Wole Soyinka, the Nobel laureate, says consenting adults
should be allowed to choose the kind of sexual orientation they want.
The playwright spoke when he was featured on the latest
episode of #WithChude hosted by Chude Jideonwo, the media personality.
The award-winning author added that only those who
understand “the whole science of hormones and the psychology involved in choice
in human attraction” should have an opinion on sexual orientation.
Speaking on gay and transgender rights, Soyinka said: “Only
those who understand the full makeup of human beings should even attempt to
pronounce negatively on the sexual orientation of anybody.
“Anybody who has
absolutely pursued the whole science of hormones, the psychology involved in
choice in human attraction. I will listen to only that person who wants to
speak negatively about sexual orientation.
“I believe that consenting adults should be left alone to do
what they want as long as what they do and how they do it does not impinge on
the rights of the rest of society and does not attempt to present their
orientation as what should be the orientation of the rest of the world. Some of
them go that far, and that is where they get into trouble with me.”
Commenting on ‘Ake: The Years of Childhood’, his memoir,
Soyinka said he initially wanted to write about the late I.O. Ransome Kuti, his
uncle who doubled as father of the late Fela Anikulapo.
“What I wanted to
write was the biography of my uncle, I.O. Ransome Kuti, Fela’s father, from
whom I had learnt a lot,” he said.
“I even told him that when I came home, I was going to write
a biography on him. And then by the time I came home, he died on me. After he
died, I realized, through him, that I wanted to recapture the entire ambience
of that period and what it was like for a child.
“After some years, I decided to write Ake. And it took quite
a while to enter the mind of a child, to try to capture that sense of wonder I
recollected and also try to find a language for it”.
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