I Am Not Your Gayologist

The Courage to Deviate

I cannot say how it works for everyone, but eventually, some people must find the courage of their convictions to deviate from what is considered the norm and set their own conventions instead.

To them, their norm, whilst being different, is their existence, their expression, and their life. To choose to live that life fully as themselves, without having to apologise for it, is probably what many others might have wished they dared to do.

In my own case, I did not set out to be unconventional. In the beginning, though I knew my inclinations were different, I did not understand why, nor whether there were others so inclined and ready to explore the possibilities that such difference offered.

A Diverse Humanity

The societies in which I have grown and lived have met this situation with varying levels of acceptance or revulsion. I suppose that is the story of our humanity: we are offered such a range of diversity that keeping track of divergence can be overwhelming. Yet, we can all belong to one celebrated and richly diverse humanity.

Behind all this are stories, very personal and intimate stories of struggle, fear, anxiety, confusion, guilt, grief, or rejection, all borne without a means of sharing one's deepest feelings.

We may never get to narrate those stories if the circumstances do not present the opportunity, but when such a moment does come, even the things you thought you might never share come out in ways you could not have anticipated.

Telling Your Story

How anyone reacts to that story, once told, is left to them. They can listen to the telling or read the message, then respond in whatever way they have been affected, having been given a different perspective on the person they had heretofore thought they knew.

Understandably, we hold high expectations and too frequently are met with indifference or ignorance. Yet a few respond with understanding and empathy; they see you, and that might just be enough to know that everything which became your story is not meaningless.

A Uniquely Owned Experience

Even that premise can be challenged. Why should someone else's viewpoint change your own narrative, even when they have attempted to walk a hard, long mile in your shoes? Nobody can live the life you have lived. They can understand, comprehend, appreciate, embrace, or even endorse it, but your experience will always be uniquely yours.

I started this blog hoping to say that it is not my responsibility to explain my sexuality to anyone. I am who I am, as you are who you are. You not understanding or acknowledging it does not make it insignificant or irrelevant.

Neither is it my problem if you cannot accept me and the choices I have made, without regret or second-guessing myself, in trying to live up to the requirements or standards of others.

Not Your Gayologist

The title of that blog would have been, "I Am Not Your Gayologist." Forgive the neologism; there might well be a blog with that title when the words are fully formed for that range of expression. I guess this is it.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Held in Tension: Sexuality and Spirituality

Navigating Sexuality and Faith in Religious Spaces

There's a conversation I had recently that keeps replaying in my mind. It started with a Facebook post about the conflicts between sexuality and spirituality in Christian communities, and before I knew it, I was in a deep exchange with someone facing what they called a "horrifying" internal conflict. They were an aspiring Anglican priest in Nigeria, caught between their calling to ministry and their authentic self.

This isn't just their story. It's the story of countless individuals sitting in pews, leading worship, teaching Sunday school, or aspiring to ministry, whilst carrying a weight that feels unbearable. The conflict between sexuality and spirituality in religious settings is real, raw, and deeply personal.

The Weight of Worthiness

What struck me most in our conversation was how quickly we default to the language of worthiness and condemnation. My response to them came from years of wrestling with these same questions: Jesus died for us regardless. Grace teaches us godliness. These aren't just theological platitudes; they're lifelines for those drowning in guilt.

The fundamental question isn't whether God loves us despite who we are, but whether we can accept that God loves us because of who we are: fully, authentically, completely. When we understand that the Father sees us through what Christ did for us, not through what we do ourselves, it changes everything. Or at least, it should.

The Complexity of Conflict

As our conversation deepened, I found myself laying out the layers of conflict that many face. It's never just one thing. There's the matter of attraction itself: acknowledging it, understanding it, accepting it.

Then there's the question of what to do with that attraction. Do you seek companionship? Commit to celibacy? Try to change? Each path comes with its own set of challenges and consequences.

For those called to ministry, like my conversation partner, the stakes feel even higher. In conservative religious environments, particularly in places like Nigeria where the Anglican Church takes strongly traditional stances, the choice can feel impossible: your calling or your truth, your ministry or your authenticity.

The Geography of Grace

I mentioned Reverend Jide Macaulay to them: a gay Anglo-Nigerian Anglican priest who founded The House of Rainbow and now ministers in the UK. His story illustrates something crucial. Sometimes finding peace means finding new spaces. Not everyone can or should leave their religious community, but knowing that affirming spaces exist can be lifesaving.

The geographic and denominational differences in how churches handle these issues are stark. What's considered grounds for exclusion in one congregation might be celebrated in another. This isn't about church shopping for convenience; it's about finding communities where you can worship authentically and serve fully.

Compartmentalisation versus Integration

Near the end of our exchange, I suggested something that might sound counterintuitive: sometimes we need to compartmentalise to gain liberty from our conflicts. This isn't about living a double life or hiding parts of yourself. It's about recognising that different aspects of our identity might need different kinds of attention and space to develop.

You can be deeply spiritual and sexually aware. You can be called to ministry and attracted to the same sex. You can love God and struggle with church doctrine. These aren't contradictions to be resolved but tensions to be held with grace.

Moving Forward

What I've learnt from conversations like these is that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to navigating sexuality and faith. For some, the answer is finding affirming religious communities. For others, it's reinterpreting scripture through a more inclusive lens. Still others find peace in celibacy or in stepping away from organised religion whilst maintaining their spirituality.

The key is this: the conflict doesn't have to be horrifying. It can be transformative. It can lead to a deeper, more authentic faith, one that doesn't require you to leave parts of yourself at the church door.

