Speaking from the Soul

There are three things that are inevitably difficult for any young Black male to attain in our times: 1) a good job 2) scoring a date with a “Yellow Bone” while you are unemployed and 3) securing a purchase of condoms at a store when the cashier is an elderly Black woman.

For as long as I can remember, sex and everything associated with it, has been regarded as a topic too taboo for parents/elders to communicate with their offspring about. The luckiest you can get as a vulnerable teenage seeking advice, is your parent telling you that they don’t want you to bring home a Matric Certificate/Varsity qualification that breathes and is in the form of a human baby, before you get married - that seems to be their version of sex education.

Township parents possess too many reservations about young unmarried people having sex - publicly asking for, or carrying contraceptives as a young person is just as frowned upon in our communities.

Challenges of accessing condoms from conservative communities

As an active individual myself, I have had to face the excruciating ordeal of having to hand over a box of condoms to a Black elderly female cashier. Whenever I have to buy condoms/emergency contraceptive pills (morning-after pills) from a Black woman, a rendition of Ma Agnes from Isidingo seems to play on my mind. I imagine the poor woman thinking to God: “Lord Why?! Why is this child testing my morality as a saved woman of Christ? But I trust you Jehofa toguide him to abstinence. Amen”

I understand the high levels of respect and great deal of obedience a child is inclined to show to an adult, but does that now mean I should turn away and look for an alternative general dealer to get condoms, if the first store was being operated by an elder, as a means to prevent myself from coming across as disrespectful to that elder?

Where or how do we strike the balance between being a responsible sexually-active youth, who has the balls to buy Morning-Afters and condoms from persons old enough to be my parents; and between being a respectful youngster?

I truly believe fornication, teenage sex and even H.I.V, are things that are here to stay for a very long time or until Jesus comes (no pun intended there you filthy minded twit). Therefore our elders need to understand the need for our country to be an example of safe and responsible sex to an already H.I.V-infested Africa continent.

There are only two options to achieving such a socio-economic feat: Abstinence and Contraception. Abstinence itself is following the elusive footsteps of Unicorns. It just doesn’t exist in our communities. With such a highly sexually-active South Africa, parents must relinquish their ignorance embrace and face the reality that condoms are the youth’s friends. Not only will the statistics of teen-pregnancy/unplanned pregnancy be reduced, but also the H.I.V/AIDS monster will starve.

Communities need to start welcoming the open use of contraception and stop looking at them as some sort of taboo. Besides, whether we like it or not, sex is here to stay!

Sometime during the week I came across an article on the Al Jazeera website. The video insert displayed Yoweri Museveni – the incumbent Uganda President – publicly donating a sack filled with $100 000 in cold hard cash to a youth organization, apparently responsible for developmental work within the community.

The glitzy exhibition of the ‘charitable’ deed was broadcast live on national television, and also before hundreds of spectators who were present at the event.

It came as no surprise when the audience applauded franticly and chanted songs of happiness resulting from the gesture. Community members reacted with excitement and showed gratitude, as they possibly would have felt that the money given to the youth group was underserved. Museveni was the hero of the day; his kindness was overwhelming. He was the perfect President.

However, I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but President Museveni is not the saint he made himself out to be when he made the donation. Pending Corruption charges laid against him and somewhat poor governance by his administration, led me to view the donation as a gimmick that played the role of distracting Ugandans from the real problems facing their country.  The money so charismatically handed-out was an act of sweeping dirt under the carpet, and subsequently taking credit for being an efficient cleaner.

But the real reason for this article is to focus that President Museveni example to us, South Africans. We also love fairy-tale stories from our government though we know quite well that temporary solutions to problems, and empty-promises won’t benefit our reality.

Government/Political Parties pose fronts and temporary charismatic gestures to lure us at a time when they need something from us.

