Mokokoma Mokhonoana's Blog: Essays by Mokokoma Mokhonoana - Posts Tagged "aids"

Spending Millions to Tell Hobos That Life is a Bitch

While some readers (probably, “most”) will strongly disagree with the premise that I used as this essay’s title (even though an intellectually humble person would have suspended judgment; until they found out what I mean by “real men”), it is reasonable for me to presume that most readers will agree with my second premise, which is:

In most (if not all) rape incidents, the (sane) rapist knew, before raping, that rape is illegal.

That inevitably begs the question, Aren’t we blindly relying on “awareness” in our attempt to resolve something that isn’t really caused by the lack of awareness?

To put it more bluntly, Aren’t we fooling ourselves by relying on “Stop Rape,” “Real Men Don’t Rape,” and, “No Means No” campaigns (which, without fail, tell your average human being what he already knows, i.e., forcing one’s self on someone is illegal), in our attempt to reduce, if not eradicate, rape incidents?

Well, (even though I too, like most concerned people, might not know which is the right tree) I think that we are barking up the wrong tree.

If my second premise is anything to go by, then one can reasonably reckon that at the core of a “Stop Rape” or “Real Men Don’t Rape” or “No Means No” campaign hides an assumption that the rapist’s ignorance is the root cause of rape. But, isn’t that akin to attributing a starving man’s stealing of a loaf of bread to his ignorance; instead of his being hungry, his country’s unequal distribution of its wealth, or, his fear of starvation — which is imposed by man’s innate survival instinct?

As I have premised, almost all of the countless criminals who are in prison because of, say, having committed a robbery, knew very well, before robbing, that robbery is illegal. Furthermore, I doubt that there are would-have-been criminals, who were “saved,” a few seconds before committing a crime, by the mere act of recalling what your average anti-crime campaign feeds us, i.e., “Crime does not pay.”


Repetition is a Double-Edged Sword

Granted, repetition sure has its benefits. For some people need to be told the very same thing more than once; before they do something, or, stop doing something.

Repetition is so powerful that it can leave a man whistling a song which he hates.

However, repetition can also leave a man, as could be the case with the campaigns in question, no longer worrying about an issue which he should be worrying about.

For the more we read about, or, hear of yet another woman’s being raped, the higher our chances of taking action, or, as is usually the case, the more we are likely to utter, “enough is enough,” a statement which’s uttering we regrettably equate with taking action. However, after some point, the more we are fed yet another rape incident: the more powerless we feel, and, the less sympathetic we become.

The downside of repetition is its tendency to make the-repeated-to less sensitive to the-repeated. Just like how, to introduce a less serious case, a man’s moving his telling his wife that he loves her — from once a week to once a day — might increase the odds of her believing him. While his moving his telling her that he loves her — from once a day to once an hour — might reduce the weight, the sincerity, and, the plausibility that his “I love you” once had, or, carried.


Using False Teeth to Prevent Loss of Teeth

Apart from our commonplace ignorant attributing a starving man’s stealing of food to his ignorance, we work hard to get rid of men who stole, instead of working hard to get rid of whatever it is that induced the men to steal.

An example, which illustrates our juvenile habit of dedicating our resources to eradicating symptoms, instead of their cause, is in order. And for that, I will use our usage of the so-called “correctional facilities” in our attempt to eradicate crime. (“Correctional facilities” are merely an attempt to mold man’s behaviour as per the wants of civilization; instead of molding civilization as per the needs of man.)

In the governors’ attempt to fool the governed, or, to appear like they are at least doing something about it, governors cage the so-called criminals in institutions called prison; instead of trying to eradicate the conditions, or, the discomforts that succeeded in persuading or influencing them to steal, kill, or, rape.

Most “illegal” activities have been with us since the day we invented law.