To those facing these struggles, know that you're not alone. There are communities, resources, and people who have walked this path before you. The journey towards integrating your sexuality and spirituality might be challenging, but it doesn't have to be a journey of condemnation. It can be a journey towards wholeness, towards a faith that embraces all of who you are.

Because at the end of the day, any God worth worshipping is big enough to handle our complexity, our questions, and our authentic selves. The real question isn't whether God accepts us. It's whether we're brave enough to accept ourselves.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Cancer: No journey is the same

Cancer humanises us

The news that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer brings a sense of shared humanity in its frailty, suffering, mortality, and survival. We are told it is not prostate cancer and it was discovered when he went in for a procedure due to an enlarged prostate. [BBC: King Charles diagnosed with cancer]

As a monarchist, a fellow human being, and a survivor of cancer, I can only wish His Majesty a full recovery and restoration to health and vigour. Yet, a cancer diagnosis can come with shock and a dire prognosis, in my experience, is not a battle to fight as only the real tools we have against cancer are faith and hope. Faith that the medicine, the miracle, or both work and the hope that there is a life after cancer.

This looks serious

I watched as what seemed like Athlete’s Foot on my left sole change from the dark blotches of discolouration into a painful weeping sore, I foolishly thought it would go away even as a little voice in me whispered this was cancer tugging at the heart of my life ready to thrust me off this mortal coil.

Eventually, I summed up the courage to go to my doctor demanding urgent attention as the pain had become otherworldly unbearable. The moment she saw my foot, she said, “This looks serious, I have to refer you.” Immediately, she was on the phone to the hospital and moving heaven and earth to get me in as soon as possible, and I got an appointment for the day after.

On observation by the consultant, he said, this is serious and is related to internal diseases, the internist would be in next week on Tuesday, it was Thursday, and I’ll be the first person he’ll see. I was given painkillers that killed nothing, a placebo would have done much better to manage the pain.

I have heard, then again, I know the pain of cancer, I was eventually on 4 different kinds of pain management, the most effective being a Fentanyl patch that I received a doubled dosage of after a few weeks because that pain just refused to fully subside.

We can treat this

Several analyses were conducted on what were fungating tumours that antibiotics did not seem to affect, having eliminated a diabetic cause, a deep biopsy of the lesions was done, and then the consultant came to my bed to give me the news on the 9^th day of my admission to the hospital.

These were his words, “We can treat this, but it depends on how your body can take the treatment, if you can tolerate it, you’ll be fine, otherwise, you probably have 5 weeks.” Two things I took away from this message, the advances in cancer treatment for Kaposi’s sarcoma were such that medicine had confidence, and the fact that mortality loomed 5 weeks away left you with a sense of the gravity of what a cancer diagnosis might mean to anyone.

At that point, I thought, I am going to survive this because I had by then navigated the Kübler-Ross Five Stages of Grief, skipping Depression and Bargaining to reach an Acceptance that I spoke within myself, “Akin, you have cancer, what next?” I was already looking beyond cancer and with that, I had my belief, my faith, and my prayers with the support of many friends and particularly neighbours.

Treating cancer, killing cells

I began my 1^st course of chemotherapy on the 5^th of October 2009, it was to be administered at 10:00 AM but delayed for 3 hours, I did not know that after the course I would be consigned to cytostatic ostracism as the cytotoxic component of pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (tradename Caelyx) meant no one should be in contact with any of my bodily fluids for up 5 days after chemotherapy. Nurses had to don personal protective equipment (PPE) to take blood or dispose of my urine. It was unpleasant, the treatment and the treatment.

As I tolerated the chemotherapy, more sessions were added, and I became more nauseous after every session three weeks apart that by the 5^th session, I was given novel anti-emetic medication to help keep my food down for the days after chemotherapy.

When I saw that a 9^th chemotherapy session was scheduled, I remonstrated to my consultant that I was planning on restarting my life from the 1^st of March 2010 when I was to have received the 8^th chemotherapy dose, they stopped with the 7^th which I took on Monday, the 8^th of February 2010 in the afternoon after I had attended the funeral service of my dear friend Dick van Galen Last who sadly did not tolerate the chemotherapy as well. We had the same oncologist.

By the 4^th chemotherapy dose, the cancer lesions had disappeared, and beneath the necrotised skin which had to be stripped off was fresh pink skin which however did not retain that colour.

What to expect

Each cancer journey is different, I count myself fortunate that the body of knowledge accrued from many who had no hope when medicine first encountered these cancers, others on whom experiments were conducted and never survived, then those for whom successes led to improvements and advancements that we further down the line took advantage of because medicine was confident and the treatments could be better managed for good outcomes.

• Do they know what you have?
• Do you understand it and how far gone is it?
• Is it treatable and what is the prognosis?
• What particular outcomes do you want, what options do you have, some might just want to go home than face gruelling cancer treatment? 
• How prepared are you in spirit, mind, and body for this journey?
• What is your source of hope in the midst of adversity?
• What support networks do you have to draw on?

Hope springs eternal, I believed and saw myself beyond the cancer and probably not much further, but each stage of progress gave the kind of assurance that there will be life after cancer and even if there was none, I would not have died in despair, hopeless, hapless, and without any sense of having lived well.

It is the most encouragement I can give to anyone facing cancer, it is a difficult process, it is part of the human story, some survive, and many do not, we are all grateful for life, but the biggest battle when faced with adversity is whether you can see yourself getting beyond it or life ending because of it.