Surely each person with half-a-brain knows that the displays of kindness and exceptional character posed by leaders during campaigns (usually before election time), will be short-lived. Candidates who campaign in hope of assuming leadership positions go out of their ways to kiss babies and shake hands with complete strangers at rallies, just to come across as being humble ordinary citizens; or to make us believe that they are “part of us”. Something like the time when Tokyo Sexwale – who had just been sworn in as the Minister of Human Settlement (previously called Housing) at the time – went to spend the night in a tiny RDP house that had just been built courtesy of his department (I suppose the gesture was to ensure locals that the houses were so safe that an elite businessman of his stature would sleep in one).

These are just a couple of gimmicky exhibitions, from a whole ocean of others which will be tedious to mention, that political leaders employ to charm in desperate-for-a-fairy-tale people in order to secure their loyalty.

Another problem, is that we allow governmental departments to pose fronts and/or use new big English words to make it seem as if newer and better policies are being implemented. Here are a few examples:

The Education system, which is a mess, has been renamed so many times – from O.B.E to F.E.T and NSC to C.A.P.S – in order to blur the past failures to govern it properly, with new abbreviations that fool people to thinking new solutions are in place.

Another front is when positions are being filled in by new holders. This makes me think of President Zuma’s tendency to reshuffle his Cabinet of Ministers; whereby Ministers hold new offices in the hope that they will perform better in a field they have no experience in. Furthermore, Eskom will make us feel indebted to them for not cutting our electricity in a time where they spend all their resources in rectifying their own gross negligence and top management bonuses. Condescending public announcements made by Eskom about how low or high our electricity usage is, and “thanking” us for keeping our usage low, infuriate me. This is also a patronizing act of SANRAL in offering road-users “discounts” on their e-tags for using the road less and paying the monthly e-toll fee.

We are being robbed. And instead of sincere accountability on part of government being taken, we are being ‘rewarded’ like a victim of robbery being given some of his own money back by the robber due to the victim being a good-sport during the robbery process.

Battered-Wife Syndrome symptoms

Just as a woman who knows that her partner is a compulsive abuser and shows no prospects of reform, so are South Africans with Politicians. We know that politicians will not stop lying to us, yet we follow on with blind faith hoping for the best to somehow occur.

We applaud Jacob Zuma on promising absurd fantasies such as dishing out approximately 400 000 (four hundred thousand) jobs during a single term of his presidency. We listen to, and believe these lies with so much vigour that we can also be blamed for being gullible.

This goes further to the ANC blackmailing citizens to vote for them by playing the “We defeated Apartheid and won freedom for you” trump card. Fear of the resurrection of apartheid is instilled in voters by alleging that the ANC is the only truly democratic party – whereby voting for another party such as the “white” DA, could jeopardise freedom by re-enforcing apartheid.

Let our votes and memberships be more valuable than temporary solutions to problems, such as politicians forking out a lump sum of money to people as a means to distract them from real problems.

Let us withhold our votes for parties until they can prove that they are worthy of our trust. They’ve had years to prove their efficiency on Service Delivery and their capability of policy implementation.

I appeal that we relinquish our false-hope when it comes to baby-kissing and township-visiting politicians. The Musevenis of our government should know that throwing money at problems will not solve them, but that we need competence and policy implementation before we can applaud.

South African residents, more especially the youth, are highly influenced by the usage of the English language as it is one of the commonly employed medium of communication in our country.

Amongst the eleven (11) official languages of South Africa, English continues to prevail as the widely spoken language of our schools, even in township or rural schools – whereby the teachings of indigenous languages are held to a high esteem.

With so much exposure to the English language, through schools and daily communicational interactions, is the South African youth losing its cultural heritage –by means of sidelining their home languages – or is being Anglophiled an attribute worth preserving in the youth?

Is it bad to think in English?

I cannot remember who it was, but a while ago certain individuals were having a conversation in which they were inquiring with one another if whether they thought and/or dreamt in English or their native languages.  It seemed to come off as an already-known surprise to them that they had these thoughts and dreams in the Anglo language. Laughter and awe seemed to accompany the discovery as these individuals finally thought about the oblivious fact.  One of the said individuals disclosed that this finding was something of a bad quality, almost as a shame actually.

