Sex seems to be everywhere these days – on the billboards, on the internet, in sultry food recipes, in fashion, in the way your colleagues choose to dress suggestively, and of course in music like the raunchy Bajan singer Rihanna so famously sang, “Sex in the air, I don’t care, I love the smell of it.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.”

Touché.

S & M, sadomasochism, usually kept on the down low or even downright secretive, receiving of pleasure from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain has been apart of us since the days of early human evolution and the “scene” is very much making it to Kenya, if it hasn’t already.

S&M has always received a bad wrap, partly because the sexual escapades have always been surrounded by scandal and dismay.  But as psychologists have shown in recent studies, the pain and challenge of S&M generates endorphins in our brains, which boosts pleasure, perhaps making the negative critique from prude onlookers all the more worth it.

 

Special Fetish Parties

Ann, a university student, describes her first run-in at a private house party in Nairobi where cheap aluminum handcuffs were given away as party gifts as “kinky” and “arousing.”

Though there was no actual orgy or any nudity at the party, the small gift was certainly intriguing to partygoers, including the fresh-faced Ann.

“I’m not into hardcore stuff like people think, but most people, including myself, even if we don’t admit it, enjoy a bit of pain – there’s something about feeling like you’re not in control when you’re having sex – and even my guy friends say the same,” explains  Ann.  “I wouldn’t mind trying a whip next time, just lightly though.”

 

Are Kenyans becoming more liberal when it comes to sex? So tell us, really, do you enjoy a bit of chain and whip action?  A spanking perhaps?