I spent the greater part of my childhood indoors.
A reflection of my mother’s worry that if I were allowed outside, and away from her reach, I would take up chasing women, drugs, violence and then I would drop out of school. Her worries were a bit of overreach but perhaps well founded. The result of this – I only left the house for school, and church. Meaning even today, despite being raised on the East side of the city, there is little of me, that is hard or street. Though, I admit, the sight of a beautiful woman still does things to me.
You can imagine what that did
to my credibility with my friends.
Who learnt that despite growing up in the hood, I preferred RnB to Kalamashaka. And for the longest time, I attempted to un-gentrify. To connect with that latent part of me that was hidden beneath reams of my mother’s conditioning. I failed. Her work had too thoroughly seeped into my psyche. What remained was acceptance and a renewed exploration of my identity.
It allowed me to finally embrace who I am. A hardly hardy man. Which very often is at odds with society’s definition of masculinity. For example – I don’t drink often, and when I do – I dislike foul-tasting booze. I don’t understand why men drink that. How does one get used to Whitecap? Also, I enjoy smooth RnB/Soul music more than I care to admit. So much, that if you were to place a camera in my bathroom. You’d capture semi-erotic images of me and the soap, singing to Sade’s, “You give me, you’re giving me – the sweetest taboo.”
This exploration of my identity opened up the frontiers of my world. And I begun to meet new, interesting people. Who too had interesting upbringings, that didn’t quite fit the expectations we might have of them, their lifestyles, beliefs and even bodies.
I remember for the longest time, we celebrated slender bodies as the default for femininity. Never mind, that as an African – by and large that is not the norm for us.
We are big, beautiful people, spanning the entire spectrum of size. Yet somehow, we let this message take on. That there was only one way to embody beauty. Going so far, as to love these women in hiding. Calling them goddesses, and whispering the names of deities while with them, at night – in darkness, under sheets. Enjoying, and dining in their bodies in secret but coming online to celebrate normativity.
For men, muscles were and are the in thing. Which has been a boon for Nairobi’s gyms with startling results. Muscular men who are undeveloped beyond the physical. The women however, if a quick online survey is assumed to be representative, are surprisingly celebrating slender men. Attributing a certain prowess, unmentionable in an esteemed publication, to these slender brothers (as a non-slender Nairobi man, ladies – please give us a chance as well, we will not disappoint).
If nothing else, I hope that this trend continues. The acceptance that we are different. We always have been, and we always will be. Stunningly different. And embracing one’s place on the continuum is a source of power in a world pushing us to be the same. We do not need to be fully straight, parts of us, can and should curve a little. Perhaps, this too is something worth celebrating. Continually.
