Married couples risk HIV infection?

Ye gods! Now we are being told that married couples are one of the groups at greatest risk of contracting HIV/Aids.

Hardly sexy news, that. On a weekend like this such talk in papers is such a kill joy. This will hit at the middle class most. For, they are the couples who make trips for the endless ‘sex seminars’ in say, Dodoma, Arusha and other urban centres.

I didn’t say that all guys who attend any of those endless seminars, and other assorted meetings are actually sex fiends. Some of them are quite law-abiding, God-fearing and Aids-fearing people.

The trouble with the Aids thing is that it has a lot to do with the psyche. Once that seed of doubt is planted in the head the rest becomes a real nightmare.

Imagine mzee comes back to Dar and hugs his wife: “Ahh, lovey dovey it’s great to see you! Let’s have a lovely dinner somewhere and then go home for some good loving.”

The wife might demur and start thinking nasty things about hubby. “Look at the thug. He has been romping and going at it with prostitutes in Arusha. I could strangle him or crush his nuts down there!”

OR, she could be looking at him in an amused manner. “At this rate my husband will kill us both. I hope he used some decent condoms when he was ‘working’ in this seminar…” Hardly thoughts to quicken the wife’s blood.

What about the husband? Wife come from a seminar in Dodoma and coos: “Hello, mume wangu! I missed you so much. I am so tired. All week I have been working hard…”

The husband would look at her suspiciously: “Did she say she was tired? I hope it had all to do with the actual seminar. She looks like she has indeed been exerting herself in something more sinister besides the seminar of poverty alleviation…”

And the evil thoughts could be in the husband. Then the husband might start failing in performing his husbandly duties. The hydraulic system down there fails completely. You look at the wife as if you are sleeping with a potential assassin. It can be hell.

Then you go for sex-aids. Viagra can be expensive even for the middle class guys. But the herbalist might try to help with all those potions. That is why when you read the adverts of the local herbalists, you notice that they start by saying that they can cure all hydraulic problems in men. ‘Nguvu za kiume’ is always at the top of the advertisement.

Of course total abstinence is the only option. But then, you would be abnormal to pretend that you don’t notice heart stopping beauty that is a Tanzanian woman.

The government should simply ban HIV/Aids forthwith or send it to some maximum security laboratory. Immediately!