Nigeria is a ld-blood untry for gay men -- I have the srs to prove | CNN

Contents:

• MEET THE STRAIGHT NIGERIAN MEN WILLG TO GO GAY FOR PAY
• 'I DIDN'T WANT MY MUM TO KNOW': THE MEN AND BOYS ARRTED FOR BEG GAY NIGERIA
• OPN: NIGERIA IS A LD-BLOOD UNTRY FOR GAY MEN – I HAVE THE SRS TO PROVE
• GAY FOR PAY
• GAY IN NIGERIA: LGBT LIFE IN ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST HOMOPHOBIC NATNS
• EROTICIZG DPERATN: POVERTY GAY-FOR-PAY PORN
• GAY-FOR-PAY: STRAIGHT MEN AND THE MAKG OF GAY PORNOGRAPHY
• WHY 'S A CRIME TO BE GAY NIGERIA

MEET THE STRAIGHT NIGERIAN MEN WILLG TO GO GAY FOR PAY

I’ve gotten better about but the whole thg, ironilly, ma me realise that I really don’t have a gay bone me. Like Stephen, A’s* gay for pay experience started as a DM, but unlike Stephen, started off on Instagram and not Twter.

‘‘I work as a gym traer, and I get several pass om men whoassume I’m gay bee I work out and have lots of female iends, ’’ A tells Zikoko.

'I DIDN'T WANT MY MUM TO KNOW': THE MEN AND BOYS ARRTED FOR BEG GAY NIGERIA

They eventually offered me money and I wasn’t gog to take origally bee I was sred and obvly I wasn’t gay. ‘‘I uldn’t tell my iends bee I know they’ll judge me and assume that I have been ‘turned’ gay, which isn’t te. For 23-year-old Femi*, a night out celebratg a birthday wh iends end wh a month and two days jail bee of his late July, Femi and his iends were among 40 gay men and boys, some as young as 13, who were arrted at a gay nightspot a hotel the back blocks of Nigeria's enomic pal, were charged wh engagg "gay activi" by allowg other men "to have rnal knowledge of themselv agast the orr of nature" his arrt, Femi has been kicked out of home and now shuttl between iends' loung and lovers' beds.

OPN: NIGERIA IS A LD-BLOOD UNTRY FOR GAY MEN – I HAVE THE SRS TO PROVE

Before urt the men were dragged out ont of lol media(ABC News: Declan Cooley)He wanted me to 'die jail'Femi says he "beme gay" at 14 when he fell love wh the man who raped him, an olr man who was close iends wh his father. He kept the relatnship a secret until his father acced him of beg "gay and actg girly" a untry like Nigeria where 91 per cent of people believe homosexualy should be crimalised, his nfsn only led to more equent and feroc beatgs om his father. Eternal damnatn or prisonGay sex has been outlawed Nigeria sce the time of Brish le but recently the suatn has bee more dire for Nigeria's LGBTI 2014 former print Goodluck Jonathan signed a bill which proscribed penalti of 14 years' jail for same-sex marriage and 10 years' for same-sex "amoro relatnships".

In the untry's Mlim north, 12 stat have adopted Sharia, wh punishment for gay sex cludg lashgs, jail and ath by far no-one has been sentenced to ath and nvictns are rare. Days after the hotel arrts, the Lagos State Attorney-General Aniji Kazeem said the tough stance taken wh the men was to help put "a stop to the exploatn of unr-aged children" by gay Doy*, 15, says no sex wh mors took was jail for seven days before he was released, but unlike many, he wasn't fazed by the nsequenc. Everythg has a priceNigeria is an credibly divid untry but Lagos activist Peter Kass says hostily towards gay people was one issue that cut across regn and NGO — Accs to Health and Rights Development Iniative — was at the hotel nductg HIV tts for some of the patrons on the night of the arrts.

GAY FOR PAY

"About 70 people were arrted that night, but acrdg to Ak about 30 men were able to pay between $18 and $36 for police to let them Alimi was the first gay man Nigeria to e out on natnal televisn, later seekg asylum England. (ABC News: Declan Cooley)Anti-gay vigilant and t-fishers The suatn for LGBTI people northern Nigeria is more difficult than for those livg the south, wh at least 114 gay men and women havg been arrted sce January this year. "In Augt, she says, a 17-year-old schoolboy was allegedly beaten to ath by some of his classmat Jigawa state bee they spected he was gay.

"The [classmat] were taken to police ctody but their statements they said they did to rrect [the stunt who died] om the social vice bee he was spected to be gay. "Back Lagos, Mr Kass says gangs ed social media to tch unspectg gay men out to eher beat them up or exhort money om them. "When you get there you disver the person isn't even gay and there are six or seven men there … who are jt out there to beat up gay men.

GAY IN NIGERIA: LGBT LIFE IN ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST HOMOPHOBIC NATNS

"'I'm gog to be killed'The stggle faced by gay Nigerian women is often *, 39, says was no "exce" that bee gay men make up the majory of those arrted and abed that "lbian and bisexual rights vlatns" should be says she knew she was attracted to women when she was 15 but "me to terms that lovg Nigeria was gog to be tough bee of relig and cultural fluenc" please her parents she married a man four years ago but after her father died she says her ex-hband vowed to teach her "a lson [she] would never fet" and last month me to her hoe wh two policemen, where she was ught bed wh her says the police slapped and kicked her and forced her to sleep on the floor of the police statn for four days before a iend negotiated her release for $ her ex-hband didn't stop there. In 2017, I started A Nasty Boy magaze to validate and affirm the liv and experienc of gay men Nigeria. I wanted to start meangful nversatns around genr norms and masculy that speak specifilly to our reali as gay men wh a culture that is poisonoly patriarchal and eply homophobic.

Agast a backdrop of adly anti-gay vlence, A Nasty Boy dared to be a haven for gay men Nigeria and, no time, received ternatnal attentn through CNN, BBC, The Guardian, The Enomist, Vogue, and others. They acced me of beg gay and “spreadg a gay agenda, ” as they pummeled me; each punch was an asslt on who I was.

And yet, even this gome attack pal parison to the fatal btaly many Nigerian gay men have too often experienced the form of lynchgs or pillory wh tir before they’re set on fire and burnt alive—not for terrorism or worse, but for beg gay, for beg human, a sperately homophobic untry.

EROTICIZG DPERATN: POVERTY GAY-FOR-PAY PORN

In Nigeria, gay men are portrayed as ncers eatg eply to the fabric of society—tumors that mt be oblerated. The feral Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibn) Act of 2014 says anyone found guilty of homosexualy fac up to 14 years prison.

GAY-FOR-PAY: STRAIGHT MEN AND THE MAKG OF GAY PORNOGRAPHY

A 2013 PewGlobal rearch suggts 98% of Nigerians believe homosexualy should not be accepted by society. A 2017 survey by The Iniative for Equal Rights (TIERS), a Nigerian-based human rights anizatn, showed 90% of Nigerians support the ntued enforcement of Nigeria’s anti-gay laws. Homophobia is the tie that bds a divid untry; the one thg a natn of chronic ethnic loyalti, of relig tensn, of failed ernment, n agree upon.

WHY 'S A CRIME TO BE GAY NIGERIA

Growg up Nigeria, I wnsed first-hand a eply graed culture of sid hyper-masculy and vilent homophobia.

As a child, I was characterized as a “boy-girl” even before I knew the tglg, plex bety of beg gay. In universy, I beme a social pariah and the poster child for “faggots” after beg outed by my bt iend on a mp that waged a ‘War on Homosexualy. I wre this knowg how suffotgly fearful the days followg a homophobic attack n be, and how the trma f a person’s life.