Sexual Struggles and Democracy Dividends

Abstract

Following a spell in which condemnatory discourse about homosexuality was greeted with relative silence, sexuality, and notions of sexual identity and rights have recently become cause celebre in Nigeria. My basic contention in this chapter is that this situation, in which defenders of gay rights are discursively arraigned against the rump of the political elite, the theocratic class, and the mainstream media, is vital for the expansion of the public sphere, and the development of deliberative capacity within the country’s civil society. Four reasons are identified as responsible for the inception of a social environment in which sexuality has become public—and publicly debatable: HIV/AIDS and the transformation of popular attitudes toward sex; the role of gay rights groups in the circulation of new discourses about the rights of sexual minorities; the emergence of sexuality as an issue central to international development, especially the promotion of sexual rights as human rights; and finally, the emergence of new communications media with the power to dramatize private concerns. Although I make no assumption that deliberation is a panacea to the problems of democracy in praxis, I nonetheless suggest that contentious conversation about homosexuality has the potential to force a rethinking of social axioms relating to sexual and reproductive relations, social citizenship, and national identity