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A friend of mine said : "Most Nigerian girls are boring in bed, and they have no imagination. All they do is lay down or finger. They can't kiss, eat pussy, or fuck properly. They are allergic to foreplay, and sexual playfulness. Fucking with them is an exercise in patience." What are your thoughts?

The Commercial Executive Director, Tropical General Investment Group, Dr Onyekachi Onubogu, has called on Nigerians to reduce their salt intake, saying too much of salt could contribute to liver damage. Onubogu said this in Lagos during the inauguration of a new seasoning cube known as Terra Cube, adding that seasoning and salt must be consumed moderately to avoid kidney disease, as well as high blood pressure. “I do not think the rise in kidney diseases has anything to do with seasoning, but one of the things Nigerians told us during our research is that they want less salt in their food. We have made sure that the salt content present in the new seasoning is minimal compared to what we already have in the market. “It is not about flavouring your food; it is about bringing out the best in it, health-wise and quality wise,” he said. Source

Caster Semenya has lost a landmark case against athletics' governing body meaning it will be allowed to restrict testosterone levels in female runners. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) rejected the South African's challenge against the IAAF's new rules. But Cas said it had "serious concerns as to the future practical application" of the regulations. Olympic 800m champion Semenya, 28, said in response to the ruling that the IAAF "have always targeted me specifically". Now she - and other athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) - must either take medication in order to compete in track events from 400m to the mile, or change to another distance. "For a decade the IAAF has tried to slow me down, but this has actually made me stronger. The decision of Cas will not hold me back," said Semenya in a statement. "I will once again rise above and continue to inspire young women and athletes in South Africa and around the world." Previously, she had said that she wanted to "run naturally, the way I was born". Cas found that the rules for athletes with DSD were discriminatory - but that the discrimination was "necessary, reasonable and proportionate" to protect "the integrity of female athletics". However, Cas set out serious concerns about the application of the rules, including: Worries that athletes might unintentionally break the strict testosterone levels set by the IAAF; Questions about the advantage higher testosterone gives athletes over 1500m and the mile; The practicalities for athletes of complying with the new rules. Cas has asked the IAAF to consider delaying the application of the rules to the 1500m and one mile events until more evidence is available. Semenya is still eligible to compete at the Diamond League meet in Doha on Friday and can make an appeal against the Cas ruling to the Swiss Tribunal Courts within the next 30 days. 'Nobody has truly won - one side has just lost less than the other Source

An insight into the ordeals of an African generation constantly exposed to the trendy western liberal lifestyle in a socio-culturally undynamic society replete with homophobic and patriarchial discrimination . The two central characters, Charles and Amanda are millienials from diverse cultural backgrounds who face severe political, cultural and religious prejudices against their gender and sexual identity in a society where such discriminatory practices are supported by government laws and policies. Charles Oputa is the son of the disciplinarian and moralist. He is also the heir apparent to a multi-million dynasty. Right from childhood he was up against societal backlash against his perceived weird personality. Later in life, he has to take a decision between pursuing self identity or living up to his domineering father's puritan expectations. Belinda Ikeji, is an Afro-American daughter of a Nigerian immigrant whose claim to her late father's fortune is undermined by her paternal relatives' bias against her gender and sexuality. Their paths in life pitches them against morally corrupt hypocritical individuals whom the society celebrates. In a battle that may lead to death or imprisonment, do they back down or follow their hearts in the search for love and self identity. To get the book on Amazon, click here.

Novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who has lived in Lagos on and off for a decade has written an essay for Esquire's new Travel & Adventure issue, in which she reflected on life in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos. Read below: Lagos will not court you. It is a city that is what it is. I have lived part-time in Lagos for 10 years and I complain about it each time I return from my home in the US — its allergy to order, its stultifying traffic, its power cuts. I like, though, that nothing about Lagos was crafted for the tourist, nothing done to appeal to the visitor. Tourism has its uses, but it can mangle a city, especially a developing city, and flatten it into a permanent shape of service: the city’s default becomes a simpering bow, and its people turn the greyest parts of themselves into colourful props. In this sense, Lagos has a certain authenticity because it is indifferent to ingratiating itself; it will treat your love with an embrace, and your hate with a shrug. What you see in Lagos is what Lagos truly is. And what do you see? A city in a state of shifting impermanence. A place still becoming. In newer Lagos, houses sprout up on land reclaimed from the sea, and in older Lagos, buildings are knocked down so that ambitious new ones might live. A street last seen six months ago is different today, sometimes imperceptibly so — a tiny store has appeared at a corner — and sometimes baldly so, with a structure gone, or shuttered, or expanded. Shops come and go. Today, a boutique’s slender mannequin in a tightly pinned dress; tomorrow, a home accessories shop with gilt-edged furniture on display. Admiralty Road is cluttered, pulsing, optimistic. It is the business heart of Lekki, in the highbrow part of Lagos called The Island. Twenty years ago, Lekki was swampland and today the houses in its estates cost millions of dollars. It was supposed to be mostly residential but now it is undecided, as though partly trying to fend off the relentless encroachment of commerce, and partly revelling in its ever-growing restaurants, nightclubs and shops. I live in Lekki, but not in its most expensive centre, Phase 1. My house is farther away, close to the behemoth that is the oil company Chevron’s headquarters. A modest house, by Lekki standards. “It will be under water in 30 years,” a European acquaintance, a diplomat in Lagos, said sourly when I told him, years ago, that I was building a house there. He hated Lagos, and spoke of Lagosians with the resentment of a person who disliked the popular kids in the playground but still wanted to be their friend. I half-shared his apocalyptic vision; he was speaking to something unheeding in Lagos’s development. Something almost reckless. So forward-looking is Lagos, headlong, rushing, dissatisfied in its own frenzy, that in its haste it might very well sacrifice long-term planning or the possibility of permanence. Or the faith of its citizens. One wonders always: have things been done properly? Eko Atlantic City, the new ultra-expensive slice of land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, has already been mostly sold to developers, and promises Dubai-like infrastructure, but my reaction remains one of scepticism. I cannot stop imagining the ocean one day re-taking its own. My house had required some arcane engineering, sand-filling, levelling, to prevent the possibility of sinking. And during the construction, my relatives stopped by often to check on things. If you’re building a house you must be present, otherwise the builders will slap-dash your tiling and roughen your finishing. This is a city in a rush and corners must be cut. "Nigeria is to Africa what the US is to the Americas: it dominates Africa’ s cultural imagination " Lagos has an estimated population of 23.5m — estimated because Nigeria has not had a proper census in decades. Population numbers determine how much resources states receive from the federal government, and census-taking is always contested and politicised. Lagos is expected to become, in the next 10 years, one of the world’s mega-cities, a term that conceals in its almost triumphant preface the chaos of overpopulation. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country — one-in-five Africans is Nigerian — and Lagos is Nigeria’s commercial centre, its cultural centre, the aspirational axis where dreams will live or die. And so people come. From other parts of Nigeria, from other West African countries, from other African countries, they come. Skilled workers come from countries as far away as South Africa while less-skilled workers are more likely to come from the countries that share a border with Nigeria. My gate man, Abdul, who has worked with me for six years, is a striking young Muslim man from the Republic of Niger, Nigeria’s northern neighbour. In his small ancestral village, Lagos was seen as the city of shining lights. He longed to leave and find work in Lagos. To live in Lagos and return twice a year with the sparkle of Lagos on his skin. Nigeria is to Africa what the United States is to the Americas: it dominates Africa’s cultural imagination in a mix of admiration, resentment, affection and distrust. And the best of Nigeria’s contemporary culture — music, film, fashion, literature and art — is tied in some way to Lagos. If Lagos has a theme it is the hustle — the striving and trying. The working class does the impossible to scrape a living. The middle class has a side hustle. The banker sews clothes. The telecommunications analyst sells nappies. The school teacher organises private home lessons. Commerce rules. Enterprising people scrawl their advertisements on public walls, in chalk: “Call for affordable generator”. “I am buying condemned inverter”. “Need a washerman?” Perhaps this is why corporations are not viewed with the knowing suspicion so common in the West. “Branding” is a word entirely free of irony, and people use it to refer even to themselves. “I want to become a big brand,” young people brazenly say. Big companies adopt state schools and refurbish them, they organise deworming exercises in poor areas, they award prizes to journalists. Even the too-few green spaces in public areas are branded, a burst of beautiful shrubs and plants defaced with the logo of whatever bank or telecommunications company is paying for its upkeep. This is a city of blurred boundaries. Religion and commerce are intertwined. Lagos has a Muslim population but, like all of Southern Nigeria, it is a predominantly Christian city. Drive past a gleaming modern building and it might be a bank or a church. Huge signboards advertise church programmes with photos of nicely dressed pastors, and on Sundays the city is as close as it can get to being