It provoked me to think about whether we as South Africans, are so heedless of our native languages that we go to the extent of having visualizations and thoughts in foreign languages? Or if to view it from a positive light and reckon that English is utilized to its extent due to South Africans being highly educated, and being in touch with Globalization?

My opinion is that there is nothing wrong with the conduct of thinking in English and dreaming in English - (however, South Africans have a strong will to cuss in their home languages in order to penetrate the malediction so deep to the receiving party that he/she will leave scathed from the verbal altercation) – as this is the result of educational progression on the side of a more sociable youth that can easily interact with the rest of the globe through the language. Our model C schools seem to be conducting a great job in instilling a World-renowned medium of communication, used across many facets like social networks and some of the greatest countries. Therefore, thinking in English is a form of inward expression of who you are as a modern individual privileged enough to be in institutions rendering good education.

Preservation of cultural languages

Surely just like the rhinos are a paramount concern for us (by “us” I mean White people), native languages should also be protected from extinction – perhaps I’m being a little too dramatic by saying extinction, but endangerment perhaps?

A White Afrikaans person can barely ever be seen/heard communicating in English, or any other language for that matter, with another Afrikaans speaking person. Alternatively, people of British origin will highly unlikely speak Afrikaans – or an African language – with another English speaking person.  So why is it that you will find Black people interacting in English even though they share the same native language? Why can we not, as Africans with African home languages utilize those languages in platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and iChat?

Is it a mere factor of convenience, or have we found it so difficult to articulate ourselves thoroughly through our native languages that English must play mediator?

My notion is that an equal or almost equal balance between English and native languages should be upheld. It makes no sense to be a Dlamini or Sithole born in the confines of South African borders, but be unable to speak your home language, especially to your elders who probably can’t speak a single word of English. You’ll likely come across as a pompous snob who pays no respect to his roots. Furthermore, in an ever-transforming South Africa with a better hope for education and academic empowerment, you’ll come across as being a rural illiterate who does not even deserve to be listened to if you cannot fluently speak English.

The truth is that being fluent in multiple languages which fall within the sphere of SA official languages, you’ll be better advanced than individuals who are monolingual. This applies to social, corporate and literature circumstances.

 So know enough of Setswana to hold down a conversation with your grandmother ko di plaasing, while having a diverse enough English vocabulary to hold an analytical, smart conversation with a Mlungu.

The news of the death of Britain’s original Iron Lady have been totally rampant on a large magnitude of news bulletins.

Margaret Thatcher died at the age of 87 on Monday the 8th of April of 2013. Britain and many other countries are mourning the death of the prolific woman who became the first Prime Minister of the UK. And with death of a person as famous as she is, comments made by people on how she lived her life, are inevitable. Some mourn her death with grief and sorrow, while others rejoice at her passing with parties and utterances of how happy they are that she died.

THATCHER AND HER FLAWS

Margaret Thatcher as an iconic female of the 80’s, who defied gender and political boundaries, has a lot in common with today’s fallible public personalities. Even though Thatcher and these soon-to-be-mentioned persons achieved great feats in their respective fields of expertise, they became subjects of great public shunning and disgust, due to one or a couple of misguided steps they took.

Figures that come to mind are: Chris Brown - his assault on Rihanna. Lance Armstrong - his fraudulent intake of banned substance. Tiger Woods - his Lothario activities and Oscar Pistorius’ alleged murder of Reeva. That was just to name a few of iconic personalities that have achieved splendid excellence, yet had proverbial dark clouds hanging over their success.

Though Thatcher has received praise and recognition for her past Ministerial activities after her death, others accuse her of being a person who supported the institution of Apartheid (including calling the ANC a terrorist party); and also a war enthusiast whom initiated war against Falkland residents during her tenure as Prime Minister.

WEIGHING THE FLAWS AGAINST THE FEATS

Let’s face it! Humans are more prone to focus on another individual’s faults rather than their deeds for the sake of making themselves feel better about their lack of achievements and skills. Yes, we should not ignore the mistakes committed just because of good things previously performed. Just because Oscar won athletic medals for himself and the country, does not mean he should be acquitted of the charge facing him. Just because Tiger Woods became the pride of Black golfers and the USA at large, does not mean his extra-marital should be disregarded. Therefore, it will be unfair to Apartheid victims and Falkland residents for the entire world to just turn a blind eye to Thatcher’s failure to recognize apartheid and her war against Falkland.

