by B. Nyamnjoh
For a fifth flying-shirt, “Since tradition confines and modernity liberates, men who listen to the call of both worlds must have a foot in both. On the one hand, we maintain ties to tradition by marrying, but we keep an open eye for others we can invite into our lives. I think open ended relationships give both sexes room to negotiate tradition and modernity.”
A sixth introduced the notion of “commodification, where the value of women is measured in numbers”, and “men see relationships as investments”. “Considering how volatile the stock exchange can be, men seek to diversify their portfolio to protect their investments. It is too dangerous to keep all your eggs in a single market basket,” he concluded.
A seventh fervently agreed. “When a thousand girls throw themselves at one guy, it’s hard for him to ignore that he’s hot currency. In that position, he knows he has a wide field to play on. Whichever girl does not want to be in his team can sign out and will be easily replaced”, he explained.
An eighth flying-shirt who hardly spoke made this comment: “Only a few guys really know what to do with women, and those few keep on getting the bulk of women. So though on a head count there might be many men around, in reality – and something women are good at sensing – those who really know what makes women feel on top are few and far between. Women are willing to cut some slack for such a man in return for what he gives them.”
Although not part of the discussion, Burning Spear added his voice as an observer. “Women with low self-esteem constantly need to be validated by someone else, and for this reason will fall for words, the stock in trade of men who sample women like butterflies do flowers.”
To Lilly Loveless, the discussion, which lasted several hours and cost her a fortune in beer and roasted meat, also confirmed what Britney had found out through her stories collected mainly from women: Love of variety for variety’s sake; the need to display wealth and power and impress fellow men by winning women as trophies; lack of other imaginative ways of celebrating achievement, power and material comfort; beliefs in the supernatural medicinal qualities and potency of especially younger women in taming the occult; and reliance on violence, debasement and humiliation of others for self-assurance.
It was in relation to the latter point that the flying-shirts were most bitter. They deplored the treatment inflicted on them by their male superiors – the Mbomas. All of them in the focus group hated the way Mbomas harvested the best crop of girls around. They felt outdone by the relative advantage of financial and material comfort. Many felt the humiliation too much to bear and several related stories of bitter confrontation and violent disagreements with girlfriends because of Mbomas. Typically, Lilly Loveless noticed, the overwhelming tendency was for the flying-shirts to blame the girls. Few of them accepted her argument that the girls they blamed were in fact victims of a violent game played in the name of love, that ultimately had little to do with love.
After squeezing them for all she could get, Lilly Loveless paid for the drinks and roasted meat they had consumed, thanked them and moved on.
***
Another thing Lilly Loveless did in her last days in Mimboland was read Dr Wiseman Lovemore’s paper and A Nose for Money, both of which she had postponed reading for fear of being prematurely influenced.
She felt bad that the trip to Nyamandem had not yielded the results which she and Bobinga Iroko had hoped for. They had been forced to return without seeing Dr Wiseman Lovemore. Access to him was impossible even for the world’s leading human rights advocates whom Bobinga Iroko and The Talking Drum had mobilized through the Internet and their diaspora connections. It was particularly painful to read Dr Wiseman Lovemore’s paper, knowing she would have to keep her feedback to herself instead of sharing it with him as he had requested. Why hadn’t she read it before? But then how could she have known how things would turn out?
She found the paper intriguing and appreciated how Dr Wiseman Lovemore had done an in-depth analysis. She felt vindicated for having decided to postpone reading it, for it most certainly would have coloured her understanding of the issues in those early days. At the end of her second reading, Lilly Loveless decided to type up the following excerpt, to make it easy for her to draw from it in the course of her own writing:
Desperately Seeking Something
‘[….] Here in Mimboland, it’s as common as elsewhere on the continent to find a strong and steady relationship between a married, mostly elderly, man and a young unmarried girl, often a high school or university student. Relationships between married women and high school or university male students are also possible, though less frequent. Most of the men involved with female students are apparently very happily married, some with children the age of those they long to have. Some of these girls also have young lovers as well, who are of their age group, and with some of whom they share common dreams of marriage and making a family. Yet most of the married men and young girls often successfully put up strong and passionate relationships that sometimes threaten marriages. Sometimes these relationships are the happiest in the world. Usually, the Mboma – also known, inter alia, as Swallowers, Papa Friend, Uncle Boyfriend, Big Fish, Sugar Daddy, Tutuleur, Bon-payeur, Numero Gagneant, Daddy, Anaconda, Mec, Jack pot, This Pikin Their Papa, Big Guns, Papa, Cashious, Customers, Tycoon, Grandpa, Pope, Big Belly, and Patron – and the girl spend lots of time together, the man taking care of the girl’s needs and the girl making sure she keeps the man happy and feeling young. Sometimes, everyone knows of the relationship for months or years except the man’s wife, but when she does tension fills the air and so do jealousy, frustration and threats.
