Legalize what exactly?

There can be no surprise that I’ve chosen to write about this.  It’s like these people bait me with their foolishness…  I know it’s not the end of the year, but I think we need to give an honorary Kai Nikii? Foolish Plans Award to our mayor.  Your Worshipness, Most Excellent Georgie, I bow down to your genius.  Tell me sir, what stroke of brilliance led you to come up with this most amazing plan?  Was it that trip to Amsterdam that got you thinking, and if so, is weed next? 

For any of you lost right now, clearly you’re not living in or around Kenya right now so let me fill you in.  Our genius mayor is proposing to legalise prostitution in Nairobi and now everyone plus their mother has their hypocritical panties in a bunch.  Turns out that for a city obsessed with sex, we prefer to do it undercover, and then tell everyone about it on morning radio.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story came out last week with Georgie the Great announcing to the world (a bunch of NGO types) that the plan to harmonise by-laws concerning prostitution was in the works.  I wasn’t there personally, but from the write up I assume the press conference, if any, went something like this:

Georgie:          We plan to make prostitution legal in the capital.

Idiot press:       Eh?  Why? 

Georgie:          Because male and female commercial sex workers are facing harassment from police and clients alike, they need protection... 

Idiot press:       Protection?  Like condoms?

Georgie:          These men and women are approached by groups of three who then bundle them into vehicles…

Idiot press:       So you plan to protect them personally?

Georgie:          The council shall offer security, once the laws are harmonised.

Idiot press:       Like the security given to hawkers…

Georgie:          Eh?

Not very coherent I know, but that’s what the article read like.  There's a reason I call them idiots...

For the past week we’ve had an unending stream of unsolicited statements and letters to the editor rejecting this most brilliant plan wholesale.  Our new finance minister, he of the rat eating fame, told us in no uncertain terms that he does not want any monies from ‘this kind of business‘.  So you’ll eat rats but wont bank a whore’s cheque?  The Archdeacon of Kerugoya says the church will take on such immoralities ‘head on’.  Do I even need to insert the joke here?  James from Dar claims that perverted sex was the ‘in-thing’ in Sodom and Gomorrah, and like those doomed cities, we too are on the brink of ‘divine judgement’, yaani we’re about to become a lot more salty.  A self proclaimed ‘youth’ called Jane was ‘dismayed‘ that we are ‘aping the west‘ and ‘destroying our African values‘, while Martin says prostitution was ‘unheard of in Africa‘ and this proposal is ‘sickening‘.  Really?  The white man invented whores?  Actually, they might be on to something there, the white man is the one who came and stopped us from shagging each other like bunnies, therefore…

You’re probably expecting me to come out in support of said ‘vice’ no?  And I would, except that I’m convinced the illegality of the profession is what makes it so enticing.  It’s a classic forbidden fruit scenario, its what makes it both guilt-laden, for the moralist in you, and guilt-free, for the capitalist also in you, it‘s a win-win for both sides.  I say live and let live, there’s bigger fish to fry, and crucify.  Last time I checked the idiot stealing my taxes wasn’t a prostitute, at least not that kind anyway.   

I think we’re all missing the point, and the story, here.  Instead of getting hysterical over the oldest profession, which in case you hadn’t noticed is not going anywhere any time soon, we need to focus more closely on what Georgie was saying.  Did anyone else pick up on his choice of words?  The male and female commercial sex workers.  Male and female?  Male? 

Is there something you’d like to share with the group Georgie?