Pudendic cult and public discourse: Pornogrammar as a rhetorical strategy in Ghana’s public spaces

A careful study of the Akan tradition reveals a rich lode of sex humour in fisherfolk talk, street-side comments, drinking bar banter, folk music, cultivated music, advertising, and other public spaces. The present paper argues that the proliferation of sexual innuendos in Ghana is driven by the Akan veneration of the pudenda – a pudendic cult – which is canonised through puberty festivals, fertility rituals, erotic proverbs, and other cultural productions such as the Akan goldweight, folksongs, and town names. Extending Roland Barthes’ framework, pornogrammar, the study provides a qualitative examination of data from Akan proverbs, folk music, and verbal arts with an emphasis on the rhetorical strategies employed to negotiate sex humour without breaching verbal decorum. The study concludes that although Akan cultural practices provide the basis for the rampant sexual expressiveness, the Akan language also furnishes sophisticated linguistic resources for constructing rhetorical façades in public discourse.