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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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. "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.

GAY FOR PAY

"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.

"'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.

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

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.

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. A 2013 PewGlobal rearch suggts 98% of Nigerians believe homosexualy should not be accepted by society.

EROTICIZG DPERATN: POVERTY GAY-FOR-PAY PORN

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. 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. LAGOS, Nigeria -- Life Nigeria, one of the world’s most anti-gay natns, is a daily stggle for Aola, a closeted, workg-class homosexual man livg on the outskirts of Abuja, the natn’s small, central (not his real name) has been lled offensive nam, sulted and ostracized over assumptns about his sexualy, so he shields his te self fear that g out would only attract more tense abe. Meanwhile, some young, wealthy gay Nigerians who spend most of their time the louche, Wternized Victoria Island sectn of Lagos -- the massive, quickly mornizg megalopolis on Nigeria’s southwtern ast -- are able to live a quasi-open life spe the vilent homophobia that l much of the rt of the Aola, a portly man his thirti who earns a most livg as a ok at a terg pany Abuja, that life of openns is difficult to said he worri about discrimatn every time he walks out the door, pecially light of a law passed this year that, should be signed by Print Goodluck Jonathan, would make the sheer act of beg gay punishable by up to 14 years prison.

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

”Aola’s fears are supported by statistil evince: A study of 39 natns published by the Pew Rearch Center June emed Nigeria the least-acceptg natn of the lot for gays, wh 98 percent of survey rponnts sayg society should not accept homosexualy, edgg out ultranservative Jordan by a sgle percentage Acceptg BubbleSix upper-class gay profsnals who met wh the Internatnal Bs Tim at a Victoria Island rtrant last week say that bee they mostly stay wh that neighborhood’s fairly tolerant bubble, they are largely able to avoid Aola’s nstant state of fear. Still, they, like everyone else terviewed for this story, asked to be assigned psdonyms bee of the harsh penalti that n rult om beg intified as gay the prs. ”Fatima is not gay per se -- she scrib her sexualy as “fluid” and said she is open to relatnships wh men or women -- but she mostly dat women.

I’ve had iends whose parents kicked them out or disowned them bee they told them they were gay. ”Crimalizg HomosexualyBeg gay Nigeria has long meant hidg the shadows of society, but fear and anxiety among most members of the natn’s gay muny have grown markedly sce May 30, when the Nigerian Senate passed a bill makg the simple act of beg homosexual a crime punishable by as long as 14 years prison. Jonathan has not yet signed or vetoed the bill -- which was prevly passed by the Nigerian Hoe of Reprentativ -- nor has he sent a clear signal of which si he will eventually take on the ntroversial bill, upled wh legal rtrictns on gay marriage, is actually lenient pared wh the suatn faced by gays the Mlim-domated north of the natn, where Shariah Islamic law mak homosexualy a pal offense punishable some areas by stong to though the measure is not yet officially on the books, has already had a chillg effect on gay life Nigeria, acrdg to Aisha, a lbian iend of Fatima’s.

WHY 'S A CRIME TO BE GAY NIGERIA

” But now, she said, there is a wily held, albe premature, belief that “’s illegal and rri a sentence” of more than a dozen years behd bars, which further timidat Nigeria’s gay populatn. Although Fatima nsirs Abuja to be “like gay central of Nigeria, ” the place she said she would go to “hook up wh a girl, several girls, one weekend, ” that si of gay life isn’t accsible to many homosexual rints of the pal who aren’t as well-heeled as said that due to the discrimatn he fac Abuja, he unrground channels and word-of-mouth to fd other gay people to teract wh or date.

Someone you’re sure is gay troduc you to someone else who is, who troduc you to someone else who is, and so on, ” he, Aola has been threatened and sulted on numero ocsns.

Kgsley, a straight iend of Aola’s who has wnsed anti-gay discrimatn of others firsthand Abuja and surroundg areas, said that such sentiments are sadly que mon Nigeria. “There are people like me who accept them, but then there are lots of people who once they fd out someone is gay, they refe to have any kd of ntact wh them, ” Kgsley explaed as we sat his sedan, wag out one of Abuja’s notor “go-slow” traffic jams. They will make fun of the person, say thgs like ‘This guy’s homo, ’ stuff like that, ‘Faggot.