Masculinities without Tradition

The fear of being perceived as gay, as not a real man, keeps men all the traditional rules of masculinity, including sexual predation women’. This view on men’s sexual (Following feminists such as Tamale 2011. African Sexualities: A Reader. Nairobi: Pambazuka Press that thinking ‘sexuality without looking at gender is like cooking pepper soup with ’, meaning that they are mutually imbricated with and shape one, unless I wish to stress a point or indicate otherwise, whenever and associated concepts are used here it is meant gendered sexuality) gender practices in relation to ‘the traditional’ expressed by Kimmel is with other leading scholars on masculinities. Yet, in situating queer against ‘the traditional’ or outside tradition, studies on masculinities engendered a paradox which needs untangling in any serious attempt to traditionalist positions that clash with claims for the recognition of equality. The main purpose of this article is to offer a different reading the relation between masculinities and ‘the traditional’. Arguing that it is at moment that the word ‘critical’ or its equivalents is uttered that a tradition through, the article offers a critique of anti-‘traditional masculinity’ which reinforce the homogenisation and retribalisation of African (While acknowledging the complexity accompanying the use of the terms in Africa, as well as recognising their ideology-ladenness, in this article and black are used interchangeably and refer to those historically as Bantu. ) tradition and culture. At the same time, the article examines seeks to undo some of the arguments of patriarchal hetero-masculinist resistant to the recognition of desires and rights of women and who are attracted to others of the same sex through foregrounding claims equality for queer attraction and recognition.