Runs Girls and the Sliding Scale of Nigerian Morality

Editor’s Note: Twitter outrage has become commonplace (while Facebook has become some form of family friendly place to air achievements, family portraits and unpopular opinions with relative safety). On the upside these ‘outrages’ have effected changes, as more and more people are using this platform as an avenue to hold governments to account and share histories that would have otherwise been lost in obscurity (particularly Black History).

Nigerian feminists have been using social media to educate Nigerians at large about social inequalities and highlight how cis-heterosexual men are at the top of the foodchain, how they use their privilege to keep women and sexual minorities oppressed.

The latest topic being discussed with a lot of passion is the rights of sex-workers/runs girls/side-chics (or the lack thereof). The trigger for this discussion is Falz, a Nigerian musician who embraces social consciousness, (wokeness) served with a side of misogyny.

Tracy in this article discusses how problematic Falz’s politics is.

Definition of terms

Sex Worker aka Prostitute: A man/woman/gender non-conformist or trans person who sells sexual expertise to a variety of clients. Sex workers do this professionally. By the way, sex work is illegal in Nigeria and this tends to lead to police brutality and abuse by clients or pimps.

Runs Girl: A young woman, often an undergraduate who dates rich,(married) older men. These relationships are transactional and have time limits. A runs girl doesn’t only offer sexual gratification, she also adds to the social value of the man she’s with because of her youth and attractiveness.

Side-Chic/Side Piece: This is man/woman/gender non-conformist or trans person who is dating a married person (male or female). A side piece provides the comfort of a home for clients without the responsibility that comes with marriage. Unlike the first two, side-chics/side pieces usually have a relationship with their ‘friends’ while the friend in question may provide cash or economic opportunities.

Transactional: exchange of goods or services for cash. It can also be exchange of emotional labour and investment between two or more people.

Read on…

Another day, another PSA by an entertainer about the evils of runs girls. The reactions have come in with people asking, almost in anticipation of the ‘backlash’, why this particular societal problem should not be addressed amongst others, whether people are claiming that runs is a good thing, whether those people would let their daughters live that lifestyle and, as always, whether the people protesting against this message are actually runs girls themselves.

On the other side are people questioning the need to address this topic at all, claiming that what a woman does with her body is her business and asking artists to leave runs girls alone.
What I, along with others, can’t ever get my head around is the equating, or at least placing alongside, runs with crimes of corruption, fraud, theft and actual violence. I can only imagine that it is the kind of thinking that leads to garbled songs like Child of the World ( see my critique of the song here misogyny or a massive overreaction ).

First of all, what is ‘runs’ and where, on the sliding scale of the transactional nature of Nigerian romantic relationships, does it fit?

I used to lump it in with sex work but now I’m not so sure. The term appears to cover a range of relationships where there is the expectation that a woman will be kept financially by a man, often older and far richer, by mutual understanding. In return, he gets the pleasure, sometimes exclusively, of her company including sex.

The above will of course sound familiar, not just because a kept mistress is one of the oldest practices in the world (Solomon had ‘concubines’ – I really hope they were closer to runs girls than sex slaves but I am pessimistic). It also sounds familiar because of the ‘husband-provider’ model that is supposed to be God’s will for marriages (although there is scant authority for this in the Bible).

In some cultures, this starts with symbolisation at a couple’s traditional wedding, where hubby stuffs wife’s purse with cash to show his ability or willingness to provide (she of course kneels to show submission But. That. Is. Definitely. Another. Article).
In what is essentially a two-income economy, this leads to some very strange expectations and actions. A woman who works is still responsible for the family’s domestic tasks including childcare. If a man earns less (or nothing at all), he is still ‘the provider’ and anything his wife says or does which appears to undermine this is seen as pure disrespect.

Some wives hand their husbands their salaries, or money, so he appears to pay for things. When a man loses his job, he is supposed miraculously continue to ‘provide’, which mostly consists of hanging about the home making grand plans, while studiously ignoring the housework.

Couples are very reluctant to enter into relationships where the woman earns more. Rejecting a higher paid job is one of the ways women can make ‘noble sacrifices’ for her marriage. Not all Nigerian marriages of course, but this type of thinking still surprisingly persists among young people.

