WHEN SEX THREATENED THE STATE
About the Book.
British colonizers saw prostitution as a distinctively African form of sexual primitivity and as a problem to be solved as part of the "civilizing mission" they used to morally justify imperialism. Saheed Aderinto details the Nigerian response to imported sexuality laws and the contradictory ways both British and African reformers advocated for prohibition or regulation of prostitution. Tracing the tensions within diverse groups of colonizers and the colonized to highlight their concerns, he reveals how wrangling over prostitution camouflaged the negotiating of separate issues that threatened the social, political, and sexual ideologies of Africans and Europeans alike.
The first book-length project on sexuality in early twentieth century Nigeria, When Sex Threatened the State combines the study of a colonial demimonde with an urban history of Lagos and a look at government policy to provide a cutting-edge reappraisal of the history of Nigerian public life.
Reviews
Reviewed in the following journals 14 journals: Canadian Journal of African Studies; Journal of West African History; Journal of the History of Sexuality; Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History; Canadian Journal of History; Africa: Journal of the International African Institute; American Historical Review; African Studies Quarterly; The Historian; International Journal of African Historical Studies; Journal of Women’s History; Journal of Retracing Africa; GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; Le Mouvement Social)