And so it came to pass...

The wedding was attended.  A couple of weekends back.  Yes, that wedding, and no, nothing dramatic happened.  I went, I saw, I clapped and took pictures, I danced and I drank, and then the following day I went to watch rugby.  The end.  Only, that isn’t all there was to it, is it?  Of course not, when have you ever known me to be that simple?

I saw my love
Walking down the aisle
And as he passed me by
He turned to me and
Gave me a smile...

When I first talked about this wedding last year, the reactions I got were quite strong.  Seems in talking about the end of my relationship with Mr 'the feelings are gone', and the pathetic mess I was, and the pathetic mess I believed I was no longer, and my surprising joy at his impending nuptials, seems in all that I touched a nerve.  Or a live wire.  I was informed immediately thereafter, in rather unequivocal terms, to give up on my foolish idea that the man and I would be friends and that I was a fool to think that it would work.  Being that I am quite stubborn, I penned a most belligerent, nay, feisty response, telling my well meaning counsellor to go jump.  Life is too short, I said, to get stuck on an old hurt.  And then I sat back and let the idea he planted in my head take root and germinate, patiently growing ever so slowly in the back of my mind.  By the time the wedding plans were finally under way, three or so months later, I was convinced that the best thing I could do was to stay well out them.  Save for the odd bi-monthly update on the phone or in the bar, I had absolutely nothing to do with the wedding.  He didn’t call me to ask me to show up for the ruracio, I didn’t call him to ask him about the stag night.

Detour.  Of course I called to ask about the stag night.  Come now, do you not know me at all?  This was my one chance at being invited to one, I wasn’t going to pass it up because of some dodgy ideas about keeping a respectful distance.  Fuck propriety, I was going to the whore house.  Or not.  As it turned out, the plan was to have a stag weekend in Mombasa.  Now while I am very foolish, evidently, even I know there is no way I can get away with an overnight trip to a whore house, just me and the fellas.  Can you imagine having that convo with the missus(es)?  Yes, the convo would be had, because those men cannot keep a secret, and their women (from what little I’ve seen) are quite forward, which is to say they scare me a little, they look at me like they can see their men’s sins in my eyes.  So I killed that tagging along for the stag plan, although in truth the plan had already been killed for me.  The fellas were none too amused with the idea of me joining them...hang on, do you think that’s why they took it out of town, or claimed to?  Woi, those bastards probably went up the road to No.28 and didn’t tell me.  You should see the sadness on my face right now.  Detour over.

I didn’t get involved in the wedding, which felt odd because my ex and I used to be quite close, but I was suitably convinced that being involved would be even odder for all parties involved.  You buggers convinced me, see?  If I was planning my wedding and my future hubby’s ex was hovering around being all helpful, I would probably get it into my mind to slap her.  It’s not that I’m violent or such like (I am), I just think brides are quite evil, and vicious, and I can only assume that’s what will happen to me if I ever go down that path.  Stop scoffing, stranger shit has happened, no?  No.  Ah well...  Problem is, by choosing to step back, I created a distance that made a not too awkward situation very awkward.  Can you believe I forgot what the would be missus looked like?  I went for one of those goat-eating thingis a month before the wedding, and his cousin introduced me to her like we had never met, because my idiot ass had no recollection.  She remembered me, of course.  You know that moment when you wish the ground would open up and swallow you, and then time would rewind itself to 15 minutes before you arrived, such that it never happened?  Wait, if time is rewound then there’s no need for ground swallowing, is there?  Stop splitting hairs, you finicky bastards.  I was mortified and, worse still, I think my shame was very evident on my face. Damn my goldfish memory!  Why couldn’t it remember the one person I needed to remember at that table?  Why, dammit, why?  I recovered well enough to not be dis-invited to the wedding.  Here’s a handy tip, when caught with foot firmly lodged in mouth, complement a woman’s luscious locks, or her shoes, and then make a self deprecating joke about the deteriorating state of your memory (slap forehead for emphasis) and/or the deteriorating state of your ass (a gracious woman will always sympathise when you confess to struggling with weight issues).  When all else fails, buy a round of drinks, the more expensive the better.  Laugh now, but the day you find yourself in a hole of your own digging, you shall remember my words.

Then the preacher
Then the preacher
The preacher joined their hands
And all the people
The people began to stand
When I shouted

It should have been me...

