Midnight poem

The words are blur
and hard to catch,
like raindrops in the wind,
they run fast and unforgiving.

The smell of this night
Is as addictive as your lips on my neck.
I want you.

I want you as the naked winter
trees want to be dressed
in flowers and sunny blows.
Like the whistle of the wind,
looking, searching, craving
You.
It might never find
You.
I might never have
You.

I want you,
I want the restless depth of your touch.
The endless sweat of your anatomy.

I’m drunk and unkissed,

and I want to be covered in your skin.

I may be drunk and unkissed
But I’m here and you’re real.
And the words are blur
and hard to catch,

I want you. Come.

It’s ELIANA’S DAY!

As I’m getting older I’m growing tired of the same old, same old, phallic references here and there. Having to ‘rise to the occasion’ and having to ‘grow some balls’, I’m a grown woman: I know that human beings are way more complex than that.

I think that, personally, I’m more like a vulva: There are different dimensions to who I am, and most of my connections only get you see one or two: there’s the labia minora, the labia majora, the urethral opening, the prepuce, the vaginal opening, and so on. 

Then there is a part of me that is very out there but that only a few people know how to handle: the clit. The clit is a very delicate thing: you can’t just push the clit. You have to handle the clit gently, respect it, praise it, learn how to work around it. If you touch it the wrong way, you get kicked in the face – literally!

Most people get lost trying to find the G-spot and all the while I’m left there standing still, waiting for them to catch up with me.
So, today I take April 15th to show my appreciation for those who touch me in the right places and keep me going. Thank you for not neglecting any part of me. For acknowledging and accepting even the bits of me that scare you. Thank you for allowing me to take my time. Thank you for letting me scream as loud as I want. For the foreplay, for the soft kisses, for the restless support, for the hardcore love making.

THANK YOU.

I hope you all have an orgasmic day today (I really mean that).

On self confidence

I’ve come to realize that self-confidence is not so much about one’s personal perception of their beauty, as it is about their ugliness.

I think self-confidence comes from that ability to face being ridiculed and/ or misunderstood in a graceful way.

When you are aware of the number of ways a specific outfit; picture; hairstyle; etc may make you look ‘ugly’ under most people’s standards, and you give zero fucks about it, then you’ve mastered self-confidence.

Then you know that even though your teeth are not perfect, and your nose is ‘too wide’, you are not light-skinned, you are happy with it and you love every feature in you.

Back To The Roots

A visual story about self discovery in a time of globalized culture.

nzualonakhumalo's avatarNzualo Na' Khumalo

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This is our quest: to leave the branches and find where our tree is standing on. How far do our roots go? What is it on the soil that fed the seed?

From concrete jungle to urbanized savanna, we followed the path to the start. The Root to our morals, our ideologies and identity.

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Part I: Ntumbuluko wa mina/ My roots

Bairro da Maxaquene

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After leaving the southern province of Inhambane, in hopes of providing a better life for their families in the capital city, Maputo, Maxaquene was the first, and still is the address of our grandparents. In the simplicity it offers, here they raised our parents under strong values such as hard work, gratitude and humbleness.

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Mana Lidia is a young woman who lives in Maxaquene. Although it was the first time we met, she didn’t mind opening the doors of her house to us and making us…

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#100happydays and the happiness propaganda

The #100happydays campaign proposes a challenge to today’s society: to make a daily post about something that made you happy that day, for 100 days. From what I’ve seen on Facebook and Twitter, the moments that make people happy revolve around food and hanging out with friends. It’s an Instagram meets Osho kind of thing.

Some of my connections on social networks have been posting pictures for over a month now and as time passes by it is more and more clear to me that some days there’s just nothing to post. This has become another way to fill my news feed with hipster randomness.

I’m here for happiness. I am here for people finding things that make them happy and sharing them with the world, but it is illogical and even violent to force yourself to be happy for 100 days straight.

