By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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When CNN published an article on September 11 titled, ‘I Looked at Her Lustfully, Then Kissed Her:’ Mugabe on Wooing His Wife, it went viral on the continent, as expected.

It gave me one immediate worry: First, that the wider readership should keep in mind that this isn’t some kind of frequently occurring African courtship “thing” but rather the very specific and unexpectedly awkward confession of one geriatric dictator.

I rather snippily tweeted that what Mugabe called wooing has an entirely different name considering Grace was his secretary at the time of the incident, and that it is currently destroying the lives and careers of a satisfying number of powerful men in the West, as evidence of their sexual predation catches them out.

A fellow Twitter member was kind enough to point out that while Uncle Bob was kissing his undeniably attractive secretary, his late wife Sally was terminally ill and Grace herself was a married woman.

No problem. Uncle Bob is a man of the Bible. Did this sort of thing stand in the way of King David? No. He sent his general off to war the better to comfort his ostensibly lonely spouse. Herod murdered John the Baptist for a taste of Salome’s nubile charms. Even real history is littered with precedents that make Mugabe’s creepy fondling look tame in comparison:

In 1996, a respectable four years or so after Mugabe’s wife Sally died and Grace’s former spouse Stanley Goreraza managed to drop out of the picture (how gracious of him) the “happy couple” wed. Which is why, in 2018, those of us with a visual sensitivity to words have been subjected to imagining what Robert Mugabe’s “lustful look” must be like.

Judging by her behaviour during the decline in her husband’s power and his fruitless efforts to position her as his successor, Grace Mugabe made a considered choice to make the best of a difficult, even dangerous, situation.

It is hard to know what happens to women who turn down the direct advances of an African head of state – for some reason, statistics on the phenomenon are thin on the ground.

Aphrodisiac

I learnt early in life not to be bothered by how presidents and princes and celebrities who didn’t seem like particularly attractive mates managed to score way above their grade. Yes, money is a factor but there is truly no more excellent an aphrodisiac than power.

It explains how Muammar Ghaddafi was still pulling during his Jheri-curl phase, why Mugabe who was not favoured with particularly good looks and who is at least a century, perhaps two, older than his spouse, got himself a spring chicken.

It explains how Jacob Zuma has that many wives. Believe me: Just because polygamy is legal somewhere doesn’t mean that every man in that society can pull it off.

Grace Mugabe is exemplary of how women have been surviving and sometimes even thriving by exploiting the one guaranteed weakness suffered by the patriarchy: Sex. One day you are a secretary, the next you are Gucci Grace… it would take an exceptional sort of person not to make such an obvious choice in this materialistic world. If there is a hierarchy to be climbed up, and you can take the elevator, why not?

I say person because, even though sexism dictates that we blame women for all manner of sexual corruption and “gold digging,” the truth is that since time began, people have been known to exchange their attractiveness and bodies for what they want.

Don’t get me wrong: I am a pathetically dedicated believer in the power of romantic love. But I don’t confuse that for a second with the fact that marriage is a contract, no matter how we dress it up in wedding cake and sentimental ballads.

Until the sexual revolution – which hasn’t really globalised no matter what TV tries to tell you – most folks would have looked in horror at the idea of a love marriage. As Tina Turner said, quite rightly, what’s love got to do with it?

While I wait for my own Romance Novel moment of meeting my One True Love and legally binding him with the duties and obligations, mostly financial if he doesn’t mind, of the institution of marriage, let me confess to admiring the lads and lasses that did what they could to climb that social ladder with all their sexy might.

The twin daughters I imagine cradling in some rose-tinted hypothetical future with my well-to-do contracted spouse may well be named Lillith and Delilah. I like strong women.

Love for sale

We are barely beginning to talk about an unforeseen effect of feminism: The rise of love for sale on the part of men.

Japan, ever pragmatic, offers a variety of boyfriend experience services for a price to women who are too busy being happily single to get leg-shackled.

In Dar es Salaam, pretty young men have discovered that their ability to keep a Sugar Mama in good spirits as the stresses of the world’s fastest growing city increase with every passing day can be…rewarding.

But let us go back, reluctantly, to Grace and Robert Mugabe. Who knows, maybe they are living their best life. And yes, I am told that rich and powerful people are human too and they can have healthy and loving relationships that aren’t based on exchanging “affection” for the good things in life.

It still doesn’t remove from the power imbalance that makes it inappropriate for you to stare lustfully at your secretary and then kiss him on the hand, knowingly imperilling his existing relationship. It is a small matter of ethics that more and more women may be confronted with as the world continues to evolve into egalitarianism.

We may be facing a future in which the age-old appeal of powerful men will become un-gendered as the patriarchy continues to lose ground. Powerful women will be able to acquire the juiciest of lovers with impunity and without having to wear a bra, or make-up if they don’t feel like it.

It’s best we prepare for the said future by nipping in the bud the unsavoury practice of sexual predation of all kinds in the present, because I don’t want to read another CNN article describing the depressingly inappropriate love life of yet another geriatric with enough power to afford their delusions of lovability.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]