I sat in church a couple of weekends back, staring at a man I once thought I would marry, watching him marry another woman and I couldn’t help think, was that supposed to be me?  It was surreal.  Part of me was doing that thing women do at weddings, dissecting everything from the flowers to the choice of music, because we know we could have done it better (don’t even try to pretend you don’t do it).  Part of me was thinking about my feet, uncharacteristically shod in rather sexy pumps that were trying to squeeze the life out of my pinkie toes, and succeeding.  Part of me was thinking that I will probably never end up at any altar, if only because I am not a believer and therefore will not be caught dead in a church getting married.  I’ll probably be caught dead in a church at my funeral, but I won’t really be there so that’s fine.  And part of me knew that I was never going to end up at the altar with that man, but I was still sitting there thinking, what if I had?  In the 10 or so minutes it took them to say their vows, I went over the highlights reel of my relationship with him, beginning to end, and all I kept thinking was, this was never, ever gonna happen.  The man standing on that podium was not the man I dated, the man I dated was an idiot in an Arsenal shirt (that shirt is what made him an idiot, in case you were wondering, and yes, I went there) with a Malt in hand at every possible opportunity.  This chap in front of me in a sharpish suit, blushing bride by his side, was a peculiar future version of the idiot.  A version I never envisioned, to be completely honest.  Just goes to show how prophetic I am, no?

See?  Self deprecating humour works a charm.

Then the preacher, whoa, yeah
The preacher asked that
There be silence please
If any objections to this wedding
Speak now or forever
Forever hold your peace...

The song is Yvonne Fair’s version of 'It Should Have Been Me', the anthem to all women who have ever dreamt of stopping a wedding in a most dramatic fashion.  I first stumbled across this song about 5 years ago, hidden near the end of CD2 of a classic soul hits set (I suspect I got it from Paco, I’m still trawling through the shitload of old music he gave me, bless his pointy toed behind).  I was blown away, such as I tend to be, first by her voice, then by the lyrics which for some reason always get me laughing.  There’s something about the way she says 'po-lice' that gets me clapping in joy.  Testify woman!  The reason its my soundtrack today?  I once played it for this ex, threatening him that I was going to storm his wedding and sing my heart out, up and down that aisle.  He laughed, but I saw real fear in his eyes.  I don’t think he’s ever recovered from seeing me cry, poor thing, I may have scarred him for life.  Please insert very evil laughter here.  When the pastor asked the question, I started chuckling. And humming...

Oh, ho, somebody call the police
That woman down there
Is a doggone thief

It should have been me
It should have been me
Oh, oh, It should have been me...

I must pull this stunt one day, how often do you get to say doggone, and in a church no less? 

I felt like a stranger at that wedding.  That’s what safe/respectful/none of my business distance does.  I got so caught up in all my over-thinking nonsense that I forgot, a. my friend was getting married, and b. I was of no relevance in that story.  Rather than back off, I should have listened to my own advice and just gotten on with being happy and shit.  Yes, I was at the wedding, smiling in the photos and dancing to the happy songs, but in some ways I wasn’t really there.  It’s taken me two weeks of processing and a couple of hours writing this to get to the comfortable place where I can laugh about being foolish about nothing.  Foot in mouth?  Been there, done that, planning on going back soon. The wedding that never was?  Well it wasn’t meant to be, was it?  Respectful distance?  Ptuh!  Like anyone other than me gave a damn.

Which brings me to the moral of this tale.   Do not listen to anything anyone has to say on this blog.  Except me, I’m always right.  No?  Too far a leap?  I had to try.  The real moral to this story, sometimes it’s best to just leave things be.  And sometimes your first instincts are the right instincts, no matter how wise the counsel you’re given may sound.  Life really is too short to be stuck in your head over analysing everything.

Introducing...Savvy!

This post is fucking hilarious.  I had to say it, upfront.  I'm itching to let you get on with it, but before you do I must introduce my most illustrious guest.  Ladies and gentlemen, meet Ms Savvy, recent inhabitant of the comments section here in our little corner of the interwebs.  She's a blogger of many years (Savvy Kenya), hell, she's pretty much blog royalty in my book.  She's a techie, mother, AFC fan, writer, new car owner (just saying)...  Have I left anything out?  Ah yes, she's off to Japan in a few days to get herself a second MSc in Artificial Intelligence and such like, because one MSc is just never enough, is it?  She's sharp, is all I'm saying, in both mind and wit.  And she has a wee fondness for our little sewer.  Which brings me to this post...for real, I’m so excited I'm clapping, while I type...my lovelies, there is nothing better than an intelligent woman who can talk smut, smart, as you shall soon discover.

As always the disclaimer. This is a tale from the sewer and therefore it will be both rude (but only slightly) and crude (maybe slightly more), but, and I don’t often get to say this here, in a very good way. If you blush at the mention of porn, you might want to leave now...

How to make (good) pornography.

On Sundays, Kenyans on twitter are rather idle, and there is always something brewing. Nothing ever serious though, just trivial things blown out of proportion for the entertainment of us, idle tweeps. Like recently, there was talk of 37 million shillings. A chick had turned down 37M in return for her phone number! If someone offered me 37M for my phone number, I’d even draw them a map to my shagz. Everyone on my timeline was wondering how that was possible, they were all fantasizing about what they could do with 37M if they got it. Sadly, nothing imaginative though, beyond buying land and maybe some ugly Range Rover (I am seriously digressing, Alex-style, but hear me out). I am always curious and rarely jump into discussions without knowing their origins. I found the original tweet and it went like, “A dude last night was trying to impress me into giving him my number be saying he sealed a deal of 37 million.” Now I understand, I also wouldn’t give such a person my number! He was probably just a broker and his cut could be 37K only. Wealthy people don’t talk about their money. Which reminds, there was the time I thought had met a rich politician, a guy who talked about money on the very first time we met accidentally. So much for the shopping trips to London & Paris, nkt! Now a girl has to go and make her own money, SMH.

