









































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 2, No. 2, 2019 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

90 
 

Original Paper 

Sexual Orientation Identity in Select African and African 

American Novels 
Ima Usen Emmanuel1* 

1 Department of English, University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria 
* Ima Usen Emmanuel, Department of English, University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria 

 

Received: October 18, 2018      Accepted: November 2, 2018      Online Published: May 28, 2019 

doi:10.22158/csm.v2n2p90                       URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v2n2p90 

 

Abstract 

This paper set out to interrogate Sexual Orientation Identity in select African and African American 

novels, using the Queer theory. Some heterosexual writers inadvertently dwell on queer relationships in 

their works. Toni Morrison in both The Bluest Eye and Beloved portrayed bestiality/zoophillia, 

phytophilliac or dendraphilliac, Spectorphilli, incest, rape/molestation, masturbation, polyamorous 

relationships, homoerotic, homosocial, and heterosexuality. Whereas, Damon Gulet’s In a Strange 

Room and Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents depicted lesbianism, homosexuality and bisexuality. With the 

likes of Geraldine in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Mr Lebowitz in Duiker’s Thirteen Cents, I agree 

with Tyson on biological essentialism, that the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual. I also 

agree with other critics that all human beings have the potential for sexual activity that does not fit into 

heterosexual framework. I share the opinion of social constructionism; that LGBTQ sexuality and 

heterosexuality are products of social, not biological forces; our societies are fast losing their mores, 

hence these evil practices. Since patriarchy is the law, no stiff penalty is effected on their wide spread 

jeopardizing habits. Queerness is a generational destroyer of both moral and humanity. This paper is 

emphatic that stiff penalties be brought on the practitioners of psychology of peadophile. 

Keywords 

zoophillia, phytophillia, spectorphilli, psychology of a peadophile, non-procreative sex 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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1. Introduction 

There is no consensus on the exact cause of developing sexual orientation but genetic, hormonal, social 

and cultural influences have been examined. Scientists believe that sexual orientation is caused by a 

complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. It is also discovered that female 

sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality because of female higher erotic plasticity, or to the social 

and cultural factors that socialize women to be more open to change 

(sexualfluiditypdfwikiwikipedia.org). The world is in an infinite continuum on gender and sexuality, 

and the acronym LGBTQ has gained recognition which symbolizes lesbians, gay, bisexual, transsexual 

and queer. 

Sexuality has been an important and vital part of human existence through history. All civilizations 

have managed sexuality through sexual standards, representations, and behaviors. Human sexuality is 

the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, erotic, physical, 

emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviours. Human sexuality is complicated; the brain 

decides what gender one is affiliated to and the heart decides what it is attracted to and what spectrum 

of intensity. Sexual behavior or gender roles is predicated on societies’ norms which put sexuality in a 

world of infinite continuum (sexuality, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php). Sex 

as a biological word refers to masculine and feminine, male or female. 

Gender expression or identity leads to different types of sexual orientations, and individuals and groups 

are now coming out of their closets to identify with their queer sexualities, as evil runs amok naked the 

world over. Queer sexualities include: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer (LGBTQ), asexual, 

deminsexual, androsexual, gynosexual, monosexual, aromantic, skoliosexual, polyamorpus, gynesexual, 

demiromantic, etc. Sexual fluidity is one or more changes in sexuality or sexual identity, sometimes 

known as sexual orientation identity. It is believed that sexual orientation is usually stable, whereas 

sexual orientation identity can change throughout individual’s life and may not align with biological 

sex, or sexual behavior or actual sexual orientation (gender, 

https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender/). 

For the purpose of this paper we will discuss LGBTQ people as a group since they constitute some sort 

of homogenous collectivity. Certainly, they share in common the political, economic, social, and 

psychological oppression they suffer as members of a sexual minority. And for many thinkers, the 

enormity of this shared experience, and the potential for political power generated when LGBTQ 

people act as a group, is sufficient to support the claim that they should be considered in this light 

(Tyson, p. 307). We will discuss this topic using Queer literary theory. 

 

 

 



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2. Method 

The word Queer has a range of meanings in literary studies today. As an inclusive term, it can refer to 

any piece of literary criticism that interprets a text from an LGBTQ perspective. Queer criticism reads 

texts to reveal the problematic quality of heterosexual and homosexual representations of sexual 

categories; they do not represent the dynamic range of human sexuality. For Queer theory “categories 

of sexualities cannot be defined by such simple oppositions as homosexual/heterosexual…It defines 

individual sexuality as fluid, fragmented, dynamic collectivity of possible sexualities…The word queer 

then, as an all-inclusive term, seeks to heal these divisions by offering a collective identity to which all 

LGBTQ people can belong” (Tyson, pp. 320-321). 

For the queer therefore, the definition of one’s sexuality might be based on one’s preference for 

someone older or younger, for a human or an animal, for a single partner or a group activity, for oneself 

alone (as in masturbation) or for a variety of different partners. Other dimensions of sexuality do not 

involve object choice. For example Eva Kosofsky Sefgwick notes the intricacies of human sexuality 

might be based on such oppositions as “orgasmic/non-orgasmic, non-commercial/commercial, using 

bodies only/using manufacture objects, in private/in public, spontaneous/scripted. Or the definition of 

one’s sexuality might be based on one’s preference for particular acts, sensations, or physical types” 

(Tyson, p. 321). Queer theory then becomes an umbrella discourse for these aberrations. 