There is no judgement in what you see, either way, your life and your story would be you lived, you loved, you touched and were touched, and the rest falls into the annals of timeless eternity, you walked this earth and will never be forgotten.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXIX

One could not tell

He, I might have said as I wondered why he was walking in the middle of the lane of a busy road, then as it became clear, she was wearing heels you would expect to see on those modelling womenswear, but her top was hardly masculine, probably feminine and never really coming to terms of whether it should be classed as androgynous left me more confused that you might be left with the pronoun they.

Yes, they were drawing attention to themselves in clothes that could not be ignored once seen and a head shorn of hair quite redolent of male pattern baldness, that drivers in cars contributed to a needless cacophony of car horns get more people to look in the direction of the commotion.

When I thought I would see them for much longer, they disappeared into a whiskey bar and the chatter at the al fresco tables would have been given to a surmise or two before we all returned to what we were doing.

It is there to see

Whatever we were doing before a new distraction came along, body adornment in the form of tattoos that usually were discreet, but now they are all over the body down on the fingers with all the skin surfaces covered including on the face, and this is now on the ladies. I catch myself before I begin to question why, I guess they love and they do it, the appreciation of beauty by strangers is beside the point.

People do not moderate themselves into conformity if they can help it, and much as a lot is being accepted at face value and supported by laws to give protections against discrimination, being an outlier can still expose you to unwelcome ostracism. It would seem our prejudices are constantly challenged by changing norms and expressions we cannot avoid.

Our streets of education

We observe and document those observations in memory that what was at first chimeral, with more encounters of such rarities, we are eased to accepting these things are becoming commonplace.

Usually, we would not indulge and be inclined to have these situations are self-expression even as an example might provide guidance, we school ourselves into the knowledge that in all that diversity of expression with its extremes that we have difficulty understanding, there is a belonging we all have to share in learning of each other and becoming better people.

As it seems one pandemic is winding down, though not going away yet, we are presented with monkeypox and a threat that it is spreading fast that those of us in a cohort once stigmatised for infectious diseases are once again appearing more susceptible to it. A public announcement to drop-in by invitation totally failed the plain English test. We just have to be careful. [MEN: Monkeypox fears build as number of cases in Greater Manchester rise]

Thought Picnic: Knowing allies from the lies

Knowing an ally

An ally is a person or organisation that cooperates with or helps another in a particular activity.

Allying is combining or uniting resources or commodities with (another) for mutual benefit.

Earlier today on Twitter, I read of someone who was withdrawing his allyship with the LGBTQ+ community because we were not worth supporting. It read so totally like the typical self-important delusion of grandeur of someone who was never invested in a cause, they are like hit-and-run perpetrators of opportunistic lip-service that once engaged on their perfidious and superfluous premises become disillusioned castigating others as ungrateful as they lament their thankless situation.

Allies are invested

Indeed, all minorities of any persuasion need allies, and their contribution to the arc of justice and humanity that affords us relevance, respect, dignity, and protection from abuse, menace, or violence is welcome.

However, before we had allies, we were who we were, sometimes living dangerously, but living, all the same, thriving, organising, and speaking up for ourselves that we were noticed enough for others to join cause with us in the pursuit of equality and justice.

Allyship is invested and engaged, rarely incidental just as fair-weather hoppers on trendy bandwagons are not allies, they are just notorious and garrulous self-interested, self-promoting parasites drawing attention to themselves and away from the causes, they portend to support. They have no principled stance, and they stand for nothing, their pretence to liberalism is everything but, they are utterly vacuous.

Allies stick with it

True allies usually do not walk away when the going gets tough, they have life-long investments and interests in the cause that they will not allow to be impugned or usurped. The cause is not external and abstract, they are involved sometimes through situations they cannot have accounted for.

I think of my parents as allies, for they have had to review their frame of reference to include something they do not understand. They have had to travel a difficult road into the realm of being directly affected, and this applies to many we have bonds and relationships with.

They have a gay son; what does that even mean in the context of their worldview? Yet, they resolved to accept the person and the personality of their son with all the difficulties and questions that entails. They demonstrate strength in embracing me with love and affection, prayerfully supplicating for my happiness and health, blessing me at every opportunity and bringing my loves and affections into the sphere of belonging.

Allies have heart in it

They decided that society, community, tradition, or beliefs will not define or regulate our relationship. I may be different, but I am still their beloved offspring.

These are the words of an ally, my father said, “You are my son, I will not reject you.” Then some faceless insignificant nonentity thinks I depend on them for allyship, existence, and fulfilment? I guess social media is a platform for ignorant self-aggrandisement and befuddling idiocy. I saw that today.

Down to the heart of desire

Knowing myself as me

I think about nature and nurture, the knowledge of desire and the things that make us who we are even if we are different and we are different in many ways, but we get along, all the same.

Speaking of desire, I have never thought differently about who I am even if I have questioned why I am who I am. I remember being asked when reviewing the issue of my sexuality with my religious leaders and sometimes with my managers at work whether I have ever been attracted to females, the truth is I have never had that desire, not in the slightest.

Misunderstanding the impossible

I cannot answer the whys or wherefores, but I know that the desire to rid myself of a desire I always had for one I never had was just a recipe for a totally miserable life. That is the complexity of sexuality and the absurdity of conversion therapy.

The idea that you can get someone to totally displace themselves from a desire they have for one they have never had is quite bonkers if not madness. Yet, many attempt to turn people from one thing to another, just because they think they can.

Acceptance is a journey

I guess the bigger struggle is the one of acceptance, first the one of accepting oneself, then the one about others accepting who you are, if they have the wherewithal to. At the end of the day, you are who you are and whether accepted by others or not.

