Where Have All the Prostitutes Gone?

Take a leisurely walk (or ride if you seek anonymity) down the entire length of Nairobi’s world-famous Koinange Street on any given, preferably weekend, night. What you will meet there will shock you. Repeat this exercise across any of the traditional haunts, and I guarantee identical results. Even the notorious River Road will offer up only a sprinkling of night-time attractions at best. So, what has bedevilled the city’s long-established robust nocturnal economy? To paraphrase Paula Cole, Where Have All the Prostitutes Gone?

“Video Killed the Radio Star,” crooned The Buggles back in 1979. But because we are in the 21^st century, a more contemporary reference is felicitous: the smartphone killed the streetwalking star. And to answer Ms. Cole's hypothetical, they are now online, ma’am. Welcome to 21^st-century sex, where, like everything else commercial, flesh-peddling has migrated to the Worldwide Web; the first port of call being the mis-denominated dating apps. And that's where our story begins...

In 2021, Shaffie Weru sounded the clarion call and tried to warn us that our young women were heading down the road to perdition. But we allowed him to be cancelled (in a well-conceived crusade spearheaded by women) and bloody nearly ruined his life. Two years later, he is being vindicated every day.

Anyone who has ever logged into a dating app will tell you, at no expense, that zero dating whatsoever transpires there (hence “mis-denominated”). Instead, they offer quick fixes for all parties involved — quick (if not entirely risk-free) income for the working girls on the one hand, and quick sexual release for the johns on the flip side. Many of these commercial encounters are consummated in Airbnbs, a fact brought to sharp public focus following the misadventures of Starlet Wahu.

INTERMISSION: It has been whispered that John Matara (talk about puns!) had apparently paid for the whole night; but after dropping only one round, Starlet assumed that she had expended her obligation and insisted on leaving. So a scuffle ensued...and we all know how it ended. Another line of inquiry suggests that Starlet was a veteran con artist whose M.O. was to finesse Nigerian men, meeting them in Airbnbs, drugging them, and then robbing them blind. Only, that time the chickens came home to roost in grand fashion.

Speculations aside, there is an unspoken undertone to the murderous affair, if you'll excuse another pun; an aspect to the story that is being suppressed, whether by design or otherwise; that is going wholly undiscussed, that is not being contended with, that, it turns out, is the story. And that is, we inhabit a culture that glorifies and attaches an aspirational value to prostitution.

Social media in this country has mysteriously morphed into a marketplace for sex and sexual innuendo. The “socialites” ruling the roost (the artists formerly known as Slay Queens), who double as role models to younger and upcoming girls, for all intents and purposes appear to be living the life, the Instagram life. And everybody knows how it is being funded. The pressure to achieve this La-la land lifestyle is unbearable for many girls. The pressure to acquire the latest, most expensive phone; the pressure to be seen in the ashawoest and most flesh-exposing get-ups and to dazzle with modelling; the pressure to party night after night and to be seen to be doing so; the pressure to covet; the pressure to achieve without putting in the graft; the pressure to be seen living the life. The pressure to be finally accepted.

To keep up appearances, the poor girls caught up in and looking up to this lifestyle must now rummage for extra cash, lots of it, and what easier way than to join the oldest profession? No capital investment; not even brains. All one needs is genitalia and access to social media. And you can start living the Instagram life. We have normalised prostitution, and we are all implicit. The pressure…

In the end, we all have a common problem, and that is the problem of a generation that lives to impress with as little exertion and effort as is humanly possible or permissible. Welcome to the Hustler Nation. People are out there running each other over using video and photography editing (manipulation?) to add imaginary value to otherwise naff and depressingly ordinary existences, all to apply undue pressure on perfect strangers: who is going on the most expensive trips and outings? Who has the best house? Who sips the most exotic, the most expensive drinks? Who is living their best life? Pressure!

And now, all of a sudden, a bevy of caitiffs is creeping out of the woodwork—survivors all, apparently—claiming to be Matara’s victims. A popular news outlet even ran an exclusive with one such, who spent the night with him a mere five days prior to Starlet’s inevitable demise. Is it not curious, to say the least, that none of these brave women bothered to file a police report against this monster in sheep’s clothing? Perhaps a life might have been saved.

The truth is, they were/are all willing vendors and eager participants; ready, willing, and able to sacrifice life and limb at the altar of temporary gratification for the benefit of strangers, and now only exhibit guilt complexes, colloquially referred to as crocodile tears. As things stand, there are no real victims in this fiasco. It was just a bad day in the hoeing business, an occupational hazard, a deal gone tits-up. One influential observer summarised it quite pithily, if not entirely sententiously: “Social media will make you envy lifestyles that come at perilous costs. Oh, businesswoman, anga philanthropist...kumbe ni kukulwa Airbnbs! That's why siko Instagram, hiyo time afadhali nisome vitabu zangu. Unaeza pata ulcers bure. I’d rather the long route to success owada.”

The truth, being bitter and unpleasant, is also inescapable: a culture that glorifies and attaches aspiration to prostitution is a culture on the road to perdition.