SEXUALITY FOR A YOUNG KENYAN WOMAN.

Some of the questions that we need to ask ourselves are: “Do young women tell their partners when they want to engage in sexual activities?”, “Do young women have control of the sexual activities in their lives?” “Do young women ask for testing of Sexually Transmitted Diseases from their partners before they start engaging in sexual activities?”, “Are young women free to buy sexual protective and/ enhancement items?”.

In Kenya, many young women have no access to sexual pleasurable and protective items such as lubricants, dildos, condoms etc. For some of the women limitations to these is due to lack of finances, availability of the items, fear of what society will think of them. While some believe that one should engage in sexual activities after marriage and back it up with what culture states or religion, many times we overlook the enhancements and/or protection to sexual activities.

Picture for example when a young woman walks into a Chemist/ Pharmacy/ Supermarket to purchase condoms. The attendant looks at her like she is lost and clearly you can see the expression on their faces. Perhaps the question in their mind is, “She is going to do it?”. The question might not be said out loud but from the look that s/he gives you, you feel judged and so in the end, you have not bought the exact brand of condoms that you really wanted. You buy in a hurry and take off or don’t buy at all. When a young man goes to buy the condoms he’s seen as ‘ndume’ or a macho man. While we all seek to have safe and protected sex, the question in my mind is, “Why do those selling these products discriminate based on gender?”

As the society is becoming more elite and globalized, more and more younger women in Kenya are becoming aware that engaging in sexual activities do not necessarily mean that one wants to procreate/ get pregnant. It is therefore nothing new to see a group of young women discuss how best to improve their sexual life, use of dildos and lubricants among other things.

In the past generations in Kenya, our grandmothers and mothers did not have a chance to see or use all these new things that have come to enhance sexual pleasure as they were socialissed to believe that sex can only be done when your man wants it and however he wants it. And for giving birth. In the current generation, young women realise that in sex it is give and take and everyone deserves to get and give pleasure.