Let’s face it, there are days that simply don’t bring us any good. I mean, yes, we survived. We made it through whatever bad situation we were in, but sometimes we wish we didn’t. We wish we could just lay here, and just forget the world.

The happiness propaganda is not only dismissive; it is harmful to our true selves. Every day we ask each other “How are you?” and the answer is automatic “I’m fine, thank you. And you?”. We’re told “You should be more appreciative because person X Y Z has way less than you”.

Far too often we don’t get to mourn and grief, we have to ‘suck it up’. We’re not given the chance to talk about the things that upset us. And to me the #100happydays is just another tool we are imposing on ourselves to silence the things that matter to us the most. To me, that is violence.

What if we did a #100honestdays campaign and we talked about the things that bothered us? I’m sure that after the ‘I hate my boss’ or ‘Save the African children’ posts, we would have meaningful conversations about the stuff that haunts us.

Posts like “Today I felt unappreciated because I did something to my mom and it went unnoticed” or “I had a fight with a friend and I don’t think she/he understood my point”, or “A picture of my ex with his current gf popped on my feed and it reminded me of how happy we used to be together”.

Most of us would feel less alone after some people shared similar stories and how they got through them. A campaign like that would open the door for us to share intimate parts of ourselves and, consequently, have a deeper understanding of how we affect, positively and negatively, the ones around us.

A few months ago I was made aware that a friend of mine was recovering from depression. On my mind I started reliving the times they tried to tell me they weren’t okay and I didn’t notice it. It was impossible for me not feel guilty for not seeing this friend’s pain.

At the end of the day, when we lay our heads in bed, we don’t care that it was sunny that day and it doesn’t matter that we had dinner at our favorite place. We care that no one listens to us; we care that we miss an estranged friend and we care that we regret not being there for someone we love.

And if those are the things we care about the most, then those are the things we should be talking about. Things we should be sharing. Things that deserve a hashtag.

The female condom and feminism: love or contradiction? (Part II)

My first experience with the female condom was couple of months ago. I was approached by a sales promoter of the Cupid on my way home and she convinced me to buy it: I bought two, one for me and another for a very close friend of mine.

For weeks I would stare at the package, squeeze it and read the instructions. The curiosity was either going to kill me or make me stronger, so I decided to try it.

My male partner had never used a female condom before either, so we made the executive decision to start off with the male condom and then swapping to the female condom. I didn’t feel at ease inserting it by myself, so I asked him to do it. I figured that if a woman can insert a male condom on her partner, why can’t the opposite happen?

Even though I had read the instructions many times before, we had to actually stop for a few minutes and read them again. The thing has 10 steps, 8 of which being directly connected to its insertion and use! It was only then that I realized that the sponge stays inside the entire time. We managed to get it right eventually but then there was another problem: something was hurting the penis- I’m guessing it was the sponge- and it was too uncomfortable so we went back to the male condom after a couple of minutes.

I was disappointed at it: too much discomfort and not that much fun, after all. The friend I bought the other condom for has yet to try hers and I’m guessing she never will.

Other friends gave it a try and the stories are not that different from mine.

On a conversation, one friend rhetorically asked why the sponge on the Cupid had to be so big. She says it was painful to put it in, in fact, she too asked her boyfriend to help her, but the worst part was taking it out because the sponge goes out opened.

For men who enjoy giving and women who enjoy receiving oral sex, it can be challenging since a significant part of the vulva remains covered and female condoms usually are not flavored. Although based on my personal experience, this is not a deal breaker, in fact, some guys will be happy to use this as an excuse not to perform oral sex – but this is another post, for another day.

What could be a deal breaker though, is the fact that, according to our male partners, the female condom acts as an obstruction to feel the woman’s lubrication. Whereas the male condom hugs the penis not affecting its sensitivity, the female one stands loose, making it difficult to assess the woman’s sexual arousal.