That should have been enough to hint that caging people (i.e., imprisoning the so-called criminals) isn’t an effective attempt to eradicate crime. Alas, such an observation goes either unnoticed, or, simply ignored. Like I concluded The Illusion of Prison, prison is not really a solution to some problem called crime; prison is merely a “consolation prize” for the stolen from, the assaulted, the raped, or, the killed’s loved ones.

Anyway, haven’t we given our precious invention called prison enough centuries to prove or disprove its effectiveness? Or, is our continuing to imprison people merely a hint of our naive belief that doing an ineffective deed is more effective than not doing a thing at all?

(My sharing of my seemingly idealistic take on “correctional facilities” is by no means a plea for us to stop punishing wrongdoers. I’m merely arguing that prison does not really stop people from raping, or, killing. Well, that’s if the undeniable fact that there are countless rapists who served a jail sentence between their raping woman one and their raping woman two, and, countless murders who served a jail sentence between their killing victim two and their killing victim three, is anything to go by.)

Imprisoning criminals does not increase the odds of us eradicating crime. It merely decreases the odds of an imprisoned killer killing twice, or, an imprisoned rapist raping thrice.

In a word, laws do not prevent unlawfulness; they merely encourage lawfulness.


Sanity is Temporary: When Turned On, We’re All Insane

Like almost all human beings, 94% of the dumb things that I have said, done, or, promised, are attributable to: either my being in love, or, my being horny.

Let me start with emotions. Although we are well-aware that being rational over being emotional is almost always worthwhile, when torn between being emotional and being rational, nine times out of ten, our emotions carry the day. To substantiate that, I will simply remind the reader of innumerable already-drowning-in-debt wo/men who easily buy — on credit — a $2,000 handbag that just stole their heart; to add to their twenty-two-handbags collection.

Emotions, too, like looks, can be deceiving.

For example, anger can easily make an undersized man — whose wife he has just found in bed with some oversized man — believe that his wife’s oversized other man will be the one whose face is rearranged; after he is done expressing his anger, on his woman’s other man, with his fists. Just like how a wife’s love for her husband can be a psychological chain that prevents her from leaving her abusive husband.

(With that, I wanted to illustrate how emotions can have a detrimental impact on an emotional man’s appearance.)

I’m now left with hormones. Like emotions, hormones usually overpower reason.

To add to my argument that ignorance isn’t the major cause of social ills:

Not all HIV infected people, who got infected because of their not having used a condom, found out that unprotected sex could leave them infected with HIV … after they were infected with HIV.

Sometimes people have sex without a condom; not because they have never heard of one; but merely because when horny, the rational part of our brain seems to go on leave.

I am by no means, with the previous sentence, trying to defend rapists. That sentence, like all those which make this essay, is, as unbacked-by-MIT-or-Harvard as it might be, my humble attempt to contribute to humanity’s attempt to combat this cancer called rape.

(In concluding this part of this essay, I will attempt to illustrate the detrimental impact that hormones can have on a horny man’s health.)

Occasionally, hormones get the best of man. I do not really need to enumerate all irrational things that we do; all in the name of love, or, more relevant to this part of the essay, irrational things that we usually do; all in the name of an orgasm, or, two. Instead of that, I will share, as I have done in a few essays, an anecdote that substantiates my seemingly ignorant and arrogant opinions. Here goes.

Some medical doctor, someone who, on an average day, sees the horrible effects of sexually transmitted diseases, slept with a former neighbour of mine; someone whom he met an hour or three before their one-night stand, without a condom. The end.


Masturbation: To Unstigmatize, or, not to Unstigmatize

(Er … at the risk of making those who are of an opinion that I am “anti-religion” more convinced that their wrong opinion of me is right, I will, with a paragraph or two, bring religion into my bringing masturbation into our desperate attempt to combat rape.)

Like with most religious laws (which are nothing but an attempt to subjugate religious men’s thoughts and behaviour), there are religious people who are of the belief that their holy book forbids masturbation. While others — believers and nonbelievers — are of an opposing interpretation. Be that as it may, I find it reasonable to reason that, regardless of who is right, more often than not, an anti-masturbation man’s attitude towards masturbation is contaminated by nothing but religious teachings of the religion that he adheres to.

