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| VIOLATED: A school girl after police officers arrested her and colleagues on a drug fuelled sexual binge in a public service vehicle. She was arrested with drugs concealed in her panties |
In Kenya sex is a
private matter often taken in strict privacy and never talked about openly in
public due to taboo which creates controversial when we are faced with
immediate public debate.
Takes for example in the past two days when Kenyan social
media scene was awash about a sexual tape of a man called #Mollis (Morris)
having sex with a girl who is unwilling.
In the tape, the girl is heard asking the #Mollis why he did
not show up the previous day, before the man callously retorting if she needed
sex then. The girl briefly requests #Mollis to come back tomorrow.
In the heat of sex the woman is heard groaning and pleading
with #Mollis to stop citing being tired, pleas which are ignored.
Already #KOT has been awash with the tape with Kenyans creating
funny memes while other condemning the tape as a show of the country’s intolerant
rape culture and disrespect to women.
In the same day, a photo of a nude school girl arrested by
police while on a binge in a bus has been circulated online.
The girl, in a major disregard to her rights was photographed
with her bra visible and her white and maroon panties stuffed with bhang and
matchboxes pulled down exposing her pubic hair.
We were shocked how high school students heading home from
school could end up in a drug fuelled sexual frenzy in a public service
vehicle.
As a country, we need to embrace our sexuality and make the
debate to be more open from personal relationship with our lovers, children,
parents and neighbours.
In this denial we often react with shock or humour when
things we think of as taboos or private fantasies come out in public to
challenge acceptability and show a wider behavior as a country.
The same reaction was treated to US biologist Alfred Kinsey
in 1940-50s when he published the revolutionary Kinsey Report which is a
collection of two books that extensively interviewed sexual orientation of
approximately 6,000 Americans.
The results shocked the nation to realise sexual behaviours
considered as ‘deviant” like homosexuality, extra-marital affair in women, sadomasochism
among others were active in the society.
The report shaped research and policies on sex in the country.
We need a similar professional report as what #Mollis’ tape and the school girl’s
nude photo is but an informal report.
Try and consider how the public reacted when nude photos of Kenyans
having sex in a public park at Muliro Gardens in Kakamega or leaked lurid SMSes
sent to the popular Classic FM’s morning drive show.
Or how we are quick to consider gay as a non-issue in Kenya when
our country top the globe in searching for gay porn on Google.
All these should throw a gauntlet to our social scientists
to pull a Kinsey move and help scientifically map the country sex report.