Queer theory may be relatively new as a literary theory, but an in-depth reading of the novelistic genres 

reveal enormous representations of Queer writings in even heterosexual works, as are observed in our 

chosen novels under review namely: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Beloved, respectively, Damon 

Galgut’s In a Strange Room and K Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents. This paper will examine among 

others: bestiality/zoophillia, phytophillia or dendraphilliac, spectorphilli, lesbianism, homosexuality, 

bisexuality, polyamorous relationship, masturbation, homoerotic, sexual assault-psychology of a 

peadophile; rape/molestation, homosocial and heterosexuality as contained in our above named texts. 

We will also allude to other related texts. 

2.1 Bestiality/Zoophillia 

This is a very common practice among the slaves who are confined to plantations and are far removed 

from the opposite sex; therefore they take to violation of animals. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved the 

Sweet home slaves; namely, Sixo, Paul A Garner, Paul D Garner, Paul F Garner, and Halle Suggs, were 

all involved in either bestiality or zoophillia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilia). “All the Sweet 

Home young men were so sick with absence of women they had taken to calves” (p. 10). “All in their 

twenties, minus women, fucking cows, dreaming of rape which seems the solitary gift of life, thrashing 

on pallets, rubbing their thighs and waiting for the new girl, the one who took Baby Suggs’ place after 

Halle bought her with five years of Sundays…and the Sweet Home men abused cows…” (p. 11). 

Therefore, when Sethe agrees to marry Halle over the other Sweet Home young men, Paul D for 



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instance, imagines that “The jump…from a calf to a girl wasn’t all that mighty. Not the leap Halle 

believed it would be” (p. 11). And for the Sweet Home youth, bestiality becomes the only avenue to 

relieve their sexual emotion. On bestiality, the Holy Bible says “And if a man lies with a beast, he shall 

surely be put to death and you shall kill the beast” (Leviticus 20:15). 

Beside the slavery times humans still indulge in zoophillia. Geraldine, in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest 

Eye, loves the company of the cat “the cat will jump into Geraldine’s lap. She will fondle that soft hill 

of hair and let the fur of the animal’s body seep over and into the deeply private areas of her lap…and 

she opens her legs just a little and the two of them will be still together, perhaps shifting a little together 

sleeping a little together until four o’clock, when the intruder (Louis, her husband) comes home from 

work...” (pp. 85-86). The Holy Bible also says “And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down 

thereto, you shall kill the woman and the beast…” (Leviticus 20:15). 

The situation that warrants the Sweet Home young men go into bestiality could be explicated as 

predicated on their long abstinence and deprivation of female humans as sex partners, which further 

exposes the mysterious in and the conditions of slavery and isolation. Susan Corey in “The Grotesque 

in Morrison’s Beloved” says “the grotesque not only reveals the horror of slavery, but it also sets forth a 

vision of regeneration and healing” (p. 25). Paul D, the only surviving member of Sweet Home, heals 

out of the zoophillic instincts and enjoys heterosexual relationship with Sethe and this is regenerating. 

Geraldine, strangely is more emotionally and sexually attracted and affectionate to the cat than she does 

for her son. And to a large extent her husband becomes an “intruder” as she relaxes with the cat. 

Geraldine as a zoophillia, sexually attracted to a cat, is a crime against nature. Her queer nature is 

beyond all explanations. She is married, has a son, which means she has heterosexual relationship with 

her husband and more so her husband is caring, he works to provide for his family and comes home 

after work-hours. The cat even recognizes that she has affection for her husband. There are few things 

stranger and more repulsive than bestiality. Again, The Holy Bible says “Whoever lies with a beast 

shall surely be put to death” (Exodus, 22:19). It is crossly inhuman and unnatural and an affront to God 

who created man and beast but gave man authority of all beasts and nature and empowered man to 

subdue and rule over them. Therefore, for man the highest form of God’s creation to put down himself 

to the level of an animal, is not only nastiness to himself but to God the Creator. “Neither shall you lie 

with any beast to defile yourself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down 

thereto: it is confusion” (Leviticus, 18:23). To say the least, Geraldine is confused. 

2.1.1 Phytophillia 

In addition to the slaves involvement in bestiality, they commit to have sex with trees or phytophillia or 

dendraphilliac (tree sex, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=phytophilia). Sixo one of 

the Sweet Home Slaves, is so sex starved that he is aroused and attracted to trees. He simply drills a 

hole in a tree and sticking his member or (penis) into it, he reaches an orgasm that to some extent 



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relieves him of the ugly emotion In so doing, Sixo becomes dendraphilliac and his attraction to trees 

make him phytophilliac. He confesses his attraction to tress to Paul F, Paul A, Paul D and Halle in the 

peculiar way that makes them cry-laugh. Sixo goes among trees at night. For dancing and to keep his 

bloodlines open, he says “Privately, alone, he did it. None of the rest of them had seen him at it but they 

could imagine it, and the image they pictured made them eager to laugh at him—in daylight, that is, 

when it was safe” (p. 12). Sixo’s pathetic situation predicated on slavery is beyond comprehension. But 

when he finds his thirty-mile woman, he enjoys a heterosexual relationship with her and never goes 

back to the tress until he is buried alive and shut by School Teacher, the slave master. 