Then at the same time, I observe the conflicts, the confusion, or the conflation of desire, even the fear or shame of the same desire that keeps people from being true to themselves first and then to others. The consequence being a double-life with the opportunities for exploitation and blackmail that makes for a secretive, paranoid, and unhappy existence. Many of us know about this.

Caught between desires

Along the way, there is the cohort that cannot extricate themselves from ambivalence, straddling different aspects of satisfaction of their desires that it becomes fetishized. Maybe I was a bit terse when someone asked if I like stockings and suspenders to which I responded without skipping a beat that I only do it with men.

In fact, I have been asked to dress up and nothing annoys me as much as anyone who expects me to pretend to be someone else for them to get their kicks. At the same time, I have to recognise that it is each to their own and move on. What I cannot completely put out of my mind and memory are times when I have been invited to meet someone casually only to see that in the absence of their spouse and kids, these men are playing the field with ‘taboo’ activities unbeknownst to their wives or girlfriends.

Here I was in a matrimonial home, in their bed, a cot with kid’s toys strewn around the house and well, there is life as you know it and desire as we seek to find it and satisfy it. It is a funny world and the journey to acceptance and being openly happy with it is still a tough one for many to begin, talk less of complete. C’est la vie!

Thought Picnic: In terms of the friend I have become

Unwittingly winning battles

Sometimes, we are unaware of the lessons in adversity that through what we have lived and experienced become the pointers for others in their times of trouble. When in my own situation out of ignoring the essential and the circumstances of disease progression, I came within 5 weeks of expiry according to the prognosis, I had no other choice but to face what was ahead of me.

There were battles I had to fight, mostly in the mind and usually unseen in the pain, the fears, the uncertain, the unintended, and the anxieties that could bring on debilitating worry, in those, I could not afford to be defeated, my circumstances were part of life, and people do live it, for it belongs in the spectrum of the human experience.

Acceptance leads tomorrow

The other issue was cancer, that I could neither battle nor fight, not with my already ineffective immune system nor with some pretense of mind over matter. I had to rely on the efficacy of the drugs and the treatment hoping that my body could carry me through the ordeal to a form of survival and recovery.

The greatest battle was in my mind, the transition of responding to pain alone whilst being in total denial of my condition to the point when I accepted that this was serious, I had cancer and so, what next? Once providence and I were in agreement that things were going to look and get better, we were on a long hard journey to recovery.

You are first in your situation

Inadvertently, the gruelling encounters with medical personnel and medical science have informed me of how to seek and obtain the best medical outcomes for whatever situation is under review. Whilst not getting doctors and consultants to second-guess themselves, it is important that they are convinced and convincing of what course of action to take.

If at any time I have had to encourage anyone, it is to be appreciated, respected, and treated with dignity. The superiority of a doctor’s knowledge, experience, and expertise should never be ahead of you as their subject and patient, it should be subject to your understanding with detailed explanation of what they want to do, the purpose for it and the outcomes expected.

Afterall, it is your body first, before it is their Guinea pig. That truth alone is sometimes enough to give a new sense of purpose and acuity to your situation. To my friends, I am a living miracle, a message of hope, a teller of better stories, and as one so endearingly said and I have heard in different modes of expression, I am their role model of resilience. I am just thankful for the life I have been given and the example it lends to others.

Can you accommodate what nature allows?

We are the same and different too

What a terrifying existence it must have been to be different, where what some term alternative is your normal. It is not that you cannot function in society; you can with aptitude, intellect, talent, resourcefulness, gifts, and much else. As a human being, you have a lot to contribute to your community and to society. Yet, because of who you are there may be trouble ahead.

The discovery that your attraction to the similar than that the opposite sometimes comes rather early in life. You work hard inside yourself struggling and outside yourself seeking solutions to problems you think you have. Deprivation and ritual, adjustment and reconditioning, maybe an exorcism or conversion therapy might help. Guilt is the default for finding expression to your feelings that you never grow fully into who you are.

The struggle of accepting oneself

Then, there is the fear, the fear of revealing who you truly are, the fear of exposure about what your feelings are, the fear of rejection and ostracism from those of your blood who learn of what you are, and the fear of interventions imposed to radically change you into something you are not. For tradition has interpreted and translated events of antiquity wrongly and from that legal sanction has been created to criminalise your nature, that is a discussion for another time.

This is the encapsulation of sexuality conflict, where your normal is considered abnormal even to the more conservative an abomination. What is an abomination when even in its rarity nature accommodates difference, diversity, divergence, evolution, individuality and apparent abnormality? That is usually a matter of perspective and opinion rather than what some might term unnatural.

Can you accommodate what nature does?

What exists in nature is natural and that should be the end of the discussion. Whether your mind is open to new knowledge and the appreciation of how nature allows rather than abhors is another thing, but you cannot blame nature for how nature decides to express itself in ways misunderstood, radical, and let us allow chimerical. That becomes part of the human experience whether you choose to believe your eyes, your ears, or your existence where that situation presents.

Indeed, we are afraid of what is unfamiliar, we might even label things in ways to differentiate because those things are beyond our frame of reference. Learning new things is part of the progressive human existence. Sometimes, the things we have to accept are probably too close for comfort that you decide to afflict the subject.

Even humanity evolves to a point where understanding nature will afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. It is what it is, different characteristics and attractions within human beings does not make them any less human. Most people do not need a cure for who they really are, the acceptance of that piece of wisdom is harmony and peace to our humanity.

Warning! My blogs might shock you

I find the words to say

My blog may not necessarily be my undoing, but it is a journal and compendium of snippets and snatches of memory, experience, and observation that if I could commit myself to the rigour of an autobiography, there is little else I might need to put in a book apart from flesh out some stories for content, context, and contemplation.

