaps my depression and anxiety had made me over feel? Surely a person insisting they were abused – in any form – shouldn’t be missing their abuser? My friend remarked, “maybe this is the alchemy of forgiveness?” Maybe she was right and forgiveness comes when anger is replaced by complexity. Maybe it comes when one accepts the complexity of the situation that brought the betrayal?Forgiveness and peace come when we accept that the abuser – not you – broke your trust, that you were justified in trusting them. Abusers violate a trust and trust is their currency. It is important to note that, up until the abuse, (repeated or once off) you did nothing to warrant that abuse nor could you have seen that breach of trust.When a trust is violated, learning to trust does not rest in the other person. Learning to trust rests in your ability to understand that humans will always do things to violate your trust – trust by its nature is unearned, it is suspicion and distrust that are earned. And everything prior to the violation is justified. Perhaps this was the alchemy of trust learning that where trust is violated, you can learn to trust beyond the moment of violation.—“I will always love you How I doLet go of a prayer for youJust a sweet wordThe table is prepared for you”—I had a dream about you the other night. You came up to me like nothing had ever happened. Like you hadn’t made me question my character and whether I was worthy of being loved, was loving or am loveable.You offered me food you had prepared, smiling. Smiling, like your silence had not made me question my own sanity or my recollection of our friendship. Like your silence had not made me question if I had imagined our friendship and what it meant? Had I imagined that time you took me to your fave beach spot and we just sat and experienced quietness?I woke up holding myself, slowly rocking myself, wondering if I had just had a nightmare even though it didn’t feel like one. As the week has passed, I have found myself remembering and reminiscing about a number of people who abused me. I realised that recovering from abuse is a complicated process because humans are complicated and emotions, over time can betray logic.The abuser is multifacetedAbusers are not one-dimensional people. They are hurt, are vulnerable and are almost always dealing with their own shortcomings. Abusers can be great partners and friends – sometimes.I remember that one time you bought me an egg-whisk because we had watched this really corny Bollywood movie and I had balled my eyes out. Or that time you wrote me a letter telling me how much of a lifesaver our friendship had been for you. Or that other time you showed me what you did on quiet, sunny Sundays. Or that other time we cried in solidarity in a cab.I remember that other time I watched you conceptualise a protest campaign and create posters and I sat there in wonder because you are that brilliant. Do you remember that other time you invited me to your work place and were so excited to show me all the cocktails you could make but I ended up drinking a beer instead? Or that time you graduated and your mom was so proud of you?Remembering all that now I wonder if there was a time in between those moments where I could’ve said “you’re brilliant, you’re amazing, you’ll do great things” and it would’ve changed the fact that I now see you as dangerous?Remembering is also dangerous because it inevitably leads to thinking of “what ifs” and “maybe if”. The point is a toxic relationship will forever be toxic and no level of forgiveness will bring equilibrium in that relationship.—“Wishing you Godspeed, gloryThere will be mountains you won’t movestill I will always be there for you, how I do.I’ll let go of my claim on you, it’s a free worldYou’ll look down on where you came from, sometimes You’ll have this place to call home, always” —So you miss your abuser, what happens next?What happens when you miss your abuser?Several things.Firstly, you feel betrayed, by your body and your mind. You feel unable to control the narrative of your history. You feel vulnerable and frustrated. You feel deceived and you question whether you “imagined” that abuse. After all if you were REALLY abused, would you miss your abuser?The second part is messy. Messy because it is a struggle, a struggle to pull yourself out of a dark space. There are tears, there is self-loathing and there is doubt.But if you are patient, and kind to yourself there is a third thing that happens Resolution. Between the moments of self-loathing and tears you realise how inevitably human you are. And if you extend this realisation towards your abuser, you realise how pathetically human they are. It doesn’t mean you forgive them – if you don’t want, it doesn’t mean you imagined your abuse, it doesn’t mean they were not at fault nor does it mean the memories are untrue – perhaps tainted but true. It merely means that there is complexity. And it is within that space of complexity you find time to forgive yourself.Being forgiving doesn’t mean that you excuse their actions, rather, forgiving allows you the space to mourn the relationship you lost and the person you lost. I have often judged myself harshly believing that I should’ve known better, I should’ve taken action sooner. In those times and in that space, I have to be kind to myself and understand that the person I was friends with was real and that I lost them. The person who gaslighted me is also true – this is the alchemy of forgiveness.Visit the incredible MaThoko site for so many more awesome articles. Here is an article 11 Signs You Are being Gaslight in a relationship and another 10 things the author learned from someone using gaslighting as an abuse tactic. For more on supporting people here is a piece on supporting someone in abusive relationship and also a piece where the woman says At least she didn’t hit me”.*leave a comment on the post, you can write it under a different name and your email will not be published.