2.1.2 Spectorphilli 

The phenomenon of sexual encounter between ghosts and humans or spectorphilli—could be imposed 

of it is a choice for some humans as a form of sexual identity. In Beloved the author portrays the 

multilayered meanings of the queer theory adequately. She abandons the traditional demarcation 

between same sex and opposite-sex love and between the “natural” and the “unnatural”. Beloved the 

ghost, sexually arouses Paul D as she lets out her shine to overshadow him. “that is how Beloved 

looked—gilded and shining” (p. 64), Paul D says. She then hypnotizes him into a spectorphillia 

relationship and becomes pregnant as a result. She manipulates and forces him out of 124 into a shade 

behind the house, a cold storeroom. Beloved shows up and asks him to touch her and call her by name 

otherwise she will not depart “You have to touch me. On the inside part. And you have to call me by 

my name” (p. 117). On insistence and under the spell of this ghost, when she moves closer to him 

“what he knew was that when he reached the inside part he was saying Red heart. Red heart, over and 

over again” (p. 117). Ron David believes that Paul D “wasn’t seduced by her beauty, he was compelled 

by the intensity of what—her ravenous need to grab all the life she’d been deprived of, her 

two-year-old mind in the body of a twenty-year-old woman, her need to exact a price from her 

mother…and her greedy love of her mother” (p. 121). Paul D is incapacitated; he is an unwilling 

partner in this queer relationship. He has a strong feeling to knock her down but remains waned. 

2.1.3 Polyamorous Relationship 

In Morrison’s Beloved, when Halle and Sethe consummate their love in a corn field “And taking her in 

corn-field rather than her quarters, a yard away from the cabins of the others who had lost out, was a 

gesture of tenderness” (Beloved, pp. 16-17). “Who could miss a ripple in a cornfield on a quiet 

cloudless day?” Sixo and both of the Pauls sit under Brother (Tree) pouring water from a gourd over 

their heads and through eyes streaming with well water, they watched the confusion of tassels in the 

field below. It had been hard, hard, hard, hard sitting there erect as dogs, watching corn stalks dance at 

noon. The water running over their heads made it worse (Beloved, pp. 26-27). This polyamorous 

relationship is unconscious and closed, because the relational partners Halle and Sethe did not know 

nor permit Sixo and the Pauls to watch their sexual relationship, but they did. Again the sexual 



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relationship between Sethe and Paul D—one of the Sweet Home young men, who escapes and locates 

Sethe in 124 Blue Stone House in Cincinnati, Denver become an uninvited partaker. As Sethe and Paul 

relate sexually, Denver over hears their sexual noises and she is miserable, more so since Paul D rid her 

of the only other company she had; the baby ghost. This is closed because the relational partners were 

not conscious or agree to permit their romantic or sexual relationship with other people, and in this 

instance, certainly not with Denver, Sethe’s daughter. Whereas, Geraldine in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, 

subjects her young son to a polyamorous relationship and bestiality consciously. It was not long before 

the child Junior, discovers the difference in his mother’s behavior to himself and the cat and this has an 

inverse effect on Junior. As he grows older, he learns how to direct his hatred of his mother to the cat 

and spends some happy moment watching it suffer (p. 86). The boy grows up with a lot of bitterness 

and total hatred for the cat and hunts to kill it at the least opportunity. Mrs. Geraldine is a biological 

essentialist in spite of having a husband and a son; she enjoys erotic feelings with her cat over the 

husband and her son. It is believed that all human beings have the potential for same-sex desire or 

sexual activity that does not fit into heterosexual framework, Mrs. Geraldine here is a typical example 

of such, and the ripple effect may be the child developing strong revulsion for women and animals and 

the instinct to kill both at the least opportunity. 

2.1.4 Lesbianism 

In Morrison’ Beloved, Beloved the ghost is also into a lesbian relationship with Sethe “they stayed that 

way for a while because neither Denver nor Sethe knew how not to stop and not love the look or feel of 

the lips that kept on kissing” (p. 97). Beloved craves for Sethe and confesses her strong love for her 

“she does not love me like I love her. I don’t love nobody but her” (p. 116). Sethe, the unwilling partner 

could not separate herself from her. Beloved is a predatory lesbian lover; she consumes Sethe’s life to 

the extent that Sethe becomes thinner while she grows bigger. Beloved’s obsessive attachment to Sethe, 

equates Denver’s fanatical bond with Beloved; which puts the trio in a lesbian relationship. Also in 

Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Caged Bird), Maya actually feels sexually aroused 

at the sight of her girlfriend’s breast, in spite of her mother’s reassurance that she is not a lesbian or a 

hermaphrodite. “She feels there is something queer about her” (p. 279). With the knowledge acquired 

from her reading of The Well of Loneliness, sixteen-year-old Maya thinks she is a lesbian or a 

hermaphrodite “with a heavy voice, more feminine hands and feet, breast sadly 

underdeveloped—almost like skin-swellings…Armpits as smooth as her face, with mysterious growth 

developing on her body that defied explanation” (pp. 273-274), Maya’s features that defile her 

placement in the masculine or the feminine gender category set her aside from others and sickens her 

mind into queerness. 

