Soiled Knickers In The Post

When it comes to sex, Ugandans, pretend to be prudish and years ago, seeing a couple walk down Kampala Road and hand-in-hand would have be the talk of town. A couple kissing would evoke not only whispers but glaring stares.

But Uganda 2014 has changed. It’s no big deal now. It happens everywhere and so frequently that nobody gives a hoot except when women wear miniskirts or couples flaunt their gay and lesbianism feelings.

Behind closed doors, things happen that people swear never happen. In some secluded shops in Kampala, sex toys are openly sold and to people who go out of their way to portray themselves as squeaky clean sex saints.

London in the 80s was on ‘heat’ with sex. Telephone booths had stickers advertising anything from: ‘Big breasted blonde seeks mature man for afternoon of lust’ to ‘sexy tigress wants to whip you’.

Those were the ‘nice’ adverts. But, there were others that were hard to stomach like: ‘Blond nurse will send you her soiled knickers for 25 Pounds (sh105,000)’. If not that: ‘Glamour female banker selling her urine sample.’

Gary Nesbitt, my dwang at the time and I, always had this feeling that the adverts were a scam operated by London’s unscrupulous. But whatever reservations we had, we felt it was a scam worth investing in and in Blond Nurse for her soiled undies.

A week went by and every morning the postman delivered nothing but bills. Another ten days went by and again, no knickers but bills. Then one Friday he delivered a padded A3 sized envelope. The nondescript brown envelope got our hearts racing. What this it, did it contain the soiled knickers?  Ripping the envelope apart, out fell a plastic bag – similar to those used by the police to store crime scene evidence, and in it, its contents were all too evident. They were indeed knickers and on close inspection, they looked soiled though I can’t say for sure if the they were authentically soiled or not.

On a trip to Europe, we breezed into a small town called Bruges, on the Holland/Dutch border on a Sunday when families were strolling around and basking the in the summer wave. In just about every hypermarket, café, restaurant or store that we walked into, there was a family presence. In some cases, there were three or more generations of families – something that you do not see in Uganda.

In one hypermarket that we piled into, we found it was a sex shop with more floor space than Nakumatt, Game and Uchumi put together.

The first part of the store sold the usual stuff – Playboy, Penthouse or Mayfair magazines. But the further in that you walked, the magazines got more graphic as did the titles – Hustler, Knave and one that derives its name from a young cat – not a kitten, but the other young cat which, people call pussy, if you get my drift. At far end of the warehouse were toys for those into sadomasochism stuff - handcuffs, masks, chains, whips and so on.

While it was an eye opener, what is interesting, is that the Belgians and the Dutch are pretty much open when it comes to sex and are not embarrassed about it. Mum and Dad don’t shop for sex toys alone. They take along their sons and daughters plus their sons’ and daughters’-in-laws, uncles and aunts and grandparents regardless of age.

If a Ugandan bought soiled knickers or took his family to a sex shop, there would be a national outcry and they would be branded vile and immoral. But why? Everybody has a sexual fetish of some sort including, the prudes who claim to have squeaky clean sex lives!