A discussion, or better, a river of open experience sharing about what feels right and what does not in intimate relations between persons has started in different forums around the Internet recently. It began with a comment by a Swedish journalist, related to a Swedish court-case, and continued by ever more people joining in, also from other countries.
The swedish talkaboutit-blog said: “We need a language for sex that isn’t stifled by shame, we need to think about our boundaries as well as others’. Something is going to change. We are going to dare to #talkaboutit”. Read more here: prataomdet.se/category/english/ and this article by the woman who started it: prataomdet.se/2010/12/23/carin-vidner-talks-about-it/
This new discussion should be held here in Ethiopia too. Why spend more time ignoring and staying silent about matters that touch everyone’s lives in so many important ways? So that is what this blog is about: A forum to bring the international talkaboutit dialogue here to Ethiopia, and a window to share Ethiopian experiences with the world.
You can write to this blog completely anonymously (if you like, you can also submit your name): Just add your story to the form-field below an click the button “Leave a Reply”. Before your story is published, the talkaboutit-ethiopia team will review it to make sure it doesn’t violate the following basic rules (this can take up to 24 hours). To give us a chance to explain to you why a post is not published and give you editing suggestions, submit your eMail address (it will be treated confidentially and not be published in the Internet).
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What is your story?
Silence kills
Many would agree that Ethiopia is a nation where social interaction among its people can be stated as an excellent one.when we say social interaction more or less it means dialogue and discussion among peoples.Despite high status of social connection I still wonder why we remain silent about the basic things that are affecting our lives especially things related to intimacy,sex lives and puberty development.
I still remain frightened to discuss about the different things that occurred to me throughout my puberty.i even feel like I’m being cursed or as a sign of evilness when wet dream occurred to me for the first time.i still pray that my family never caught me watching rated movies.i still remain not so sure whether I’m capable to knock my best friend house door and to take her out for date while her families are still in home. But above all I feel insecure to even say the word I love you to a girl that I am still in love with for nearly a year. It makes me feel like I’m harassing or abusing our relation to wish her to be my girlfriend while we still say each other we are best friends.This emotions and feelings are something that are greatly represented in most part of our society .some may suggest that it is a bad norm to discuss sexual oriented topics. On the contrary we find our society being abstain from oral discussion of its sexual emotions but not abstaining its self from the practical and damaging unsafe sex.
In my opinion the main reason why we remain as being the world highly HIV infected nation is because we are not giving our mind a right to govern our emotions,we are not giving a thought to discuss about normal sexual feelings that occurs to every human being. I find it very inappropriate to ignore the fact that we as a people are in great danger of assuring the continuity of this younger generation because of HIV-and alarmingly growing rate of drug addiction. The alarm that awakens our consciences to question what is right and wrong to do in life , should not be ringing after things fall apart.
As part of being this younger generation we always remain disconnected with our families and our older generation . this gap is creating a multiple personality syndrome which are quite contradicting with one another.these multiple personalities can be stated as the noisy and silent identities. Noisy identity,mood and attitude is the one we show to our friends in order to be said modern and cool ,while silent identity is the one we show to our family in order to be said decent and polite. As a result we always find our selves in conflict with who really we are and makes us even to feel scared in giving a try to get to know ourselves even if it means HIV AIDS testing . As a result we are abducting our selves with silence and executing our lives.
Finally to all my peoples whether they are younger or older I want them all to start observe that as blood pressure can kill you silently ,your silence can also kills you with HIV-AIDS.so open your mouth to speak,use your mind to questions ,free your fingers to type and write about your god given sexual emotions.
The comments I read above sound such a nice melody of understanding and forgiveness that I have to add an issue that has been long-since bothering me in Ethiopia. Yes, my background is not Abyissinan, yes, my upbringing involved influences from many different cultures and societies. Yet none of those I have experienced in my life has — and that even despite a general heartwarming culture of solidarity and neighborliness — displayed such misanthrophic ignorance against people who do not follow what is perceived as the traditional path of heterosexual love. It is a sincere issue of human dignity to respect other peoples’choices of any kind, even if they sound odd to oneself, and not demonise or criminalise it. I am deeply concerned with the way the Ethiopian (and many other African) community is taking in this regard. There is a lot more to the issue of talking freely about one’s sexuality. Yet I wish that one day homosexuals could live it freely today, live the lifes they imagine for themselves without being harassed here. It does not suit this country to display such a violent hatred against some of its own children.
Why do I think that we should openly share our negative sexual experiences? Maybe, because often there is no one to talk about it. Maybe, even not our best friends. Moreover, I hope that many people can improve their negotiating skills and by that be happier having a more fulfilled sexual life. Reading other people´s experiences we feel less alone and it can encourage and teach us the ability of saying NO.
Out of the female perspective I learned that many men tend to abuse emotional boundaries in bed and try to force us women to do things they know we actually are not willing to do. It is not fair! With sweet words they can push us into false consent. “You know that I love you so much. If you do love me, too, than we can do it. No one has to know, it´s gonna be our secret!” Impressed by those words I have been talked into anal sex. I did not like it and still just took it, thinking: Well, being together with someone is sometimes a sacrifice. He is such a perfect boyfriend otherwise. If this is what he needs, can I really deny it to him? He says it is a proof of love, and I do love him, right? I only did it once and I felt very bad afterwards. It hurt my body and even more it hurt my soul. I felt humiliated by him and dishonest with myself. What probably hurt me most was to know that he dared more about his own sexual pleasure than about me. In this very moment he degraded me to a sexual object. A doll, a toy to play with… easy to manipulate.
