Where did you learn about sex ?
I mean, not just about sex, but about pleasure?
Well, if you direct that question to young people today they may tell you on the internet; and if you probe a little further they may reveal that they have been learning from watching videos on YouTube. There is very little that YouTube can’t teach you. Same thing goes for sex.
A lot of young people are still being brought up in socially conservative households where they don’t talk about sex and sexuality, or if they do get organic or very judgmental, shaming messages. Thus young people exploring their sexuality have been turning to the internet out of curiosity to research more and have their questions answered.
A total of 70% of YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices, according to self-reported YouTube data. In May 2019, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced, among other YouTube statistics, that watch time of YouTube on TV screens came to more than 250 million hours per day, as of March 2019 – a 39% increase on the 180 million hours reported a year previously. According to the Business of Apps, these YouTube statistics are not even the full picture, as it discounts YouTube TV – a pay-TV cable alternative.
According to YouTube statistics published on eMarketer, based on a survey conducted by VidMob, found that 59% of Gen Z respondents claimed to have increased their YouTube usage over the past year – this is more than Snapchat or Instagram.
While Instagram edges out YouTube as the app which the greatest proportion of Millennials say they are using more, the 46% who say they are using YouTube more, is a ready audience for marketers and content creators.
These young viewers use their smartphones as the popular viewing option for YouTube which accounts for 34% of daily viewing time, up from 29% in 2017. They spend, on average, around an hour more watching content on a smartphone than watching television on a daily basis. Tablets account for another 7% of viewing time.
It is the same in Kenya, and this was confirmed by Nendo’s The State of Mobile Data 2019 report which looked at the consumption trends of Kenyans who use their smartphone’s mobile data to access the internet. The unique thing about this report is that it also uncovered what Kenyans do online when they access the internet on their smartphones. It revealed that Kenyas use their data to access the following content:
- Search
- Social
- Sport
- Sex
- Stories
Source: Nendo
Majority of Kenyans access the internet via mobile subscriptions and by 2022 it is expected that Kenya will hit the 1 billion gigabytes mark, according to The State of Mobile Data 2019 report, and sex was an interesting category to be captured as the report showed that two adult websites are among the top 10 most popular websites in Kenya, indicating that adult entertainment or pornographic content is a ‘part of the Kenyan digital staple’, as Mark Kaigwa, Founder of Nendo puts it. The two adult websites: xvideos.com and xnn.com were still ranked fifth and eighth place respectively by similarweb.com when I accessed the site on July 23rd 2019.
Nendo notably highlighted a surprising trend, that globally, adult websites occupy the 10th, 11th and 13th spots of the top 15 most visited websites in the world, but in Kenya are in the top 10, meaning Kenya has adult sites ranked higher than the global average. In comparison to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Ethiopia, no other East African country has more sports betting or adult websites in its top 10 list of websites, with a major concern being underage access to these sites.
However this may not be something that is quite unusual in Kenya, as the media talks about sex. Kenyan society may not be so open or pervasive to sexual content but the demand is high and when the programming is availed, Kenyans watch and listen.
The most listened to radio station in the morning is Classic 105 and they tackle matters to do with relationship issues with a sexual topics also discussed. In 2015, K24, one of the media houses in Kenya, launched a late night TV programme called K24 Konnect hosted by Getrude Mungai, a sexpert. Her show was popular as it was broadcast on late night Television and also uploaded on YouTube soon after. Most of the viewers preferred to watch the online shows in the privacy of their own mobile phones and to date, one of her videos on ‘Mombasa Raha positions’ has been viewed almost 2,300,000 times. The show was popular because she would talk about what was considered intimate and ‘taboo’ by bringing guests and she would also demonstrate sexual positions on air and give tips.
Getrude also hosted a late night show on Radio Jambo, which is a Swahili radio station and part of the Radio Africa Group. She’s now a guest presenter every Wednesday and Friday on the same radio station where she discusses topical issues affecting society as far as sex and relationships are concerned. During this show she also streams live on her Facebook and Youtube account so that those who are listening are also able to follow properly through her demonstrations. She currently has 3.1k subscribers on her YouTube channel with the popular videos averaging around 2000 views.
