Tuesday, 11 March 2014

IS CAMPUS DATING EUPHEMISM FOR PROSTITUTION? (With excerpts from Sue Maisha’s ‘Nairobi Nights’)


Not so long ago, before social space was suffocated by blondies like Huddah, there existed a smart hooker called Sue. Her blog ‘Nairobi Nights’ provided for entertaining yet deep and thought- provoking accounts of what twilight girls encounter while in line of ‘duty’. She narrated her K- Street tales with a rare kind of boldness that left moral police scampering for safety while men of different nationalities were attracted to her blog in droves like moths on a light. She broke down her escapades or episodes as she referred to them in a bare- knuckled manner, not as graphic as one would imagine of a prostitution blog but still with a raw creativity and smartness that left most of us glued to her blog.

Her blog profile intro read: These are thoughts, observations and experiences from my prostitution world. Nothing of the soft, sympathy seeking topsy- turvy kind, but straight talk, hard facts and real anecdotes.”

And so for a year or so she built for herself a successful brand as a ‘prostitution blogger’ and even got sponsorship from some local and international online publishers to write several e-books on sex and prostitution. Sex sure does sell. She claimed to have been a Law student before dropping out in favor of prostitution. She set a personal best record of sleeping with a thousand men in her first year on the streets (she did ten years). Sue however stopped blogging claiming to have quit the streets after finding a regular job.

With the benefit of first- hand info about prostitution from Sue’s blog, I sought to draw parallels between that and what we perceive to be ‘relationships’ in mainstream dating especially within campus.

Excerpts from Sue’s blog will be in red text:
When you earn a living having sex, like I do, it’s no longer sin. There is nothing to cause the adrenaline rush […] the other day a man in a new Jeep picked me around 10pm [...] “I want to report my wife” he said as we drove to the Central Police Station. The police are not our best friends and wherever possible we keep our distance. But here he was taking me, almost naked and with ‘prostitute’ written all over me, to a police station […] He drove straight to the compound, and parked near a bus whose passengers some two policemen were frisking. We had sex there. It didn’t last ten minutes, but it was the sweetest and most exciting sex I have had in a long time…”

Many of us in campus come from regular Kenyan families where religion and morality are deeply rooted. How many people however call sex between them and their girlfriends/ boyfriends fornication? In a relationship setting in campus, having sex is usually nothing to feel guilty or even give second thoughts about. What makes you different from Sue and her ilk when in a drunken stupor you and your guy decide to romp at a club’s parking lot? Does being in a relationship then make randy sex any different than when it is done by twilight girls? What is the difference between the guy having sex with his girlfriend and the one who picks one from the brothels or streets? Aren’t both driven by a common need for sex?

There have been discussions about the politically correct way to refer to prostitutes […] The truth is however we don’t give quite a damn about how we are referred […] We actually refer to ourselves and to each other as Malaya; a name perhaps more crude than prostitute. But we are not the only Malaya, very many men in their 20’s and 30’s refer to their girlfriends as Malaya […] the underlying logic is that all women in a way or another are prostitutes. Very few, if any, women would say with a straight face that they never had sex even once with money or security component at the back of their minds. We so called prostitutes are the brave ones to come out in the open and stop beating around the bush; we are in it for the money, the pleasure is secondary…”

There you have it ladies. Sue in her characteristic un- apologetic and non- sentimental fashion bared facts for all of us. Truth be told, most men would rather think of you as their sex toy than their future wife, that’s if there is any glimmer of hope that he’ll end up marrying you. All that men want from you is sex, the rest are just formalities imposed on them by fire- breathing feminists. “Hi Velma, your blog is very creative, I like it!”- He secretly wants to sleep with me. “I like how graciously you walk!”- He’s wondering what other maneuvers my body can do.
Basically the first thing that comes to a man’s mind when a woman is mentioned is sex. And the same way he is sleeping with you is the same way he will pick a girl from the street to sleep with her. Money, money, money! All women light up at the mention of this scarce resource. In college the incentive for sleeping with a boyfriend is normally free regular meals and or drinks, credit, cash and other whatnots. Notice how you normally sulk when your boyfriend shows up at your door with no goodies like some shopping or chocolate?! That is prostitution right there, there is no other way to refer to the act of pegging an incentive on sex. If a girl asks money from a boyfriend and for some goddamned reason he is unable to do so, chances of being denied the honey pot for days or weeks are very real. You are making him pay for it sweetie and that’s prostitution right there.