traffic-free, because Lagosians are at rest, back home from morning service. Pentecostal Christianity is fashionable, prayers are held before corporate board meetings, and “We thank God” is an appropriate response to a compliment, or even merely to the question, “How are you?” This Christianity is selectively conservative, it glances away from government corruption, preaches prosperity, casts ostentatious wealth as a blessing, and disapproves of socially progressive norms. Women are to submit to their husbands. Hierarchies matter. God wants you to be rich. But it also unites Lagosians; people who attend the same church become surrogate families, and together they attend large vigil services more exciting than music concerts, where urbane men and glamorous women sing praise-songs deep into the night and in the morning return to their well-paid jobs in the high rises of The Island. In Lagos, ethnicity both matters and doesn’t matter. Lagos is ancestral Yoruba land and Yoruba is spoken widely, but it is also Nigeria’s polyglot centre, and the dream-seekers who have come from all parts of the country communicate by Nigeria’s official language of English and unofficial lingua franca of Pidgin English. Some areas are known as ethnic — the Hausa sector where working-class Northern Muslims live, the areas with large markets run by people from my own southeastern Igbo ethnic group — but none of them are affluent. With wealth, overt appeals to ethnicity retreat. One of the ubiquitous yellow ’danfo’ buses that cruise the clogged city Always Ready, Monochrome Lagos / Logo Oluwamuyiwa My cousin lives in a lower middle class area, heavily populated by Igbo traders. Once, on my way to visit her, the car stuck in traffic, a hawker pressing his packs of chewing gum against my window. Gabriel my driver of 10 years said to me, “Ma, your bag.” A simple reminder. I swiftly moved my handbag from the back seat to the floor, pushed it under my seat. My cousin was robbed in traffic on her way home from work, a gun to her head, her bag and phone taken, and beside her people kept slow-driving, face-forward. And now she has a fake bag and a fake phone that she leaves on display in her front seat whenever she drives home, because robbers target women driving alone, and if she has nothing to give them they might shoot her. My brother-in-law was also robbed not far from here. He was in traffic on a bright afternoon, his windows down, and someone shouted from the outside, something about his car, and he looked out of the window and back to the road and in that brief sliver of time a hand slid through the other window and his phone was gone. He told the story, later, with a tinge of admiring defeat. "To live in Lagos is to live on distrust. You assume you will be cheated" He, a real Lagosian who had lived in Lagos for 40 years and knew its wiles and its corners, and yet they had managed to fool him. He had fallen for the seamless ingenuity of Lagos’s thieves. To live in Lagos is to live on distrust. You assume you will be cheated, and what matters is that you avert it, that you will not be taken in by it. Lagosians will speak of this with something close to pride, as though their survival is a testament to their fortitude, because Lagos is Lagos. It does not have the tame amiability of Accra. It is not like Nairobi where flowers are sold in traffic. In other parts of Lagos, especially the wealthy areas on The Island, I wouldn’t hide my handbag in traffic, because I would assume myself to be safe. Here, security is status. Lagos is a city of estates; groups of houses, each individually walled off, are enclosed in yet another walled fence, with a central gate and a level of security proportional to the residents’ privilege. The estates not blessed with wealth lock their gates before midnight, to keep out armed robbers. Nightclub-goers living there know not to return home until 5am when the gates are opened. Expensive estates have elaborate set-ups at their entrances: you park your car and wait for the security guards to call whomever you’re visiting, or you are given a visitor’s card as identification, or you are asked to open your boot, or a jaunty guard walks around your car with a mirror lest you have a bomb strapped underneath. In a city like Mumbai, which is as complicated as Lagos, it is easy to understand why the expensive parts are expensive just by driving through them, but in Lagos one might be confused. Mansions sit Buddha-like behind high gates but the streets still have potholes, and are still half-sunken in puddles during the rainy season and still have the ramshackle kiosk in a corner where drivers buy their lunch. High-end estates still have about them an air of the unfinished. Next to a perfectly landscaped compound with ornate gates might sit an empty lot, astonishingly expensive, and overgrown with weeds and grass. live in Lekki and dream of Old Ikoyi. British colonial government officers lived in Old Ikoyi starting in the Twenties, a time of mild apartheid when Africans could not live there and could not go to the “white” hospital, and could not apply for high-profile jobs. Today, Old Ikoyi has about it that stubborn, undeniable beauty that is the troubled legacy of injustice. With its leafy grounds, and trees leaning across the streets, it reminds me a little of my childhood in the small university town of Nsukka, an eight-hour drive from Lagos: quiet, restful, frangipani trees dotting the compound, purple bougainvillea climbing the walls. And so I find myself wishing I lived in Old Ikoyi and mourning its slow disappearance. Gracious columned houses are being knocked down for tall apartment buildings and large homes with unintentionally baroque facades. “Beware of Lagos”, I heard often while growing up on the other side of Nigeria. Lagos was said to be a city of shallowness and phony people. There were many shimmering, mythical examples of this, stories repeated in various permutations, with the characters from different ethnic groups, and small details changed: the suave man who drives a Range Rover but is penniless and lives on the couches of friends; the beautiful woman who parades herself as an accomplished business person but is really a con artist. And who would blame them, those self-reinventors so firmly invested in their own burnished surfaces? "You can talk your way into almost any space in Lagos if you look the part and drive the right car" Here, appearance matters. You can talk your way into almost any space in Lagos if you look the part and drive the right car. In many estates, the guards fling open the gates when the latest model of a particular brand of car drives up, the questions they have been trained to ask promptly forgotten. But approach in an old Toyota