I say all these to illustrate the transactional nature of marriages. In addition to the ‘provider’ male partner, you have the girlfriend’s credit alerts, bills for sick relatives that materialise shortly after a relationship starts and other things. At what point does the providing that the male partner is supposed to do metamorphose into ‘transactional sex’? People who keep carping on about prostitution being is illegal are missing the point – I highly doubt runs and other kinds benevolent relationships are illegal in Nigeria.

Another question is why the anguish by entertainers and other people, who seem to have no problem with men boasting of their ability to attract beautiful women with their wealth? Isn’t putting a line about runs girls, in the middle of a song about corruption (which has led to the loss of hope for millions of Nigerians) a bit like rapping, ‘Slavery, genocide….and dressing like a chav! Those are the three things I won’t have!’?

Is it a matter of distaste – seeing young women actively vying for a position with Alhajis? Or are entertainers pestered by runs girls the second they sit down in a hotel, or other public place, and put their phone on to check instagram?

I remember being spoken to very rudely in Nigeria by a non-Nigerian older man because I asked him for a pen. Mum explained that he thought I was a – (she didn’t say runs girl, but something very similar. On that same trip, a young man tried to offer me sex in exchange for financial upkeep – so go figure. I guess I was ahead of the times).

There are valid debates, from personal moral, religious and even feminist points of view about sex work and transactional sex. However, if you have a problem with sex work and that problem only manifests in shaming and ridiculing women involved in whatever form of transactional sex – but mostly the sugar baby/runs girl variety where women tend to have more agency – and does not include –
bashing the men who participate in transactional sex or men who use money as a way of attracting sexual attention;
addressing the problem of women being forced into transactional sex by, for example, lecturers who demand sex for grades (or more precisely not unjustifiably failing a woman), or employers who harass their female employees into sex with them or their clients;
addressing the entitlement to sex after money is spent on a woman (what’s the argument men use as an excuse for marital rape in Nigeria again? Aaaaah….bride price!);
addressing the economic reasons why women are drawn to sex work, including a bad economy, gender based discrimination, and the fact that women are often sexually harassed out of money making abilities, and linking them to their hatred of sex work; or
acknowledging that women carry out real crimes – embezzlement, murder, trafficking – instead of treating sex work as the most predominant ‘crime’ committed by women.

Then, to use Adichie’s reasoning, you don’t have a problem with transactional sex, you have a problem with women and particularly women having agency and real choices about it which is why people call you a misogynist.

In fact the only thing this serves to do is demonise sex workers along with women who have sex on terms that some people don’t agree with. Actual problems, like trafficking, are ignored.
As long as they can provide enough evidence of their near-destitution to activate our saviour complex, actual prostitutes are also not often the target of these kind of attacks.
Any woman can, of course, be labelled a prostitute at any time and in the middle of any argument. On hearing this, the woman is supposed to sink down to her knees, continue sinking until she resembles a tightly wound ball of wool, cover her eyes from the sun and shriek “No! NO! Please! Not that! Anything but that!”.

Luckily we have feminists who are brave enough to tell us that actually a woman is or should be entitled to sell sexual services if she truly chooses to and if she does, she is not exactly selling her soul or body (wives do that, not prostitutes ha ha).
But the weaponisation continues of course and female entertainers routinely find themselves victims of men taking it upon themselves to announce, without a scrap of evidence of course, that they can only afford things or advance in their careers because they are paid to have sex with older or influential men. It’s the kind of thing that in reality is a warning to all women that their reputations can be ruined by associating them with sex work.

I’ll tell you what. Let’s fight it from both ends. People are free to have an opinion about sex, transactional or otherwise, but let’s end the demonisation of women who participate in transactional sex, starting by realising that most relationships have some element of the transaction about them, and let’s end the assumption that the only way women can make money is through transactional sex. As a bonus, let’s disabuse ourselves of this notion that it is women’s job to guide the universe into sexual morality and stop the hand wringing and redefining of the term ‘societal ill’. Deal?