I interviewed Rawder Kidula, a radio presenter with Hope Fm and a YouTuber who has a channel, ‘50 years of Marriage’ which boasts of almost 11k subscribers and which primarily talks about marriage with wives who share their experiences with her in a talk show format. I asked her why she chose to tackle this topic and host a show on marriage and relationships:
“Many people are talking about marriages in Kenya because and I realize our children, the young people are looking for role models and we just wanted to be that voice. The rate at which marriages are breaking, and the many stories that are filling the air of how marriage is hard, how there’s no faithful man or woman; that is what prompted me to talk about marriage and relationships and the godly aspect of it that with Christ marriages actually work. “ Rawder explains.
On her YouTube channel, Rawder talks about relationships and marriages from the Christian perspective as those are her values. “A lot of people are talking about sex , marriages and relationships nowadays and I just wanted to bring in the Good News that there’s a good side of it. We wanted to have something positive to talk about and hope that through this, hearts will stop breaking, people to stop taking their lives because of sour relationships.` `she adds.
During my analysis of the 100 Swahili videos on YouTube, I came across videos that talk about sex and relationships which were very popular and had the most engagement on the comments sections. I found out that there are a group of Swahili YouTubers whose channels are solely dedicated to sex education: how to attain maximum pleasure for women, sex positions to ‘keep’ your husband, solving relationship issues e.t.c. These creators produce content on a weekly or biweekly basis – making them very popular amongst the viewers as the more consistent, the more viewer retention and engagement. They present the information in an engaging manner with a number of them including demonstrations.
But why is this type of content growing in popularity? You would think that such a topic – sex – is a taboo discussion in the African context wouldn’t you?
In Africa, there is a contradiction in attitudes towards sex and sexuality. Many people on the continent shy away from discussing sex and it is very rare to see overt public displays of affection from the locals but you can witness it exhibited by the white tourists. In the West, sexaulity is not a thing of shame or concealment and for most Africans, it is frowned upon as it should only be ‘restricted’ to the bedroom. This is in part because of religion, including traditional African practices, Christianity and Islam which continue to influence sexual thoughts, perceptions and acts. Yet, African music, dance and other artforms exude eroticism and sexuality.
However, Swahili women, for centuries, have been schooled on the ways of sex and pleasure through formal sex ‘mentorship’ between women. When a girl gets her period and/or right before her wedding, she either seeks out or is assigned a somo, an older woman who teaches her everything about sex, the body, and pleasure. She also learns about hygiene and beauty, cooking and cleaning, sensual massage & sexual health, orgasmic pleasure & mutual desire.
In Kenya and Tanzania, this practise of teaching women about sex and positions is still practised and more so in predominatly Muslim areas. In Tanzania, some communities still practise Unyago in some regions,though some do not approve of its ‘highly sexualized content.’
YouTube has now made it accessible for women to reveal siri za mambo ya ndani — private inner secrets — not only to one another behind closed doors but to anyone who can access their YouTube channel.
Such topics were once only shared amongst women in closed doors in ‘chamas’ (women’s meetings) or bridal showers where an older woman with experience would educate and demonstrate how to ensure they had a pleasurable sexual experience. For example in Uganda they have a Senga, or paternal aunt, who trains a young girl in all matters of love and marriage prior to her wedding night – fondly also called a sex auntie e.t.c.
The internet has now made it possible for more people to access this information because sex education videos have steadily become more widespread online as sex educators and sex enthusiasts have used the YouTube platform to reach an audience. This has made it more accessible to girls and women, where there is no comprehensive sex education in schools and even talking openly about sex is looked upon with shame and taboo. These videos about sex on YouTube have been seen by some sex educators as playing an important role, as they help normalize discussions about sexuality. The educators also videos are also generally more relatable than the education offered in schools, and most of all, they’re accessible.
According to the latest research by WestWind Foundation, the most effective strategy for engaging young people online with sexual health information is to meet them where they are and YouTube has become one of the most popular sites for young people and by developing content for this platform can be able to offer accurate information on reproductive health and sex.