‘Reasons for these relationships vary from girl to girl and man to man. They include psychological, economic and social reasons. Lack of parental love and care is one of the main reasons why some students date married men. Girls who grew up in broken homes, who were born out of wedlock or who had no social fathers are more likely to date married men because they need a father figure to give them the love, care and protection they lacked as children. Girls of high class parents who grew up with a certain respect for class and status and had rich uncles, aunts and cousins, date married men because they feel a need to respect and maintain the standards of life they grew up with. Also, unlike single men, married men are more caring in their relationships with female students. Unlike young boys and bachelors who take their girlfriends’ emotions for granted and who are more promiscuous, less caring and not very providing, married men are not that much of heartbreakers. They take care of their girlfriends emotionally and materially, and tend to be more faithful to them than their bachelor counterparts.
Eating Up: Why Girls Date Mbomas
‘On the material and economic front, these girls may also date married men because of greed. They have an insatiable desire for wealth and pleasure. They go for men that are financially stable and that can serve as sponsors to them. Some girls date these men because they need a constant source of money for their rents, fees, clothing and feeding. Also, these men are usually well placed in society and can influence job opportunities. Girls at the University of Mimbo, who date ministers, parliamentarians, directors, general managers, customs officers, state treasurers, business men and so on, often have the hidden or expressed agenda of being able to use them to access jobs and opportunities. They could thus be said to exploit the men and to use them as facilitators to achieving their goals. Because of the acute economic crisis, ordinary parents cannot adequately provide for the needs of their children. It is common to see girls at university who do not have beds and mattresses and those who lack cookers or even books. These girls, in order to solve their economic problems therefore, turn to dating married men who are made to serve as meal tickets, among other things. The married men are a means to an end. Even for the most study-conscious girls, there is an attraction in going out with married men. You have time to yourself when dating married men. Since they do not always have to stay out late, the time you spend with them is limited and you can use
the extra time you have lucratively, either for studies, relaxation or anything of your choice.
‘There are reasons of ostentation as well, of which university girls are the most affected. Some of them love to display wealth and prestige. And thus they may choose to date married men if doing so could lead them to achieve all or any of the following: open bank accounts for themselves; dress expensively and be admired; furnish their rooms or even live in apartments, something not easily affordable otherwise as students; go on pleasure trips in “big flashy cars”; be seen and associated with men of class, and hence become girls of class; simply for competition with friends and be able to earn respect among mates as those who are richer, have the most men, the most clothes, the most shoes and the most jewellery, and have slept in the most in the most prestigious hotels; and occupy the front seat of cars that tell their stories in tens of millions and in flashy personalized number plates, is a prestige which most girls who date married man seek.
‘In all this, married men are solutions to problems of all types. Some girls think married men are less exposed to sexually transmitted diseases since they are married and will always do everything to protect their wives and families from illnesses. Therefore, they date married men to limit and control the spread of diseases. Also, as girls would say, it is better to be second to the wife of a married man and know that you are second, than think you are first only to discover that you have been deceived by a single man with a bonbon coated tongue. The tendency is for girls to see married men as less of heart-breakers and better at taking care of their emotional needs than young men or bachelors.
‘Of course, it is not all rosy dating married men. There are inconveniences, risks and displeasures as well. But the girls often choose to live with them. The most pressing and general regret to some tends to be the fact that they can’t always get to see the married man as much as they would like or when they want. “You cannot call them at home in case of an emergency, and so you always have to wait on them to make the next move,” is a regular complaint. In a way, married men call the tune, which could be very frustrating for any girl who chooses to invest emotionally in them. It makes them appear like call girls, especially when the men have other girls as well. While some can’t handle this, others don’t mind, as long as the men give them what they need, usually money. Another pressing worry is the constant fear of a nasty encounter or confrontation with the lawfully wedded wife. At the end, the girls usually are the losers, since eligible bachelors tend to fear girls who have dated married men and to avoid having anything to do with them. Hence, these girls have less chances of marriage.
Eating Down: Why Mbomas Date Girls
‘As for married men dating young secondary, high school and university girls, their reasons are just as many and varied. Some do it for economic reasons as well. Following the difficult economic situation of Mimboland, some men are initially forced to get married to girls of lower status, mostly from their home villages, and usually given to them by their parents. But as their economic situation improves, they turn to dating girls of higher status as a way of satisfy their innermost desires. Such men tend to want to compensate for what they could not afford during years of hardship, now that they have made it. They like girls who are very pretty and sophisticated in bed – doing the sort of things that stars do in movies, and whom they can take to parties and show off, and of whom they can boast as good sexual partners who master the techniques of modern love making. They would hesitate to spend their money on a girl who does not make them feel different in and out of bed through exotic unconventional practices. There has to be a clear sense of value-added in reality and in make-believe.
‘It is also believed that married men with good jobs where they can receive lots of bribe or embezzle with impunity have much more money to spend, and therefore are inclined to seek girls whom they can exploit. Because they have money and these girls are at times so desperate, they indulge in excesses that can only be described as exploitation. They also seek these girls in pursuit of love, which their nagging wives cannot offer them at home. Some use girls as escape or distraction from the heat of marriage, or from occupational hurdles.
