Irish-Nigerian author, singer and actor Obioma Ugoala has experienced fetishization and prejudice playing Shakespearean nobility and musical generals on London’s stage.

He discusses the promise and pain of Black masculinity and sexuality in his book ‘The Problem with my Normal Penis.’ The paperback version was released with the new title, ‘The Making of a Man (and why we're so afraid to talk about it.)

Inspired to write it after a fellow actor said to him, “Black men just have higher sex drives than white men,” Obi was initially angry at his friend for not recognizing the damaging trope of hyper-sexualized Black men. “There was also this deep pity of how he had been taught, and how I had been taught to be a Black man,” he says, hoping the book will help his children “grow up in a world where they're doing things differently.”

The Adventures From the Bedrooms of African Women Podcast is a production of AQ Studios in partnership with Masi Media. Selly Thiam is the AQ Studios CEO and Mercy Githaiga is our operations manager, Frederica Boswell is the senior producer, audio editors are Tevin Sudi and Mercy Barno and Lucas Ngao is our social media manager.

Our theme music is Damn by Ria Boss and music from this episode comes from Epidemic sounds.

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