Common Sense Sexuality in Africa!

By Jonathan Mubanga Mumbi

The Church in Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing church in the world. Its reach in terms of evangelism does not match its reach in terms of discipleship. Sex and romance are some of the hottest issues in Africa due to the fact that Africa is one of the youngest continents. There is a vacuum of information on this topic while at the same time, there is a deluge of sexual values and practices arriving on the continent daily. The Western World's impatience with Africa is seen in the amount of friction their insistence on sexual human rights is generating on the African continent. This book is a general description of how sex is perceived to work among Sub-Saharan African Christians who subscribe to the value system known as Ubuntu. Christian common sense integrates the highest ethical values from Africa's past with the best of present-day Biblical scholarship to highlight a way of doing sex that is honoring to those involved and a positive contribution to their communities.

"Common sense sexuality in Africa!" assumes Ubuntu is pre-Christian and ethically inferior to Biblical revelation. This writer acknowledges the theological deficiencies of Ubuntu as a pre-Christian values-system, but contends that, rightly applied, it is still a powerful ethical platform for cultures that share the same community and extended family values Africans enjoy. Treating one's community and family with respect and humaneness is Ubuntu. Valuing the human dignity of a sexual partner is as much Ubuntu as it is Christianity. Dr. Mumbi listed this book as an adult book because it is intended to be read by married people or young adult believers who are newly married.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Mubanga Mumbi
• Release date: Feb 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310562068

Jonathan Mubanga Mumbi

I am Jonathan M. Mumbi an ordained Bishop of the Church of God (World Missions Zambia). This is a denomination under the World Missions Department of the Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee, USA.I have been in ministry since 1988 and mostly a volunteer in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) +30 years. My wife, Jean Mumbi, and I have served at various levels in YWAM and in the Church of God. My passion is to empower young people through nonformal Christian tertiary education. My educational journey has been mostly through YWAM's University of the Nations but I am grateful to have earned a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theological Studies through Nations University. I am a Pastoral Counselor and a lecturer. We are a family of which the youngest is going twenty-three and her siblings are adult brothers.Special personal note: None of the organizations served or mentioned will endorse every opinion I hold, neither do I want to leave anyone under the impression that I writes for, or, under any other authority other my own passion to write what I feel inspired to write.

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Common Sense Sexuality in Africa!

By Dr. Jonathan M. Mumbi

Published by Jonathan M. Mumbi at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Jonathan M. Mumbi

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1: Welcome To Our Diverse Sex Cultures!

Factoring Ubuntu Into African Sexuality

What You Want is not Always What You Get

Quantity of Sex Defining Manliness

Chapter 2: Ethnic Sexual Values

Quality of Sex Defining Manliness

Erotic Dance Cultures

Erotic Arousal Play Cultures

Passive (Male Sexual Service Oriented) Cultures

Understanding Cohort (Group) Sexual Bonding Cultures

Chapter 3: Understanding the Beauty of Diversity in Arousal Speeds

What Makes Some Men Fast And Others Slow?

What Makes Some Women Fast And Others Slow?

To Lubricate or Not to Lubricate?

Chapter 4: Understanding the Beauty of Diversity in Sexual Energy Levels.

Chapter 5: Common Sense Around Human Genitalia

The Bantu Quest For Virginity in Marriage

The Bantu Quest For Virility

Chapter 6: Sexual Aversions, Addictions and Malicious Damage

Sexual Aversions

Addictions

Sexual Malicious Damage (Sex as a Weapon)

Some Damage Control For Sexual Aversions, Addictions and Malicious Damage

Chapter 7: Where Do We Go From Here?

Addressing the Sexual Needs of Polygamous Families

Addressing Dominance-Submissiveness and Sadism-Masochism

Chapter 8: Exceptions to the Rules

No Capacity for Genital Sex

The Prison of Sexual Iconization

Sexual Alternatives Exist Under a Cloud of Communal Suspicion

The Problem of Masturbation

Conclusion

The End

About the Author

Other Books By The Same Author

Connecting with the author

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Acknowledgments

I am a debtor to God from whom all blessings flow and without whom nothing else matters. I also want to acknowledge my wife and our children who allow me some space and time to write and share with God's larger family. Finally, I acknowledge all those who have invited my wife and I to be their pre-marriage counselors or speakers on topics related to Christian marriage. I hope this brief work will encourage you as a teacher or facilitator of younger couples!