However, this does not mean that one or a few mistakes committed should overshadow years of accomplishments and extreme courage. Thatcher’s feats and works count against her flaws. Her Iron Suit may have caused some pain, but the history of courage and political skill she possessed will be embroidered in World Books for infinity.

I am not a coy one to admit that I have had quite a significant amount of sexual relationships within the time span of my life. Like any other ordinary young person, I’ve experienced different types of such affairs. The tally comprises of a variety ranging from meaningless sex with total strangers, to organized coitus with fellow female friends (A.K.A Friends With Benefits), and ultimately meaningful love-making to someone I deeply love. Now before you condemn me of being a former promiscuous hound, let us first look at the supposed points-of-departure that separate the overall essence of each “type” of sex a person can have, from each other. In other words, what really makes sex with a stranger different from sleeping with a beloved partner?

It is somewhat obvious that your initial response might be that making love to a beloved has a deeper emotional meaning, than the mere physical pleasure enjoyed by meaningless sex. However, is it that simple and clear cut? Or are these terms sometimes used loosely to fit a general image? My aim is to analyze the physical and mental operations of parties during sex to try and answer the question.

Scientists from the Pluripotentnurse.com website reveal that certain hormones are released from the brain to the body during sex, to make an individual feel the pleasures associated with coitus. The most significant hormones secreted include Serotonin, Oxytocin and Prolactin. All these chemicals are responsible for making an individual feel drowsy after sex; making you have feelings of deep affection towards your lover and also the feeling of stress being relieved from your brain.

What this basically means is that whether you are having sex with a person you recently met a few hours ago at a club, or laying with your long-term partner, your body (brain) will generally feel or act the same in both situations.

So then how come do people talk about that “deeper” connection that exudes stronger-than-average feelings when sleeping with a person they’ve loved for a longer period of time?

The way I see it, “Making Love” does not only consist of having your pelvis thrusting on the your significant other’s pelvic area to create a whirlwind of hormonal secretion in the body. Making love is more than sex. It is the act of revealing to your partner that you appreciate him/her for who they truly are without expecting anything in return. It is flirting and letting them know you cannot wait to be in contact with them; or doing something purely for the reason of seeing them happy. All those feelings of affection, care and appreciation combined together with the physical intimacy, ultimately constitutes love-making.

Therefore, you may have sex without necessarily making love; and alternatively, you can make love without having sex.

We are all fortunate enough to be amongst the living during the acclaimed 21st century, amidst the year 2013. What this means is that we are living in a glorious period of technological advancements, civil societies and more so, the days in which women rule the world. Through many centuries, women have convincingly transcended from the inferiority that was unfairly bestowed upon them by the male race. They are now eligible to hold prestigious positions of life, such as being Heads of State, CEO’s, artists and still manage to be fit mothers. However, with all these achievements and great historical feats, misogyny still lingers in the air like a terrible stench coming from the armpits of our Northern Africa brothers and sisters (I am going to insert a “LOL” in this sentence so that it doesn’t sound too harsh to our African neighbours).

DEFINITION

For my readers who were unfortunate enough to be learned under the Bantu education system or for those that received the Limpopo-textbook-type-of-education, what misogyny basically means is: The hatred or dislike of women by men. I know right?! Who in their right minds would hate women? Well no matter how absurd the idea of misogyny sounds, it is a sordid reality.

Different Types of Misogyny

There are many forms of misogyny out there, consisting of: sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women. Although all forms are apparent in society, the most common type in my eyes is that of Sexual Objectification.