and they will unleash their petty power. Snobbery here is unsubtle. Western designer logos are so common among elite Lagosians that style journalists write of Gucci and Chanel as though they were easily affordable by a majority of the people. Still, style is democratic. Young working-class women are the most original: they shop in open markets, a mass of secondhand clothes spread on the ground under umbrellas, and they emerge in the perfect pair of skinny jeans, the right flattering dresses. Young working-class men are not left behind, in their long-sleeved tucked-in shirts, their crisp traditional matching tunics and trousers. And so Lagos intimidates with its materialism, its insolence, its beautiful people. A young woman told me that when she was considering entering the Miss Nigeria beauty pageant she decided not to try out in Lagos, even though she lived there. “Too many fine babes in Lagos,” she said. And so she went to Enugu, her ancestral hometown, where she believed her chances were better. Young people complain of the dating scene. Nobody is honest, they say. Men and women perform. Everyone is looking for what is shinier and better. “Why do you choose to live in Lagos, then?” I once asked a young woman. Every time I ask this of a young person dissatisfied with Lagos, they invariably look puzzled to be asked, as though they assumed it to be obvious they would never consider leaving. Everybody complains about Lagos but nobody wants to leave. And why do I live here? Why didn’t I build my house in Enugu, for example, a slow, clean, appealing city in the southeast, close to where I grew up? "Lagos has a dynamism. An absence of pallor . You can feel it in the uncomfortable humid air" It is clichéd to speak of the “energy” of Lagos, and it can sometimes sound like a defensive retort in the face of the city’s many infrastructural challenges. But Lagos does have a quality for which “energy” is the most honest description. A dynamism. An absence of pallor. You can feel it in the uncomfortable humid air — the talent, the ingenuity, the bursting multi-ness of everything, the self-confidence of a city that knows it matters. The only real functioning Nigerian port is in Lagos, and business people from all over the country have no choice but to import their goods through there. Nigerian business is headquartered in Lagos; not only the banks, and the telecommunications and oil and advertising companies, but also the emerging creative industries. Art galleries have frequent exhibitions of Nigeria’s best artists. Fashion Week is here. The concerts are the biggest and noisiest. Nollywood stars might not shoot their films in Lagos — it’s too expensive — but they premiere them in Lagos. The production of culture works in service to Lagos’s unassailable cool. There are some things of conventional touristic appeal. The last gasp of Brazilian architecture in the oldest parts of Lagos, houses built by formerly enslaved Africans who, starting in the 1830s, returned from Brazil and settled in Lagos. The Lekki market, where beautiful sculptures and ornaments blend with kitsch, and where the sellers speak that brand of English reserved for foreigners. The National Museum with its carefully tended flowers outside the building and inside an air of exquisite abandon. The Lekki Conservation Centre, a small nature reserve, with bounteous greenery and some small animals. The first time I visited, with a friend, I asked the ticketing person what we might hope to see. “No lions or elephants,” she said archly. The highlights are the gorgeous birds, and the monkeys, and the sheer surprise of an oasis of nature in the middle of Lagos’s bustle. The nearby beaches are dirty and overcrowded but the beaches one reaches by taking a speedboat across the waters are clean, dotted with beach houses, and flanked by palms. The restaurants in Lagos are owned by a Lebanese “mafia”, a friend once told me, only half-joking. Nigeria has a significant Lebanese presence. They very rarely inter-marry with Nigerians, and I sense in some Lebanese employers a unique scorn for their Nigerian staff, but their roots in Nigeria are firm. They are Lebanese-Nigerians. And they own many restaurants, and their mark is obvious in the ubiquity of the shawarma. Young people go out for a shawarma. Kids ask for shawarmas as treats. There are, of course, Nigerian-owned restaurants. The chains with basic, not untasty food, the mid-level restaurants that dispense with frills and serve the jollof rice one might have cooked at home, and the high-end restaurants that labour under the weight of their own pretensions. There are quirky shops that cater mostly to a new Lagos tribe, the returnees: young people who have returned from schooling in the US or Europe with new ideas, and might for example suggest that a thing being “handmade” were remarkable, as though hand-making things were not the Nigerian norm. They represent a new globalised Nigerian, situated in Nigeria, au fait about the world. It is the breathing human architecture of Lagos that thrills me most. For a novelist, no city is better for observing human beings. On Sundays, when the roads are not clogged up, I like to be driven around Lagos, headed nowhere, watching the city. Past bus stops full of people with earphones stuck in their ears. A roadside market with colourful bras swinging from a balcony, wheelbarrows filled with carrots, a table laid out with wigs. Fat, glorious watermelons piled high. Hawkers selling onions, eggs, bread. In gutters clogged with sludgy, green water and cans and plastic bags, I imagine the possibility of a clean city. Lagos is full of notices. “This house is not for sale” is the most common, scrawled on walls, a warning to those who might be duped by real estate shysters. Near a mosque, where a fashionable young woman in jeans and a headscarf walks past, is this in green letters: “Chief Imam of Lagos Says No Parking Here”. From a bridge, I look across at shirtless men fishing on flimsy canoes. The secondhand books spread on low tables have curled covers, copies of Mastering Mathematics beside How to Win Friends and Influence People. On these drives, I think of how quickly fights and friendships are formed in Lagos. A yellow danfo bus has hit another and both conductors have leapt out for a swift fight. People make friends while queuing — at banks, airports, bus stops — and they unite over obvious jokes and shared complaints. At night, there are swathes of Lagos that are a gloomy grey from power cuts, lit only by a few generator-borne lights, and there are areas that are bright and glittering. And in both one sees the promise of this city: that you will find your kin, where you fit, that there is a space somewhere in Lagos for you. Source