In the versatility of the use of language is the revelation of much that might elicit inquiry and confirmation, yet, what is read should be taken at face value, for there is neither obfuscation nor dissembling, just some finesse, and if one could rise to that standard, the sophistication to make the usually unspeakable readily palatable.

Too many assumptions exist that in the spectrum of believing the worst to fairy tale bliss, the truth is not so much a search for a needle in the haystack, it is in plain sight once disbelief is suspended for accepting an unconsidered reality. It is quite likely a variation on the art of storytelling.

Did you really not know?

There are discussions and difficult ones they are that have made a showing on my blog before they have become a conversation with certain close ones. Too many things to learn about me that it is surprising that the profile texts of my blog and Facebook do not seem to have had the in-depth reading and comprehension desired.

On my blog, I have a play on the meaning of my name Akin in English and any other translation or interpretation you might consider. “Essentially similar to what is known, compatible to what is expected and related to the unexpected…” It would be supercilious to consider myself enigmatic, but the ellipsis at the end is both deliberate and suggestive of much more about me that is unknown.

The Facebook profile changed some time ago because acquaintances from long ago had impressions about me in need of addressing forthwith. Adopting a broad statement was supposed to stem the tide of inquiry, even as I pruned my following to contain aggression and disapprobation. I could not be clearer than this: “I thought and concluded, do not presume you know me, this is really not a biography, it is guidance.”

Shock is the wrong reflex

Then comes the other conundrum, I write quite openly about very personal stuff that gets read by an audience beyond those I am directly in contact with. Even amongst those I know, I do not know who cares to read my blog, though the statistics suggest I have a readership in as far-flung places as Indonesia in the last week, that country taking the lead with the UK, the Netherlands, and Nigeria where I have lived coming 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th respectively. I cannot begin to fathom why the interest from these places, but something is engaging them.

This is my advice to those who read my blog; you will probably learn more than you expected to see, if you have any doubt you might want to give it the benefit of the doubt that what you have read needs no further explanation than what it has said at your first reading. Mental gymnastics are a cause for unnecessary angst, we can agree, your writer does not mince words.

The thought sometimes crosses my mind to be reserved, reticent, or dabble in a form of self-censorship, but rather than curtail, I usually prevail by finding a form of words for whatever I want to express. Finally, I ask for some open-mindedness and the need not to make a shock your first resort in the acquisition of knowledge; the world is a big place, some things might extend your worldview to places you never thought possible. That is the biggest teaching about our humanity.

We are experts in our prejudices

Weeds in the garden of the mind

In times of reflection and introspection, I allow myself some searching scrutiny of my views, my opinions, my beliefs, my principles, and most importantly my prejudices. The blind spots that limit the range of vision in areas where ideally, I should normally be able to see, but I do not.

Like a gardener, it is a process of planting, trimming, weeding, pruning, grafting, uprooting, cleaning and much else that allows the garden to appear first well looked after and hopefully beautiful as a projection of what is aesthetically pleasing to myself and then to others. This is necessary for the mind too, things we have learnt that we need to relearn, unlearn, or have mislearnt through ignorant, incomplete, or bad education that needs jettisoning before it becomes the foundation for bad choices and decisions.

Arrogance is disabling

It brings to mind something Peter Drucker, the management guru said some decades ago, “discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it.” Discovery is always a process of searching and curiosity, that one has acquired some set views left without reassessing and questioning to ascertain their validity and application for the context, the time, the situation, or the circumstance will leave one prone to error.

The Merriam-Webster defines arrogance as an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions. When reading Peter Drucker’s quote, I tend to drop the ‘intellectual’ qualifier of arrogance.

Arrogance is bad and sometimes it is difficult to notice it in ourselves, the sense of superiority, that makes us think we are better than others, the overbearing manner that prevents us from being accommodating of alternative and different situations, the presumptuousness that denies us the benefit of knowing the limits of our understanding, expertise, abilities, competence, and even open-mindedness.

We are prejudice experts

It is strange is it not that arrogance does cause disabling ignorance, the lack of knowledge, information, insight, context, premise, understanding, the list in synonyms and similar inferences can be limitless. However, the point is arrogance disables you and when you are disabled, you are unable to perform like those who are able can. This construct can be applied to anything, what we do to compensate, mitigate, or eliminate that disability can make all the difference.

Nowhere is the issue of arrogance more evident than in our prejudices, the quickness with which we rush to the judgement of others, castigating, excoriating, and condemning them, based on our limited worldview contextualised within the constraints of knowledge and the mistake of assuming we are all-seeing when we have many blind spots.

We are experts in our prejudices, qualified and lettered to the point of being unchallengeable and unassailable, it is dangerous for ourselves first and then others. It is easy to be unaware of it because we are comfortable and secure in what we know.

The open mind like parachutes

This brings me to another quote, part of which is popular, but the provenance and the context in which it is used differs, depending on who it attributed to, the one attributed to Lord Dewar, Thomas Robert goes, “I have an open mind. Minds are like parachutes—they function only when they are open. I believe in collecting information on every important topic and verifying it. That is why I am here tonight—in the spirit of enquiry.” [StackExchange: A mind is like a parachute]

There is no better way to learn, to unlearn, to relearn and create scope for new knowledge that changes perspectives, perceptions, or prejudices, than to have an open mind, it is for our development and our safety, it allows us to acknowledge our blind spots and adjust our line of vision, it enables us to see better, it addresses deep-seated arrogance and brings us to the realisation of new possibilities.

