Capital Questions

The argument for or against the capital punishment has barged into many an amiable conversation or dinner party. It is an old argument and the opposing sides vehemently defend respective points of view, convinced it is the right one.

I am against capital punishment. But not for the reasons you might think. 

Death is the last refuge. It is the ultimate destination each of us reaches with each step we take throughout our lives. It is the culmination of existence. The final price one pays for being born. Death is final.

Yes some may believe that there is life after death but since that is yet to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, I choose to believe death is IT. End of story.  Working on this premise we can be assured that once one dies once simple ceases to be; they merely rot in the ground, or disappear if they are ashes. 

How is death, then deemed punishment? How is killing someone, ending the slow plod to that inevitable end punishment? Sure, person’s life will be unceremoniously (actually the execution of the death penalty is quite the ceremony) shortened but he will not live to regret the things he may have done had he not been killed. He will simply end.

Who is punished by the death sentence; the perpetrator or his family? Because when someone dies, it is those left behind who mourn his death and are hurt by his demise. So when the justice system calls for capital punishment, who exactly is it is punishing? Yes, the condemned man might worry and fear death but when the deed is done the fears are gone.

Does it serve any purpose? This forms part of the core argument against capital punishment; killing the perpetrator will serve no purpose other than usage the victim’s family’s grief, if even that! Killing the perpetrator will not bring back the victim; it will not reverse the damage that has already been done. If anything, it creates further anguish for those who might have loved the murdering son of a bitch.

Here is where I come in with my brilliant plan. Punish the son of a bitch. Make him wish for death because he knows that in death there will be relief. He knows there will be no pain beyond that curtain. Instead of life sentences in cushy jail cells, three meals a day, TV, libraries, exercise, sex and an occasional reprimand from the warden, I think we need to overhaul the entire prison system. Prisoners are allowed visitors, mail, and an education for crying out loud! Why? And in our beautiful country they are allowed to bloody well VOTE! 

A person who commits a heinous crime like a murder should be stripped of his humanity, fed only enough to keep him healthy and bathing enough to ward off lice and the like. He should be isolated from any human contact except with the wardens. He should spend the duration on his prison sentence with only a few thoughts, revenge/remorse, thoughts of the deed that landed him in prison and wishing for death or escape.  

Now THAT is punishment!

Girlfriend Art Thou Horny?

I have no idea what has got into teenagers (and some older women); but it appears that being horny in fashion. They have taken to taking all sorts of pills and medicine to make themselves horny. I’m truly at a loss as to why a person who is healthy would need a chemical stimulus in order to experience sexual arousal. It seems to me that being unburdened with a wild libido might be a blessing to be honest.

But this is not about me and my libido. It’s about teens taking a drug called ‘kuber’ (which I understand to be a chewing tobacco) in order to get aroused. According to the internet kuber rots your gums and some claim it rots your privates if you apply it down under. Although it is mainly women who use this drug apparently men can also use it.

I have found no conclusive evidence that kuber increases your libido or arouses you but users believe so and that is the main thing. With the convergence of Pakistani and Chinese shopkeepers into rural areas, kuber was introduced. In one particular village the primary school principal felt compelled to call a meeting with the Pakistani shopkeepers to address the problem of his learners using kuber.  They threatened to have the shopkeeper removed from the village if he continued to sell the drug to children even though it is technically not illegal in South Africa.

Recently a principal (from the high school) realised that some kids were missing from school and they were a group rumoured to be ‘addicted’ to kuber. He went to one child’s home (her parents were not home) and found the group assembled there in various stages of undress; a kuber induced orgy if you will. There can be no doubt that there is cause for concern.

There is also an increase in the availability of actual libido pills targeted at both men and women; the next time you’re standing in a queue at Pep Stores, look around, you will see some dodgy looking pills. When I was growing up I didn’t even know that you could rig things in your favour and turn up the volume on you libido, THANK GOD! Ha ha ha.

There is also that tobacco called ‘snuff’ that mostly sangoma’s smoke? They shove it up their nostrils and it makes them sneeze? Well the kids have found another use for that too. Apparently if you put a pinch in your holiest of holies you get a few pleasant minutes. The sensation has been described as an orgasm by those in the know. I supposed the old-fashioned “tiptoe through the two lips” requires too much effort?

In other scary things I have heard women do to their vaginas for the satisfaction of their men;

·         Using a range of “Chinese sweets” which claim to be aphrodisiacs

·         Rolling up some newspaper and putting it down there (a la tampon) to make sure you are “dry” because a wet woman is a slut. (?)