Huh? Anyone ever experienced this?

''When it comes to marriages and what a man or woman do, I don't really bother because it is their decision and they are adults and you must take the consequences that come out of it but when you involve your kids in it is where it gets me because these kids did not ask to be born neither did they ask for you to make some stupid decisions in your life. I am sick and tired of all these post people put up of somebody gets beaten up, gets stabbed. You get beaten up, you get killed because you want to. Don't involve your kids in it. When you make stupid decisions that you want to get married because the whole nation is crazy about getting married, don't get your kids involved in it. Please my sisters, if you want to get married, think about it thoroughly. Don't think about just the wedding itself. It's a marriage, a life time decision. It is not just about Asoebi, caterers, slaying or having the best wedding. Please women, if you are not ready for children, do not have them. I don't know why the society is so pressured about people getting married and having children when half of the people that have children are not supposed to. Honeslty, not every woman is supposed to have children and not everyone is supposed to be married. Not every woman who has kids is supposed to be called a mother''. Thoughts?

Waconzy who was born in Port Harcourt, gained some popularity with his song “I celebrate” in 2010 and since then, has struggled to make a comeback even after releasing subsequent songs. The musician, whose music career is obviously over, took to Instagram to display his ignorance and homophobia. He posted “Gays & lesbians are bad children wey no gree change. They have nothing to offer to this world but HIV”. Given Nigeria’s increasing homophobia toward homosexuals due to ignorance on the issue, the statement above is capable of further encouraging discrimination and stigma which harms efforts to prevent HIV and care for LGBTQ+ persons living with the virus. Waconzy needs to learn that anyone regardless of their sexual orientation can contract HIV, the virus which causes AIDS and if he really understands the sort of harm that his post can cause to innocent lives, then he won’t wait for too long before taking it down with an apology. Source

In this video, I am showing you an easy way to incorporate corned beef into your pasta recipes in this recipe that I have called Corned Beef Spaghetti. It is absolutely delicious, and it takes less than 30 minutes to create...easy peasy right?

Following the Successful release of the audio and also to mark the One Anniversary of her Debut Album "THIS IS ME"...The Queen Of Afrohouse "NINIOLA" wastes no time to put out the video to her instant #HIT single #BANA. In a year that has been Fantastic for the Queen and as she prepares for her concert "The Human Radio Concert", She has decided to keep it HOT till the End of the Year... So Sit back and Enjoy how NINIOLA takes us on a colorful and energetic journey in this Video...And Yes Clarence Shot It... What do you ladies think? #SuperSong

What is anxiety? Are you anxious? Maybe you’re feeling worried about a problem at work with your boss. Maybe you have butterflies in your stomach while waiting for the results of a medical test. Maybe you get nervous when driving home in rush-hour traffic as cars speed by and weave between lanes. These are all normal symptoms of anxiety. In life, everyone experiences anxiety from time to time. This includes both adults and children. For most people, feelings of anxiety come and go, only lasting a short time. Some moments of anxiety are more brief than others, lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. But for some people, these feelings of anxiety are more than just passing worries or a stressful day at work. Your anxiety may not go away for many weeks, months, or years. It can worsen over time, sometimes becoming so severe that it interferes with your daily life. When this happens, it’s said that you have an anxiety disorder. What are the symptoms of anxiety? While anxiety symptoms vary from person to person, in general the body reacts in a very specific way to anxiety. When you feel anxious, your body goes on high alert, looking for possible danger and activating your fight or flight responses. As a result, some common symptoms of anxiety include: nervousness, restlessness, or being tense feelings of danger, panic, or dread rapid heart rate rapid breathing, or hyperventilation increased or heavy sweating trembling or muscle twitching weakness and lethargy difficulty focusing or thinking clearly about anything other than the thing you’re worried about insomnia digestive or gastrointestinal problems, such as gas, constipation, or diarrhoea a strong desire to avoid the things that trigger your anxiety obsessions about certain ideas, a sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) performing certain behaviours over and over again anxiety surrounding a particular life event or experience that has occurred in the past, especially indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Panic attacks A panic attack is a sudden onset of fear or distress that peaks in minutes and involves experiencing at least four of the following symptoms: palpitations sweating shaking or trembling feeling shortness of breath or smothering sensation of choking chest pains or tightness nausea or gastrointestinal problems dizziness, light-headedness, or feeling faint feeling hot or cold numbness or tingling sensations (paresthesia) feeling detached from oneself or reality, known as depersonalization and derealisation fear of “going crazy” or losing control fear of dying. There are some symptoms of anxiety that can happen in conditions other than anxiety disorders. This is usually the case with panic attacks. The symptoms of panic attacks are similar to those of heart disease, thyroid problems, breathing disorders, and other illnesses. As a result, people with panic disorder may make frequent trips to emergency rooms or doctor’s offices. They may believe they are experiencing life-threatening health conditions other than anxiety. Source