*To submit to HOLAA! email submissions@holaafrica.orgWe speak with Bongi about getting the sex she wants, navigating these waters and how her body can do WILD things. http://holaafrica.org/2017/07/21/holaaloves-sex-as-a-bigger-woman-a-conversation-with-bongi/HOLAALoves: Sex as a bigger woman- A conversation with BongiBodies come in different sizes and shapes and can do so many amazing things. Problem is we have certain perceptions about what some bodies can do and others cannot. There is always the idea that women who have more to them cannot handle certain things in bed. That, coupled with the possibility of being a fetish can make getting some of the good stuff super tricky. In this podcast we speak with Bongi about getting the sex she wants, navigating these waters and how her body can do WILD things. For more articles on body positivity and fat shaming check out this article on why the definition of body positivity isn’t up for debate and this one about girls whose thighs touch. There is also this one that says 11 Reasons Your Phony ‘Concern’ for Fat People’s Health Has Got to Stop and 7 Phrases You May Not Think Are Fat Shaming – But Definitely Are.For our other podcasts click here.lalladalla: A cabeça ficou loucaSó com aquele beijinho no canto da boca girlfriends from this music video because i’m in loveAlthough the notion of Pride itself is arguably universal, an argument is often made that many of the acronyms, labels and categories that come with the modern sexuality movement are taken from primarily Western notions. There are many in the African context who are either afraid to or do not wish to associate themselves with those labels. http://holaafrica.org/2017/07/20/can-we-imagine-an-african-pride/Can we imagine an African Pride?By KagureJune was LGBTIQ+ Pride Month, a time when the rainbow peace flag is flown and members of the LGBTIQ+ community and their allies come out to walk the streets in celebration of the diversity of sexuality. For many people, when they think of Pride, they think of parades, parties and men in assless chaps.In many ways, this month of celebration, which comes hot on the heels of IDAHOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, as celebrated on 17 May, is seen as an American holiday because it was birthed to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City.Whatever its origins, June has come to be seen as a time when the world celebrates LGBTIQ+ rights and the history of the LGBTIQ+ movement. But what does it mean for one to be proud on the African continent? Furthermore, what does it mean to celebrate LGBTIQ+ rights which are, more often than not, never realised? What does it mean for all the celebrations to be the same yet the realities so profoundly different?‘What does Pride mean to you?’One of the most identifiable problems with Pride is the idea that it should manifest itself in the same way in different contexts. This, unfortunately, cannot be the case, as a lesbian living in Miami in the United States, who has access to Dinah Shore, the spring break for lesbians, has a different sense of her existence than a woman living just outside of Abuja, Nigeria.Although the notion of Pride itself is arguably universal, an argument is often made that many of the acronyms, labels and categories that come with the modern sexuality movement are taken from primarily Western notions. There are many in the African context who are either afraid to or do not wish to associate themselves with those labels. One then has to question what ‘traditional’ forms of Pride would look like to them. What happens when one’s existence does not conform to pink feather boas, or a colourful group march and an epic party that would rival any New Year’s celebration?As yet, only three countries on the continent have celebrated Pride in the ‘traditional’ sense: South Africa, Uganda and Lesotho. Despite their different contexts, however, all have had very similar-looking celebrations. A Pride celebration of the San Francisco type is often seen as the goal, with various contexts seeking to plan their own similar celebrations, mimicking their counterparts in the global north.While many a Pride has had its genesis in similar ideas of visibility and protest, one only has to look at the case of South Africa to know that the needs within this seemingly celebratory space can differ. Within South Africa, Pride marches have splintered into various groups, with Johannesburg alone boasting three different Pride celebrations.African Contexts for PrideHow Pride is celebrated needs to be cognisant not only of the national context but also what its participants are proud of. Unpacking this idea during a conversation for this piece, one queer man from East Africa lamented that there was ‘too much copy and paste-ing’. He argued that only a very specific demographic manages to occupy these spaces and so can shape them in their image: “A great number of prominent activists go abroad and come back, saying: ‘This is the Pride march I went to. It was great and we must also do it like this. Even us, we must flourish.’”This is coupled with the issue of social status. Not everyone in African communities can attend a Pride celebration it takes time, money and guts to be that visible, especially if your community is a small and intimate space where everyone knows everyone else’s business.This imbalance of power and limited representation is also perpetuated by who funds Pride celebrations. When the money for your Pride comes from Berlin or Washington, there is a certain expectation of what the final product will look like. All this means that there is often little space to create diverse and nuanced expressions of Pride.It may be time to rethink how Pride can be manifested in different spaces, taking into account different contexts, levels of visibility, cultural considerations and socio-political factors. The aspiration that Pride must be a highly visible Mardi Gras-type march not only means that some may not be able to identify with it or access it it means that it might not showcase the true diversity of the existences of LGBTIQ+ people globally.This post was first published on This Is Africa.*leave a comment on the post, you can write it under a different name and your email will not be published.*To submit to HOLAA! email submissions@holaafrica.orgashlingtumbls: OOOOOH BABY DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT’S WORTH // OOOOOH HEAVEN IS A PLAAACE ON EAAAARTH Just finished this lil bit o’ fanart I’ve been wanting to do for months! I love themcinnabarbie:They borrow each other’s items sometimes…amongst other “things” 😺
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