·         Shoving ice down there to make your “passage” swell up because men don’t like it when you’re “big”. Ever heard of Kegel exercises?

For Love or For Money?

My friends and I have no doubt women who use men for money are basically your run-of-the-mill whores. Although they don’t stand in street corners soliciting favours from strangers, they are peddling their bodies, company and “love” for a price. However, women who practice this will deny it to the ends of the earth. In my view there is nothing wrong with this behaviour, as long as you own up to it.

I actually had a fall-out with someone who was clearly dating a man for his money. Every time she mentioned him it was about how much money he made and how much she had managed to cream off him. But it emerged to be a grave mistake on my part to start referring to him as her “wallet”. As long as everybody pretends that you are experiencing the by-product of a great love affair and not that you are a kept whore it seems okay to be one. It’s kind of like someone pointing out that you are ugly.

Just not done.

But in a “normal” relationship, where neither partner is more loaded than the other but rather  comfortably getting by and paying societal dues, the money issue is a bloody minefield. Women are programmed to believe that the man ought to pay for everything while the man has a penis ego problem that leads them to wanting to pay for everything. One of the most basic ways I believe conquers this stumbling block in a new romance is; if you instigate the date you pay for it. This will also help establish a certain rhythm to the relationship in which we both know what we can afford without having to show each other our pay checks.  The issue of mini-breaks is no different. Let’s share the expenses unless you expressly want to spoil your partner.  

Of course my theory is not the dating bible. We all have different expenses on a month to month basis, so one half might take the other out more often than not. In such cases, if it makes one (the one with less eating out budget) uncomfortable improvise by way of cooking for your partner at home. Dating should not be so “going out centric”. Or at least, going out where money needs to be used.

Then comes the shopping and the hair, as a black woman I will speak only from the perspective. Black woman hair maintenance is expensive, whether it’s natural or not. Unless you are willing to cut your hair like Alek Wek, you’re stuck being a slave to hair maintenance.  On average, one hair appointment costs about R300, and this is a once a month deal. For the more ambitious costs starts from R500 – it’s expensive. Some have to change their hair every two weeks.

It seems some black women believe that a man they are dating should have financial input on hair maintenance. It appears that a black woman shoulders the responsibility of looking sensational  only until she snatches a man, once one is hooked the torch is then passed on to him. I don’t know what happens to the money she used for her hair once she has a “hair allowance”.

“I want to go to a party at my friends but I have nothing to wear!” is a familiar sentence many women say. And often it’s bollocks. Independent women say this to their reflections in the mirror or their best friends on the phone. Some say it in a whiny voice to their boyfriends. While your man found you a fashionista (or at the very least not walking around naked) you somehow fool him into believing this is now his responsibility. How? Why?

In an ideal world finances would be kept out of a relationship until you get married. Because we have all heard how some men complain bitterly how a woman took all his money and never even put out. And we know women who won’t put out unless there is money as a reward. This minefield makes it really hard to know what is right and what is wrong?

Should a woman expect a man to financially support her if they aren’t married? Should a man expect a blowjob for every shopping trip he springs for? What are the rules in your relationship?

The South African Promise

She qualified to be a teacher in 1996, around that time there was a teacher hiring freeze in this country.  Teaching and nursing were traditionally the main careers for black people who aspired for a semi-middle class lifestyle.

Having been an intelligent third eldest in her family, nobody doubted she would excel at school and go on to be a wonderful teacher. He mother fantasized about the house her daughter would build, she pinned her hopes on her child.

Her first mistake was falling pregnant during her first year at college. Had she been able to continue with her studies while pregnant, she would have qualified a year earlier, thereby completely missing the hiring freeze. But then, her story would be different.

Today, 15 years later, I watch her lurch from tavern to tavern, drinking anything she can lay her hands on, just so she won’t feel another day slip by. From 1996 to the early 2000s, she tried. We watched her photocopy and certify her qualifications, applying everywhere. She also volunteered in the hopes that when hiring began again she would get preference. But even as we watched we saw the despair set in. Her daughter grew up, with the help of a mother who felt both disappointment (in her daughter) and pain (for her daughter).

It was gradual and, she hid it at first. An occasional drink, just because there was a party or it was the weekend. No harm done. And then she would not come home, days would pass. Her mother became blind, needing her daughter at home, to take care of both she and her child. She came, could not stay long because she couldn’t freely drink at home. And so she would abandon them at the mercy of an uncaring maid, often a maid who would leave before the month was over because it was a challenge to look after a blind old woman.

