Queering Sacred Sexual Scripts for Transforming African Societies

Research on sexuality in Africa shows the incontrovertible role of the sacred text of Christianity (the Bible) in condemning forms of sexual expression and identity when they do not conform to the hetero-norm. The Bible thus defines and prescribes what “sacred sex” is. Moreover, scholars explain that the growing presence of fundamentalist religion in Africa, coupled with the myth that “homosexuality is un-African,” serves to entrench homo/transphobic beliefs, even within transforming societies like South Africa. At the same time, a growing body of literature, largely by scholars who draw on masculinity studies and queer theory, responds to the upsurge of homophobia around the globe and in Africa. Elaborating on the “sexual scripting” approach, this essay examines how heteronormative sexuality produces interpretations of Judges 19 that encourage violence against queer bodies. It also demonstrates that sometimes queer affirmative readings inadvertently support violence against women. The essay argues that this scripting is not just a consequence of flawed textual analysis but of limited sexual analysis as it relies on binary and essentialized notions of gender. The analysis also shows that significant theoretical strides have been made on this subject, and that the neglect of the original “queer sex” (woman) in queer thinking reinforces the very binary it opposes. The essay thus proposes to reclaim a feminist discursive approach to queer heterosexist religious sexual scripts.