 

 



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Similarly in Alice Walker’s Color Purple, Celie and Shug Avery are lesbian partners. Celie, a mother of 

two through molestation, rape and incest, cherishes her lesbian relationship with Shug than 

heterosexual bonding with her husband Albert. Again in Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy, Olivia 

loves Tashi sexually. As she pleads with Tashi not to go away to join the Mbeles—core 

traditionalists—who have sent a captured donkey for her ride, Olivia crying says “tell me to do 

anything, and I will do it”. “Tell me to go anywhere, and I will go”. Tashi “was like a lover” (p. 20), to 

Olivia. Alice Walker believes a woman can love another woman sexually, Olivia clings to Tashi as 

lesbians do, sexually and pleads with her as heterosexual lovers do. Likewise, in Damon Galgut’s In a 

Strange Room, Anna lives with a lesbian lover in Cape Town for eights year. Lesbians deny patriarch 

one of its most powerful tools: heterosexuality. For some feminists, “heterosexuality is not a ‘natural’ 

sexual orientation for ‘normal’ women but a political institution that subordinates women to patriarchy 

in that women’s subservience to men is built into heterosexual definition of feminine sexuality” (Tyson, 

p. 310). Lesbianism is a cursed relationship, the Bible in 1 Corinthians 6:9, calls it effeminate or 

abusers of themselves with mankind, shall not inherent the Kingdom of God. Again The Holy Bible 

says “You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind. It is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). 

2.1.5 Homosexuality/Gay 

In the instance of homosexuality/Gay, not all cultures share the same definition. In Latin America for 

instance, a man may have affairs with other men but since he still behaves in a traditionally male 

manner—strong dominant and decisive—and consistently assumes male sexual role as penetrator—a 

macho, a “real” man. He can also be a bisexual in the culture, he is not called a homosexual. In North 

America only men who allow themselves to be penetrated and behaved in a traditionally feminine 

manner—submissive, coy, flirtatious, “soft” were considered homosexuals. In ancient Athens, the elite 

male ruling class could have social inferior—women and boys past age of puberty and were not looked 

at as homosexuals. Historically, certain sexual acts—all forms of non-procreative sex—were forbidden 

by Church or State, but they were not viewed as evidence of a specific sexual identity. The medical 

professions promoted homosexual identity as a medical and pathological disorder. Therefore, these 

homosexuals would rather be called gay (Tyson, pp. 313-314). In Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room, 

Jerome is sexually attracted to Damon. Though bashful, Jerome finds an audience with Damon and 

taking hold of his hand nervously ask Damon to go with him to Switzerland (p. 120). In response to 

this intimate closeness, Damon finds himself sweating in his palms, “my heart is hammering” (p. 121). 

Damon may not like Reiner, his roommate, as a sex partner, but his response to Jerome is more 

involved. Damon responds more to homosexual relationships than to heterosexual relationship. When 

Anna pleads with him to have sex with her, he recoils, and though he shares rooms with Anna 

throughout their trip to India, he is not attracted to her sexually. Damon may be said to be androgynous 

or asexual. 



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In K Sello Duiker’s Thirteen Cents, Richard invites the young homeless orphan Gemors otherwise, 

called Azure or Blue to his flat with three other guys, and after feeding him they all have oral sex with 

him. He laments:  

…shoves his dick into my mouth. Open properly…take it all in…I do as 

I’m told. He stands there and starts rocking his pelvis. My jaws get tired. 

I take his dick out of my month and want him...I put it back in my mouth. 

The door opens…Richard takes out his piel from my mouth but he 

doesn’t put it away. He starts playing with himself while I suck the 

other’s piel. Soon they all join in and take turns with my mouth…they are 

giving me their salt…I start sweating. After a while my jaws become stiff 

but I continue sucking their smelly dicks with white stuff like pap on 

them. They made me give them blowjobs till they all come (p. 63). 

And whatever sperm the poor boy could not swallow, they all spilled same all over his T-shirt. This 

homeless youth is gang raped by adult members of society. Again Mr Lebowitz, an investment banker, 

negotiates and invites this thirteen-year-old Blue to his gorgeous home in an exclusive part of Cape 

Town for homosexual purpose and records the affair with a hidden camera. Blue confesses “he spreads 

me on the wide bed and starts sucking my dick…He turns over and lies on his back. I take his banana 

dick in my hand and start stroking it…I just suck and play with my tongue on his banana dick...and a 

fountain of sperm pours out of his banana dick and land on his chest…” And this taking of turns 

continues almost the whole night long. 

