So what to do with all those Project X tickets?

More than half of sexually active teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 use contraceptives. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • First let us remember who the party was aimed at. The audience was post-secondary students. Or adults, as I prefer to call them.
  • Two thousand years ago, having a statue of people having intercourse in your house was thought to be the height of class and taste.
  • If youth are meeting to use marijuana, there isn’t much to worry about it. Cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol as numerous studies have told us.

There was a lot of tut-tutting over the planned party. The party, which was nothing more than a mild-mannered fresher’s bash, seemed to rub everyone the wrong way.

The nanny-state Kenya, religious values Kenya and patriotic Kenya all united and was angry beyond words. Behold the debauchery apocalypse. 

The churchmen condemned it, the political leaders denounced it and finally policemen banned it.

The strangest condemnation came from the film censors the self-appointed upholders of public morality. Kenya Film Classification Board, (KFCB) told us that Project X was being organised by international pornographers with local networks promoting homosexuality, who somehow also specialised in extortion and drug peddling.

It doesn’t add up. Firstly, why would someone whose business model is extortion charge between Sh500 and Sh3500 for entrance at the gate?

Next, why would an international pornography syndicate sell tickets through companies operating in the CBD?

If you can charge Sh3500 as entrance fee, you have a good thing going. Why risk your tidy earner? Also, why would a homosexual advocacy group use images of sexualised women aimed at men?

This yet unnamed international porn ring with local affiliations that specialises in drug peddling, advocating for homosexuality and extortion that operates out of businesses in the CBD sounds scarier than Isis.

The story seems so incredible, that I suspect it was from one of the banned movies that KFCB wouldn’t let us see.

First let us remember who the party was aimed at. The audience was post-secondary students. Or adults, as I prefer to call them.

WHY WORRY?

There really shouldn’t be a worry because the truth is that secondary education is known to delay sexual encounters by about three years, according to the latest reports.

More Kenyans are going to secondary school and this is delaying their sexual experiences.

Going by government statistics, three quarters of young adults have sex before marriage, and I suspect the other quarter are too repressed to admit they do.

The experimentation with sex often occurs between the time of finishing high school and getting married.

More than half of Kenyan youth have sex by the time they are 18, according to the latest Kenya Demographic Health Survey.

Two thirds of Kenyan youth have had sexual encounters by the time they are 20.

There is nothing wrong with a sex-themed party aimed at young adults.

The fact that it was in a big city like Nairobi should be cause for less worry among the morality crowd because this city has the lowest age of sexual debut (22.1) in the country.

So puritan scaremongering aside, the youth are already engaging sex. They are also using contraception more often than not.

More than half of sexually active teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 use contraceptives.

The percentage shoots up to 70 per cent for women who are between the ages of 20-24. Sex happens a lot during these years, and the majority are prepared.

The use of contraception has exploded, and this ultimately shows that women are taking charge of their sexuality.

Some people have a deep-seated fear of unmarried sex. The younger generation does not share your concern.

People should be free to express their affection as they see fit. As long as they are adults and it is consensual, we shouldn’t concern ourselves.

Every generation bemoans its children’s sexual mores. Parents have been doing it for thousands of years. The moral apocalypse comes from many sources.

A PRIVILEGE

It is twerking today, ragga when I was growing up, and it was rock 50 years ago.

The Victorians who always pretended to be the cultural inheritors of Rome were shocked when they excavated Pompeii and found that ancient Romans liked to have statues and pictures of people having sex displayed prominently in their houses.

Two thousand years ago, having a statue of people having intercourse in your house was thought to be the height of class and taste.

It is sad that in the millennium between Pompeii being buried in ash and the Victorians exhuming the city displaying images of naked humans having sex had fallen out of fashion.

Sex has become a dirty thing, rather than a great human expression of affection. The pendulum has swung too far out to the puritans.

This generation did not discover sex. In fact, in many countries that conduct sexual surveys, they have shown that millennials have less sex than the previous generations.

In Kenya, the age of sexual debut is going up, not down.

The police are infringing on the right to association. If youth want to meet with the explicit reason to have sex, it is their prerogative.

As for the drugs, it is time to accept that drug views differ markedly across generations. It depends on the drug. Marijuana use is increasingly acceptable among the young.

The National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Nacada) says that 49 per cent of Kenyans view the drug as easily available.

It is also the most widely used illicit substance on earth - 95 per cent of all drug cases in Kenya are due to cannabis, according to police.

If youth are meeting to use marijuana, there isn’t much to worry about it. Cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol as numerous studies have told us.

The current law regarding marijuana is plainly unenforceable, as a visit to any public university halls of residence on a Friday night will inform you.

So, come down granddad, Project X is nothing to worry about.