adminMonica Cheru-Mpambawashe Lifestyle Editor
Eye contact is enough to establish if there might be something. It can be in the street, at a club, in a kombi, in church, anywhere. Age is nothing but a number. An exchange of mobile phone numbers seals the deal.
It is understood that there are no strings attached. All that is left is to set up where and when the consummation is to happen, usually through WhatsApp chats.
The modern urban courtship ritual has done away with many of the flowery words that men used to regale would-be lovers with in an effort to win their hearts and bodies.
Such sentimental expressions are now only to be heard in the lyrics of songs like Xtra Large’s “Ndinoda Kuvhaya Newe” and Nox’s “Ndinonyara”. Being a wordsmith of love poetry is now only useful if you are looking at composing lyrics.
Even later when the couple has decided that they want to be together forever and they dedicate their hearts to each other at the wedding ceremony, they seem to indiscriminately plagiarise words from diverse sources instead of bothering to come up with a fully personalised message that expresses their own emotions.
A nurse who works on adolescent sexual rights programmes said that sex has become a recreational activity among the young and old alike.
“Love does not come into it and the word is never mentioned. If at all love develops, it comes with time, but sex will have come first.”
She said the older generations are to blame for the moral decadence although they tend to look upon the younger people with much moral uprightness.
She said despite believing herself to be enlightened and an empowered parent, she was personally shocked when two women pitched up at her house to inform her that she was about to be a grandmother courtesy of her 20-year-old son.
“I did not know what to say. The girl was obviously older than my son and I wondered what she had seen in such a child. She coolly informed me that this was the result of a once off congress at some party and that she was not at my house to seek financial support, but recognition for the child,” she recalls.
Love or rather lust has become an equal opportunity activity with both sexes actively involved in making the first move. A survey by The Saturday Herald Lifestyle established that very few people below the age of 20 believe that it is forward for a woman to make moves on a man.
Twenty-seven out of 30 young people said that it is perfectly acceptable for a girl to tell a guy that she is “into him”. But 21 out of 30 of those aged between 21 and 45 said that a woman should only make signs that she is available and interested and leave the man to say the words first.
Marriage, which used to be considered a barrier to easy love, is now considered a positive factor by the older generations. Cheating has become rampant with courts and the media daily inundated with cases of cheating spouses of both sexes.
Ease of communication has also made it easier for people to push the boundaries when it comes to communicating about lust. WhatsApp is the biggest culprit with racy messages and pornographic pictures of the lovers regularly exchanged. Anyone can now have an affair with anyone with a cellphone.
Online Reporter