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The governor of Tanzania’s most-populated city, Dar es Salaam, has created a team to round up gay people. Paul Makonda urged the city’s more than four million residents to report any information they have about gay people before the crackdown starts on November 6, according to AFP. In the declaration on Monday (October 29), he said: “Give me their names. My ad hoc team will begin to get their hands on them next Monday.” Queer people can face up to life imprisonment in Tanzania if convicted of having gay sex. Makonda, who has held his position since 2016, said: “I have information about the presence of many homosexuals in our province. “These homosexuals boast on social networks.” The governor said that gay sex “tramples on the moral values of Tanzanians and our two Christian and Muslim religions.” Makonda was anticipating backlash from people who lived outside Tanzania, but said that he would “prefer to anger those countries than to anger God.” Police officers in Dar es Salaam arrested 12 men last year, accusing them of “promoting homosexuality” and engaging in gay sex. And at least 20 people were arrested for “homosexual activity” in a police raid in Tanzania’s semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar. The country’s penal code criminalises anyone who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature.” Last year, Tanzania stopped health clinics from providing HIV services, saying they “cater to homosexuals.” It is believed that 33,000 people in Tanzania died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2016. Many other countries on the continent also face oppressive actions from their government officials, with a study earlier this week finding that Malawi’s anti-gay laws mean members of the LGBT+ community are vulnerable to arbitrary arrest, physical violence and discrimination. Earlier this month, Uganda’s first LGBT+ centre was labelled a “criminal act” by Simon Lokodo, the country’s minister for ethics and integrity. He said homosexuality was “completely unacceptable” and that he would not allow it to be “popularised.” Lokodo also attempted to shut down popular music festival MTN Nyege Nyege in September, on the grounds that it catered to the “celebration and recruitment of young people into homosexuality and LGBT movement.” Despite the prevalence of anti-gay laws in Africa—where 34 countries still ban gay sex—and across the world, the Trump administration announced in July that it would not press countries to abolish their anti-LGBT laws. Mick Mulvaney, a former Republican lawmaker who is Director of the Office of Management and Budget, criticised President Barack Obama’s administration for using taxpayer dollars “to discourage Christian values in other democratic countries.” He added: “It was stunning to me that my government under the previous administration would go to folks in sub-Saharan Africa and say, ‘We know that you have a law against abortion, but if you enforce that law, you’re not going to get any of our money. “‘We know you have a law against gay marriage, but if you enforce that law, we’re not going to give you any money.'” He added: “That is a different type of religious persecution that I never expected to see. I never expected to see that as an American Christian, that we would be doing that to other folks.” Source

Headteachers in South Africa have been told to send the names of all their LGBT+ students to the government. Schools in the Eastern Cape province, which is home to six million people, received an email on October 16 from the department’s special programmes unit (SPU) which told them to hand over the names of their queer pupils by the end of the day, according to City News. The message stated that the SPU head office would be “conducting a workshop to raise awareness on the rights of the LGBTI community and to ensure that their lives, morals and integrity are respected.” “This will allow the district office to have a database of these learners and 10 of these learners will be attending the scheduled workshop.” Edmund van Vuuren, the education spokesperson for the country’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, wrote a letter to the SPU head condemning the email. The department subsequently said queer students no longer had to attend the workshop “due to exams.” In his letter, van Vuuren wrote that identifying LGBT+ students was “discriminatory, unconstitutional and may lead to verbal, mental and even physical abuse.” He said that “in a climate where ‘corrective rape’ and assault based on sexual preference are commonplace, we cannot afford to expose members of this community to further risk and discrimination.” Eastern Cape Department of Education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima has denied that the department is creating a list of LGBT+ pupils, adding that the email was sent without permission. “There is no activity or instruction to district coordinators to create a database for the LGBTI group,” said Mtima. “The alleged email purporting to be coming from the head office has not been sanctioned by those concerned and the SPU office.” Mtima added that the department had “started an internal investigation and is working hard to get the source of this email, which distorted the activities and objectives of the department’s programmes.” In August, a South African private Christian boarding school in Durban, in the southeast province of KwaZulu-Natal, expelled two girls after seminary officials said they were caught kissing for 20 minutes. Source

“The Bachelor Vietnam” went from conventional reality TV to big-time drama this week when two of the female contestants decided to reject the idea of competing for the eligible guy and instead go home together. Bachelor Nguyen Quoc Trung was unexpectedly left holding the rose when contestants Minh Thu and Truc Nhu turned their attentions away from him… and onto each other, according to the Asian news site Next Shark. “I went into this competition to find love and I’ve found that love for myself, but it isn’t with you,” Thu told Trung. “It’s with someone else.” Thu began to cry, ran up to fellow female contestant Nhu and threw her arms around her. “Come home with me. Come home with me,” she cried. Nhu approached Trung, who had given her a rose just moments earlier. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really want to get to know you because you’re someone who made me feel special and I haven’t felt that way in a long time.” He tried his darnedest to talk her out of leaving, saying, “I want you to know that if you do this, you’ll feel regretful. This won’t change my decision. I’m not going to give this rose to anyone else.” But she gave him back the rose, having already had made up her mind to leave. Source

A rainbow plaque honouring a woman described as "the first modern lesbian" has been unveiled in York. The unveiling at Holy Trinity Church commemorates Anne Lister's "marital commitment" to Ann Walker in 1834. Lister was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1791 and is known for her coded diaries which tell the story of her life and lesbian relationships. The blue plaque with rainbow edging is the city's first LGBT history plaque and comes following a funding campaign. York Civic Trust said it honours Lister, who has been called "the first modern lesbian". Lister's diaries tell the story of her life and lesbian relationships at Shibden Hall, where she lived between 1791 and 1840. The journals, of more than four million words, were recognised as a "pivotal" document in British history by the United Nations in 2011. A new BBC TV drama starring Suranne Jones which is based on Lister's diaries, Gentleman Jack, is in production. Some of the diaries have been decoded for the first time for the drama, which is due to be screened on BBC One in 2019. Lister's diaries, which had to be decoded, included love letters to a woman named Eliza Raine, who she shared a bedroom with at the Manor boarding-school in York. The plaque was unveiled at in Goodramgate, York where on 30 March 1834, Lister received the church's blessing to privately contract a marriage to Ann Walker. The couple lived together until Lister's death six years later. Source