Back to the topic at hand, enough of the detour. On another idle Sunday, I stumbled on people talking about a Florence Wambui. I immediately did a search on twitter for the name. I stumbled on the original account, describing herself as “Kenya’s Most Famous Porn Star” and “Queen of Anal” or something along those lines. I didn’t bother with the tweets, they weren’t likely to be witty anyway. I started scrolling through the pics, and my oh my! Gross & grotesque pictures of her licking some not-so-good-looking pale dick, pictures of her getting some dick anally (she insists you must use a condom if anal), blurry pictures in lodgings (likely those that have different coloured slippers), and a few pictures of her in clothes. Pictures of her with cum on her face (how the fuck is this sexy? Sorry digressing again). And so on, and so forth. She looks way better in clothes than without.

So my tweet on the topic was something like “Florence Wambui: Now I cannot unsee what I just saw”. And Alex responded that she thought the porn pics were of rather poor quality. I agreed 100%. Not that I am a big consumer of porn, but I don’t have to be an expert to tell you that porn pics should hold your attention in a positive way, should at least be a contributing factor in turning you on, rather than be a big turn off. They’re there to whet your appetite, not to make you lose it. So here I am writing a guide for good porn (pics).

First of all, sexual organs, dicks & pussies, are decidedly unsexy (this post should come with a caveat for family unfriendly language haha). They rarely look good on camera. Which is why a combination of Brazilian waxing, makeup, photoshop and video graphics are vital when taking and publishing porn pics online. The angle of taking the picture, the lighting, the mood (hehe) all have to contribute in making everything as attractive as inhumanly-possible. Same goes for the supporting body parts, thighs, arms, faces etc. Waxing. Make up. Photoshop. Video enhancing graphics. Surgically enhance body parts if necessary. For everyone who will appear in the picture/video. This leads me to the second tip of the guide.

The camera and lighting is everything. When the subject is coated in enough make up, under a very good camera, anyone can create that fantasy image popular in porn. Don’t take photos with your Nokia Asha and upload them unedited. If you’re going to be Kenya’s number porn star, please put some effort into it. I see it with our “socialities”, for example see Huddah’s latest hoodie photos. Get a good camera, those with lenses you can replace. Then get a good set of lights. I am not a good photographer, I am not even a poor photographer; but these are the basics, everybody knows it. You cannot make a porno without investing in a good camera, a set of lights and those reflector things. Fine, let’s say you have a high end phone, like my current phone with 13MP (but do I say). In good natural lighting, it can take some very nice pics. There might come (sic) a moment when you don’t have your camera and have to take the picture with your phone. This is where filters come in. Instagram has filters. Pixer-or-matic is another app full of good filters. Make good use of them to mask the imperfect, enhance the good features and create the fantasy. And come to think of it, you should really not be taking spontaneous pics, rather pose every moment to perfection. How else will you get people to buy your porn?

I am going to take a break here to rant a bit. Porn is fantasy. They have made things like cumming in someone’s eye(!) or anal sex (for women) attractive. I think all it does is make your asshole loose and sooner rather than later you may have to wear adult diapers. Anal is just not my thing (sorry Flo!) but I think her target audience is sex pests tourists. Someone explained to me the pleasure in anal sex for men, something about the prostrate being rubbed and you feel good. If you’re a man reading this, and have had your prostrate checked, is it true? But anyway, porn caters to people’s fantasies, be it dick-milking machines or horses or whatever. Just don’t try that shit in real life. Haha… Okay, back to my last point on this guide.

I can’t say I have watched local porn, but it exists. Luo, Kikuyu porn. In campus, there is a dude who had Kyuk porn on his flash disk but he deleted it before I could watch. Nothing as wrong as hearing sex talk in your mother tongue, but maybe that’s just me. So I am not sure if they have such a thing as concept, plot or storyline. Since porn = fantasy (I am glad we agree on this point), then create the fantasy, act out the part, and deliver. Find the perfect location, or create the backdrops and props so required. A good camera, good lighting. The storyline: school girl & teacher, MILF, best friends, etc. Of course when all is said and done, it basically gets down to the mashing of body parts together and we go back to point #1. Makeup for the bodies to be flawless, evenly toned, and very attractive.

Oh, Kenyans reported the original Florence Wambui account and it got suspended, but she resurfaced with another account, just search the name you may find it on twitter. She wants to be president in 2017, I guess following in the footsteps of Kingwa Kamencu, who released some nudes recently. I think I have surpassed the word count limit, let me stop here.