Mr. Lebowitz, an Investment Banker, cannot even be called a macho or a “real” man in this 

homosexual game with a thirteen-year-old boy. They take turns in the filth, though he does not behave 

in a traditionally feminine manner—submissive, coy, flirtatious, and “soft”. He pays Blue even more 

than they bargained for. But to submit to this degradation with a youth is pitiable. Queers can really be 

said to be sick products of a sick society. Homosexuality like lesbianism is an outrage. The Holy Bible 

in 1 Corinthians 6:9, calls it effeminate or abusers of themselves with mankind, shall not inherent the 

Kingdom of God. Again The Holy Bible says “You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind. It is 

an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). It is really an atrocity. Yet young Blues does it for a living. He says 

“I know how to please a man…I have done this a thousand times. They all like it if you play with the 

part between their balls and asshole” (p. 98). He gives the proceeds from this abomination to Joyce 

who is old enough to be Blue’s grandmother, for safe keeping, but she misappropriates the money he 

gets from homosexuality and when this homeless and deformed youth demands for his money, she 

slaps him across the face “My nose starts bleeding and I let the blood drip” (P. 88), thereafter, Joyce 

pushes him out of her house without his clutches. She too becomes part of this infamy. 

 



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2.1.6 Bisexual/Masturbator 

Mr. Lebowitz is also a bisexual, he tells Blue that his family is on holiday. As he prepares for his illicit 

affair with this youth, he walks over to piano where there are pictures of his family. He turns them all 

over as if they will see and hear everything. Reiner in Gulgut’s In a Strange Room is likewise bisexual. 

He involves in heterosexual relationship though with whores, but he still seeks homosexual affair with 

other men. 

Initially, medical professions considered mastubators to be people with medical and pathological sexual 

identity. In Morrison’s Beloved, the other Sweet Home young men sit back to masturbate as Halle and 

fourteen-year-old Sethe make love in the cornfield; though Halle wants privacy for themselves but he 

has uninvited watchers. Again, in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, some “slow-footed teen-aged boys 

huddled about the corner. These young boys met there to feel their groins…and exposed themselves, to 

those who were interested as novices to the habits” (35, these youth indulge themselves in 

masturbation.). Also in Galgut’ In a Strange Room, “Damon wakes in the middle of the night…to the 

sound of Roderigo furtively masturbating under the sheets” (p. 121). Masturbation can occur in the 

case of a homoerotic sight as in the case of the young Sweet Home slaves watching Halle and Sethe 

make love in the cornfield, or can be induced as those teenagers fondle with their groins to force 

masturbation. It can also occur unconsciously as in the case of sleeping Roderigo. This is a queer way 

of relieving oneself of sexual emotions. The Holy Bible in Leviticus 22:4 says “… a man whose seed 

goes from him”, which is masturbation, shall remain unclean and shall not eat of the holy things, 

especially the Priest of God. 

2.1.7 Homoerotic 

Another episode of queerness includes homoerotic which is exemplified in Angelou’s Caged Bird. 

Maya has a homoerotic feeling at the sight of her girlfriend’s nakedness. In Galgut’s In a Strange Room, 

Reiner comes out unto the room, drying his long hair with a towel. He is wearing the same black pants 

as yesterday, but no shirt, his body is brown and hard, perfectly proportioned. He knows that he is 

beautiful (p. 21). Reiner consciously directs this homoerotic feeling to Damon his roommate, thereby 

inviting him to a homosexual relationship to which Damon did not respond. Reiner often allows his 

cloth fall off his body, and this careless abandonment feels like an announcement of some kind. Thus 

exposing the long brown place where the “buttocks divide, where paler skin makes fur and shadow 

stand out in relief, now Reiner turns, there is the briefest flash of an erection” (p. 43), invariably, Reiner 

puts a longing and a moral confusion in Damon. Again Reiner takes to bathing himself either in a river, 

if there is one or in water from the water-bottles. Then he dries himself and sits on a rock rubbing 

creams (p. 57). “Reiner is full of smug satisfaction, brown locks bouncing on his shoulders”. His 

nakedness before another male Damon gives Reiner some pleasure that is carnal. Since Reiner is the 

financier of the tripe with Damon, Reiner knows, money is never just money alone, it is a symbol for 



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other deeper things, on this trip how much you have is a sign of how loved you are, Reiner hoards the 

love he dispenses it as a favour. “I am endlessly gnawed by the absence of love, to be loveless is to be 

without power” (p. 57), Damon laments. Damon, as much as possible tries to overcome this 

homosexual nature in his partner by always looking the other way. Damon is demiromantic; he has no 

romantic attraction to both male and female, though he may be more prone to homosexuality. Still in 

Galgut’s In a Strange Room, Anna’s naked body in the hospital (p. 177) gives everyone who sees her 

stack nakedness a homoerotic feeling. 