It's no secret that children need loving parents, but for decades, same-sex couples raising families have faced opposition from those who claim that growing up with two moms or two fathers might be bad for kids. It's unfortunate that this fight still needs to be fought, but research may be the key to helping everyone understand that having loving parents is more important for a child's development than who those parents love. Studies confirm kids raised in lesbian and gay families grow up to be just fine, and basically the same as people who were raise in heteronormative households. According to the researchers behind the longest-running study of same-sex couples raising kids, The National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), concluded that 25-year-olds who grew up with two moms have "no significant differences in measures of mental health" compared peers raised by heterosexual parents. "When I began this study in 1986, there was considerable speculation about the future mental health of children conceived through donor insemination and raised by sexual minority parents," says the study's lead author, Dr. Nanette Gartrell. "We have followed these families since the mothers were inseminating or pregnant and now find that their 25-year-old daughters and sons score as well on mental health as other adults of the same age." This follows another study published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatricswhich followed three groups of families in Italy: 70 gay fathers who had children through surrogacy, 125 lesbian mothers who had children through donor insemination, and 195 heterosexual couples who had children through spontaneous conception. "Our findings suggested that children with same-sex parents fare well, both in terms of psychological adjustment and prosocial behavior," said Prof. Roberto Baiocco, PhD, of Sapienza University of Rome. The scores psychological adjustment for the children were within the normal range for all three groups, with no major differences. The researchers note that the kids in same-sex homes actually reported fewer difficulties than those born to heterosexual couples. Parenting confidence impacts kids more than a parent's sexual preference. What matters isn't the parents sexual orientation, but rather how confident they feel as a parent. In all three types of families, parents who didn't feel competent in their own parenting reported more problems with their kids, and less satisfaction in their relationship with their partner. "The present study warns policy-makers against making assumptions on the basis of sexual orientation about people who are more suited than others to be parents or about people who should or should not be denied access to fertility treatments," Baiocco adds. These studies, which build on others and add to the growing pile of scientific evidence that same-sex families are just families like everyone else, may seem unremarkable to some, but to families struggling to be seen as such, they're powerful tools. In Italy, where Baiocco's study took place, access to fertility treatments is only available to couples who meet a set of conditions, including being heterosexual, and only this year were same-sex couples allowed to register their children to both parents. Stateside, about 114,000 same-sex couples are raising children in America right now, according to UCLA, but Alabama, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, do allow state-licensed child welfare agencies to refuse to place and provide services to children and families if it conflicts with their religious beliefs. The ACLU of Michigan is asking a federal judge there to let it sue the state for discrimination against same-sex couples, alleging faith-based adoption agencies that receive state funding have been turning away same-sex couples who would like to adopt. Source

It came as a rude shock to Nigerians when Charly Boy’s daughter, Dewy Oputa, revealed on social media that she is a lesbian. She made this known on Instagram during the week by sharing photos and a video of herself and her girlfriend. While speaking with Sunday Scoop, Dewy said she shared the post because she got tired of hiding and decided it was time to live in her truth. She said, “My mission for creating a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer platform is to provide a safe place for youths in the African community. I strive to create an accepting and welcoming community where everyone is free to express themselves and be loved for who they are. I want a place where individuals such as myself can create authentic friendships and thrive as the person they were born to be. Dewy, however, admitted that it was not easy for her parents when she revealed her sexuality to them. “I can’t pinpoint the exact age I found out about my sexuality, but I was much younger. When I came out to my parents, it took them a while to adjust but my happiness comes first. I don’t feel bad about the negative comments my sexuality post has generated. I knew Nigerians would always have negative things to say and I was mentally prepared for it. I’m not here to sway anybody’s point of view; I’m here to bring awareness,” she said. On whether she nurses any fear about coming to Nigeria considering that there is an anti-gay law in place in the country, the stylist and property management practitioner said, “To be honest, I do not have any fears. I think there are far more critical issues that are yet to be resolved. So, why should my sexual orientation affect the next man? Nigerians that have a problem with the LGBTQ community need to mind their business and focus on the critical life and death situation at hand. Love has never killed the next man.” Meanwhile, Charly Boy has come out to support his daughter, Dewy Oputa, after she shared a cozy photo of herself and her lesbian partner on social media. He told Sunday Scoop that he would always support his daughter irrespective of her choice of a sexual partner. He said, “She is my daughter, why won’t I support her even if she is whatever she is? My father supported me too. We can argue on moral grounds but we all have our rights to life. I fought for the gay community; so, if my daughter turns out to be this way, I should walk my talk.” Admitting that he might not like her sexuality personally, he said there was nothing he could do about it since she is an adult. The Area Father stated, “I have daughters who are married and have children, but she is the only one who has decided to be different. As long as she finds happiness or moves on with her life, I don’t have any problem with it. My father wanted me to be a lawyer and I told him I didn’t want to be a lawyer; I did what made me happy. “People can be talking based on moral grounds, but we are not in the position to judge. Nigeria is like this because of evil people and we should concentrate on those people; not my daughter’s sexuality.” Similarly, Charly Boy rubbished the anti-gay law in Nigeria, which imposed a 14-year jail term on any individual found guilty. “How many people have the law caught? Don’t we have a lot of homosexuals in the Senate or government? We know all these things. They should start with themselves. They shouldn’t be bothered about my child who is enjoying her life. I don’t have problems with anyone’s sexuality as long as they are good human beings. I am not in the same level with most Nigerians; so, my thinking is different,” he said. Source