Mr (bloody) Smith.

Every so often you stumble across a voice so stunning, coming out of the unlikeliest character, you're, quite literally, struck dumb.  Mouth hanging open, confusion furrowing your brow, emotions all over the place as you try to decide whether or not to be happy.  You're not sure whether to be happy or not because said voice is usually emanating from the mouth of someone who consider unworthy of said talent, right?  Right?  Come now, be honest.  You don't get confused when a Kendrick Lamar looking bugger opens his mouth and raps like a prodigy, but when Macklemore steps up...well...I don’t know (usually said with a frown...).  Same thing when you first listen to a black rock band, it messes with you, mentally.  Useless information, I still haven’t gotten over Hootie...  All I'm saying is I expect certain sounds to come out of certain people, so when I come across a young white girl with humongous soul in her voice, I sit up and take notice.  And then I download all her music (legally, of course...ahem).  And then I try to stalk her on YouTube, convinced that if I watch enough videos, I'll see the big black woman in the shadows, the one who's really singing.  This is not as absurd as it sounds, remember Milli Vanilli, and C&C?  Shit happens, my friends, and up to and until I watch someone live and acapella, I assume the worst.  I have stalked today's artist for about nine years, and I am proud to say she's the real deal.  I'm still slightly disconcerted by her most amazing voice, but I'm no longer suspicious.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms Joss Stone, doing a cover of Womack and Womack's 'Teardrops'.  I pray to the soul gods to forgive me for this blasphemy, but, dammit, her version as good as the original. Don’t lynch me, I said as good as, not better.  (Don't tell the gods, but I actually think it's marginally better.  Don't bother trying to take away my black passport, I lost it when I did the Michael Bolton post.)  You see, my one gripe with the original was that the lyrics were almost muted by the music.  Simply put, Mrs Womack didn’t do her own writing justice, or perhaps she did it too much justice with the funky track.  When I finally got round to listening to the song, really listening to it as opposed to random swaying, about seven years ago, I was slightly gobsmacked by its depth.  Dance tracks from the 80's didn’t have too much to them, is all I’m saying, and this was a most pleasant exception.  Then a year ago I heard this cover and I was even more gobsmacked.  Who knew it could sound so...clear?  It's the oddest thing, listening to someone take something you know so well and turn it into something completely new, but still the same.

Whenever I hear goodbyes, remind me baby of you
I break down and cry, next time I'll be true
Fever for lost romance, remind me baby of you
I took a crazy chance, the next time I'll be true
I'll be true 

I'll be true...

Footsteps on the dance floor, remind me baby of you

Teardrops in my eyes, next time I'll be true yea
Whispers in the powder room, she cries on every tune

Every tune 

Every tune...

Joss Stone sings this, and I finally understand the 'swaying but not quite dancing' tempo to the song. I'm not sure that makes much of any sense to anyone but me, but there you have it.  She turns this song into a stronger, more thoughtful version of itself.

It occurs to me half the people reading this have no clue what the original sounds like, which then means I should probably stick it in here, no?

Useless fact No. 734: The female half of Womack and Womack is Linda Womack, nee Cooke, daughter of Sam Cooke, step daughter to Bobby Womack, even as she was married to his brother Cecil.  I may have gotten that mixed up, such is the dodginess of that family tree.  Linda Womack could sing, evidently, but her strength, and that of her hubby, was as a songwriter (she co-wrote Teddy's 'Love TKO' with Cecil) and producer.  Hence the brilliance of this cover.  Ms Stone took a dance hit, stripped it down some, and voilà!  Where the original was about the fabulous music (it's so damn funky you can't help but to snap a finger and sway a hip), she turned it around and made it all about the lyrics.  Brilliant lyrics combined with a brilliant voice and not much music to distract from either (in fairness, the original music cannot be replicated).  I made my peace with Ms Stone's many covers with this particular song, finally realising that she understands the music she was, is, singing, perhaps better than most.

And the music
Don`t feel like it did
When I felt it with you
Nothing that I do or feel ever feels like
I felt it with you...

You're sitting there wondering where I'm going with this, aren’t you?  I need to bitch about Sam Smith.  This bastard...  I'm rubbing my forehead in frustration.  The problem with twitter, aka home of the devil, I still can't filter out the noise.  I try, dammit, I try to steer clear of the crazies, the attention whores, the would be politicians, the would be political commentators, the bleeding heart liberals, the state house lackeys, the ass chasing whores, the asses, Moses fucking Kuria...  And bloody Sam Smith.  Sam Smith has pushed me over the edge.  It's too much, dammit, too much!

