Kampala is one big single sex boys’ school. You would think that there is so much permissiveness, with quick sex being purchasable in our slums for as little as half a dollar, that there wouldn’t be so much mystery about a woman’s body. Right? Wrong.
The brothers in Kampala are in a virtual prison where they are not allowed to see a woman’s body. Or they are in a strict single sex boarding school.
If the prefect caught you looking at a picture of a naked girl and reported you to the teacher, you would be in big trouble. If the teacher forwards your case to the headmaster, your goose would be cooked. If the headmaster calls your parents, you are history.
It is a school because there are all the material amenities. But somehow the freedom is lacking. How else do you explain the hushed excitement of these men at the leaking of nude photos of some regular girl?
At the close of last month, there were some really big stories in town. Death of dignitaries, shooting of innocent people at a suburban shop, a hundred billion shillings meant for a big hospital project vanishing, among many others.
But these did not cause any much discussion, for they paled in significance when the nude photos of a third rate actress leaked. There isn’t much that is remarkable about Ms Martha Somebody, or else the whole world would have heard about her.
I confess I first heard about her when she became all the rage, as every man at the office was talking about her. I requested to be brought up to date and was shown some boring photos of a naked woman in her 20s to mid-30s.
I asked what about them and the men giggled. This happening in a city where a session of quick sex can be bought at Ugsh2,000 or Ksh70! Why don’t the brothers pay Ksh70 to a hungry sex worker and she shows them everything for ten minutes, instead of seeing pictures?
You would think that is a sensible suggestion, right? Wrong. I asked the workmates and they thought I was mad.
“If you were seen going into the makeshift whorehouse where sex costs that little and your wife was told about it, you would have no marriage left,” came the explanation.
“Would you believe your husband if he admitted visiting the whorehouse but said he only went there to view?” I admitted that it would take a naïve woman to buy such a story.
So no wonder the poor men have to jump and whisper their pleas and requests that somebody forwards them the latest nude photo of a plain girl. But do they not access all that pornography on the Internet?
They say those are faraway women who mean nothing to them. But seeing a nude of somebody you know is special, they say.
Fine, how about their dear wives, don’t the brothers see their wives’ bodies as often as they would like? They have not given me an answer to that.