She hasn’t lived at home in five years now. A plaything for men who would use her body for temporary pleasure, she lives in squalor and her life passes in oblivion.

“I’m a qualified teacher!” she slurs, as she naps on a pub table surrounded by empty liquor bottles.

In a South Africa where we were promised so much, where is her share?

Madonna and Child

The relationship between mother and child is sacred.

That statement has served as an irrefutable truth as long as I have been old enough to understand it.

Many children would vow they would lay their lives on the line for their parents; and many parents claim they would kill to protect their offspring. I don’t know how true this is for anyone reading this but I have serious reservations about consciously laying my life on the line for anyone, including the two responsible for my existence.

Think about it, as a parent myself I have thought about it, (I fear this will result in some making adjustments about their opinions of me), while a woman is pregnant she has two choices; she could either resent the distortion of her figure (even fat people have a figure) or she could choose to be excited about being a mom. And so begins the journey of choice:

Choosing to keep the baby

Choosing to embrace the morning sickness

Choosing to love the baby

Choosing to believe you are bonding with the baby

Choosing a natural birth to guide your baby into this world

Choosing his/her name

Choosing to breastfeed

Choosing disposable over towel diapers

Limitless choice.

Love is choice. We all acknowledge that, well those of us who are smart anyway, you choose how and whom to love. So why should the love between mother and child transcend choice?

When the neighbours see that your child is shaping up to be the neighbourhood bully and budding psychopath, as a mom you choose to love him/her nonetheless. You choose to believe that your love (unconditional to the flaws your child displays) is enough to convince your child to not be a bully. You aren’t blind to the faults, but you believe that love will conquer them.

When your child reaches his/her teens, when it is “acceptable” that they will become monsters, that they will tell you they hate you about a million times a year, when they will be convinced you don’t understand; as a mother you choose to love them. It would be just as easy (or difficult) to wash your hands of them. In fact, I will wager that if the law allowed it, you would welcome the chance to kick them in the arse and show them the door. Because honestly, who wants to deal with a barely-out-of-diapers toerag who thinks they know everything?

But as a mom, as a parent, you choose to love your child. You choose to trust that your love will be their salvation. As they tentatively enter adulthood, you are there, like those cops who run around with the trampoline beneath a would-be suicide jumper, hoping to cushion the falls they will undoubtedly experience. You want to protect them from harm, you trust your love to be their wings should they wish to fly.

But then the tide turns, the adult you know as your child is not someone you raised. Your love was not enough to communicate the good things you wished on him/her. Is the relationship between mom and child still sacred then? Because there is no longer a child; just two adults; one older than the other. Your child recalls faults she or he may have felt too young to point out.

“Remember mom? Remember when you helped me cover up accidentally killing the neighbour’s dog?”

“Mom do you remember when you spoiled me instead of teaching me?”

And as a mother you see more clearly; or at least you know now that choosing to love your child
will not make them someone you “would” love. The realisation comes that had you to meet this person at a party; it’s likely you wouldn’t even like them.

As parents, are we allowed to even allow those thoughts to dance a merry jig in our heads? Can we be so arrogant as to then blame ourselves when our children do not turn out to be what we wanted them to be? If they do, what have we done with their free will?a

My Uncle, the monster

My heart sank, my breath soured, I felt bile surge up my throat and I had to fight to keep my lunch in my belly. As the details emerged I lost my battle and rushed to stick my head inside a toilet. Part of me felt I deserved never to leave the germy depths. My life, merely by association, didn’t deserve to continue. I was ashamed.

I would rather be wrong and apologise for not giving him the benefit of the doubt than being proved right and hearing that he raped another child. The person delivering the news was bemused at how “normal” he had been earlier.  No sign that the previous night he had been hidden behind a door, almost caught by the mother of the ten-year-old girl he had returned to rape.

On Saturday, while the little girl was alone with her small brothers no adults about he had preyed on her. Luring her from her room he had masturbated on her thighs in the familiar comfort of her lounge. Will she ever watch TV in that room again without the paralysing fear he instilled in her that day? When he returned on Sunday he had promised he would “put it in slowly”. I can never be grateful enough for the little girl’s bravery that led her to tell her mother instead of believing the lies he said about killing her if she told.

I am sad she wiped the evidence, I am furious her mother didn’t take her to the hospital immediately.  All evidence of his assault has been erased. I can only hope that a previous conviction will be enough to convince the police to take the matter seriously. I will fight for this little girl, because the next child my uncle rapes, will be mine.

*please forgive typos, I am still in shock