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Violence constricts, imposes, and erases; sexuality, at its healthiest, opens, invites, and affirms. Yet both live in the same human body, shaped by history, culture, and power.
By Femi Oladeji
Growing up in London, violence wasn’t an abstract idea — it was a daily atmosphere, woven from socio-economic hardship and racial discrimination.
As Oluwafemi Oladeji put it in 1984, "I don’t exist, I am part of this," a line that captured the erasure of individual identity under the weight of collective struggle. The unwritten code was simple: survive or be consumed. My inner mantra became: Always be awake. Always stay ahead.
At home, the absence of verbal aggression didn’t erase the survival reflex. Instead, a quiet defensiveness grew — an ever-alert beast, ready to react. Frustration and anger hardened into resilience. Arts, music, and sport offered temporary release, but adolescence brought a deeper unease — a hollow space where some undefined part of me should have been.
Without guidance, the questions began: What is love? Who am I? Why am I here?
Becoming a parent at 18 sharpened these questions. Life wasn’t just about survival anymore — it was about meaning. And in the middle of ongoing oppression and marginalization, I began searching for identity not as an abstract exercise, but as a necessity.
Violence and sexuality both confront the questions of power, control, and self-definition — but they do so differently: Violence seizes power, imposes control from outside, and rewrites the self according to the aggressor’s terms. Sexuality, when free and consensual, shares or negotiates power, offers self-control through chosen vulnerability, and allows the self to be defined from within.
For me, sexuality became not just a potential escape from violence, but a way to reclaim sovereignty — a means of exploring who I was outside the narratives imposed by society. It was a movement from reaction to creation, from survival to self-definition. ■