The Federal Government on Wednesday unveiled the branding and livery for the new national carrier, Nigeria Air, and stated that the airline would be inaugurated at the end of this year. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Aviation in Abuja, the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, unveiled the carrier at a press conference during the Farnborough Air Show in London. Sirika was quoted as saying, “I am very pleased to tell you that we are finally on track to launching a new national flag carrier for our country, Nigeria Air. We are all fully committed to fulfilling the campaign promise made by our President, Muhammadu Buhari, in 2015. We are aiming to launch Nigeria Air by the end of this year. “We obtained the Certificate of Compliance from the Nigerian Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission two weeks ago and can now go into the investor search. I am confident that we will have a well-run national flag carrier that is a global player, compliant with international safety standards and one which has the customer at its heart. “We hope to establish an airline that communicates the essence of our beautiful country; an airline we can all be proud of.” The ministry said the branding and naming of the new national carrier came after a social media campaign that was undertaken by the Ministry of Transportation (Aviation). It said invited Nigerian youths were asked for their input in order to come up with a name for the new flag carrier, adding that the ministry’s Facebook page and website engaged over 400,000 people. The ministry said extensive market research was carried out, which involved focus groups across the country, and over 100 interviews with aviation stakeholders and professionals, politicians as well as business owners. It also stated that it was currently running an aviation road map that includes airport concession, aerotropolis, an aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul centre, agro allied terminals, the national carrier and an aircraft leasing company. Source

Research confirms that more than half of women who consume same-sex male pornography are watching it because they feel it is more authentic than other genres, according to a new study by London's Middlesex University. "Male gays in the female gaze: Women who watch m/m pornography," by researcher Lucy Neville, drew research from a recent survey from adult film site PornHub. Women appear at a physiological level to find gay male sex just as arousing as heterosexual sex, according to Neville's research. The study detailed in the book investigated why exactly women are aroused by watching male-on-male sex by surveying 275 self-identified women who watch gay male porn. The sample included straight, bisexual, lesbian, queer, asexual, pansexual, and demisexual women; 68 percent of participants also watched heterosexual pornography, and 53 percent also watched lesbian pornography. However, 82 percent of participants preferred gay male pornography over other genres. The overwhelming reason the women watched gay male porn was that they felt it was more authentic than other genres. "Respondents were more able to believe that both actors were enjoying the experience and that the sexual desire and pleasure between them, therefore, felt more ‘authentic,’" according to the research. Participants felt that because men on screen had very visual cues that indicated sexual desire such as erections and ejaculation, the actors "weren't faking it." They also felt male adult film stars as opposed to female performers were "enjoying each other more rather than simply playing to the camera." The women also said that they felt they shared a more common gaze with the target audience as opposed to heterosexual and lesbian porn, which is predominantly made for heterosexual men, and they felt gay men's point of view was more in line with their personal preferences and desires. By watching same-sex male porn, women also enjoyed that they could avoid seeing female bodies used as powerless sexual objects under the control of men. They perceived the rough sex in gay porn as more tasteful than behaviors displayed in heterosexual and lesbian porn, without it feeling "non-consensual." Some also appreciated that they were not presented with a female porn star they would "be jealous of" or "subconsciously compare themselves to "causing them to feel "uncomfortable about their own bodies." Other participants simply enjoyed the taboo of gay sex and the idea they would never experience what was happening on their laptops. Source

Source: Twitter

The almost 40-minute video which is titled ‘Make Nigeria Gay Again’ was produced by DedHed Media, a Lagos-based digital media group. The illustration of the video is done with so much humor, yet maintains a genuine tone while highlighting and explaining the many human implications of the country’s anti-gay law, citing several cases of human rights violations against LGBT persons who have suffered violent attacks as a result of their real or perceived sexual orientation. Even though the overall approach of the video presentation seems weird and could be perceived as having a stint of dark-humor, it does a very good job of breaking every inch of the law into bits, therefore bringing clarity to serious issues which are generally affecting the Nigerian LGBT community. In overall, the video is brilliantly done, and does serve its true purpose of exposing Nigeria’s homophobia whilst educating people about the true nature of the Anti-Same Sex Prohibition Act [SSMPA] which was signed into law in 2014 by former Nigerian president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Source