‘For some, it is to meet up with cult demands for future enrichment or achievements by sucking the life essence from these girls who become victims. Some simply want change, since familiarity breeds contempt and men have been known to complain against eating the same food day in day out. Men are known to explain running after younger girls as seeking to keep away from less appealing menopausal wives.
‘Other reasons include: culture and tradition, according to which the more women a man has, the more respect; intentions for polygamy, hence the quest for second, third, fourth, or nth wife; need for children, by men whose wives are barren and who feel the pressure to prove themselves by having children with young and fertile girls; excitement, since some men find the experience of hiding in student rooms very exciting and worthwhile; to regain vitality and good health; to establish their future better; need of companion for business and pleasure trips; to boost their ego with feelings of having helped out; for status, since for some of them these girls are more educated than their wives and with the changes in the status of women today, some men prefer literate girls to their illiterate wives; to celebrate their material success, especially for those with money enough to build mansions, buy flashy cars and undertake trips and missions abroad either for business or on behalf of the government; to spread, consciously, HIV/AIDS, venereal and other diseases of love which they know they have; because girls are readily available at affordable rates.
Money as a Visibilizer
‘There are certain ethnic groups whose women are notorious for being seen with other men at night in bars, meetings and ‘cry-dies’ – funerals. “No, they’re not after sexual pleasure, because many of them have been circumcised. If you’ve not known the pleasure of sexual activity, you don’t know how to look for it. They know however that they get material benefits, which they in turn reinvest in their beauty – a cultural expectation. Some women in polygamous relationships go out to get funds to support their efforts at dressing, beauty, and appetites, because the man who used to give her enough for that is now dividing his earnings among several women. As one woman whose husband had totally failed her sexually after five years of married put it, “Even a circumcised woman could experience sexual pleasure, if she’s with a sensitive man, who knows how to read the inner feelings of a woman burning with desire. Everything doesn’t boil down to the clitoris. The find gold, a man must dig deep beyond the surface”. But when the man’s sensitivity is confined to his need for sex, the women satisfy men on this front in return for material benefit – if one cannot harvest pleasure, one might as well harvest treasure. This would explain why at public manifestations involving singing and dancing by cultural groups, some men will throw money at the group – knowing that women in the audience will notice them and pick them out to pursue later. This is what I term money as a visibiliser.
‘If girls sometimes feel exploited by married men, these men also feel exploited by the girls they date – a case of mutual zombification. It is true that without their money, most of these married men would not be attractive to the girls they date. Even with money in certain cases, it takes a lot of courage or chronic poverty for a girl to go out with some of these obviously comprehensively unattractive men. In most cases, the girls cannot accept to be second wives, which sometimes is indicative of lack of real feelings or commitment for the men they are dealing with.’
Lilly Loveless paused and noted the following on the margin: ‘Are the men interested in second or third wives? It is not an easy arrangement as many academic and non academic writings show that multiple partnerships come at a price for men and women. In fact my fieldwork shows the same. The point is why should the girls accept it? Better cut one’s losses and get the money and leave.’
Then she continued reading: ‘Also, when the men lose their jobs, they are likely t
o lose their girls too because, joblessness implies subsequent poverty, and a poor married man, is a whole waste of time in this game. With declarations by men such as the following, feelings of exploitation are bound to be mutual: “We will always go back home no matter what we do outside or feel for you girls because a wife is a wife and a girlfriend a girlfriend. Home is home”. Considerate to married women though this may be, married women are embittered by the fact that these girls allow themselves to go out with their men. They want the girls to leave their husbands alone, and some are determined to go as far as witchcraft, magic and violence to make this clear. Others have accepted this as a way of life, daring from time to time to seek to beat their men at their game. Others are less reluctant to yield, and would warm up to calls for women’s emancipation, and for the enlightenment of the young and upcoming generation to the virtues of moral rectitude.…’
Appended to the paper was a clipping from Mbangala Tutu, Mimboland’s most popular society magazine published in Sakersbeach, a copy of which Lilly Loveless once bought under persuasion from Britney. The title of the clipping was: ‘Who No Know Say Latrine-for Corner House di Smell Pass Mark?’ This was followed by a quote:
“If you wanna find silver, go looking in the valley,
If you wanna find gold, go digging in the stone,
If you wanna find heaven, go reading the Bible,
If you wanna find love, go looking at home.”
Then a comment from the author, a certain Ndombolo Na Hélélé: “I think Don Williams was right except for the fourth line.” After going on and on about how much “latrine for corner house di smell pass mark”, how it is inconceivable to “torture your husband with a meal of potatoes” day in day out, “confine a man of achievements to a tiny little office”, or “expect someone to dance all night if he only knows one tune,” he declares: “Everywhere on earth, especially here in Mimboland, it is considered normal for a married man to keep a concubine and/or to visit prostitutes. That is why when we hear a man has an affair, we don’t ask: ‘how dares he?’ Rather, we ask: ‘Why has it taken him this long? Is he normal?’…”