Coerced? – a nuanced discourse about consent – Tracy Ofarn

The issue of coerced sex is not a simple one; regardless of how many confident opinions you may see flying about the place. There are arguments over the differences between force and co-ercion; co-ercion and manipulation; manipulation and convincing.
I am by no means an expert on this subject but I understand coerced sex to be sex or sexual activity that a person didn’t want but was pressured into having, by another person. It can be easily distinguished from sex they wanted at the time, but are now regretting. A lot of people think it falls short of rape, depending on the particular circumstance, because of the existence of technical consent.
In high school, I’ve heard coercion described as ’emotional rape’. The term covered a range of activities – begging; badgering and/or crying (people have reported this kind of bothering for hours); threatening shame and public disgrace; creating and manipulating circumstances so that the other person can’t leave a particular location; or creating physical barriers or restraints without actually forcing yourself on the victim; or sometimes just standing over the person, visibly frustrated and enraged, nursing what seems like a painful erection, until she gives in.
What differentiates coercion from what people usually consider to be rape is the giving in, or the failure to say ‘no’ (assuming the person is not incapacitated).
The reasons people reluctantly consent also vary. For some, there is a real fear of being attacked (whether the other party acknowledges it or not) or of the threat of blackmail being carried out. With others, it is a desire to stop the Other person’s apparent distress; not wanting to cause trouble; or giving in just to be left alone. Some freeze; others rationalise – with themselves and the other person – and a lot of women have been conditioned to blame themselves for being in that position in the first place.
The society’s reaction to claims, and complaints of coerced sex are also varied.
Leaving aside the issue of false accusations, the society’s first reaction seems to be outrage, that people are trying to categorise coercion as rape, or even sexual assault.
Some people think that once consent is obtained, however it is obtained, no one should attempt to ruin a man’s reputation by even hinting at the ‘r’ word. While others accept that coercion is wrong, opinions vary as to whether it should criminalised, or whether the term rape should be reserved for what is, in their minds, a very specific offence.
There are the usual declarations that women should take responsibility for their actions, which include not being anywhere alone with a man who is attracted to them, being prepared to confront or physically fight off their attacker, or to repeat ‘no’ loudly for as many times as is necessary.
In making these declarative statements, people frequently fail to take into account the different forms of coercion. There is a desire for a clean line to be drawn between rape (a criminal act that only monsters and fake men commit) and coercion (not great, but not a crime for goodness’ sake!) and convincing (oh come on! we’ve all done it). To people who consider themselves to be decent, rape is inexcusable, but coercion is debateable.
I think the reason that this has been an issue for such a long time is some problematic views about sex which are similar to views that justify or excuse rape. Society has only relatively recently begun to question long-held beliefs that men cannot, and should not, be expected to control their sexual impulses, because they somehow ‘need’ sex and the responsibility for providing, controlling, or resisting sexual activity, lies with women. This apparent ‘need’ for sex goes hand in hand with reducing women to a receptacle for that desire. ‘Sorry’ goes the traditional advice ‘this is just a risk that women have to wise up to’. The begging, lying and trickery are just things a savvy woman will have to navigate her way around (if she is lucky), all these does not make the man ‘a bad guy’, it just makes him a ‘man’.
It’s difficult to overestimate how much this mindset, that women should be in charge of men’s desires, is engrained in both conservative and liberal societies. Both factions provide different answers. Religious conservatives have preached abstinence and an iron-grip on your sexual desires as a solution while the left has gone for the more relevant emphasis on the importance of enthusiastic consent. This webpage illustrates the point – https://sapac.umich.edu/article/205 .
The left has also championed sexual liberation, particularly in relation to recognising that sex is not just something that happens to women; women have an equal say in what kind of sex takes place at all times.
However, I do get the feeling that the ‘liberation’ part of sexual liberation sometimes lags behind the sex part. The acknowledgement that people will have, quite often, creative and exotic sex outside of marriage and conventional relationships, has, for some, turned into an entitlement to that kind of casual sex.
