Sex, Sexuality and Negotiating Africanness in Nairobi

Abstract

This article presents two themes: how young professionals personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. I identify ways in which ‘young professionals’ as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture. I argue that this group embodies post-colonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in gender, sexuality and culture. I work out the complexities of sexuality and culture by focusing on public debates about African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality, on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-definitions on the other. Finally, I explore how sexuality has become central to self-expression and how cultural self-identification is an ambiguous concern for young professionals.