A third friend, that tried after that conversation, based on the things she had heard decided to surprise her boyfriend, inserting it before they were together. She said “It’s not a matter of having a device that CAN be inserted hours before use; it SHOULD be inserted hours before, actually because it will take you quite a while to get it right.” She adds that she had to use a significant amount of lube. For her boyfriend it didn’t appeal him visually, they don’t plan on repeating the experience.

Sexual intercourse is about mutual pleasure, but the design of the FC seems to inhibit pleasure for the women due to the stress of having to hold it, as a recent study in South Africa points out. Said study highlights that using a condom for the prevention of pregnancy or infections or HIV/AIDS should not mean that the women are not free to enjoy their sexuality.

The experience of sex when wearing a female condom should be as important as the sense of self-empowerment. Regardless of condom performance or efficiency, sex is supposed to be fun and easy, not full of preparation and mechanical maneuvers.

As a feminist myself, I do believe in giving women the correct tools to engage in honest and opened conversations with their partners about their sexuality. For us, women that don’t have problems discussing the topic of sex with our partners; our schoolmates; friends; doctors and more and more with our sisters and/or mothers, the experience of the female condom was a materialization of our sexual freedom: we wanted to try something different; we had the option to do so and we didn’t feel bad about it.  Our male partners were a big part of the decision to use the female condom and even helped, just like this other lady so we should engage men more.

Personally I think healthy sex lives, and ultimately healthy relationships, have to be based on effective communication and fair negotiation and this too has to be part of the feminist agenda along with the female condom. If the female condom acts as a counter attack for women whose partners refuse to use the male condom, than we’re only legitimizing toxic and hostile environments.

There can’t be a Feminism without choice, and in that sense an option for the male condom is a better option than no option at all, and of course, people should try it for themselves and make their judgments. However we should do better than the current available female condoms there is and the female condom has to be a part of a larger strategy to empower women to engage in healthier relationships.

Maybe a male condom is a much better feminist condom than the female one: it causes no discomfort; it’s marketed at both men and women, encouraging couples to share the responsibility; and most of all, it comes in enough shapes, sizes, textures and materials to accommodate everyone’s needs.

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Read the Part I here.

The female condom and feminism: love or contradiction? (Part I)

In a country like Mozambique, where HIV prevalence in women is 13,1% versus 9,2% for men, a female condom would indubitably increase the negotiation power for women and offer a different option for safe sex that didn’t depend on the men.

As BBC stated recently, the biggest advantages are the fact that it can be inserted hours before sexual intercourse and that it gives the vulva more protection than a male condom and unlike the first generation of female condoms, the ones currently available don’t make a lot of noise nor have a flawed design.

In Maputo there are female condoms available and although not as much as male condoms, most women have heard about it and even tried it.

A local sales promoter tells me that her male clients are willing to try something new and take a few days off from the male condom. For them, it is an escape. Women, on the other hand, find it intriguing and usually buy it because of the packaging or prizes associated with promotional campaigns.

When talking about female condoms there is a focus on the liberation of women and their empowerment, almost ignoring the very basic nature of a condom: sex. A condom is supposed to be functional for both parties and if anything, add something to their users and not take it away.

The female condom however, is a one-size-fits-all tool. There hasn’t been a lot of investment in terms of different sizes, flavors, textures, materials or even colors.

The main concern seems to be the fact that foreplay won’t be interrupted and male sexual arousal will not be affected by the insertion of a condom. By doing this, men are only offered the fun parts of it, leaving women with all the worries.

On the BBC article, it reads “The female condom is not as tight for men” and the Origami website says “[it can] accommodate a range of penis sizes”. These statements focus sexual pleasure for women, and on a broader level the health of women’s sex lives, on the satisfaction of the men.

Implicitly, if women want safe sex then they should take all the responsibility. Is that what feminism is really about?

There’s the insinuation that female condoms are just for women and male condoms are just for men, when in reality both parts can and should participate on the decision of using a condom and which one to use.