You wonder why I have written a treatise on open-mindedness, simple, someone published a picture of themselves in interesting attire, adornments and makeup, the commentary that followed whilst a few celebrated and commended the bold difference in embracing the alternative and sometimes misunderstood, too many from the Nigerian opinion pool could not see the aesthetic blinded by their prejudices and leading to outright condemnation.

Open all windows to light and air

You have to be openminded you cannot be selective of where you are open-minded, streams of knowledge and enlightenment come from unexpected places when we are ready to explore the unfamiliar and sometimes threatening. We cannot access new knowledge pools when we have closed our minds to the avenue or route to that new experience. Like in the daytime, any window closed is closed to letting light and fresh air into the room.

To that, I wrote two tweets, “I would suggest that a little open-mindedness to the alternative, the different, the unusual, the atypical, the unconventional, or the chimeral can open up areas of creativity and genius closed to sight just because we can't countenance the radical. Nigerians should let go.” [Twitter]

“I just saw an interesting fashion statement of difference, the commentary that followed showed how people are limited in vision, bound by the myopia of conformity, that despite their talents and academic achievements, they never reach their potential by judging others.” [Twitter]

Understandably some fathers will not get to acceptance

Hard truths of sons

From a personal perspective I can understand how difficult it must be for a Nigerian father to countenance the idea that their child is not heteronormative. If it were a matter of choice or lifestyles, it is likely they might have been different, but the world we live in is diverse with expressions of individuality and uniqueness that may not follow the orthodoxy.

When I father challenged the public acknowledgement of my sexuality as a gay man years ago, I was directly instructed to come out of the gay world. I had no other alternative than to tell him without mincing words some truths about my life he might have been suspicious of or never knew. Until then, I was hiding my reality from him in the misconception that I was saving him the shock of my person and my personality. [For Akin – Funmi Iyanda]

From aberration to acceptance

In the 1960s, I appreciate the cultural aversion to homosexuality in the UK even as acceptance of the fact that homosexuals exist and are neither mentally incapacitated nor deviants. In 1967, homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK, though it took decades for acceptance to gain traction towards non-discrimination based in sexual orientation. [Wikipedia: Sexual Offences Act – 1967.]

When I returned to the UK in 1990, I did not shy away from who I was, considering I was being blackmailed in Nigeria. The way I dealt with the blackmailer was to say he would have to explain how he found out, why were involved for an extended period and whether he would not be just as exposed and unlikely me with an exit plan, he had to exist within a homophobic environment.

My son

When my father responded, he said, “You are my son, I cannot reject you.” Whilst I did not read that as a wholesale acceptance of who I am, it was conciliatory enough an acknowledgement that there was nothing he could do about it if we were to retain any form of relationship. We have developed that filial relationship despite occasional hiccups.

Dr Doyin Okupe, a former presidential spokesman for the President of Nigeria today from the papers finds himself in the same situation of first acknowledging against every gain in his religious and patriarchal body that his son, Bolu Okupe is gay. The most important and significant statement he could make was, “He (Bolu) is my son.” [The Nation: Doyin Okupe, son in a row over ‘gay status’]

Beyond that, any discussion by anyone else is an exertion in conjecture and vain jangling. It is no doubt a trying period for heterosexual fathers, but their homosexual sons do have their lives to live. I have a partner to whom I hope to get married. I affections have never had any inclination apart from a homonormative existence, I accepted myself long before I needed to tell anyone about who I am, even at work from the 1990s.

A deluge of ignorance

What I find utterly irksome is the crass and ignorant reportage that masquerades as journalism in Nigeria. With the abundance of knowledge, expertise, academic material and legal precedent in many countries not only acknowledging homosexuality but conferring rights and freedom with the criminalisation of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, we have people who offer stupefying opinions, bias and bigotry as fact, that I read, “He resides in France where the law allows him to experiment with his sexuality.” Experiment?

You do not experiment with sexuality, it is embodied in the person, their expression and their identity, it is their life and they live it in or out of the closet, depending on the agency and autonomy they have. We need to banish the concept of lifestyle or choice from the canon of sexual orientation or we risk being refused access to societies where the debate about sexual orientation has long passed from a wedge issue of societal and cultural exclusion.

Thought Picnic: Sophistication above the fray

We feel what you said and did

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

The quote above is often attributed to Maya Angelou and I will take it as that. In many of my blogs, I have written about storytelling, the telling of our own stories and some stories that were once taboo of generations before us and never given voice to then have somewhat become acceptable narratives in our own recollections.

When it comes to the stories regarding our parents and the relationships, we had that became the broad template of our lives and lifestyles, we could be a little shy of going into much detail. Out of respect, out of the need to heal, out of the necessity not to air one’s dirty linen, or out of honouring them.

Sophistication out of humanity

Yet, some of these factors allow our parents to get away with the reprehensible because they are not made to face up to what they said that hurt, or what they did that harmed, but especially how they made us feel out of their actions or inactions that now defines the kind of relationships we have with them today.

None of this is to castigate our parents, far be it from us, we have through strife, adversity, pain, and privation learnt sophistication. The sophistication that allows us to act out our humanity and kindness regardless of the personalities whose words and deeds have left indelible marks in our lives. We can be formed by these experiences and yet not be defined by the negative things they were at the time meant to portend.

Forgiving after dealing

We can be quite forgiving, but that must not be used as the instrument to forget without addressing the matters boldly, directly and without dissimulation. My father will say, let bygones be bygones, that is convenient for him. However, that bygone is a significant source of the present, a forming instrument of life and experience, an influence of such magnitude as to be a principal actor in my own story, even if it is not in theirs.

