The Dictionary of Homophobia by Louis-Georges Tin Page B

(and decreasing further since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic). In this context, any dialogue pertaining to sexuality is restricted to the issue of procreation; as a result, the discussion of homosexuality is silenced from the start.
    In these ancient cultures, homosexual relationships find their structure, logic, and significance in the idea of duality, which permits the understanding of numerous aspects of sexuality of certain ethnic groups, including their life experience, made easier by the fact that they largely congregate in urban areas such as Yaoundé, Cameroon, or Lagos, Nigeria. The concept of duality also allows us to understand homosexuality on one side, and the stigmatization it causes on the other. It gives it a mythological coherence. Anthropological literature on witchcraft suggests the plurality of the human individual, in which all of us possess a double who is invisible and immaterial. It is this double who participates in encounters between sorcerers, and it is through the double that occult cannibalism occurs (the sorcerers’ doubles eat their victims’ doubles, and then continue to live). As well, what happens to one’s double has repercussions on the person’s material half. Among the Fulani, as in a number of other African ethnic groups, sleep is the moment when the soul, the immaterial double, leaves the body, escaping the laws of space and time. It is at that moment that sorcerers can attack and annihilate it.
    This fundamental concept is important when studying the entire field of sexuality in West Africa, even among those many who insist they no longer believe in it. It allows us to understand local representations of sexuality, including homosexuality, erotic dreams and fantasies, and also allows a deeper understanding of the dual notions of sex and gender, and masculinity and femininity. According to this concept, human beings possess two sexes, one that is apparent and another invisible, that falls within the realm of the double; they can be similar to one another, or different; they can be equal in size, or not. One can have power over one’s double and act through it, or not; according to tradition, this is what distinguishes sorcerers from others. When one has this power, one can act against others through their double: they can be attacked, take away someone’s strength, strike someone with illness, or devour someone; they can even force someone into a sexual act. Given that sleep is when one’s double is most vulnerable, these acts occur during a person’s dream state. Sorcery or witchcraft is thus a universe of doubles, where certain individuals are conscious, can see, and have power over others, who have no consciousness and are blind and inert.
    Men usually have a masculine double, but it may also be the case that their double is feminine. Moreover, there are women whose double is masculine. This fact is important in determining one’s sexual orientation. According to legend, it is the work of sorcerers who can control one’s double, often taking on the appearance of an individual in order to mislead those who could discover their activities. It is also thought that sorcerers seize the penis of a sleeping man and use it as a whistle or horn in order to send messages to other sorcerers. In the same manner, some women whose double is feminine can take the genital organs of a man in their circle and use them during relations with other women without the man, the husband for example, ever knowing. This form of castration manifests itself in the visible world by the man’s timorous character, especially his timidity before the castrator (the woman). Thus, neither masculinity nor femininity are stable constructs; a woman can hide an invisible male sexual organ or transform her feminine double into a masculine one in a form of fantastical transsexuality.
    Under these conditions, the idea of responsibility is, of course, unfounded. On one hand, the double can act while one sleeps.