There have been high profile cases involving men, whom many would expect to be very concerned about enthusiastic consent, but who have instead decided that any woman they fancy is definitely sexually liberated enough to be pressured unconscionably into casual sex with them. This is despite fairly clear signs that the women very much do not want to have sex with them at that moment.
So is the much-derided Matt Walsh right? Does ‘hook-up’ culture lead to rape culture (https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/476741565046476801)? Not in my view. Rape has existed since recorded history. The reason that it has been treated as a baby crime in so many societies, with the many exceptions and conditions that make detection, punishment and even identification very difficult, is that people have seen rape as an extension of men’s uncontrollable sexual desires (instead of an act of violence and the exertion of power that it is) and because women are reduced and objectified as recipients, receptacles or ‘plunder’ when it comes to sex and sexual violence.
Coerced sex is just another manifestation of this thinking, perhaps brought about by the stigmatisation of violent rape. Disregard for women’s sexual and bodily autonomy is still very much alive – as long as the hurdle of technical consent can be crossed.
Criminalising, at least, some manifestations of this behaviour is probably necessary, because they are so close to force (which is what a lot of coercion is) and removing any real choice and because some people will never really care about a woman’s consent anyway. However, I do think society needs to dig deeper – especially those of us who call ourselves liberals. If you consider yourself to be a decent human being, you can’t escape the fact that women – people – are autonomous beings. If someone does not want to have sex with you on your terms at that time, that should be the end of the discussion. If you are about to have sex with someone you despise, you’re at greater risk of turning them into an object for your desire and disregarding their wishes. If you go on a night out and your state of mind is that you are going to get laid tonight, come hell or highwater, you are probably on the way to downplaying autonomy and true consent.
There are other complicated scenarios. For instance, there is an expectation of sex in most romantic relationships. The question is when. For some it’s marriage, for others it’s on the first date. For a lot more others, it’s somewhere in between. No one is entitled to sex from another human being, but we acknowledge that if sex suddenly stops in a relationship (or never starts), it is an issue that needs to be addressed. However, in a relationship, when does a discussion about sex turn into coercion? Is threatening to end a relationship really co-ercion as the link above suggests or should people be as entitled to say they want sex as they are to say that they don’t want sex?
How about when you are the only liberated soldier in a backwards, conservative society and you are sure that the woman you are with wants you but is only being held back by outdated beliefs about what good girls do and do not do? Is it your noble duty to disabuse her of her unevolved, primitive ideas – the sex with you being just a collateral benefit, of course, hardly worth mentioning? Should you convince her that’s ‘it’s okay’, God doesn’t love you any less if you have sex with me this minute and it would definitely be the right thing to do?’
I don’t have all the answers but I feel very strongly that if someone does not want to have sex or any kind of sexual activity at that moment, deciding to co-erce, manipulate or convince them to go further shows a disturbing willingness to override their will. And the only relevant communication is what they are saying in the present; not what they have done in the past or what they may enjoy in the future. It sometimes is rape and it sometimes is sexual assault but it doesn’t have to be classified as such for it to be wrong. Consent is not a technicality to avoid trouble or a goal in itself; it is a recognition that the other person is an equal, autonomous person like yourself.
All in all, the issue of coercive sex clearly needs to be addressed and certain behaviour should be criminalised, in my view, if it is not already. But the conversation around it demonstrates the fundamental problems in how we understand and regard consent. It is tempting to demonise everybody or wish everyone would just stop wanting to have casual sex. However, the key may be to answer this question about consent honestly: if you are willing to plough ahead with sex with someone who has expressly said they don’t want to have sex at that time and/or who is clearly reluctant for whatever reason, in what ways exactly do you consider your mindset to be different from a rapist’s?