This Sam Smith kijana is, apparently, quite the revelation, touted as the next great British soul singer.  I know, they say this about some newbie every year, but at least this boy can sing.  I'm not sure he can sing like a soul singer, but he can sing.  Now ordinarily I'd have waited a couple of years before listening to him, figuring if he's as good as they say, he'll be better with a couple of albums under his belt.  Come to think of it, does he have a full album?  Issues.  Point is, pre-twitter, I would have been blissfully ignorant in my 'slow on the uptake' cocoon.  But nooooo...  Idiots feel the need to throw him at me all the damn time.  And why, you ask, don’t I simply ignore them?  Because an OCD idiot like me must click every link she sees, dammit.  After the first listen, I moved on, secure in the knowledge that he is not my cup of tea.  Then the fellow did a cover of Whitney.  My Whitney.  Good God man, why?

This is why I talk about understanding the music.  That the boy can sing is not in question, he has a beautiful voice.  That he can sing soul...well...no.  The original 'How Will I Know' is a funky piece of music, and fun.  Whitney's telling us about this boy she knows...

...he's the one I dream of
Looks into my eyes, takes me to the clouds above

Ooh, I lose control, can't seem to get enough
When I wake from dreaming, tell me is it really love...

Now you read that and you think, 'Woiyee...she sounds like she's pining for this guy,' but then you listen and you realise it's not a sad love song, it's a happy clappy ode to new love, triumphant even.  It's not a 'sitting in a puddle of tears' song, it's a 'I met a new boy, woohoo!' song.  That's why she's dancing, yes?

Oh, wake me, I'm shaking, wish I had you near me now

Said there's no mistaking what I feel is really love

Ooh how will I know?
(Don't trust your feelings)
How will I know?

How will I know?
(Love can be deceiving)
How will I know?

It's the giddy feeling you get when you may or may not be falling for someone.  That strange place between paralysing fear and the urge to shag them as soon as possible.  It's nervous excitement, in song.  Then some barely out of his teens, melancholic twat comes along and turns it into a bloody dirge.  Say it with me...NKT!  This here is a classic example of a shit cover version, all croon and no substance.  Slight detour, I have to point out that my dislike for the man was recently cemented by a most disturbing cover he did of Tracy Chapman.  He somehow managed to turn 'Fast Car' into a generic (read, crap) pop ballad.  That, my people, takes significant skill, but that's a discussion for the day Ms Chapman finally makes it onto my playlist, just as soon as I make good on a bet I lost to a certain young man who I suspect may have tricked me (he took advantage of my geriatric memory).  Detour over.

The point to this long and rambling music appreciation class?  Some things are best left untouched, original, until the person who truly understands it comes along.  I know, it's tempting to take something old and 'boring' and put your stamp of shiny newness upon it, but in doing so you run the risk of destroying the very essence of the thing.  As strange as this sounds, I'm talking about love, and relationships.

Every so often I meet a new man who is looking to completely transform my life, and me in it, into a more brilliant version of it/myself.  He rides in on his white stallion, my gallant knight in shining armour, here to save me from my lonely (read, pathetic) existence.  He takes my happy go lucky dance-ish jam of a soundtrack, and somehow manages to turn it into another sad love song.  That's the only way he can rescue me, see?  For the man to be needed, I have to be unhappy, searching, needing a man to...say it with me...complete me.  What this idiot saviour doesn’t realise, however, is some women, or possibly just me, are not particularly drawn to the idea of being sad and pathetic, and telling them they are doesn’t really do much for the flames of attraction the man seeks to fan.  More to the point, you cannot waltz in and transform her life like she's an old record in need of a makeover, not before you learn to appreciate the original brilliance.  It could be that her funky swagger is in fact a not so funky story, but that's no reason to turn it into a depressing funk, Mr bloody Smith, and just so you can feel better about yourself.  

I'm looking for someone to hear my song, and understand it, before he does a new version, a version that includes him and me. That's what it's all about, this new song, inserting yourself into somebody else (you can take that literally, if you so desire).  Rather than impose your dodgy interpretation onto this song, and in the process fucking the poor song up for years to come, perhaps just...don’t.

Rule number one of covers, don’t make the song worse.

Women do it better. Yes, that it. Really, they do.

I've got the problem

You got the solvin

Baby...

When one opens one’s news reader on a random Wednesday morning to find this headline, “Lesbians Are Having More Orgasms Than Straight Women”, one can either take it as a sign from the universe to start shagging women, or as a sign to get back to one’s blog.  It could also be a sign that I need to stop relying on suspect sites like HuffPo for my daily news, but in my defence, I’m in the middle of a pseudo Mexican stand-off with our dailies (I mean a boycott, of sorts, but only on my end it would seem) and I must have my daily dose of nonsense, but I digress.  So this article went ahead to inform me that the results of a recent study show:

While heterosexual women reported orgasming 61.6 percent of the time and bisexual women reported 58 percent, lesbian women had the highest orgasm rate at 74.7 percent.

