It's not natural - by Kiko.

This is a story about cliches - except cliches are not so common when they are about you.  I am Black.  I am African.  I am a Woman.  I like men.  None of the above is a problem.  I also like women - that is.  It is not natural.

I grew up with two older brothers.  When I came home - they were 6 and 5 - they were happy to have a younger sibling - only the baby turned out to be a girl - they were expecting a boy.  They taught me how to climb trees, ride motorbikes and how to go to the toilet standing up - psychologists would probably make a lot of that.   They also taught me about boys - boys they said were not to come anywhere near me or they would have them - boys only ever wanted one thing - they never told me what girls wanted though - and slowly I realised it was what I really wanted to know.

I grew up in a typically progressive African household - my parents even had gay friends who came to stay and slept in the guestroom - together - yet if I asked them what would happen if I were gay - my mum would say - but you are not gay - not that there is anything wrong with gay people - but really it is not natural.  Natural was synonymous with right.  I never brought the subject up again.

I first realised that I liked girls when I watched my first porn film - the men were ugly - but the women!  Boy the women - nice girls like me shouldn't have noticed things like that!  It was not natural.  

So I started to hate queer people and in short I started to hate myself.  

When I was 17 I decided to become a lesbian.  I didn't want to come out yet but I went to lesbian groups.  Met other lesbians.  They were not like me though.  Often I was the only African there.  I didn't share a language - worse still I still liked men.  So I was not a lesbian but I liked women - I liked them a lot.

I would talk to my friends.  My black friends, my white friends, my pink and brown friends.  We all agreed.  Being gay was OK.  People were people at the end of the day.  Love was natural.  So even if a man and a man were together that was cool.  It was also cool for women too.  But the ones I can't stand - my yellow colour skinned friend said - are those ones who cannot make up their mind.  One day they are with a man and the next they are with a woman.  What's with that.  It's not natural!

So there I was 22 but I might as well have been 12 again.  I might as well have been asking my mother about who I am what I am what box to tick in the equal opportunities section of the forms I had to fill when I applied for PC jobs.  I wish they had a box that said - Natural or not?

One day I got drunk.  I was at a party and I was telling my girlfriends about a person I had just met.  We had been talking about men - laughing about men as girlfriends do.  Crying about men too.  I let it slip - she is beautiful I said.  Sexy too!  SHE???  my brown skinned friend exclaimed.  She? a pink skinned one was asking as well.  I nodded silently sobering up.  But you still like blokes right?  They all wanted/ needed to know.  Well - yes.  I had to go outside to throw up - and get some air.
Later I was texting my best friend Ed about it all.  I was scared and I was sad.  I had come so far but was still banging my head against the door handle.  Thrown back into a wardrobe full of words that didn't fit.  He text me back - Listen - all I want is 4 u 2 b happy.  with whicheva man or woman u find.  He didn't ask me anything else - he said he really didn't need to know!

I still have many boxes to climb out of that are thrown at me everyday.  One thing though I have come to understand is that there are never going to be any easy answers to that question of sexuality.  Mainly there doesn't really have to be because as Ed says - happiness - now that's natural and I couldn't be more of a product of nature if I tried.  The love I have to give is natural - right now - that's good enough for me.