Living off 'sponsors' is prostitution, period.

‘Sponsors change lives.’

That was the title of the Facebook post by one Maureen Anyango.* Like an NGO talking about its charity work. We kicked highland fever out of Nyamarambe in Nyaribari Chache. We Change Lives.

‘Moral criticism of young ladies with sponsors, especially by fellow women, is the construct of privileged females who have never hungered. From this position of privilege, they can have cute conversations on how they resist ‘rich’ men with money. But if you have ever known the humiliation of poverty, if you have ever sent your meager salary of Sh20,000 back home only to get a text from the landlady saying if you don’t pay just Sh5,000 by weekend, you move, then at that time, sex will be a small price to pay for rent. Don’t come here on social media to proclaim your moral righteousness.’

Bint Fatma Mohammed then pointed out that many of today’s so-called sponsored women are just lazy.

‘They don’t want to work or struggle on their own. They want easy money, the lazy and easy way out.’

Enter one double-barreled Ajusi Ajusi, who would go on to fire tens of salvos in justification.

‘Nothing wrong with wanting an easy life. I would choose it any day to sweat and tears.’

As one whose forever heroine is a mother who struggled alone with bills, fees and mortgages for 20 years, 14 of these half-paralysed from a stroke, and taught us to ‘embrace toil and work mightily,’ values we hope our daughters embrace, Ajusi’s admission stunned me some, as it did Bint who asked.

‘Ajusi Ajusi, you’d sleep around for money?’

‘I HATE broke butt men,’ Ajusi said with vehemence. Then said she’d even bang a ‘Blesser’ to get into heaven. Now we were in the area of shameless profanity. I am not sure that’s what Cold Play meant when they sang ‘I know Saint Peter will call my name.’

I pointed out to Ajusi that that was straight up harlotry.

She said she can even get a ‘sugar baby’ (pregnant to entrap a rich man into paying child maintenance) if she gets the chance, and I said I felt sorry for any foolish fellow who will walk into that whore-like lair.

Ajusi Ajusi dismissed me, at that point, as one who cannot afford to ‘pay to play,’ and I wondered, in dismay, if this is where the age of the socialites has taken many young women to. When did this cheap storm happen on our heads?

Mawreen now jumped into the fray, in defense of her friend.

‘We are the boss ladies and we run this show.’ (See what Beyoncé has done, giving girls canned lines?)

‘All females are having sex,’ Anyango continued, ‘but dumb women for free! Smart ones put a price tag. So don’t label ladies like Ajusi.’

I would only call Ajusi a ‘lady’ in the loosest sense of the word, pardon the pun.

Besides, I wasn’t the one doing the labeling.

Oxford Dictionary definition – ‘Prostitute, noun & verb. A woman who engages in sexual activity in exchange for payment.’

I don’t care whether it’s for hair or rent. That man isn’t a ‘sponsor’ or Blesser, let’s be honest and call things by their correct names – he’s your client.