Prologue

Sex is a taboo subject in many parts of the world. In this part of Africa, one cannot even raise the topic in the immediate family. For generations parents have to refer the topic to grand-parents or other less hands-on parental authorities. There are many filling this void with information from sources that do not have Christian values at heart. It is every parent's responsibility to see to it that the children receive sound sexual information at the right time and from the right sources. This book was first published under the title, Common Sense Sex For African Christians. As a church leader, it is my hope that this little book would be a source of additional insight for average African parents and young adults in pre-marriage counseling programs. I write to also help young people from other continents working with African youths to think through, understand, and appreciate the differences in perspectives and to glean some applicable truths where necessary.

Finally, I pick up the African ethic of Ubuntu as a bridge between Sub-Saharan pre-Christian sexual values and contemporary African Christian spirituality in hope. My hope is that the continuity between Ubuntu sexual values and Biblical sexual values will serve as a guiding light to all seekers of truth. Fortunately, most of these truths lie in the reach of common-sense Christianity practiced with a sincere heart.

Dr. Jonathan M. Mumbi (PhD Psychology/Christian Counseling)

10th April 2017 (revised).

CHAPTER 1: Welcome To Our Diverse Sex Cultures!

For the Western missionary, it may come as a surprise that the average Sub-Saharan African Christian does sex in ways that are quite similar to Westerners living a hundred years ago, but also very different in many other aspects. The differences are not only in terms of positions and variety, but they also extend to concepts and basic assumptions about sexuality and the act of sexual intercourse itself. Africa is huge and its one billion people are guided by diverse religions and cultural values. Arab Africa in the north has closer affinity to the rest of the Middle East and this writer specifically focuses on the Christians of Sub-Saharan Africa. There are many ideas that accompany the newly wedded couples into their marriage. Today's African Christian does not arrive in the marriage bed with the same traditional naiveté 1950s' adults had. The media, film, and entertainment industries have set a very different stage for marital sex today.

Sex has been made so common that Sub-Saharan Africa is twerking in Church services (presumably in praise of Jehovah). Sexually explicit and provocative dancing has found its way into Pentecostal/Charismatic African churches under the watch of well intentioned but sexually confused spiritual leaders. African Christians must live with the reality of the existence of Hollywood, Nollywood, and Bollywood sexual ideas competing with traditional sexual ideas. The African penchant for syncretism and integration will certainly lead to great changes in future sex-cultures; but for now, welcome to the diversity of sex cultures among African Christians!

A word of caution here is in order. This little book is not a sexual pleasure guide; neither is it a lovemaking instruction manual. It is the firm belief of this writer that the missionary or average local Christian in need of that kind of specific information will not be helped much by this little book. It is always better to be guided by the spiritual-cultural and bio-emotional comfort level of the partners in marriage than by a textbook. Put differently, instead of reading a book secretly and practicing secret arts on an unsuspecting partner, why not read together and give the woman the opportunity to provide guidance on what works for her? To really enjoy sex, one's spirit has to be free. A free conscience and a mind free of cultural inhibitions would do more good for a couple making love than rigidly attempting to make love by some sex expert's book. Having said this, it should be clear that this writer aims to strike a balance between African Christian spirituality and global Christian spirituality in this discussion.

FACTORING UBUNTU INTO AFRICAN SEXUALITY

The value system the world has come to know as Ubuntu has anchored African societies for thousands of years. It has its shortcomings because it is pre-Christian but it also has its strengths because it is an essential part of how Sub-Saharan Africans see their world. It is an ethic based on natural revelation and common grace. A discussion of sex-cultures in Africa is certainly incomplete without factoring in this frame of reference. Since Ubuntu is a whole-person and community-life based value system it does not conflict with Biblical teachings on the same subject even if its real roots do conflict with Biblical Christian revealed truths contained in the Bible. For African Christians, Ubuntu can never be a worldview under which Christianity functions; rather, Ubuntu can serve to illustrate the cherished value-systems of Judeo-Christian faiths in an African way. While the West is slowly drifting away from Judeo-Christian value-systems, Africa can anchor close to that value-system in sexual matters through the application of authentic Ubuntu.