And because that isn’t sad enough for heterosexual women, there’s this:

…heterosexual men reported an 85.5 percent orgasm rate, gay men 84.7 percent, and bisexual men 77.6 percent…

And there you have it, my lovelies, the scientists have spoken. 62% means for every five times a heterosexual woman has sex, she orgasms during only three of those sessions.  Quick question, what happens to her the other two times?  Does she sigh contentedly enjoying her almost come, comforting herself with the knowledge that the next one will be better, statistically?  Or does she harangue her man for not delivering?  Or does she wait until he falls asleep to get herself off?  Or does she resign herself to dissatisfaction and drift off to blue-ball (read, clit) sleep?  I’m curious, ladies, what do you do when this happens?  I’d ask the gentlemen, but you buggers reported 86%, that’s 4 in 5 times, 4.3 in 5 to be precise, which means there’s at least one time you got off and she didn’t, you selfish bastard.  What?  It’s either that or there is a significant number of guys who just don’t get it, ever, about 38% of you. Kidding.  Or not.

But wait a minute, based on these numbers, are they saying women get off more when shagging other women, or are they saying women get women off better than men?  As it turns out, they’re saying both, and something else.  From an opinion piece on said study, “Lesbians know the secret to the best orgasms you’re not having”, a bisexual woman explains:

Lesbians, though, reportedly have less trouble reaching orgasm than straight or bi women. Sexologists as far back as Masters and Johnson theorized that lesbians enjoyed sex more because they weren’t inhibited by the same gendered expectations of performance and pleasure – or chaste endurance– that plagues hetero pairings.

Basically, straight women come less because they’re too busy being 'proper' to come.  Lesbians, on the other hand, appear to have less inhibitions because they’re, well, more open, seeing as how they’ve already broken social convention and no longer feel the need to be restrained about their sexual pleasure.  But that's not all it is, is it?

Slight detour.  This then begs the question, why do bisexual women orgasm less?  You’d think they have the best of both worlds, no?  Apparently not.  From the same article:

The lesbian orgasm rate isn’t just about an advanced skill set, though. The study also determined that the way women sexually identify affects how frequently they orgasm – and bisexual women fare the worst, regardless of whom they’re trying to reach orgasm with. But bi-visibility, and the still-limited understanding that bisexuality exists as more than just a waystation between deciding to be gay or straight, is still hard for many of us to navigate publicly…and in the bedroom. So if self-identification – and comfort and attachment to that identification – affects the orgasm ratio, it’s not surprising that bisexual women lag behind.

I can only assume the same argument applies to bisexual men as well, their numbers are also lowest amongst men.  We shall revisit this bisexual story another day, I suspect it bears some discussion, no?  Detour over.

I've got the problem

You got the solvin

Baby...

Now even as I was reading these articles about lesbians having better sex and whatnot, I was thinking what I can only assume you are thinking right now, how are they doing this without a penis involved?  Don’t even try to pretend you’re not wondering how they do what they do the way they do.  I know you were, because I was too.  Let’s do a quick comparison of hetero and lesbian sex, shall we?  A typical shag with a man usually consists of brief foreplay, penetration, then climax (for him?).  A typical shag between two women, on the other hand, and this I can only guess from extensive consumption of quality erotica, is much less rigid (pun unintended).  The author of the fine piece of feminist writing (above) gloats…

The first time I ever had sex with a woman, I remember being overwhelmed – and not in the way I had expected. Over the course of several hours, we had three all-encompassing orgasms each and, finally, I understood the significance of our recovery periods (or the lack thereof) to women’s capacity for pleasure. It even gave me a newfound empathy for the plight of your average heterosexual male, inwardly sighing that his partner might be ready to go at it again already. Then I smugly counted my XY fortune.

Three orgasms.  Each.  No dick.  Stop frowning, gentlemen, this is just one woman’s experience.  I shall now have a wee chuckle.

Gentlemen, women aren’t built like you.  We don’t need to take a 30 minute nap and a snack after we come, we just keep going and going and going...  Like she says, we have some empathy for you unlucky buggers, you got the short end of the stick when it comes to the come, but that empathy will only take you so far.  Put differently, while we expect that you shall be completely useless once you climax, we expect that you shall endeavour to ensure we climax, hopefully several times, before you collapse into a drained stupor.  Either that or you get us a female lover to do the job you choose not to, your choice.  It goes without saying that right now most women reading this, or maybe just me, are currently very open to the idea of shagging a woman, once we, I, overcome the minor matter of the missing dick...

Do lesbians have more orgasms because they know women better than men ever could?  From the study:

In the study text, the researchers posit the higher lesbian percentage could be attributed to factors such as "self-identified lesbian women are more comfortable and familiar with the female body and thus, on average, are better able to induce orgasm in their female partners." Other reasonings include: length of the sexual encounter, attitude towards gender, sexual roles during intercourse and possible hormonal differences.

Why yes, it seems they do.  Women, it seems, really do it better.

Chuckling some more...

