Swahili

Msagaliwa

The expression Msagaliwa literally refers to men who grind Liwa, an aromatic wood, to produce a cosmetic paste. This word is used to refer to the eunuch, the weak man, henpecked, impotent, who acts as a servant of women. The word Khanithi also expresses this sense of an incomplete and defective man, and it is used to point to homosexual men. It is an expression that derives from the Bantú language, according to Porter M.A. in his work “Talking at the margins: Kenyan discourses on homosexuality”