In pursuit of happiness
It’s always crazy the stuff your ears pick when you are out minding your own business. I watched a guy spend his money on a group of women the other day where the conversation became as explicit as it gets. Consenting adults so what, I mused. Then I heard one of the “ladies” say, “Some of us have been picked up by strangers and we ended up spending the night as far as Gwanda. But why do you men always insist on using condoms? You should go get tested if you are so concerned about Aids. We have had enough of these condoms. We want it raw.” “It” of course being sex.
I was given a jolt, wondering of course if there is any woman who claims prostitution as her way of life who actually has the luxury to make such demands, if there is any man who actually “sees reason” and literally throws caution to the wind.
I wondered if the ladies had themselves bothered to get tested, but because there is never any logic involved in these matters, this is an area where one can afford to impose their demands on others and still afford not to subscribe to the same! I suppose from the age old crap informed by the hypocrisy contained in the aphorism “do as I say and not as I do.”
I pondered how the female legislators who have brought sex to the public domain with such radicalism you would think this was the ultimate elixir for Zimbabwe multi-pronged woes would respond to such chutzpah, which by the way would be same kind the honourable MPs have exhibited.
I pondered on the connect between the government stats we get concerning HIV/Aids prevalence, whether indeed the country is winning the fight with such sex workers mocking clients who insist on condom use.
Of course these musings must not be read as claims that men do not make such demands themselves to forego “safe sex” as sex itself remains a site of struggle, of power and control which researchers note has been complicated by the patriarchy that continues to dominate the dynamics of such things as who decides the use of prophylactics.
I remembered a e-chat I had with a researcher working on HIV/Aids in Zimbabwe who intimated that the stats may indeed dwindle nationally yes, but still find new infections on the up within a given demographic. And the conversation I was listening to seemed to put these issues into perspective.
I asked myself if these ladies could actually make such demands in obvious pursuit of ultimate happiness, why the pleasure principle always has that mysterious proclivity to absent commonsense.
I recalled the words of Mark Twain: “Of all delights of this world man (and woman) cares most for sexual intercourse. He (she) will go any length for it – risk fortune, character, reputation, life itself.” (c.1906)