Sexual objectification basically means treating another person merely as an instrument (object) towards one’s sexual pleasure, and a sex object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of sexual gratification. This type of misogyny happens every hour of every day. It is so common amongst people that we (including myself), do it without even being aware that we are enforcing it. Simple acts of labelling a female as a “Yellow Bone” or “Pakistan” are examples of objectification. This may extend to further labels such as “…bad bitch…whore…slut” or even rating them as if they were a test score by saying that a girl is a 4 or 8, depending on whether you are looking at a fairly beautiful girl or the cosmetically challenged ones. You also get those township individuals that sit at street corners merely to try their luck with women and harassing the women to get their attention. Further examples include talking down & the unconsented touching of women who followed “careers” as Strippers or Prostitutes; Or even insisting on sleeping with a woman just because word has it that ‘she gets around’ and gives the meanest blow jobs.

Misogyny in pop culture

It is not surprising to find this unwelcomed behaviour from Rap artists/entertainers who use misogyny as a means to address women in their songs. I need not try to give examples of this, due to the fact that almost any Hip-Hop/R&B song you will listen to, labels women under offensive terms. Even the music videos contain content of semi-naked women, also known as Video Vixens, (side-eyes UJ girls) prancing around in bikinis for the gratitude of males watching the video. However, it is not only rap artists who are culprits, listen to Rock, Pop or even movies and TV advertisements; the Pop Culture has seemingly accepted the behaviour. What surprises me though, is the use of objectification of females by females themselves. Prominent figures like the songstress superstar Beyoncé use labelling. She can be heard in her songs referring to herself as a bitch. Supplementary to that, her husband, Jay-Z also uses the word to refer to Beyonce. Further popular figures include Nicki Minaj and Rihanna, whom both loosely use profane labels to address women. Even in our RSA shores, we find songs such as DJ Tira’s “Jezebel” which went to become a major hit in the music industry. The song experienced enjoyment from both men and women alike. So this raises the question of whether we as humans accept some types of misogyny over others; or if misogyny should be totally erased from human social behaviour?

My thoughts (A.K.A the truth)

It seems as if misogyny itself is a bitch, because it is quite difficult to completely understand it and its conditions. Does it make it slightly appropriate to call women bitches if they themselves label each other that? Do you treat a female stripper in the same esteem as you would a female Managing Director at a big company? Is it alright to sing out the lyrics of rap songs containing misogynist content, or even to be in a serious relationship with a video vixen that mostly appears half-naked in Durban music videos (side-eye to KZN girls)? My opinion is just to treat women with the utmost respect and extend fairness and equality to them. If however you want to call her a whore or bitch, as a term of endearment (yes that is possible) please do it in private and make sure it does not offend her. Now I have to leave, A$AP Rocky’s “Fucking Problem” track is playing, I love that joint. RESPECT

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Jurisprudence class in which we are taught about the Philosophical areas of law. It was startling to arrive at class and find a white American middle-aged man, serving as a guest lecturer that time, announcing that he will be teaching us about African Moral theories and Ubuntu. I know right!?! An American with an American accent teaching us, Africans, about our humanity. I must say that he did a real tremendous job that day, the extensive knowledge he possessed was just so enlightening to us. Halfway through the class, the subject of homosexuality arose and not surprisingly, everyone in class, including the class sloths became wide awake. Homosexuality, especially man-on-man action, was dubbed one of the most frowned upon immoral acts Africans can practise. As a matter of fact, some African countries have the Death Penalty as a sanction for homosexuality. Others punish by means of public whippings, imprisonment and/or casting the gay individuals far away from the community, as some people believe that homosexuality might be contagious. My mind wonders why, after so many centuries, homosexuality cannot be taken in the same light as previously frowned upon conducts which have been impuned? Things like Seduction, Adultery and Blasphemy used to be serious crimes, now they go unpunished, why can’t homosexuality share the same impunity?

So after the class I mentioned earlier, few of my class mates and I had a minor debate over the topic. Participants in this debate ranged from Venda guys, Pedi guy from Limpopo and a Zimbabwean international. You can just make out from the cultural list I gave you that it was not an easy debate for one to get his point through.

Not surprisingly, almost all of them were against the notion of homosexuality and deemed it unnatural and disgusting, amongst other things.