Ubuntu's primary definition of being human is not naturalistic. What does this mean? It means that a human being is not primarily a body with a spiritual function, but rather, to be human is to be primarily a spiritual being with a body. What does this mean? It means that the physical cues, those little signs and wonders that makes people ride on cloud nine wearing rose tinted glasses are not the whole message if the spirit is saying something else. Primal societies tend to have a sharper sense of picking up messages from the inner spirit. The body communicates love but so does the human spirit. This is why some people can pick up love vibes from a person who is by all appearances acting cold, calculated, and professionally. Ubuntu taught generations of Africans that the body hides the spirit poorly but, in sharp contrast, the spirit can hide body messages very effectively. Jesus loved Nathaniel because his spirit was clear even if Nathaniel’s words were somewhat offensive (John 1:46-48). What is in the spirit adds or takes away from the entire sexual experience that is why people of faith are taught to make things right with God, with other people, and with self. Relational shalom impacts the sexual experience tremendously.

Modern science tends to learn by reducing things to their smallest unbreakable units, but Ubuntu learns by integration. What does integration look like? It looks like pursuing a deeper connection than one based on a few aspects of the other person. Pretty face, beautiful body, and great arousal techniques are not enough for love that remains constant in all seasons for better and for worse. The inner beauty of the person will do more for sexual attraction when the pretty face fades, sex-technique becomes outdated and trait, and the beautiful body is full of wrinkles. The miracle within tends to be missed. The divine preparation of the inner person to enter full glory as neither a man nor a woman gets missed.

African Traditional Religions hold that in the hereafter, women still remain women and men remain as men. Christianity teaches that Adam was the name God gave to both the man and woman (Genesis 5:2), and their sexual distinctions are only for enjoyment and multiplication of human life on earth. The destiny of both men and women is the same. They will both be sexless like angels (Matthew 22:30). There will be no seven-virgins-per-believer-reward for radically faithful men in Heaven but only one collective virgin: the Bride of Christ. Ubuntu misses the Judeo-Christian facts of the destiny of humans, but it does capture the value of treating people as integrated whole persons. Just knowing that in glory, the stewardship of maleness and femaleness will also be accounted for, rewarded, or punished, and done away with forever should help everyone to treat their spouses as integrated whole-persons and equals before God.

Modern sexual encounters are calculated to make the spouse reach their sexual climax directly and clinically, Ubuntu practices emphasize the journey itself. Consummation of marriage is by sexual intercourse, according to many African national laws; therefore, sex is very important. Making sexual orgasms as clinical as German soccer (getting the ball into the back of the net as efficiently as possible) will provide the desired goal of sharing an orgasmic experience, but it would miss key parts of the beauty of the journey. Ubuntu pushed the value of the journey in previous generations to the point that substantial sexual dance and play techniques evolved around the journey to sexual orgasms. Believers today have fallen into the trap of equating the elaborate sexual preparation with paganism and modern believers are now global citizens embracing sex-cultures that may very often be as calculated and clinical as present-day German soccer (no offenses to the German soccer fans!).

Part of the journey to sexual climax is to engage the spouse's spirit. There can be a nobody is home feeling in some sexual encounters even if sexual orgasms take place. The man stimulated by pornographic material, maybe having an orgasm based on a euphoric recall of a sexual fantasy with the pornographic video actor/artist. Ubuntu requires him to clear his mind and spirit by taking the journey and be present to his wife. Wives can also be present but spiritually absent. Giving a sensitive man a body does not fool the man about the reality of actual presence. If there is anything to gain from Ubuntu it is this: come clean; treat the other person integrated person with feelings on both physical and spiritual levels; and enjoy the journey to your sexual climax and do not just do a sesfikile angazi kanjani (Zulu for we have arrived: I do not know how) type of sexual encounter.

WHAT YOU WANT IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET

There are many who are trying to get things out of