Sexuality and prostitution among the Akan of the Gold Coast, c. 1650-1950

Past & Present, August, 1997 by Emmanuel Akyeampong

Obi mfi bea akyi ntu ne ram

(No one can pull the loin-cloth off a woman without her knowledge)(1)

Prostitution in Africa has been presented as a capitalist, often urban, phenomenon. It portrays the labour opportunities (or lack thereof) that women face in towns, their struggle for individual autonomy and accumulation of wealth, and the significant roles that they play in the social reproduction of male wage labour.(2) Existing studies assume that urbanization promotes the anonymity considered necessary for prostitution, and that urbanization and rapid social change were themselves products of colonialism. Urbanization, industrialization and proletarianization thus provide the socio-economic setting for prostitution.

An article that explores prostitution and the politics of sex in the Gold Coast from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries within the broader framework of gender and power relations presents a picture that contrasts with those of available studies. It underscores the salient fact that urbanization and urbanism pre-dated colonial rule in the Gold Coast. The historical record also points to the occurrence of `prostitution' in rural, face-to-face communities in the Gold Coast, thus revealing intriguing links between sexuality, political and moral economy. These issues are examined in this article within the broader framework of gender and power relations.

It is striking that early accounts of prostitution in the Gold Coast emphasize its presence among the south-western Akan of the Gold and Ivory Coasts. Although the arguments presented here have wider implications for the southern Gold Coast, the Akan serve as a specific case study.(3) For the purposes of this article, prostitution is defined as the commodification of casual sex. This avoids the imposition of a rigid framework upon the complex gender relations of the southern Gold Coast.(4) It also enables us to hear the voices of the protagonists as they vied to construct and contest sexuality, prostitution, avenues of accumulation and social identity.

A distinguishing feature of prostitution in the Gold Coast is the relative absence of male pimps.(5) Mention can be made of male intermediaries like the `pilot boys' of Sekondi-Takoradi in the 1940s, but they were more like `brokers' who brought potential clients to prostitutes for a commission.(6) Their activities peaked during World War II with the presence of foreign sailors and soldiers. But the pilot boys lacked the control that characterizes the relationship between pimps and prostitutes.(7) Instead, prostitutes in the Gold Coast sometimes formed informal associations for mutual support; moreover, they controlled their sexuality and their earnings. Therein lies one important difference between prostitutes and what I refer to as the `public women' of the pre-colonial Gold Coast. Public women were often female slaves acquired by the political elite of Akan villages and towns, and compelled to provide sexual services for the local bachelors. Their institutionalized role -- indeed, their very existence -- sheds important light on how perceptions of sexuality informed gender relations. Examining public women alongside prostitutes facilitates a deeper understanding of the permutations of gender relations within the changing political context of the pre-colonial and colonial periods. The apparent disappearance of public women from the late nineteenth century is an important part of the puzzle. Did colonialism exterminate this institution? Or did it just mutate into a more `acceptable' or less recognizable form? Furthermore, the commodification of casual sex, especially in colonial towns, and the pursuit of wealth by single women, expanded received notions of sexuality and assailed the cultural norms that underpinned gender relations. Thus the implications for marriage must also be considered.

I

PROSTITUTES AND PUBLIC WOMEN IN THE PRE-COLONIAL ERA

European residents and travellers among the south-west Akan groups of the Esuma, Nzima, Evalue and Ahanta between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries documented the existence of prostitution. Referred to as `whores' or `prostitutes', some of these women were, more accurately, conscripted public women coerced into what was definitely a social institution designed to alleviate sexual pressures among unmarried young men. Indeed, Adam Jones has wondered if this was not `institutionalized rape', and has used `whores' and `prostitutes' cautiously in referring to them.(8)

Our main sources on the public women of the pre-colonial era are Olfert Dapper (1668), Willem Bosman (1702), and Jean Godot (1704).(9) Their descriptions are set out in detail, as their accounts are crucial to the analysis of sexuality and political economy. Dapper's comments related to Axim in the 1660s:

Although the Blacks along this coast and in the interior marry as many

wives as they can maintain, it is customary in Atzijn [Axim] and all the

surrounding areas, as far as the Quaqua Coast, for every village to maintain