The common factor for their disapproval of the controversial lifestyle, was that it was against practises of Christianity (and all the other major religions). I therefore steered us away from the use of religion as a commander against the lifestyle. The subsequent reason they raised was that homosexuality did not find its origin in African soil, and that we inherited it from “The Americans”. In supplement to that statement, they mentioned that it if it were to grow rampant over the globe, then the rate of births will decrease significantly, as reproduction between same-sex partners is virtually impossible.

Now for one, my argument was based on the fact that gay people did not choose their sexual orientation, as it is scientifically proven that homosexuality stems from the womb while the person is still an embryo. And while we were still under the Christian view, I raised the teaching that Jesus conducted on judging other people. To paraphrase it, the passage stipulates that regardless of how other people live their lives, it is not within our authority to pass judgements. And because homosexuality is not contagious (I hope), there is really no need to fear that it will pass on you or your loved ones. It’s either they were born with it or not. As a human being, speaking from my experiences, you cannot force yourself to have certain feelings or constraint yourself from feeling a certain way about a person. If you have deep feelings of affection for another person, you cannot simply decide to stop feeling that way about a person, or if you do not like someone, it’s virtually impossible to force yourself to romantically liking that person. Same applies to queer humans, they cannot simply turn off the feelings they possess for people in their same sex. It is just cruel and inhumane to expect them to redirect their feelings and love away from their gay partners just to please us heterosexual people.

I am for the support of amicable treatment and equal rights for homosexual people. I mean imagine how behind we would be in terms of fashion if it were not for their expertise in the department. 

So you’re a young man looking for a great night out with friends at a local club (if they require you to down more than 4 shots of tequila for the night, they are not your friends, they are assholes), and while your friends are on some serious Hugh Hefner tip, you alone at the bar having an Umbrella-hanging Virgin Cocktail. Any straight man in your position would feel obliged to approach any close-by chick and get some action too (unless if you have a girlfriend at home who is probably less attractive than those table-dancing hoochies at the club). Easy formula to get to join your friends’ Playboy club, is to get an ugly chick whom is also desperate to acquire attention from the opposite sex right? Wrong! The easiest approach is spotting a girl with Daddy issues.

Psychologists around the globe believe that it is essential for a female to have a healthy relationship with her father or a father figure, in order to secure a healthy relationship with other males the girl will meet later in her life. Before a girl has her first crush on a boy or eventually starts dating, her relationship with her father is said to have already determined how she will interact with her boyfriend(s).

Now if the relationship between father and daughter is said to be a good one, it is generally believed that the girl will interact positively with other males, and basically have high regards of men close to her. Amongst other things, this entails that the female will have a steady and solid relationship with her partner due to the level of trust and high esteem her father has instilled in her when dealing with other men. This simply means her chances of promiscuity are far less than your average…slut, or more sexually liberated woman, to be politically correct.  

On the other hand, girls whom either have had bad relationships with their fathers, or had absent fathers, are believed to be generally more sexually liberated, as I would like to call it. Urbandictionary.com gives the most brilliant definition of the term Daddy Issues (formally called Electra Complex). Their definition goes as follows: Whenever a female has a fucked up relationship with her father, or absence of a father figure during her childhood, it tends to spill into any adult relationship they embark on, usually to the chagrin of any poor male in their life. 

Such an accurate definition is it not? The girl had a fucked up relationship with her father, therefore she tends to fuck any Tom, Dick (emphasis right here) and Harry. So the next time your friends boast about the amount of sex partners they have conquered, ask if the girl had a good relationship with her father, and if the answer is in the negative, you count the girl as a half, this will cut down the number of sex  partners significantly. This is only fair as getting a girl with Daddy issues can be compared to hunting a Wildebeest with only three legs.

I don’t know if there is a manner in which this condition can be reversed or not. What I know is that your chances of getting laid are higher if you score a girl suffering from Electra Complex, and hopefully you’ll get your 15 minutes of Barney Stinsonness from the encounter. So get out there dude and tap some My-father-never-hugged-me-as-a-child ass.

LADIES: THE VIEWS CONTAINED IN THIS ARTICLE DO NOT BELONG TO THE AUTHOR. I WAS MERELY STATING NJE