Sex is just the ten per cent of intercourse

Electricity has changed nightlife in ‘shagz’. We do not interact with the night the same. I do not remember the last time I saw a firefly. Even night runner stories are scarce. With ‘stima’, you can do what you do in your house in Nairobi at night; watch TV and have all your devices on, tracking trending news.

Since it is a single TV set, my nephews hog it, watching one action series after another. This night, after a long day transplanting veggies in the hot sun, I really needed a stiff drink and a good movie to wind down my day. My nephew insisted the series, he had selected was ‘dope’. I find his taste in entertainment appalling but I was trying to keep an open mind.

I should have read a book. The storyline was going nowhere. The plot was bland, the characters one-dimensional and I wondered why anyone would go through this sort of punishment in the name of entertainment.

We were watching the series so as to trash it, as we do with Nollywood movies that are so bad, they are good. Then a scene came on, and our redeeming actor who played a reckless fun-seeker dragged two high, giggling, women with svelte bodies for a steamy romp in bed. After a few lines of cocaine.

My nephew turned to me and asked, “Is this the kind of fun you guys used to have?”

I wanted to exaggerate, proclaim my ‘badness’ but instead, I told him, “I wish”. I had the same ménage trois fantasies at some point in my life. To have two beautiful women getting hot and bothered and equally devoted to fulfilling your desires is one of the most oversold perks of machismo.

This was just acting and I went on a lengthy lecture on the power of the sex scene in cinema and how it was just like a cover model in a newspaper magazine used to lure viewers.

I was not answering his question. I had switched to lecture mode. My sexual advice to him through his teenage years amounted to, “If you ever have sex, please use a condom?” Do not get some ratchet woman you met in the club pregnant. I am not ready to be a grandfather”.

In short, be responsible.

I knew he would have to figure it out on his own like a man because sex was something we never talked about outside of conquests or consequences.

Growing up, my uncles all exaggerated stories of their exploits and my father was silent. If there are any lessons to be learned from the experiences, it would be my job to learn from their repression of all matters emotional and address my feelings about sexuality all in stoic stride.

What he wanted was my truth. To tell him where those wild women who were ready for anything could be found? What did one have to do in order to be a desirable male? I felt sorry for this generation of young men.

He lived in a world where sex was all about instant gratification and relentless desire. It was preached that promiscuity was wrong, as was corruption but everywhere he looked it was glorified. What really mattered was not getting caught. Real men broke the rules with reckless abandon and those who held power could get away with transgression.

The ones who stuck to one woman had been trapped, subdued and contained. I suppose, he feared that he would be forced to settle down to one person before he had explored the field and had his fill.

I did not know how to explain to him that desire was a recipe for havoc if it was the only thing between two people. That sex was really not about performance and perfect bodies.

Sex was so much deeper than what we were taught in the rough school of masculinity. What we saw out here was only the 10 per cent, the tip of the iceberg. The genital-centred sexuality where pleasure is good. More pleasure is better.

Sex is a natural part of human development but in our society, there is no room allowed for honesty and understanding.

I wanted to tell him that good sex is like an iceberg. We start out by focussing on the 10 percent on that is visible on the surface and rarely notice what is under the surface. The 90 percent of persistence, surrender, fear, insecurities, failure, sacrifice and commitment that we go through to sustain an amazing physical connection that lasts beyond the sheets.

It does not involve just swapping of fluids but of feelings and commitment to understanding the roots of one’s desires and coming to terms with one’s own truth.

For a man must find his fulfilment within himself and not outside his self. There was no partner out there to complete you and ignite the lost parts of ourselves. That he would have to do himself.