When she was married, Sitabile Dewa was happy with her sex life, but following her divorce, she discovered that her chances of experiencing erotic pleasure were relatively slim.
Dewa became frustrated that divorced women and single mothers are frequently stereotyped as unattractive spouses for men in socially conservative Zimbabwe and made the decision to utilise sex toys.
The issue is that sex toys are illegal in Zimbabwe.
“I should not be deprived of self-exploration and indulgence in self-gratification,” said Dewa, 35.
Sex toys are prohibited under Zimbabwe’s “censorship and entertainments control” law because they are considered “indecent” or “obscene” and detrimental to public morals. A woman may go to jail for possessing sex toys.
Dewa called the law “archaic” and is suing to get a portion of it overturned because it is oppressive and restricts her independence. She sued the Zimbabwean government in court documents filed in March, requesting the removal of certain provisions of the law. Her case is being considered by the court.
She makes provocative, outspoken comments to women’s sexuality and masturbation that are sure to offend many Zimbabweans.
However, her campaign is significant, according to women’s rights activists, as part of a larger challenge to the country’s patriarchal outlook, where women’s options on a variety of other matters that affect them and their bodies — including contraception, marriage, and even what they wear — are scrutinized and frequently limited.
Dewa, a women’s rights advocate herself, claims she used her own life experience to support the sex toy ban.
Two women were detained for possessing sex toys last year, providing evidence that the legislation is strictly enforced.
One of them was operating an internet store where she sold sex aids to women and provided usage instructions. She was detained for two weeks before receiving a six-year prison term or 640 hours of unpaid community service.
According to Debra Mwase, a programme manager with Katswe Sistahood, a Zimbabwean organization advocating for women’s rights, the thing that seems to enrage authorities about the sex toy issue the most is the marginalization of men. The women who have achieved sexual liberation terrify the men who rule Zimbabwe’s political, social, and cultural spheres, she claimed.
“Sex is not really seen as a thing for women,” Mwase said. “Sex is for men to enjoy. For women, it is still framed as essential only for childbearing.”
“Sex without a man becomes a threat,” she added.
Dewa boils it down to this: “These laws would have been repealed a long time ago if the majority of users were men,” she said.
The history of Zimbabwe is also important. Numerous studies have demonstrated that African women were significantly more sexually expressive before European laws, culture, and religion were enforced, which is important to consider when analysing the possible consequences colonialism had on women’s rights in sub-Saharan Africa today.
African women in the continent before colonization were “relatively unrestrained” in terms of their sexuality, according to prominent Ugandan academic Sylvia Ramale, who wrote this in the preface to the book “African Sexualities” that she edited. They dressed provocatively, to start with, according to Ramale.
However, colonialism and the alien religion it brought with it “stressed the impurity and inherent sin associated with women’s bodies,” she said.
Mwase chuckles at what she perceives to be a big irony in Zimbabwe, which has retained laws like the one governing sex toys, a holdover from colonial days, despite being independent and free of the oppression of white minority rule for 43 years.
African communities continue to uphold strict moral standards and legal provisions that their original creators long ago abandoned. Women are now free to dress more casually and have more open relationships in Europe, exactly as they did more than a century before, she claimed.
Dewa’s push for access to sex toys, which she called “clearly forward-thinking,” fits into the larger picture of Zimbabwean women being “tired of oppression,” she said. However, there has been some recent indications of a return to the past, which might also be appreciated.
Young women assemble for sex education sessions that are supervised by more senior women from their families or communities in this pre-colonial tradition known as “Chinamwari” in southern Africa.
Advice is given on everything from sexual positions to foreplay to sexual and reproductive health, giving Chinamwari a rep for being risqué but also having the potential to empower young women.
Chinamwari meetings are promoted online in contemporary Zimbabwe. However, they now also include promises of confidentiality, largely as a result of dominant sex-related ideologies and resistance from certain males who find the idea that women are overly skilled at it unsettling.