Why do we give such kind of false consent? Because we are afraid of losing the relationship? Out of an emotional dependency and out of fear of loneliness? Because we do not want to appear traditional and instead want to be modern? Because all our friends and relatives keep on telling us how handsome and attentive our boyfriend is and that he seems to be the perfect match? There are probably many reasons. There is one point I want to make clear: By saying YES although feeling like saying NO we partly give ourselves up and it destroys our self esteem. There are no two parallel lives, one in public and another one under the blankets of our bedroom. Attitudes and behaviors from both spheres are vital in a relationship. Carrying humiliating bed secrets with us turns out to be a burden not healthy for sexual life and for our life in general.
This was not the only time I consented to things I did not want to do. All those experiences occurred a few years ago. However, I still remember them and they taught me a lesson. I do not want to be humiliated never again. I am deeply happy to say that today I am strong enough to say NO and to reject boyfriends who do not accept it. It took me many years to see that it is not only the men but us women as well who deserve to have fun when having sex, which implies full mutual consent to all things we do. As well, I learned that if a man really respects and really loves you he will not push you into things just for his own pleasure. And that sweet words are worthless if they give you a bitter feeling afterwards.
I deeply hope that many people in Ethiopia or elsewhere in the world will use this blog to alleviate the secret burden they carry around with them.
Some people may argue that it is against the Ethiopian culture to discuss sexuality openly. I answer them that in Western countries there is no such a culture neither. Europeans may be more open to talk about sex but only a few people will speak about their negative sexual experiences. Furthermore, due to the higher taboo level of the topic in Ethiopia I argue that there is an even higher demand to talk about it. Well, this is a blog which gives us an anonymous forum to do so. Other people may say that, due to the gender inequality deeply rooted in the Ethiopian culture, Ethiopian women only have very limited possibilities to negotiate on sex. Going further, what about the (mis)beliefs widespread in the Ethiopian culture that when a female says NO it is just a way of teasing the male and challenging him into insisting? I agree that those misperceptions exist, and at the same time I would like to underline that right now in Ethiopia highly dynamic transformation processes are ongoing and that the society is changing. No doubt, it will take some time for the society to change or to be changed. But what about us as individuals? You and me and our contribution to the change? Maybe the time has come for us to say NO and to learn to be firm on the meaning of the word.
No woman No cry !
Hey for so long I have been waiting to find a way to let out my burning pain for peoples who have been abused or harassed because of their beauty, honesty or innocence and talkabout it Ethiopia is just the right blog for me.
A girl that I want to share you her story was old friend of mine. When we were in high school, she was cute , she was best friend of mine and the memories that I have with her still remains fresh in mind .she was the first girl that I had a crush on, first girl I exchanged gifts , the first girl I have danced with and wrote letters . However, sometimes beauty is like a curse in a society that is not well prepared to respect the value of gender equality. Unfortunately, we break up for some reason that I do not know, then it was time for me to concentrate on my national exam while she was chilling with other friend of mine. From that time on, she became a victim of her beauty. After we break up ,one of my high school friend start to hang around with her and their relation was just doing quite well when it started but after sometime he start to became more harsh and aggressive on my best friend. He starts to beat her when she even talks with her classmate boys outside class time ,he even abducted her for 15 days in a home he rented and these repetitive acts distract her from her academic life as a result they both failed to pass their grade national exam while I passed for my college preparatory class. From that time on until this year, I tried to reach her on her home phone number but she was not there and her families were not kind enough to tell me where she was. Thanks to facebook, I search her and send a friend request but my request was not confirmed for nearly 3months.during this pending time I thought that she was mad at me but that was not the case. The reason why she ignores me for that long time was not that she hates me rather her marriage with some foreigner who was very harsh. Her husband was always monitoring her facebook account, phone contact but it did not stop her from creating another account and confirming my request. The first message that I received was very painful, she told me that she gave birth to a boy against her will and said she is also tired of the beating and being locked up in home. After her message, she was able to set up a meeting with me and when we met; her face was not strong enough to portray her high school days beauty because of beating, the sunny smile that rise from her face was eclipsed by her pain. Even though the love of her son kept her to live in such torturing environment, finally she gave up and made a decision to runaway. Running away from her foreigner husband was a blessing because she escapes from physical harassments even though she was not able to escape from her hunting love to her son. She always miss and wants to see her son unfortunately her husband denied her entitlement as mother and sends the boy to Europe where she will not be able to reach him. Now she remain sympathetic about her fate and I am not capable of helping her out except praying and dedicating bob song “no woman no cry”.
i really share abel’s idea, this is a great start for saying out loud what is there in our mind.
our country has a culture that makes most of us not to talk about our sex life to anyone even to our boyfriend or girlfriend. we have to break that routine and be able to talk about our sex. It does not make sense if sex becomes pleasure to one side only. from my experience i will talk and share every feeling i have about our sex life with my boyfriend. in that way i wont pass any unpleasant moment.