What he dismissed then was what was significantly altering the course of my life in ways I could never have thought would happen, when it looked like tomorrow was too far to have a feel of any reality. Those tomorrows became years and decades, and each of those events of how I was made to feel are my story.

Protecting our interests

We are not softies for overlooking much of what a lesser person would seek to avenge or punish, I hope we raise ourselves to a higher plain and have the grace to recognise that providence has given us the capability to teach a better way.

Many things are temporal, including life, that we need to be careful that when we are no more around to sort things out, we will be remembered for the good we said and did, such that people will protect our interests, memories, kith and kin with just as much passion as if we were around to address them ourselves.

When the stories are told, they are about us, the ideas, the events and the people that contributed to the experience and everyone whether they like that narrative or not has inadvertently contributed to it, we are the people who will never forget how you made us feel.

Thought Picnic: On the price of a marriage contracted to make you straight

Preamble: The timeframe of the origin of this blog was, in fact, the 8^th of February, the day after he came out, but an abrupt conversation with a friend put this in the cooler until today. Then, in a blog I wrote earlier, I referred to work I was doing on this blog. It would appear, I have been able to conclude the piece and publish it with as close as possible to the fervour that inspired it over a month ago.

Blog - Thought Picnic: My life really does include my partner

Doors falling off the rattled closet

When news broke last month of Philip Schofield’s revelation that he was gay in the midst of a 27-year marriage, I was ready to applaud him for coming out, but I could not completely commit myself to any celebration of the news without consideration of the others besides him involved.

Much was made of the love and support of his wife and two adult daughters to this coming out moment and as is always the case, people contributed messages of support for his courage, his bravery, and his decision to be true to himself.

Yet, I am still here thinking not so much of Philip, but of Stephanie Lowe, his wife of 27 years and everyone else who for all their open-mindedness to the sexuality of others might well be considerably affected by it much closer to home.

Always think of the partners

Now, I cannot speak to the quality of the relationship between Philip, Stephanie, and their daughters, but as the developing news begins to generate other perspectives, one of the headlines does say she was ‘absolutely devastated’ to learn her husband is gay. That she has had the time and space to process the information will not make it any easier for her.

There was a scene in the film, Body of Evidence which starred Madonna where in court she was asked about what she did when she discovered her husband was in a homosexual relationship. She said, “I couldn’t compete.”

It is a fundamental psychological break when your spouse directs their sexual affections to a same-sex liaison. What you can put up to fight for the affectations of your spouse in situations where the object of their affections is the same sex as you is lost in the battle with the opposite sex.

Blog - Opinion: Now, a thought for Kenny Badmus' wife

Knowing is usually a process

However, by the way, I appreciate that sexuality conflict and the point at which one is ready to accept wholeheartedly that they are one way or the other is a complex process of development. It is quite possible that people do not realise who they are until when they are completely committed to a heteronormative path and in it find dissatisfaction and discontent in the relationship they forged in the hope that it would make them whole.

I believe there is a discussion to be had when such issues arise. In my own case, whilst my very first sexual experience was at 7 with a female much older than I, I cannot say that I had a primary sexual attraction to the female. It never developed beyond the appreciation of beauty, intellect, and personality.

From about the age of 7, I do know that something about men made them more attractive to me than I could understand. That attraction was taken advantage of by some people employed to care for us as kids. The little threat here or there to force compliance made me a willing catamite to a few trusted people all into my teens.

Accepting yourself is deep self-discovery

After the age of accountability, I agonised about who and what I was, consumed with guilt especially the religious kind, I sought ways to rid myself of this thing when at the same time, I could not forgo my predilection for same-sex liaisons. With time, I found there were others like me, and we were not evil even if maligned.

At the time I was about to leave Nigeria, I was being blackmailed, I refused to pay up and challenged my blackmailer that when he tells whoever he decides to tell, he should be ready to explain how we both got together without any coercion for the many months of whatever we did. I guess, that put paid to that.

As I arrived in The UK, I was ready to come to terms which who I was, I sought out and found people boldly expressing themselves without fear. In the midst of such confident people, I gained the confidence to accept my own sexuality and to a direct question about it, I gave a clear answer, for I was of the view that if you asked, you just wanted a confirmation rather than a denial.

Peeling the onion of coming out

To my parents, siblings, and relations, I was a bit more circumspect and discreet, it took much longer to broach the subject. In the case of my parents, they were in the UK in The 1960s when the worst thing you could call anyone was a ‘bugger’.

It came with all sorts of connotations of homosexuality, paedophilia, bestiality, and murder, I felt I should save them from such an association, though it did not stop me from having same-sex relationships completely away from the scrutiny of those I didn’t want to know. I had compartmentalised my life.

Blog - Thought Picnic: The onion of truths

With time, the pressure, and the expectation to get married became a constant refrain in conversations with home, I batted away the direct questions and prevaricated on other requirements.

I was offered arranged marriages by many who thought I was the most eligible bachelor around. This all to satisfy the needs of culture and become as it were ‘responsible’, I could easily have contracted a marriage of convenience, even gone along to have children. There were many offers that just required I ask, but I did not step up to any of those opportunities.

In a series of tweets yesterday, whilst using the news as a reference point, I put a perspective to things which are probably not the broadest in terms of issues of sexuality and marriage, I hope it contributes to the discussion.

I decided long ago

It was a clear decision I made in my own life that despite the expectations and pressure, I could not with the complicated issue of my sexuality enter into a lavender marriage, and there were many unbeknownst to them ready to walk up the aisle with me, if I dared ask. /1

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #FBPE (@forakin) February 7, 2020

My life and the issue of sexuality was complicated enough I swore to myself not to embroil anyone else in that situation, it was hard enough to be in the closet, live a false life with the risk of being exposed leading to scandalising a broader relationship tree beyond the close family ties.

