{"id":25947,"date":"2020-03-31T17:32:22","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/?p=25947"},"modified":"2020-03-31T17:32:22","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:32:22","slug":"in-cameroon-a-rape-becomes-a-dirty-tale-to-shame-lesbians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/in-cameroon-a-rape-becomes-a-dirty-tale-to-shame-lesbians\/","title":{"rendered":"In Cameroon a Rape Becomes a Dirty Tale to Shame Lesbians"},"content":{"rendered":"

What really happened in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon? Does Esther Elis\u00e9e, a young lesbian woman, really exist? Was she really the victim of terrible acts of sexual violence<\/strong> inflicted on her by a group of people? The only source this news has, can be found on L.Frii, a publication by Denise Flinssou, a journalist who writes mainly about gossip. The article<\/a>, supposedly based on a testimony by one of Esther Elis\u00e9e\u2019s cousins and spread by many other African websites, is so unrealistic and full of homophobic, morbid details, that it becomes hard to guess if there is some truth in it. However, it perfectly shows the stereotypes that gay people in Cameroon have to face.<\/p>\n

An unlikely story<\/h3>\n

Even the title of the article is weird, to say the least: “Drama: a lesbian was brutally raped by five fat men<\/em>.” Some websites add sentences like “Here\u2019s all the details<\/em>,” obviously showing that they\u2019re only publishing the story to get clicks. The story starts with a very common stereotype: Esther Elis\u00e9e becomes a lesbian after getting to know a sapphic group of college friends, and she realizes how that would be a good way to earn money<\/strong> and pay for her food, rent, and studies. She finds Nathalie, a rich woman, daughter of a tycoon, and becomes her lover and “concubine<\/em>.” Her “terrible ways<\/em>” inevitably suck her into a life of depravity and she starts seeing other women, unbeknownst to Nathalie.<\/p>\n

The rich lady finds out about her young partner\u2019s infidelity, and the two women fight and break up. But “infidelity is not tolerated when practising homosexuality<\/em>“, and Nathalie comes up with a diabolical plan<\/strong>: she manages to win Esther Elis\u00e9e back and invites her to spend the night at a club, where she offers her a bottle of spiked champagne. The girl falls asleep and gets taken to someone\u2019s home, where five men rape her “so hard that she won\u2019t be able to walk for a month<\/em>.” Esther Elis\u00e9e, fearing even worse acts of violence, flees from Cameroon to a bordering country, where she undergoes “physical modifications<\/em>” that will make her unrecognizable.<\/p>\n

Hiding the problem<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that there is anything true about this tale: the source, and the story itself, are unreliable. The articles that report it, seem to have two separate goals (which are contradictory only in appearance): to get clicks through a dirty story which satisfies the readers\u2019 rape fantasies<\/strong> (which should be obvious, given its title), and to warn lesbian women about the tragic fate that awaits them. Sexual violence is not only once again shown as something that the victim went asking for, but also as a barbaric practice among people far removed from society. Talking about rape as something bizarre and grotesque allows to hide the fact that it\u2019s a big, real problem.<\/p>\n

Pier Cesare Notaro<\/strong>
\ntranslation by Tomas Mascali<\/strong>
\n\u00a92020 Il Grande Colibr\u00ec
\nimmagini: Il Grande Colibr\u00ec<\/p>\n

Leggi anche:<\/strong>
\nLGBT Rights in Senegal: Trudeau\u2019s Commercial Helps Homophobia<\/a>
\nTunisia: Rape Victim Ends Up in Jail Because He\u2019s Gay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What really happened in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon? Does Esther Elis\u00e9e, a young lesbian woman, really exist? Was she really the victim of terrible acts of sexual violence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":25501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[422,564,563],"tags":[5059,5060,5058,5062,5063,5064,5061],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25949,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25947\/revisions\/25949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}