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Same-Sex Practicing Men in Tanzania from 1860 to 2010

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Abstract

This article offers a review of published texts describing sexual relations between men in Tanzania in the period 1860–2010. It explores ways in which men who have sex with men have been named and understood; describes the sexual and social roles associated with differing same-sex identities and subjectivities; tracks politics, policies, and sociocultural expressions relating to sex between men; and explores the ways in which men’s same-sex sexual practices have been responded to in the context of health and HIV. Among the impressions emerging from the historical record is that sex between men is not (and has not been) uncommon in Tanzania; that a significant conceptual distinction exists between men who are anally receptive and men who penetrate anally; and that there has been a range of views on, and opinions about, same-sex relations within the wider society. There is evidence that same-sex practicing men in Tanzania have been affected by HIV at least since 1982, with one seroprevalence study indicating that the burden of HIV among men who have sex with men was quite disproportionate as far back as 2007. However, while men who have sex with men have been defined as a “vulnerable population” with respect to HIV in national frameworks since 2003, this had not led to any significant amount of targeted HIV prevention work being reported by either local or international actors by 2010.

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Notes

  1. According to Ahmed (2011), the term MSM is not only used in current academic writing, but also appears to have become a generally preferred term among government and NGO employees in Zanzibar. He points out that the term collapses conceptually distinct categories of same-sex practicing men because there “are different terms [in Zanzibar] for men who engage in sexual relations with men, depending on their position in sexual encounters” (p. 52).

  2. In a comment dated 2003 in the Tanzania pages of the International Encyclopedia of Sexuality (Opiyo-Omolo, 2004, p. 1014) it is stated that “there is traditionally no word for male homosexual” in Swahili. While there has been no Swahili term with exactly the same meaning as that with which “homosexual” is currently imbued in the West, there has indeed existed words denoting men who engage in relations with men.

  3. In recent work from Zanzibar, Larsen (2008) takes the term hanithi to signify all “men who are known to have sex with men” (p. 117). If this is accurate, it represents a deviation from what appears to have been the historical meaning of the term elsewhere on the Swahili coast.

  4. That same year, nine percent of primary school pupils in Mwanza “reported anal sex as their first sexual act” (Matasha et al., 1998, p. 571), but they were not asked about the sex of their partners.

  5. Anal sex between men and women has also been described as common in Tanzania. In 1990, 37 % of truck drivers along the Tanzania-Zambia highway, and 37 % of their female partners, reported that they had engaged in anal sex (Laukamm-Josten et al., 1995). Yet, in a study in rural Mwanza in 1993 (Munguti et al., 1997, p. 1558), it was assumed that it would be too “sensitive to ask subjects whether they had personal experience” with anal sex, and they were instead asked whether they “had heard of anal sex occurring in their village.” Ten per cent of respondents answered this question in the affirmative.

  6. A passage in “Under Kilimanjaro” (Hemingway, 2005) reads that the Maasai had “been adored by all the homosexuals who ever had worked for the Empire in Kenya or Tanganyika because the men were so beautiful” (Reynolds, 2008, p. 6).

  7. The Arabic term liwat is often translated as “sodomy” and is variously understood to mean the anal penetration of a man, or the anal penetration of either a man or a woman (Omar, 2012).

  8. A genre of musical performance/entertainment with long traditions in East Africa. It involves singing of poems accompanied by instruments and often by dance.

  9. Translated in S. F. Moore (1976, p. 362).

  10. In 2010, homosexuality was also raised as a topic in Mafia Island as part of local objections to a planned trance-dance festival that was expected to draw a large number of European tourists to the island. The festival was “perceived as a threat both to the environment and to local traditions” (Caplan, 2011, p. 21) and one person stated on a webpage: “We would like it to be known that we locals of this island welcome visitors but it is ESSENTIAL that they respect our customs and one among these is that there is no HOMOSEXUALITY” (p. 20).

  11. The text was written by bin Mwinyi Bakari and other “pure Swahili persons” (King, 1981, p. viii) in the Bagamoyo area. “They were asked in the 1890s by Dr. Carl Velten, a German linguist, to write down the traditions and customs of their people. This they did in Swahili, using the Arabic script.”

  12. As Campbell (1983, p. 3) pointed out, the word ngoma “commonly refers to drum, but is often used to encompass any occasion in which dancing, drumming and singing take place.”

  13. In a comment to this passage, Allen (1981) noted that this might “mean it was the preserve of transsexuals” (p. 243).

  14. From Mombasa in Kenya, Swartz (1990) reported that “[t]he Swahili distinguish sharply between proper, normal males who are quite willing to engage in homosexual practices as the active participant, and feminine, “ruined” males who take the passive role in these practices” (p. 127).

  15. Calculated on the basis of the numbers provided in the article’s Table 1. The same calculation indicates that 48.4 % of the surveyed “MSM” were exclusively receptive men and 49.2 % were “versatile.”

  16. That mabasha are considerably less marked and visible than mashoga has also been reported by Porter (1995), who did fieldwork in Mombasa in the late 1980s.

  17. Quoted in Lalor (2004, p. 834).

  18. In this discussion about what contributes to “survival,” Lockhart did not mention sexual relations between mutually consenting boys who were good friends. From the description offered, one is left wondering if the closeness and intimacy these relations seem to represent might not perhaps also sometimes offer positive contributions to wellbeing and survival.

  19. In transactional sexual relations between Tanzanian men and women, payment has been found to be “much higher” for anal than for vaginal sex (Hoffmann et al., 2004).

  20. In England from the eighteenth century, the term unnatural crimes “covered sodomy, bestiality, and any homosexual act or invitation to the act” (Cocks, 2003, p. 17).

  21. In a 2005 survey among persons injecting drugs in Zanzibar (irrespective of sexual practices), 30 % tested positive for HIV and 22 % for hepatitis C (Dahoma et al., 2006).

  22. Hamiss is a (male) name, while binti means “young lady” (or “daughter”).

  23. The African countries in which the British imposed versions of this regulation were Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It was also imposed on numerous countries across Asia and the Pacific islands (Human Rights Watch, 2008).

  24. According to Kiragu and Nyong’o (2005), “the punishment … was enhanced from 15 years to a minimum of 30 years” after a review of the Sexual Offences Special Provision Act in 1998.

  25. “Apart from sharing the Court of Appeal […] with Mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar has a distinct and separate legal system” (United Republic of Tanzania, 2012).

  26. To achieve this, it formulates as an objective to “address the risk of HIV transmission among MSM,” “research in order to understand the magnitude of anal sex and its possible contribution to the HIV and AIDS pandemic,” “provide HIV education on the risk of anal sex and access to preventive and care services,” and “ensure that access to HIV related services without discrimination to contain the pandemic.”

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Research Council of Norway, Programme for Global Health and Vaccination Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, POB 1130, Blindern, 0318, Oslo, Norway

    Kåre Moen & Anne-Lise Middelthon

  2. National Centre in HIV Social Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Peter Aggleton

  3. Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Melkizedeck T. Leshabari

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  1. Kåre Moen
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Moen, K., Aggleton, P., Leshabari, M.T. et al. Same-Sex Practicing Men in Tanzania from 1860 to 2010. Arch Sex Behav 43, 1065–1082 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0286-2

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