The Politics of Sex – we have it MORE!

You cannot take politics out of politics.  Kwale governor Salim Mvurya recently said “Much as we welcome tourists to our county, it is immoral for them to bring undesirable alien practices that mess up our cultures and traditions."  The governor also said that he “will not sit back and watch some unscrupulous foreigners engage in activities that are spiteful to our [Kwale?]customs and embarrassing to [Kwale] county.”

Now it is not clear how much of what Salim says is coming from a position of personal conviction or the need for political theatrics. There is no way the good governor can stop anyone from booking into any of the hotels in Kwale County, and even if he could, management of the criminal justice system is under the central government – in other words his are just political posturing. But he is a good politician, and he has a lesson for us.

Unfortunately political positioning is one area where sexual minority rights and even advocates for access to health for sexual minorities have failed – Understanding the politics of sexual politics. While feminists of various shades (from the radical to the Kenyan version that assume subservience-to-divinely-created-misogyny is feminism), hold that sexual politics is about power relations between genders – sexual minorities have to be a little more political than that. 

I think as sexual minorities we should advance a view of politics of sexual politics to be about “who is doing who and how often.” Because we are denied institutional framework to police and control who we do and inevitably how often we do it, we have the freedom to do it as many times and with as many people as we like. 

Now I have only arrived at this view recently after doing some work with sex workers. I must say I had not reflected a whole lot on sex work, besides the obvious human rights framework. But in the course of interactions with sex workers I realized there is not only a business/entrepreneurial framework but also a political one. The business framework relates to how the sex work service is marketed – the marketing mix (or 7 P’s). I think sex work has not sufficiently thought through this framework – and they need to pronto because they have one of the most sought after services in the market place. 

But the political framework is even more interesting. This is because; everyone wants to project the image of having the best but privately hoping others are having worse. But you see the “best” is not defined, and this is one classic case where the “grass will always be greener on the other side.” Because we are ‘uncontrolled’ we must define [and have] the ‘best’ in terms of plurality and regularity. This may sound like the sexual revolution/liberation, of the 70s and 80s – but did we ever have ‘that’ revolution?

My tribesmen the Kikuyu are very fanatical about male circumcision – come to think about it, even female circumcision. The reason why every kikuyu adult male (or almost everyone) is circumcised is because the tribe provides no exceptions. It does not matter whether one likes it or not, every male must get circumcised. It does not matter whether one is disabled, educated, moneyed or not, or even haemophiliac, there are no exceptions. It is the one rule that absolutely has no exceptions.

In their wisdom “exceptions” create openings for relativism. Unfortunately the current moralists in our society do not know that. Since they have opted to exclude us from contractual relationships (ostensibly and quite foolishly because they want to protect marriage), we have been handed ample space for us to be relativists about sex and sexuality – and that should be our politics. We are not bound by the rules – and our grass is truly greener! That must become our political rallying call, regardless of whether we are individually believe it or we are merely posturing. 

Now some fellow will attempt to quote "public health imperatives." But you see, public health is one of the Public Goods. The benefits and costs are shared by all members of the society.  From our politics - we enjoy the benefits, but the costs are borne by the entire society! Unfortunately, that is just the way it is, all because they choose to exclude us.  By their own choosing, they get to hold the shorter end of the stick - not bad at all from where we stand. And that is good politics.