Just like chocolate melts all over ice cream

I wanna pour myself all over you

I know it sounds crazy

sounds like it tastes good too...

I’m not trying to turn this into a men don’t know how to get women off discussion, that’s not what I do, is it?  I’m a firm believer in learning to get yourself off (take that as you will), convinced that it always starts with you.  We’ve talked about orgasms before, at length, and by now you know women usually take longer to come than men do, don’t you?  Don’t you?  You buggers don’t read the links I put up, do you?  And do you want to know how I know you don’t read the links?  One of the orgasm posts had a link to a satire piece on the male orgasm and it was complete and utter bollocks, but to date, not a one of you has pointed it out.  No, no, don’t try and explain, I don’t want to hear it, but know that one day there will be a test, and all you idiots will fail miserably, so there, dammit.  'Where was I?' she asks, wiping righteous indignation inspired spittle off her chin.  Orgasms.  Two points to revisit from the tension post.

First:

You may have heard that it takes a lot longer for women to reach orgasm than it does for men. This is not entirely true. During masturbation, women and men reach orgasm in very similar amounts of time. On average, women reach orgasm in a little less than four minutes. For men the average time is between two and three minutes. The difference in the time it takes women and men to reach orgasm during foreplay and vaginal intercourse is greater. On average, it takes women 10-20 minutes to reach orgasm. Men reach orgasm after 7-14 minutes overall, but average two to three minutes after beginning intercourse.

Female Orgasm 

See, up there when they mentioned the length of the sexual encounter, this is what they were talking about.  Men, admittedly not all men, simply don’t take the time to get their women off, whereas a woman is automatically in sync with her female lover, if only biologically.  This one issue of how long the sex lasts is the one complaint you will always get from women and with good reason, it takes us longer.

Second (from the same article):

Most women experience orgasm through clitoral stimulation rather than through vaginal penetration. So if you are having difficulty reaching orgasm with a partner, try clitoral stimulation during, before, or after vaginal intercourse or oral sex.

It's (almost) all about the clit, which is to say the odds of you pounding her into happiness are slim to non-existent, not unless said pounding is accompanied by dexterous fingers.  Or a woman.  Gentlemen, this is the one sad, or happy I like to think, truth about making a woman come, you need to play with her sweet spot, her love button...I just cringed a little typing that, no more crap synonyms...play with her clitoris.  Fingers are good, mouth is much better.  Much, much, much better.  Did I say how much better your mouth is?

You don’t have to worry bout givin me too much

One thing baby, yeah, you never get enough

I've got the problem

You got the solvin

Sugar...

Just between you and me, I think the reason lesbians have more orgasms than straight women is because of this one thing.  Oral sex. I figure, not having a penis between you allows you to focus on giving and receiving orgasms the way you best enjoy, which means less 'bang bang cum' and more 'licky licky'.

I know, its crass, but dammit if it's not the smartest thing I've said all night.

Just can't get enough

Lovin you...

We shall talk about Ray Parker Jr, soon.

Idiot Press: The Fact-check Edition

So apparently our prezzo is the third best performing president in Africa.

Well, woobloodyhoo!

And here we thought he's a complete idiot, what with dodgy procurement scams, terrorist attacks all over the country, a sluggish economy, suspect payments to Anglo Leasing ghosts... Ladies and gentlemen, apparently the man has a 78% approval rating. EH? Now I saw the headline and I shrugged it off, convinced that it was another bullshit proclamation from the spin idiots over at State House. Truth be told I couldn’t be bothered to read, these days I can't be bothered to listen to anything serikali has to say. That and I do not consider Kirubi's outfit a credible source of news. When then same headline popped up in The Star this morning, however, I felt compelled to check it out. According to The Star... 

President Uhuru Kenyatta has been ranked as the third best performing sub-saharan Africa leader in a poll released by Washington-Based polling group, Gallup.

Uhuru received a rating of 78 per cent in the survey carried out in 2013. The poll ranked Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita led with 86 per cent and Ian Khama of Botswana at 81 per cent.

“Presidents from more than half of the 26 sub-saharan African countries surveyed in 2013—many of whom are attending the US-Africa Leaders Summit this week—received job approval ratings higher than 50 per cent. But those ratings varied greatly across countries,” the Gallup poll indicated.

They went on to add...

The poll comes at a time when Uhuru will be holding meetings with Obama, US government officials and American investors. According to Gallup, Uhuru’s performance is approved highly by persons of all age-group as follows; 15-24 (78 per cent), 25-34 (77 per cent), 35-44 (70 per cent) and 45+ (85 per cent).

So apparently this was a serious poll, conducted in 2013, by Gallup. This sounds quite kosher, no? But, and there's always a but, if the poll was done in 2013, and the man was elected in 2013, when exactly was this poll done?

I went off to look for the first article on Capital News. 

Among the leaders who received some of the highest approval ratings, a few have been in office for more than two decades, such as Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni.