Messages, Misogyny and Nigerian Entertainment: Part 1

 Chimamanda Adichie once said that feminism is not a cloak that she puts on and takes off as the circumstances suit. I’m afraid that when it comes to enjoying Nigerian entertainment, whether its comedy, films, music, or blogs, I often have to take that cloak right off, put it aside and cover it with another cloak, for good measure.One thing I hear a lot, in response to Nigerian feminism, is why do they have to be so angry, rude, unpleasant? My question is this: Is it possible to be a Nigerian feminist and NOT be angry.  So much of Nigerian entertainment (and virtually everything else) has a gloss of the most blatant sexism that, let me tell you, unless I take off that cloak, I’m foaming at the mouth half the time.
Just for the heck of it, I’ll take a deep breath and try to narrow down the things that make my blood boil into a tidy list.
1. The gold-digging narrative. Comedy and comedic music are especially guilty of this. Apparently, a woman will be the most appalling bitch until you ‘show her the money’ at which point she will turn into the sweetest thing who will forgive you and give you anything. When I say woman, I don’t mean ‘good woman’, of course. A good woman, upon setting eyes on you, will apparently sell her siblings to put you through school so you can reward her by marrying her and keeping her in the background for the rest of her life, but that’s another topic.My thoughts on this? If there is a high incident of gold-digging among Nigerian women (and I’d like to see the statistics please), it’s for 2 reasons – the Nigerian economy has been messed up for a long time and pussy is easy to sell. You better believe that if dick was as easy to sell in Nigeria, these men would be balancing it on their heads like Olajumoke the bread seller.What makes me so bitter is not that very few people acknowledge the role men play in these transactions. It’s the fact that if a young woman decides to work hard at university and her job to make her money, there’s a high chance that she will be subjected to so much sexual harassment (what’s the penalty for that, in Nigeria, I wonder) from her lecturers, employers and company clients that she might be left wondering whether it wasn’t just easier to sleep with that rich married man in the first place.

2. The use of hoe/slut/pom/karashika/Jezebel (the born-again version) and other variations. Those words have become meaningless nouns to describe a range of women from a paid sex worker to a woman who annoyed you at the bus stop to a woman who has exactly the same morals as the man calling her a hoe. It’s an age-old tactic to demonise women, justify bad treatment of women, keep the ‘Madonnas’ separate from the ‘whores’ and to get other women to buy into the division, as long as they get to be the Madonnas . It started with witches in the Middle Ages and got down to bitches. It doesn’t actually mean anything. Eldee, in a recent twitter rant, called Amber Rose and Kim Kardiashian hoes (actually he said ‘hoe ambassador’ which I thought was rather clever) but in reality they are just women that seem to have normal sex/relationship lives but like to, for some reason, put their naked bodies on blast. Lesson: It doesn’t mean anything, those words are just used to scare women into ‘behaving’.

3. Don’t get it twisted. Some women will act the damn fool for no apparent reason. In Nigeria,  when a woman acts  crazy, not only is she labelled for life, society immediately identifies an imaginary pack of women, who all apparently behave the same way, and labels them accordingly. The woman isn’t just a bitch – she’s one of them ‘bitches’. When a man behaves terribly, he’s a ‘work in progress’ and ‘God is still working on him’ because you know ‘anything is possible with Jesus’.

4. Male celebrities who loudly and repeatedly insist they want a hard working woman, how they can’t stand “laziness in a woman” and how she should bring something (usually money) to the table. For a while, I couldn’t really figure out what irritated me so much about these statements. I don’t actually buy into the whole idea that the man is the main ‘provider’ in a marriage or relationship.Apart from the implication that women are naturally lazy gold-diggers (see above), what bugs me about this statement? Reading an interview with a popular Kenyan actor who has made similar statements, the light bulb suddenly flicked on. He was asked if he could cook and he said no. No. Without apology or explanation. So what does he expect to be doing so while his wife is out there hustling for her half of the moolah and she calls him. “Honey, I have a late meeting, could you give the kids their tea and put them in bed” – “Ah, but you know, I can’t cut onion without you…..”There are 2 things going on here. Firstly domestic work, usually the domain of women in Nigeria and the rest of the world, is being devalued. It doesn’t matter how well she keeps your home and your children and how much that enables you to be the successful person you are, if she isn’t earning, she’s a leech. Secondly, you want her to continue her traditional female role (I mean you may help out but the home is her ‘responsibility’), and then somehow go out and have the same earning power as you have. Bonus point: You want her to be financially independent while you remain domestically dependent.Some (must always remember to say ‘some’) of the guys have a really good gig here. They get to shame women for being poor or gold diggers while ignoring the factors that keep women from making money – less job opportunities, getting paid less for the same job, sexual harassment or coercion at work, hours spent on doing all the domestic work. And also! They’ve decided that domestic work isn’t worth anything while carefully avoiding it themselves! Hurrah!

To be continued…

 

Tracy Ofarn