Similarly, in Duiker’s Thirteen Cents, Gerald “takes off his clothes and sits naked on the chair” before 

Blue. Further, he makes them have a bath together “we both were. I dry myself with the rag. He uses a 

towel” (p. 86). Gerald puts himself in the position of a guardian to the young boy after having killed 

Azure’s parents and changes his name to Blue, but he introduces him to homosexuality. Still in Thirteen 

Cents as the Moffies (male prostitutes) walk by, one of them, Mr. Lebowitz sits beside Blue “and opens 

his legs. A big banana is between his legs” (p. 93), he exposes his penis to this youth and eventually 

they negotiate the terms and the man takes Blue to his exquisite home. There, they had a bath naked 

before each other and they bounce their penis every, and Blue hold his dick and say “Pleased to meet 

you…and he laughs...” (p. 99). The bathroom is all mirrors such that you can see your whole naked 

body. They both “walk round the house naked” (p. 100) while Mr Lebowitz prepares food. Generally, 

LGBTQ people seen not closeted on pornography.  

2.1.8 Psychology of a Peadophile 

This is the molestation of children with the threats to harm. Generally, is a violent crime and includes, 

rape, child sexual abuse, incest etc. Of the most heinous mind-set of the LGBTQ people is the 

psychology of a peadophile which has become a common place phenomenon all over the world 

cultures and most writers depict same in their works. In Angelou’s Caged Bird, Mr Freeman, a live-in 

friend of Vivian Baxter Maya’s mother, rapes eight-year-old Maya. This is “a heart-rending situation of 

betrayal, abuse, oppression and exploitation of an eight-year-old body” (p. 78). Mr Freeman threatens 

to kill her only brother Bailey, if she lets the cat out of the bag. The abuse is a matter of opportunity; 

the child is a sexual surrogate for him since Vivian is always not available. Through this sexual assault 

he seeks to dominate and control Maya but wants her to believe his affection to her. Opal Moore, 

commenting on issue of rape in Caged Bird, says “it raises issues of trust, truth and lie, love, the 

naturalness of a child’s craving for human contact, language and understanding, and the confusion 

engendered by the power disparities that necessarily exist between children and adults” (p. 77). We 

agree with Moore that young Maya hungers for human contact since Vivian is never there for her. 

Likewise, in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye Cholly Breedlove, in his drunken stupor commits inbreeding or 

incest by raping his eleven-year-old daughter Pecola. “He wanted to fuck her—tenderly. But the 

tenderness would not hold. The tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear. His soul seemed 



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to slip down to his guts and fly out to his guts and fly out into her, and the gigantic thrust he made into 

her then provoked the only sound she made—a hollow surge of air in the back of her throat. Like the 

rapid loss of air from a circus balloon” (pp. 162-163). This hallowing experience pushes the child into 

unconsciousness. “Removing himself from her was so painful to him he cut it short and snatched his 

genitals out of the dry harbor of her vagina. She appeared to have fainted” (p. 163). Cholly’s inhuman, 

forceful penetration of an eleven-year-old child and the brutal extrication of his penis from “dry harbor 

of her vagina” are barbarous and felonious. “So when the child regained consciousness, she was lying 

on the kitchen floor…trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her mother looming 

over her” (p. 163).  

The fact of a father traumatizing his child through raping his young virgin daughter to unconsciousness 

is nothing but queer. Thus Pecola carries her father’s pregnancy which is a concern to the whole 

community “But so deeply concerned were we with the health and safe delivery of Pecola’s baby we 

could think of nothing…” (p. 7). 

“Did you hear about that little girl” 

“What? Pregnant?” 

“Yes but guess who?”… 

“That’s just it. Ain’t no little old boy. They say it’s Cholly” 

“Cholly her daddy? (pp. 188-189). 

The community is embarrassed, sorrowful, disgusted, amused, shocked, outraged, or even excited by 

the story. Yet they did not rise up against Cholly, but everyone wants the baby dead. Cholly himself is 

raped by three women in his tender years “three women were leaning out of two windows. They see the 

long clan neck of a new young boy and call to him. He goes to where they are. Inside is dark and warm. 

They give him lemonade in a Mason jar. As he drinks, their eyes floated up to him through the bottom 

of the jar, through the slick sweet water. They give him back his manhood, which he takes aimlessly” 

(pp. 158-159). That these women gang raped a youth without the milk of human kindness goes to 

confirm what Tyson calls “biological essentialism” (p. 306), most of which are “closeted”.  

The acts of fathers raping and impregnating their daughters seem common place. In Ralph Ellison’s 

Invisible Man, Jim Trueblood, rapes and impregnates his daughter Mattie Lou, and in Alice Walker’s 

Color Purple, Celie’s step-father Fonso also molests, rapes and impregnates her twice and physically 

abuses her. Akin to Freeman in Angelou’s Caged Bird, and Cholly in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Fonso 

uses Celie as proxy since her mother is ill. And after the death of her mother Fonso, seeks to extend his 

evil emotion to her younger sister Nattie, but Celie always surrenders herself in place of her sister. This 

racial stereotype is patronized and perpetuated by patriarchy. 