More so, the rhetoric is always about developing countries. Whether it is India or Nigeria, female condoms seem to be good for third world women only. Western women are never the target for female condom use campaigns.

This exposes the reality of the aid industry and the power dynamics that play when it comes to strategic thinking and program designing for HIV prevention in poor/ rural areas. The decision makers, mostly western white middle-class women are unaware of the class differences, racial discrimination and even the fight for democratic governments that play a part in the lives of the women they so want to help, and often impose a feminism centered exclusively on gender inequality.

As bell hooks beautifully said “feminism is for everybody”, but everybody needs to be aware of the environment and people to which they want to direct feminist agenda to and the issues said feminism will tackle.

The relationship between our politics and our sexualities is not always peaceful. Emotionally and intellectually the female condom may appeal to most women – I love the idea of the female condom, but the practicality of it is another story.

What’s love got to do with it?

I met her on a Monday afternoon by the reception desk, Manuela* was her name and all I knew was that she had sold over 300 000 condoms alone in Maputo city during the month on November, so I was eager to meet her.

She saw me first and approached me. I knew right there that she was a salesperson: someone who knows you’re looking for something and is ready to sell it to you. “This will take long”, I thought. I was wrong: After the first few minutes of curiosity, it all faded away and she became just a woman who sells condoms for a living. I said to myself “There’s nothing to her”.

This always happens to me, at first I’m filled with infatuation and excitement, and as time passes by all my love turns into indifference, the object of my affection slowly becomes just another human in the world.

Manuela became the lover whose best feature was the idea I had of what he could be, the future self I’d turn him into, but that in reality was something else. I wanted Manuela to be a story about a single mother who strives to make a better living for herself and her family, but without that nurturing aura that parents have, I think; or maybe she could’ve said she had lost someone to HIV and that it was the reason behind her business; I don’t know what I wanted from her exactly, but I’m sure I was ready to turn her into this compacted idea of what a female entrepreneur should be. And I don’t even like the term “female entrepreneur”, no ever says “male entrepreneur”… She is an entrepreneur and that’s it.

Manuela happens to be a seller for a long time, she has worked in the beer industry and as a merchandising agent, but in both fields it was hard to predict her incomes and maintain clients – because of the competition, I suppose- and that’s why she changed to this NGO, to have stability.

She found the opportunity through a newspaper ad and was immediately excited by the challenge of not only selling male condoms, but selling them as a woman to mostly male retailers. She does it all by herself just by riding the car from client to client, and most of them order an average of 5 boxes a time (holding 72 condoms each).

She is the type of person that turns a 360 condoms sale into a 301 500 condoms distribution business. Just imagine the network she has built, how much work she has put in stock management and the type of planning that’s involved to keep track of the transactions, among others things she does that I probably know nothing about.

Manuela turned out to be an ever better lover that the one I had imagined in my head!

She’s smarter, stronger and a bit intimidating, actually. Maybe I should take this lesson to my personal life and unlearn the scenarios I predict in my head. I’m glad she didn’t mention her daughter during our meetings; I enjoyed the fact that she talked about the logistical problems she faces on a daily basis (dumb smart phones; car malfunctions; …) and most of all, I really like the fact that she talks a lot about the future, it shows that she has a long-term vision for her business.

If she’s not the epitome of what a successful business strategy can result in, then I’m the same woman I was before I met her because she’s in the essence of everything every NGO should strive for. And I’m very glad that I allowed myself to be aware and to unfold the problems I had with my first impression of Manuela: she is not your charity case, she’s your typical business woman – busy, assertive and diligent.

In this NGO/ Aid industry it’s always (and too much) about the passion and the cause – the heart is the WHY of everything. We have to let go of this outdated idea that everything we do has to do with love… It’s harmful and dismissive to our reality. We must ensure that our work is not based on false premises, but guided by a true and honest set of values and behaviors that make sense for the lives we live and let live.

And really, like a wise lady said before, who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

*Real names have been altered to protect the identity of the people involved.