“Men in their 30’s and 20’s are a weird lot. They are most likely to swindle a prostitute for no good reason other than thinking it is macho to do so. They are also with ego problems. They want a girl to scream, moan and cry in bed […] When a girl is indifferent they feel lesser men […] A man picked me yesterday, near Kengeles, at around one in the morning. We agreed on a figure of two thousand shillings, only to say he only had half the amount […] I wasn’t sure whether he was lying but by virtue of his age, he looked early thirties, probably he was. So I didn’t fake an orgasm, like I usually do. I just stared blankly at the man as he panted, thrusting on top of me. Not a sound left my mouth, my body didn’t twitch and I didn’t smile. It was my way of getting back at him for shortchanging me. As I was clapping inside, looking at him getting frustrated on realizing he wasn’t having an effect on me […] But I have to make good men feel great. I fake the pleasure; I wiggle, get into fits and cry out their name. Do that to a man and he won’t feel a pinch when you ask for more cash […] I have noted men react in two ways when a girl is indifferent… First, the man will dislike the girl and never want to see her again. They dare not bruise their egos again. Second the man might want to redeem himself and his ego by sleeping with the girl again, hoping and praying the girl responds positively […] After our last round of sex and ready to leave I said to him “That your thing disappears inside me, I can’t feel it at all.”

If you truly loved a guy would he ever have to live with the constant fear that he probably doesn’t match up to your sexual expectations and that you’re probably discussing that with your girlfriends? I know of many a frustrated man in college who have been held at ransom in relationships either because their gun shoots at low range or they are kihii. They are too embarrassed to leave knowing that they were lesser men and so they stick around and use all manner of tactics including dishing out cash to cover up for their shortcomings.

 A popular statistic carried out by Lord knows who seeks to hammer the final nail in the coffin by suggesting that 80% of women fake it. Some of my friends confess to faking it for various reasons and love is never part of it. Such women always wait for the guy to push any wrong button like cheating and they won’t hesitate to pull a Sue on them. Why all the manipulation if you claim to be in a relationship? The economics of using that tactic only applies where the desired results should inflict maximum psychological damage to a man while giving a woman an upper hand bargaining position. Hardly sounds like a relationship situation.

“In the formal companies the longer you stay the higher you rise, and the more your pay. In our trade on the streets; the opposite happens; your value decreases as your experience increases. Quoting five years of experience is a turn- off. Many a girl gets to prostitution telling themselves they won’t do it for more than a few months […] But a year goes and another still on the street. The optimal experience is about a year [...] after a year there is a plateau and then the downward curve starts.”

We have all heard of the gold rush that happens in campuses when freshmen join college. What makes men dump their girlfriends in senior classes for freshmen? Why is it that there will be more men running after you while in your freshman year than in final year? Why do women stick to quoting the numbers ‘one’ or ‘two’ when prospective boyfriends inquire about the number of men they’ve slept with? If one is a virgin the easier it is to nail any guy. The parallels in this case are too clear for me to offer any more insight.

While money is good, there is a potential danger if it is the only motivation to get into a relationship. Some liberal women say that sio sabuni yenye itaisha; I beg to differ. After several years or months of sleeping with a guy one does not love (or one who does not love them), it can become both psychologically and physically maxing. Enduring ugly habits like cheating or physical violence all for money is the easiest way to get a front row ticket to hypertension and eventually unhappiness. If sex is the only thing that keeps your relationship going, you might want to refer to yourself as a prostitute, that’s if he hasn’t referred to you as that already.
                                        *****

Am still intrigued by the 80% women that fake it statistic. That means that only 20% of men got game. No comment.

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