Cholly like Trueblood suffers from homophobia. Cholly is sensitive to patriarchy’s stance on his queer 

relationship with his eleven-year-old daughter and therefore, he absconds. Trueblood also flees for a 



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while but comes back home realizing that both his wife and daughter are pregnant for him at the same 

time. Unlike Cholly’s wife who never reacted as she sees her almost lifeless daughter on the kitchen 

floor, Kate, Trueblood’s wife yells at him, she attempts to shot him with a gun, but she strikes him in 

the face with an ax, which is a more natural reaction to such a sordid deed than in Cholly’s case who 

simply walks away unchallenged. Also unlike the black community in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye who 

remained mute or just reduced such repugnant act to a gossip, in Ellison’s Invisible Man the black 

community scorns Trueblood, though the white community applauds him. In Maya Angelou’s Caged 

Bird, Vivian Baxter and her sixteen-year-old son Bailey were tangled in the “Oedipal skein. Neither 

could do without or do with the other…Bailey was hopelessly in love with Mother Dear…” (p. 257). It 

is on the constrictions of conscience and society, morality and ethos (heteropatriarchy), that dictate a 

separation otherwise mother/son would be involved in incest. The Holy Bible says all forms of incest 

are abomination and are forbidden “None shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover 

their nakedness” (Leviticus 18:6). 

Furthermore, in The Bluest Eye Elihue Micah Witcomb alias Soaphead Church, is a wide spread evil 

influence on the tender and innocent members of society. In his queerness, he prefers sexual intercourse 

with little chil dren than with adults. The author says:  

His sexuality is anything but lewd; his patronage of little girls smacked of 

innocence and was associated in his mind with cleanliness. He was what 

one might call a very “clean” old man.…And besides, the one thing that 

disgusted him more than entering and caressing a woman was caressing 

and being caressed by a man. In any case, his cravings although intense, 

never relished physical contact. He abhorred flesh on flesh. Body odor, 

breath odor, overwhelmed him. The sight of dried matter in the corner of 

the eye, decayed or missing teeth, ear wax, blackheads, moles, blisters, 

skin crusts, all the natural excretions and protractions the body was 

capable of—disquieted him. His attention therefore, gradually settled on 

those humans whose bodies were least offensive—children (p. 166). 

Soaphead’s permissive queerness is pathological and he should be castrated. His reprobate mind turns 

him to be sexually attracted to children for their state of purity. He exploits the innocence of these 

defenseless ones and to a large extent may maim them perpetually. LGBTQ people are said to be sick 

and evil products from a sick and evil society or environment. Though Lois Tyson believes that 

“LGBTQ orientation is a normal response to particular environmental factors and therefore, LGBTQ 

people should be accepted as normal” (Tyson, p. 306), Soaphead’s sexual character, his possession of 

the structural functional traits of sexual molestation and child sexual abuse are damaging to the future 

generation if he goes unchallenged. In particular, he prefers little girls to little boys because the boys 



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were insulting, scary, and stubborn. The girls were usually manageable and frequently seductive. These 

are future mothers who will replenish the world! Still, in The Bluest Eye, Mr Henry molests young girls, 

even within their homes. He pinches young Frieda on the breast while the parents were in the garden: 

“He touched me…here and there. Frieda points to the tiny breasts that like two fallen acorns” (p. 99). 

The corrupting influences of this old man on the youth not only put sensual thought on the minds of 

these innocent ones but also corrupt even the language; Claudia asks Frieda “He showed his privates at 

you”? “He touched me”…“How did it feel”? The early awakening of carnal emotions in the heart and 

minds of the youth create negative effect on hands that will rub the cradle and by inference on society 

as a whole. 

Child sexual abuse is a crime against humanity. It is a type of maltreatment, violation and exploitation 

that refers to the involvement of the child in sexual activity to provide sexual gratification, false 

affection or protection, or financial benefit. Abuse of this vulnerable member of our society is pathetic. 

Over three million children are sexually abused and some result in death, some are traumatized for life, 

some develop negative self-image, some are maimed; only a few go through therapy and prayers to live 

normal lives. Every society have laid out laws against offenders, but the queer people still find a haven 

in this doleful sin and most often go pass the law, because the whole society has decided to call evil, 

good thus reversing societal values. The Holy Bible also places a curse on anyone who commits incest 

and death penalty is put on such a one. 

2.1.9 Homosocial 

One of the attributes of the LGBTQ people common to the straight people alike is 

homosocial—bonding or Woman-identified woman or what Adrienne Rich calls “A lesbian continuum” 

(Tyson, p. 310). This type of coming together connotes nothing sexual between or among women; just 

one’s primary source of emotional sustenance and psychological support as in the occurrence of the 

three prostitutes in Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes. The bonding among these prostitutes: China, Poland, 

and Miss Maria, help Pecola in her social and emotional experiences and trials as she carries her 

father’s pregnancy. In Alice Walker’s Color Purple, Celie frees herself from her husband’s brutality as 

she reaches out to other women like her younger sister Nettie and Sofia. Homosocial bonding is vital to 

the emotional growth of children and the emotional health of adults, regardless of their sexual 

orientations, however many individuals are apprehensive about some forms of same-sex bonding due to 

their own homophobia or for the fear of nymphomaniac response from others. Though some feminists 

believe strongly that women-only-groups are necessary for the development of non-patriarchal ways of 

thinking and speaking, yet the fear of queer relationships among such associations persists. 

