Kenyan women and sex toys

The clubs are closed. Bridal showers are out. Tinder dates are cancelled. One-night stands are practically unlawful.

Side dishes are isolated. But, despite these obvious hurdles, coronavirus has still created a sex industry sales boom.

It seems, given endless boredom and loneliness, we are buying sex toys. Lots of them — so much so that the industry is thriving.

In Italy (where Covid-19 disease is devastating), sex toy purchases are trending 60 per cent above the forecast; in France it's 40 per cent; in Canada it's 135 per cent; in the United States it's 75 per cent, and Hong Kong is 71 per cent.

Even in Australia sales have increased by 31 per cent since January. Though the sex toys market in Kenya is mostly conducted underground, indications from online discussions is that more people are turning to self-love when the craving strikes.

“After a while video chats and sexts just don't cut it. Many of us turn to masturbating to not only to relieve our newfound horniness (even for a brief time), but also just to give us something to do,” says one sex expert.

When women are lying about them

But despite the rising use and acceptance of sex toys among the urbanite female, many still fear coming out as owners and users.

“Sex toys users are stigmatised in Kenya. It’s seen as masturbation and regarded as dirty. There is a lot of religious and moral debates that such an admission is likely to stir,” Satmag columnist and sexologist Joachim Osur claims.

But while shouting from the rooftops is one thing, many women will also not share this intimate detail with their partner.

Case in point is Tabitha, a married, 35-year-old real estate agent who has kept this fact of her life secret from her husband of five years for the same reason she imagines a man who watches pornography might want to keep this fact away from his wife.

“I afraid and ashamed of showing him this side of me. What if it repulses him?” she poses

She shares that she has used adult toys with partners in previous less serious relationships, but she’s afraid that now there is too much to lose. “Maybe one day in the future.”

Bruised ego

Ngima, a 29-year-old small business owner, says she owns sex toys because she believes that it affirms the importance of female sexual pleasure.

A man she dated a couple of years ago didn’t see it like this. “I floated the idea to a boyfriend in the past and he hit the roof! He kept asking whether he was not good enough and why I was trying to have him compete with a piece of plastic.”

After this incident, this fact is something that she now keeps to herself.

She has steered clear of this topic with her current live-in boyfriend of two years. “I am sexual but when it comes to sexual partners, I am ashamed of owning it.”

These two are not the only women struggling with this shame. A 2018 study by TooTimid.com - a US based sex toy retailer - found that out of 1,413 women who owned sex toys, 54 per cent hadn’t told their partners about their stashes.

When further questioned, most of them said that they were trying to protect the egos of the men in their lives.

They were afraid that if the men knew the truth, they would feel inadequate and threatened.

Who uses a sex toy?

"What kind of woman uses a sex toy?" I pose to a group of women.

The general consensus is that she is much younger, possibly single, and one who does not think much of sexual exclusivity.

One woman is even offended by my question because, “What kind of woman uses things like that? What kind of women do you think we are?”

“She is empowered, exposed and educated. She is a woman who prides in sexual pleasure and goes for it,” states Osur.

When I finally find a woman who admits to owning and using a sex toy, she is nothing like this profile.

Betty, a 34-year-old media professional, is happily married and a mother of two. When asked what she thinks about sexual exclusivity in a relationship, she says that it is everything.

“It is one of the things that a woman must demand from her partner,” she says.

It’s readily available

Betty was gifted her first toy at her bridal shower six years ago. Before this, it wasn’t something she had thought of owning.

She always thought it was for the more ‘carefree’ type of woman.

"My bridal shower started on a bad note; my friends had hired male strippers and I remember being furious at them because most of them were married at the time. I thought they were being a bad example to me. But it was also the first time I had candid conversations with other women on relationships and sexuality. Openly having these conversations opened my mind a little bit,” she chuckles.

How easy is it to get a sex toy in our streets?

Some African countries like Mauritius and Zimbabwe have laws that directly outlaw the sale of bedroom trinkets such that there is a ton of tips online for citizens on how to sneak in toys when coming from holidays abroad.

The Kenyan law only prohibits the sale of pornography and obscene materials and does not directly address the toys, meaning that as long as a seller does not display them in public in a way that would breach public peace or morality, they can get away with it.

A spot check online revealed that anyone with internet access in Kenya can buy a toy.

There are many websites and Facebook pages like Sex Toys Kenya and G-spot Kenya, owned by lawyer Bev Munga, promising discreet, same-day delivery, with variety of toys for as low as Sh3,000.

What the Kenyan man thinks

Two Kenyan men, both 36 years old, have differing views on the introduction of the toys to their bedrooms.

Robert, a paramedic, admits that it might elicit certain insecurities and anxieties in him, but if his partner wanted to try them, he would be open to it.

He has used a toy with a girlfriend, once or twice in the past. Ken Oduor, a small media owner, on the other hand classifies it as cheating.

“I am not sure how comfortable I am with having my woman getting pleasure from something that isn’t me,” he says.

Men in other parts of the world also seem to hold views similar to Ken’s.

A 2017 study done on heterosexual men in the USA showed that at least 48 per cent of them had used a toy at one point in a relationship.

Interestingly, these men reported lower sexual satisfaction in their relationships. The researchers reckoned that this could because they feel that it reflects poorly on their own sexual performance.

Maurice Matheka, a relationship and sexual psychology expert, reckons that these attitudes could stem from how the society has been conditioned to view female sexuality.

It’s seen as something that can only be expressed with a man. When it comes to toys being a threat to relationships or to men’s egos, he disagrees.

“There is so much more that could go wrong in a relationship if a couple does not use toys than if they do. Over the years, I have encountered women for whom the sexual experience was improved after,” he says.

How to talk him round to it?

He agrees that there are men who worry that if women use toys they will lose interest in men, but he says these are the insecure men and shouldn’t be the benchmark.

“If a man is poor in the sack, he is poor in the sack. We should not blame the toys.”

If a woman is in a happy, physically fulfilling relationship, why would she need a toy? I pose this question to Kanini, 31.

“Having a toy doesn’t necessarily mean that your significant other isn’t good enough in the sack. To me it means that they are open-minded and fun and like to try things with you.”

Kanini is aware that if a woman mentions that she uses a toy, all fingers then point to the man and his skills.

It is for this reason that she kept the fact that she owned a toy from her husband until three years into their relationship and a year into their marriage.

Even when she did, she was half expecting that he would bolt or that his opinion of her would change.

“I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me why I hadn’t told him about it before. Now it’s something we do together amongst other things,” she says.

Honesty is the best policy

Kanini thinks that using these trinkets together with her partner has improved their relationship, and that women who hide this fact from the men in their lives are hiding from fulfilling relationships and total honesty with their partners.

While it would be nice for the women who own toys if their men were as receptive as Kanini’s, reality is there are many who would rather not see or hear about these toys.

Winnie Mwachala, a Mombasa-based Senga, thinks that there is something that can be done.

According to her, the main problem is the misconception that sex toys are tools that solve problems. In her view, they should be seen as just additional fun.

“A woman that wants toys to be something that she does with her man can get him on board with just two tricks - lots of reassurance and a bit of education,” she offers.

“It is not unnatural for a man to think that the woman in his life owns or uses a toy because their sex life is boring or because he lacks skills. This is why it is absolutely important that before she broaches this topic with him, she appeases his ego,” she advises.

According to her, as long as both parties agree that they are not a subtraction or a replacement but an addition to the relationship, there should be no friction.