I am an introvert, this means that my greatest moments are spent in solitary walks that have a calming effect to the soul. The events recalled herein occurred to me in one of these solitary wanderings as I searched for a sweet spot to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If you have ever been to the east of Nairobi it will be easier for you to understand that searching for such a spot is tricky as people have a way of squeezing themselves into anywhere, literally. Spot found, I settled to light up and noticed that I was not alone. Settled comfortably, not unlike myself, next to a pile of garbage that was eighty percent plastic bags was a fellow stoner. He was like each one of us, roughed up by life and you could tell by his face that his life had been rougher than that of the average individual. His expression as it was when I first saw him is quite hard to express in words, my mastery in language fails me at this point, but I remember thinking ‘That is probably how sea sickness looks like.’ As we both puffed and the THC levels in our systems rose he turned to me and said ‘Man is an interesting creature,’ ‘How so?’ I asked. He puffed away and settled more comfortably on the rock he was sitting on and asked ‘Ever heard about the first guy to date a woman?’ I replied that I had not and he went on to narrate the following story;
“A few years back, never mind how far back, there was a fellow whose sexual passions were insatiable. He had latent sexual tendencies that reached a point of being classified as nymphomania. Luck, however was not his as he happened to be born in a time when sex was viewed as both holy and evil. He was a religious fellow so he knew of the supposed purpose of coitus and the consequences that followed if one dared engage the act without this sole purpose in mind. As it is always, this fellow had an affection for a woman that began and ended with sex. As was customary he had disclosed his affection to the recipient in the guise of what, even he could not explain and they were positively received and reciprocated in manners that were considered decorous at the time. Like all great men, this fellow whose name is somewhat lost to history, was not satisfied with what society offered and wanted more. He devised a method to satisfy his carnal desires and yet remain an outstanding member of his society. He finally succeeded in ‘knowing’ his lady and to erase guilt from his mind and that of his now deflowered accomplice in crime he convinced her and himself that it was not pre-marital sex but rather an acceptable and totally respectable act that was a result of them “dating”. How he did it, is probably being done today in the same way, because creativity in man is not as frequent as you might think. Little did he know that his efforts would catch on and that ‘dating’ would become a synonym for ‘seen each other naked’ and be something that an individual’s lack of participating would be viewed as strange.”
His story ended and the guy rose, snubbed his joint and mumbled his goodbyes. On my walk home, it finally hit me that the nymphomaniac simply realized there was a way he could beat the system. It was Kirk and Kobayashi Maru in a different setting. In a world that forbade pre-marital sex, the nymphomaniac simply conceived a social construct that would enable him to get laid in his own terms, without trashing the existing mores. No matter what laws are set up to govern this joke that is civilization, someone somewhere will think of a way to legally and morally do what is forbidden. Philosophizing on anything can make that thing acceptable, no matter how far-fetched the idea seems at the time. Sometimes the results are inhuman and far from doing humanity any good and other times they offer us a deep insight into human ingenuity and make us question the premise on which society is built on, enabling us to move forward as a species. Of course some laws are total bullshit and should be done away with, but hey, sometimes making each other miserable seems the only reason we are here.
There is no moral lesson in this story. Just forty five minutes and two joints. Now that I look at it I can’t help but think that it was a complete waste of time, this whole thing could have been told in a 30 second Family Guy cutaway!