Masturbation is usually labelled, by those who are against it, as “unnatural.” Even though children as young as five are reported, by their parents, to have been caught, by their parents, masturbating. And that’s not all. Some animals, too, masturbate.

That could simply be because, to such children and animals, there exists no ideological divide — between the pro- and the anti-masturbation — to consider; before they guiltlessly submit to the urge to please themselves.

Not to mention the fact that there are countless women who, despite of their having orgasmed countless times, are still “virgins.” The irony being that, in some cases, such women’s adhering to their religion’s forbidding of “Sex Before Marriage” would not have been possible; should they have not ignored their religion’s forbidding of masturbation.

Anyway, though it would be foolish for one to attribute all rape incidents to the stigmatization of masturbation: maybe, just maybe, there is a correlation between the number of rape incidents within a society, and, that society’s general attitude towards masturbation. Like I said, maybe.

It isn’t illogical to assume that some rape incidents would have not occurred, should we have not stigmatized masturbation (something that gazillions of people who publicly declare as “dirty” do when they are behind closed doors). Granted, unstigmatizing masturbation alone is not sufficient, as I have just admitted, to eradicate rape. Be that as it may, I strongly believe that doing so has the potential to avoid a rape incident, or, two.

(I am about to, in my attempt to justify such an “unthinkable” opinion, bring our sex hormones’ habit of overpowering our being rational back into the discussion.)

The one thing that your average honest man will testify to (I’ve only had a penis thus far, thus, it would be ignorant of me to include women) is that after ejaculating, his hormones quickly give in to whatever part of his brain that is responsible for his being rational.

(By the way, that is usually the stage where a man thinks, to himself, that spending the amount of money that he just spent, just to be afforded the privilege of undressing the woman that he just slept with was not worth it, or, that sleeping with his sister-in-law was a dumb move, or, that he should have at least used a condom.)


Women Who Do Not Play Hard to Get Are Hard to Get

Lastly, I would like to briefly propound a possible contributor which is likely to be misread.

We have, as a society, conditioned “righteous” women to initially behave as if they are not interested in a guy that they are interested in; merely because they just met the already-running-after-them guy; lest they be seen as “easy,” or, as “immoral.”

Because of my being more rational than emotional, I find the initial phase of courtship irritating, very. As a result, whenever I’m expected to run after a hard-to-be-gotten woman, I simply leave the woman un-gotten.

Anyway, the purpose of this part of the essay isn’t to bore the reader with my impatience — when coming to the superfluous rituals of courtship. I will attempt, with this part of the essay, to propound — by sharing one more anecdote — the possibility that the notion of “playing hard to get” might have contributed to some rape incidents.

I have had a few instances where my initiating an initial sexual encounter with a woman was met with the usual hard-to-getness. (Like I once quipped, 88% of women love making their first love making incident with a man seem like an accident.) Anyway, instead of doing what we are taught a man should do — beg, promise the woman forever, etc. — I simply stopped.

However, I was later told, by the women in question, that they too wanted us to have sex. And that they merely played hard to get because they did not want to appear “easy.”

Here’s another point that I hope to have propounded:

Not all raped women were raped by a stranger. Some were raped by their date.

The above anecdote relates to such rape incidents. Incidents which we habitually try to lessen with campaigns revolving around the slogan: “No Means No.”

At the risk of appearing to defend “date rapes,” it is plain to see why some men interpret their date’s saying “No” as nothing but the woman’s playing hard to get; especially if the man has had an experience where a woman — whose playing hard to get prevented their having their initial sexual encounter — later told him that her playing hard to get was merely a ritual employed to avoid her appearing “easy,” thus, of easy virtue.

(By the way, feminists who have reached this far, without having labelled me as a sexist, are hypocrites.)