If I alone had to deal with the issue, it was contained without compelling anyone else to play to a script they never signed up for in the beginning. In another way, I was not successfully praying away the gay, rather, I was getting more affirmation of who I was towards the maturation of accepting who I am.

Other extenuating factors came to bear, the issue of offspring or heirs, the concept diminished with time as I began to make peace with myself with the likelihood, it might never happen. I did not consign myself to default to the findings that many prematurely born didn’t go on to sire children.

However, I felt after a certain age, it did not matter any more and then post-chemotherapy the natural ability to procreate was lost and I was not going to expend any energy in the quest to regain what rarely was a goal in life.

Be yourself, not another person

Then I concluded that contracting marriage was not a panacea, an antidote, or proven conversion therapy for personal or imposed sexuality conflict. Some people might have found adaptations with this distraction, sexuality variance was not a change of clothes, it is more ingrained than that.

It has now transpired that Philip Schofield’s hand was forced, besides the view that his sexuality was already known in closed circles and certain liaisons were about to be made public that he might lose control of the narrative of his private life, some unscrupulous tabloid editor that gotten hold of the story and was ready to go the press. In view of that, he had no other alternative, but to come clean. [Byline Investigates]

I feel vindicated that I was not immediately celebrating the event and still feel that whilst he might now freely live his truth alone with the support of his wife and daughters, he suspected his sexuality before he contracted the marriage, he could not shake off the urges of his primal sexuality and regardless of the public front presented, lives have been more radically affected than the façade we see. [The Guardian]

Thought Picnic: I own my stupid choices to overcome my human weaknesses

Count your blessings

In our seemingly ordinary, uneventful and mundane lives, a bit of introspection, reflection and recollection can reveal a life of adventure and enchantment, in the moments, events, experiences and adventures that have engaged us.

As the old song goes, “Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” The many times we forget to be appreciative of the little and large things that have come into our lives to give us a sense of contentment, maybe happiness or even the joy of living. There is much to celebrate about life that we could so easily forget.

The human misery

Beyond this, there is another matter of serious import that pertains to how we see ourselves in the world, in relationships, in friendships and other interactions in the community, in society, at work and within the expression of the expanse of the humanity we might have.

Each and everyone might have encountered something in the spectrum of adversity, of crises, of infirmity, of incapacity, in failure, in disappointment, in despair and whatever negative situation has tested our sense of self.

Admit your choices

One would not be remiss to state that where many issues might be unfortunate, there are some where we must honestly admit responsibility for. The courage to admit to one’s choices and the consequences that have resulted from those choices then face up to them even if it reveals ignorance, foolishness, stupidity, obduracy, truculence, hypocrisy, vulnerability, selfishness, cowardice, or evasiveness on our part is probably the beginning of self-awareness.

In my own life, I have made many bad choices that have resulted in life-changing circumstances, I am gay, it is no impediment. I chose on certain occasions to practice unsafe sex despite the risks it posed. By reason of this, I discovered in 2002 that I was HIV positive.

Freedom by truth

Then, there was no policy to adopt immediate treatment, out of fear, possibly ignorance and maybe even a sense of invincibility, I allowed over 7 years for HIV to ravage my body whilst I lived in denial of what might happen. Then in early 2009, the discolourations on the soles of my feet which I first ignored and then thought was Athlete’s foot fungus was then diagnosed as Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a kind of skin cancer and a clear indication of full-blown AIDS.

I could say I was unfortunate, yet the truth is I allowed this to happen because of the choices I made and the resulting consequences of loss in many areas of my life that I had to rebuild my life again are part of what I must face as my own folly for which I found remediation and treatment to give me a new lease on life. I own my faults, to first forgive me, to then understand myself better, to learn from my mistakes and misstep and hope that the knowledge gives me a better respect for life, in me and in others along with a spirit of encouragement to impart to others that come across my way.

Our burdensome responsibility

Owning our choices in career decision-making, in choosing partners for friendship, companionship, relationship, marriage, or business is another area where was should not seek to claim all the benefits when they come and be quick to blame others when things turn sour. If it did not work out, such is life, we move on rather than cultivate resentment to others and allow bitterness to take root.

Too many people are hurting from all sorts of experiences, the wrongs we think have been done to us by family near and others not so near in the many encounters we have in life, we tend to think we can assuage our hurt by hurting others. Even in my own experiences, there are things that still rankle and hurt, yet, I must find the peace I need in myself through forgiveness, through not reacting to every provocation, through finding a positive seam in a negative situation, sometimes by laughing through the pain because the apparent delirium is a surprising painkiller.

Lemonade from lemons

Yes, making the choice to walk away after the choice that made you walk into the pit of indignity and every inconvenience that heralds the most uncomfortable place to be is quite within our power to exercise and execute, albeit with difficulty, but it must be done for the story of our lives to get better than they seem to be when enmeshment in turmoil.

Indeed, from where I stand today, I have been given a better story because accepting the humility of my stupid choices have given me the capacity to have a vision, a hope and a path that starts from this moment into a better version of myself and the possibility of dreams coming true.

I count my blessings, embrace my privilege, I do not condemn myself in the things I have allowed, I don’t repudiate my identity, I honour my expression with candour and count myself among the blessed, the fortunate and the lucky. I am full of gratitude and thankfulness; this journey has been one that is appreciative of everyone friend and foe that has taught me to be more human.