“Several other highly rated presidents, such as Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali, had either just been elected to a first term or started on their second term at the time of the survey,” it went on to state.

President Kenyatta was also elected into office last year.

The poll further points out that the same diversity in tenure also appears among leaders who received the lowest job performance ratings from their constituents.

“Two of these presidents, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Chad’s Idriss Déby, have been in office for more than two decades, while most of the others were finishing their first or second term at the time of the survey. As such, length of time in office appears to be unrelated to approval ratings.”

That last line, “As such, the length of time in office appears to be unrelated to approval ratings.” It appears to be an explanation for the minor matter of a survey being conducted on approval ratings for someone who may not have been in the job very long. Random question, if a man has just been voted into office, what am I approving?

This is the table helpfully included in the Capital News article, because we all know that a table makes everything official...

+ No longer in office

Source: Gallup

I'd like to draw your attention to the first entry, Mali's president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita with an approval rating of 86%, and no tenure indicated. There's an asterisk by his name, and two against Kabila's name at the bottom of the list, implying footnotes at the bottom of the table offering explanations. No such luck, the only footnote included was in reference to the cross marks against Banda and Rajoelina. Keep this in mind, for later.

Now when one reads five woefully short articles bearing remarkable likeness to each other, all referencing vague data (the articles in the People Daily, the Daily Nation and the Standard are pretty much the same as the two above, except the Standard went a bit further and talked about the wealth of the respondents), one feels compelled to search for the source material, if only to find out what’s missing. These geniuses were quoting a report saying the president of Mali, elected mid last year in a country that recently had a coup and a French invasion cum rescue, and possibly flawed polls, and continuing instability in the North, this president got an approval rating of 86%? Really? And third on the list is the man who won his election with a 51% majority, and he had a 78% rating? How?

And how soon after their consecutive elections was this survey conducted?

This data was all from the Gallup site, off an article titled, “African Leaders' Scorecard Is a Mixed Bag” dated August 4, 2014. First up, the complete table...

Remember the missing footnote regarding Keita? Seems the reason no tenure was indicated was because he had only been in office a month. Quick question, why did they feel the need to clarify that one month tenure, is it because an empty field raises questions, or is it because one month tenure raises questions? They also note that that result excludes four regions in the north. Thing is, the civil war in Mali was a north versus south fight, where the northerners were the insurgents. Any data missing from the north would therefore skew results in favour of the south, no? This is my armchair analysis, mind you, all I'm saying is if you poll mostly the side that won, odds are the results will be overwhelmingly, umm, positive. But hey, I'm no statistician. 

The fact that the poll was done after only a month in office, while dodgy, is actually helpful in our quest to ascertain the date the polling was done. The elections in Mali were held in July last year, with a run-off the following month. The winner was declared in mid August, with his inauguration in mid September. That puts polling in October 2013. Now, our president was sworn into office in April 2013 and the one year tenure indicated would put us at April 2014. Thing is, this poll was conducted in 2013, yes?

Results are based on face-to-face interviews with at least 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted in 2013 in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error ranged from ±3.8 percentage points to ±4.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The margin of error reflects the influence of data weighting. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Assuming the polling was done at the same time in all countries, in October, the Kenyan polling was done about 6 months after President Kenyatta was sworn in. Hell, even if they polled in December 2013, that still doesn’t give him a full year. That one year story makes no sense, but because I don’t like to make assumptions (not when there's a possibility I may be sued), I got to digging, looking for the full report of this survey. I couldn’t find it. Seems you have to pay to get this valuable information. What I did find is this, Country Data Set Details...

On page 81 of the 'Gallup World Wide Research Data Collected From 2005-2014', the data collection date in Kenya, in 2013, is listed as 'May 20 – May 31 2013'. That was 6 to 8 weeks after the inauguration. That is the only instance of data collection in Kenya in 2013.

Now it could be that I don’t know what to look for and I am misreading the limited information I've found, or it could be that the one year tenure indicated in their article is wrong, and by wrong I mean complete bollocks. If they polled in May, our president had been in office for less than two months, which then begs the question, why have they indicated one year, instead of two months?

More importantly, why did no-one at Capital News, or The Star, or People Daily, or Daily Nation, or the Standard, ask this most basic question?

Incidentally, who the hell did they allegedly poll to get such overwhelming numbers? I'm not being anti-Jubilee here, if CORD was given similar numbers I'd be just as confounded. The last election was so bloody divisive, there is no way a random sampling of the country could have given you nearly 80% in favour of either side, and definitely not two months after that supreme court ruling.

I'm thinking, if a report can get something as basic as duration wrong, something that can easily be counter checked with a quick glance at a calendar, then what else did they get wrong? This is what I'd expect the press to dig into, especially seeing as how they like a good siasa story. But no. They're happy to copy paste snippets and slap on a silly headline, because that's just how they do.

Say it with me...idiot press!