Side Note: Like I have disclosed, the opinions in this essay aren’t end-products of some reputable “social scientist’s” hard labour. I gave birth to them while I was either taking a walk, or, roaming around the one-bedroom flat that I rent — not in some reputable university’s lab. So, feel free to ignore them, should you find the streets, or, a one-bedroom flat, not credible enough to produce theories, opinions, and, suggestions, worth your consideration.

© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [ mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]

So, somebody in a white coat told you that you are dying?

Life sure is a bitch, isn’t it?

Well, that depends on what you mean by “life.” And what you mean by “bitch.”

Do I feel sorry for you?

No, I don’t.

Instead of being “humane,” I would rather run the risk of adding one more person to the list of people who are of an opinion that my opinions are a cancer to the minds of those who consume whatever seemingly random statement that was produced by my pen, mouth,keyboard, or, graphic tablet … by being philosophical. Instead of feeling sorry for you, I would rather remind you of a rather obvious fact of life. Hopefully, that will add value to whatever years, months, days, or, hours, that is left of your soon-to-only-exist-in-the-minds-of-those-who-know-you life.

Here goes:

Finally, life is forcing you to be fully present, or, to at least be more present than your average civilized man; to stop worrying about the tomorrow that you might not even see; to try to squeeze life out of every single breath; to emancipate all the opinions that were imprisoned by some mental tyrant called procrastination, or, the fear of being unpopular; to finally see that there is more to life than making a living.

While we, the not terminally ill, keep promising ourselves that we will, tomorrow, do, what we promised ourselves to do tomorrow, yesterday.

While we, the not terminally ill, toil to double our chances of getting a salary increase; merely to triple the odds of us realizing a decrease in the number of people who are not envious of the number of seconds that it takes our car to reach a hundred kilometers per hour.

While we, the not terminally ill, keep telling people what they would like to hear, at the expense of what we truly feel or think, all in the name of belonging, remaining employed, remaining sexually active, increasing the number of our Twitter followers, or, decreasing the number of Facebook friends who do not “like” our status updates. (As I have once aphorized, “For the most difficult way to be retweeted,or, liked: be thought-provoking. For the easiest way: quote Oprah, Rev.Run, or, the Bible.”)

While we, the not terminally ill, sit back while some beast called civilization squeeze as much energy as it can squeeze out of us … using rough, not to mention unnecessarily long, hands called office hours … to feed its insatiable profit-obsessed appetite; before it discards those whom it cannot exploit further. A stage otherwise known as retirement.

Having said that, even we, the not terminally ill, are dying.

That is to say, life is a terminal disease. To be living is to be dying. An aphorism that I have already published is ad rem. Here goes: “With every single day that you ‘survive,’ you get a day closer to your death.”

In addition to that, an innumerable number of we, the not terminally ill, will die before you, the terminally ill, do; regardless of how near your death is. As a matter of fact, some of we, the not terminally ill, who were alive whilst you were reading the last paragraph, are no more. (That might sound insignificant, but I doubt that the thought of your death being near would have been as terrifying as it is likely to be, if every single member of the human race were to die the second you do.)

Moreover, there are countless healthy human beings who, like you, the terminally ill, are on the verge of death. People suffering from some crippling disease called old age. A disease that ultimately converts a once active person into a spectator of life. For, while getting older might come with abilities, being old comes with disabilities. As I have once aphorized, “A man who lives long enough will be a boy twice.”

The moral of this “heartless” letter? Simple.

In a word, the, at first glance, seemingly exclusive title of this letter refers to every single human being—including the so-called illiterates.

To sum up, we are all terminally ill. For, if the living aren’t killed by some terminal disease, other human beings, accidents, etc., some patient disease called the passage of time will. And that also applies to infants, nuns, firefighters, presidents, CEOs, priests, and, virgins.

Until then, L.I.P. (Live in peace).


© Mokokoma Mokhonoana (mokokoma.com + @mokokoma)