But when I ask her about safe sex, this illusion quickly evaporates.īoth Alfred and her other sponsor, James, prefer not to use condoms, she says. Kerubo, a 27-year-old from Kisii in Western Kenya, maintains that she has control of her relationship with her sugar daddy, Alfred. There are concerns about the morality of their lifestyle, but also about its consequences for their health. And many - quite understandably - are attempting to apply this methodology to their own lives.īut as most of those dependent on sugar relationships are female, they have dominated the public debate. The sudden emphasis on entrepreneurship does not hide the fact that these women used their sex appeal to create opportunities in the first place. The millions of fans scrolling through their Instagram posts, though, are not blind. Having made it to the top, though, they often begin to cultivate a different image - presenting themselves as independent, self-made businesswomen and encouraging Kenyan girls to work hard and stay in school. In the past, some of Kenya's socialites have styled themselves as #SlayQueens, and have been quite upfront about the financial benefits that have come from dating tycoons. "If you have to expose your body, make money out of it," she was reported as saying, referring to the semi-nude images that she shows off to her 1.3 million Instagram followers. But interestingly, when talking about others, not about themselves, the young women estimated on average that 24% of their peers had engaged in a transactional sexual relationship with an older man - a figure very close to that reached by the researchers.Įqually famous is model and socialite Huddah Monroe, who also rose to fame on reality TV - in her case Big Brother Africa, in 2013 - and who now runs a well-established line of cosmetics. Also, only a small percentage openly admitted to having a sugar daddy the researchers were able to infer that a number were hiding the truth from answers they gave to other questions, using a technique called list randomisation. The sample size was small and the study was not fully randomised, so the results only give an indication of the possible numbers, they cannot be taken as definitive. They found that approximately 20% of the young women who participated in the research has or has had a "sponsor." But this year the Busara Centre for Behavioural Economics conducted a study for BBC Africa in which they questioned 252 female university students between the ages of 18 and 24. Until recently there was no data to indicate how many young Kenyan women are involved in sugar relationships. "On a Friday night just go sit outside Box House and the see what kind of cars drive by - drivers of ministers, and politicians sent to pick up young girls," says Silas Nyanchwani, who studied at the University of Nairobi. You only have to visit the student districts of Nairobi, one recent graduate told the BBC, to see how pervasive the sponsor culture has become. The answer is that in Kenya, and in some other African countries, "sugar" relationships seem to have become both more common and more visible: what once was hidden is now out in the open - on campuses, in bars, and all over Instagram. So you might ask: "Why even have a conversation about transactional sex in Africa?" The sugar daddy has probably been around, in every society, for as long as the prostitute. Older men have always used gifts, status, and influence to buy access to young women. Shiro's story illustrates an altogether more complex phenomenon - the exchange of youth and beauty for long-term financial gain, motivated not by hunger but by aspiration, glamorised by social media stars, and often wrapped in the trappings of a relationship. In exchange, he gets to sleep with Shiro whenever he feels like it.Įva's experience is transactional sex in its most unvarnished form - a hurried one-off encounter, driven by desperation. Another two years down the line, he gave Shiro a plot of land in Nyeri county as a show of commitment. Two years into their relationship, the man moved her into a new apartment because he wanted her to be more comfortable. Six years ago, when she was at university, Shiro met a married man nearly 40 years her senior. After 10 minutes in a dingy alley, Eva went back to Kitengela with 1,000 Kenyan shillings to feed herself for the rest of the month. She used the remaining 100 Kenyan shillings she had in her wallet and took a bus to the city centre, where she looked for the first man who would pay to have sex with her. Eva, a 19-year-old student at Nairobi Aviation College, was sitting in her tiny room in shared quarters in Kitengela feeling broke, hungry, and desperate.
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