However for the content cretaors who choose to go down this route, there needs to be a clear and verbally spoken caveatt to indicate that they are not experts on the matter and any further information or permissions to engage in something suggested in the videos should first be gained from a licensed doctor or counselleor. Speaking to Bustle.com, Mariotta Gary-Smith, MPH, CSE, co-founder of Women of Color Sexual Health Network. She suggests that creators looking to make videos in the space should be clear about their intentions and the limits of their knowledge, potentially even collaborating with trained sex educators to ensure the accuracy of information. “You can still have a space where you talk about sex and how it’s important while promoting information that will support people making the best decisions,” says Gary-Smith.
However, something to note is that the Swahili YouTube videos that I sampled for this analysis can not necessarily be categorized as sex education videos as they are targetted to married women – as most of the creators and presenters use the word ‘bwanako’ meaning husband while others generally speak to women pleaseing men by using the word ‘ mwanamume’. Having a great sex life with your spouse is normally seen as a good reason for him stay faithful and thus emphasis on these videos is on the woman to ensure that happens.
Out of the videos I gathered for my analysis a majority of these Swahili videos talking about sex were presented by women from Tanzania, but I found 2 male Tanzanian YouTubers who were also talking about the topic:
Paul Mwaipopo and MitiMingi Online TV.
The YouTube Channel MitiMingi Online TV is a broadcast of the preaching of Peter Mitimingi who besides preaching the Gospel during church meetings, also talks to the congregation or teaches them about marriage and sex. He is often invited to speak at women meetings and bridal showers to educate them on how to be a good wife, how to satisfy their husbands sexually, how to restore a broken marriage, how to be a valuable women e.t.c. He is loved for his wit, humour and telling it as it is.
Dr Paul Mwaipopo of Clinic ya Afya Ya Mapenzi YouTube channels has almost 60K subscribers and presents sex education vidoes on his channel. He is one of the consistent YouTubers of this content and uploads videos every day. He teaches women on how to speak to their men, how to kiss, different sexual positions, e.t.c.
The internet has made these conversations that were once restricted to whispers in rooms now more accessible as women and men are sharing this wisdom online. During my analysis of the 100 Swahili videos on YouTube, I found a number of videos in the Swahili language that are tackling sex and relationship topics and with a large number of the content produced by Tanzanian YouTubers.
Rawder Kidula of the channel 50 years of marriage is a Kenyans but her YouTube videos are in English. She is a radio presenter who broadcasts in both English and Swahili and I was curious to find out why she chose to use English as her medium of choice.
“Actually when we first started we would mix both languages, we would talk the Kenyan way, so you would start talking in English and then throw in a Swahili word or sentence and in the comments I started realising that there are people outside Kenya, especially in South Africa and they started telling me we need subtitles, we need someone to define what you guys are saying- we don’t understand that language. That is why I opted to do English instead of Swahili.” Rawder states.
However, Bruce Amani, DW Swahili journalist believes that even though creators want to tap into a wider audience, there is still room to have Swahili content on YouTube. “I think in the near future we are going to see lots of activity on youtube , in terms of Swahili content on youtube . I think the content produces are trying to tap into a wider audience beyond swahili speakers but going forward I think is Swahili being a language that is spoken across that region and many more people coming to understand it and learn it shows that it is something that we need to tap into and create more content for people to consume across East and Central Africa.”
The general consensus amongst sexperts is that even though sharing personal experiences and reducing the taboo surrounding sex is beneficial, there are major concerns about the breadth and accuracy of the information. Given the rapidly expanding access to the Internet and social media in lower- and middle-income countries, there is potential to achieve significant coverage with media programs that help normalize sexuality education. These swahili videos on sex maybe teargeting martried women or teaching women how to satisfy their men but they could be used also to tecah young people sex education, how to understand puberty, how to practise safe sex etc so as to give comprehensive sex education which is lacking in schools.
You can check out the list of Swahili Videos here.
Clarity Central 