Zuma is part of the problem

JZ has now put 20 candles on the cake of his loins. Twenty kids, five wives (or are there more yet?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on (wife or not). He very obviously has multiple wives, but he also has multiple partners — the latest baby’s mother was not married to him (yet). He knowingly had sex with an HIV-positive women, spawning not children but the infamous shower above his head in Zapiro cartoons. He’s 67, not exactly in his sexual prime, but this indoda ain’t stopping. He’s like the energiser bunny.

Now enough of the jest — like a celebrity, President Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private. He was elected as a representative for where we want South Africa to go in the future. His sexual life speaks volumes about his commitment to achieving an HIV-free, single-partner sexual culture. As far as I can see, he is not committed at all.

He is obviously not keen on using condoms, despite the fact that condom use is South Africa’s primary strategy to stop the spread of HIV and other STIs. The fact that he is often in pursuit of young women is part of a broader South African problem with “sugar daddies”. One of the major contributors to the spread of HIV among young women is a culture that encourages them to have sex with much older men, in pursuit of the benefits of financial security that come with it. Unfortunately the older the man, the more likely he is to have had multiple sexual partners, and the more likely he is (especially if he doesn’t use condoms) to have contracted an STI or many STIs. In addition, there is a huge power imbalance between old men and younger women, and I bet that that power imbalance is further strengthened when the old man is the president. There is nearly a 30-year age gap between him and the mother of his 20th child. His behaviour represents the acceptance of a dangerous sexual culture.

He has multiple concurrent partners which is again, a major barrier to the spread of HIV. Any person with limited mathematical ability will tell you that the more people you have unprotected sex with, the more likely you are to contract something or share what you have with many other people. And unlike chocolates, these are things that you should not be sharing.

His behaviour is bad for South Africa’s sexual environment, as well as the physical environment. If everyone did as he did, we’d have an even more drastic overpopulation problem than we do have already. South Africa simply doesn’t have the capacity to deal with more people, and as those people grow older to provide jobs for them.

I’m losing tolerance now, and it is time for President Zuma to answer for his actions without his trademark laugh. It is time to be serious about his responsibility as a leader and a role model. If he doesn’t, I’m scared for the type of future South Africa will have.