Ironically some LGBTQ people commit themselves to heterosexuality, though attitudes on 

heterosexuality greatly differ from culture to culture. In Morrison’s Beloved Halle and Sethe involve in 

heterosexuality in the cornfield and in their cabin and become parents of four children. Paul D enjoys 



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heterosexual relationship with Sethe until the coming of the coming of Beloved the ghost. “He was 

accustomed to having sex with Sethe just about every day, and to avoid the confusion Beloved’s 

shining caused him he still made it his business to take her back upstairs in the morning, or lie down 

with her after supper” (p. 115). Since Sethe cannot pay the engraver for Beloved’s name to be engraved 

on the grave stone she trades ten minutes of heterosexual relationship with the engraver for cash 

payment. Sixo travels sixty miles to and fro every Sunday to meet his Thirty-Mile Woman. In 

Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Geraldine also engages in heterosexual relationship with her husband. 

Geraldine’s involvement in heterosexuality and zoophillia/bestiality is complicated and inexplicable 

psychological trauma. Even the cat recognizes her love for her husband, and the cat also knows she 

does not love her son. Shug in Walker’s The Color Purple, engages and loves in heterosexual 

relationship, and she is also Celie’s lesbian partner. Reiner in Galgut’s In a Strange Room also likes 

involves with prostitutes. He confesses “when I was in Canada I started sleeping with whores” (p. 43). 

He is an unscrupulous seducer of women—Casanova or man-whore, promiscuous, philanderer—he 

engages in many love affairs, especially with the frivolous or women with casual attitude. Reiner 

participates in heterosexual relationship though with whores. When Anna in Galgut’s In a Strange 

Room has the opportunity to go on a holiday in India she shows her dissatisfaction with lesbian 

relationship. She takes to sleeping with any male who accepts her. Eventually, she hooks up with the 

Jean, a fellow tourist and becomes totally repulsive of her lesbian partner (p. 179). She prefers suicide 

rather than continue in that relationship. Damon reporting Anna’s unfaithfulness to her lesbian partner 

laments “Anna had an affair over here…with a man. Yes. She was determined to do it…and any man 

would do” (p. 183). Anna prefers heterosexuality to lesbianism. Anna’s family, who have never liked 

the idea of her being with a woman seized on this alternative future with a man and are pushing it 

delightedly. 

 

3. Conclusion 

From the above interrogation of these novels by both African and African American writers, we can 

conclude that heterosexual writers engage in queer writings. There is a universalizing view that there 

are some homosexual potential in all humans, since all writers write from their personal and social 

experiences. The idea of queerness is very fluid. And to some extent women senselessly involve 

themselves in queer relationships. For instance, In Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the case of Geraldine’s 

involvement in bestiality, and Cholly being gang raped in his youth by older women. Anna’s lesbian 

partner in Galut’s In a Strange Room, is ready to spend whatever amount of resources it takes to keep 

Anna, whereas Anna now prefers heterosexual relationship. The attitude of the women may go to 

confirm the discovery that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality.  

 



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It is also very pitiable that older men who should be the custodians of the people’s culture sadly revere 

in psychology of a peadophile: rape, incest, molestation, and homosexuality. Society should checkmate 

some of these atrocious levels of queerness in the likes of Cholly in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye who 

violently rapes and impregnates his eleven-year-old daughter Pocola, and Soaphead Church, still in the 

same novel that shamelessly molests both fond boys and girls with strong preference for the girls for 

their tenderness. In so doing Cholly and Church are destroying innocent generations before they take 

root in their environments. Blue, in Duiker’s Thirteen Cents, like Cholly is gang raped, not by women 

but by men. He sells out himself to men to make a living being an orphan and homeless; and he is 

patronized by wealthy and influential men like Mr Lebowitz an Investment Banker. On the part of the 

slaves, at Sweet Home, their queerness is circumstantial-predicated on the slavery situation; they 

regenerate as soon as they come in contact with human females. For example, Halle, as soon as he 

marries Sethe gives up on bestiality, Sixo, as quickly as he finds the thirty-mile woman prefers the long 

trek to meet with the woman than bestiality and fucking trees, and Paul D gives up bestiality; enjoys 

and loves heterosexual relationship with Sethe after he breaks free from the chain gang and meets up 

with Sethe. Queerness is a generational destroyer of both moral and humanity. Both men and women 

are given to reprobate minds but men are seen to be more prone to wide spread endangering habits of 

this queerness; being patriarchy, they go free of sanctions from law and society. 

All queer relationships can be said to be abnormal and unnatural and those involved most often are 

bisexuals or practice their different forms of queerness alongside heterosexuality. We agree with Tyson 

on what he calls biological essentialism that is that a fix segment of the population is naturally LGBTQ, 

just as the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual. We also agree with some theorists who 

believe that “all human beings have the potential for same-sex desire or the sexual activity that does not 

fit into heterosexual framework. Accordingly, we acknowledge the view of social constructionism; that 

LGBTQ sexuality and heterosexuality are products of social, not biological forces. From the foregoing 

queerness has become a subculture because our societies seem to be losing their mores. 

 

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