Gender, Sexuality, and Traditional Aphrodisiacs

Gender, Sexuality, and Traditional Aphrodisiacs: Kayan Mata and Intimate Relationships in Nigeria explores how Nigerian women use traditional aphrodisiacs, known as kayan mata, to navigate intimacy, power, and survival in a rapidly evolving society. From Northern Nigeria's aphrodisiac markets to Instagram's digital culture, the study explores how kayan mata products are used to negotiate love, autonomy, and material security within cultural, religious, and economic constraints. Drawing on participants' lived experiences and African feminist theories, such as nego-feminism, the book highlights the complex and adaptive nature of women's sexual agency. It challenges readers to rethink agency by showing how everyday acts of desire, beauty, and spirituality may also serve as strategies of resistance and self-determination within intimate domains. Gender, Sexuality, and Traditional Aphrodisiacs: Kayan Mata and Intimate Relationships in Nigeria will be of interest to both students and scholars of gender studies, anthropology, African studies, feminist theory, and cultural sociology.