Let us begin by applauding the most disciplined men on earth: Eswatini men. According to public testimony, none of us has ever bought sex. Not once. Not accidentally. Not even with change left over. Yet, somehow sex work exists.
This is not just hypocrisy; this is science-fiction. We have a full-blown industry with visible sellers, known locations, price lists adjusted for inflation but no buyers. It’s like having butcheries with no meat eaters. Churches with no sinners. Parliament with no absenteeism.
The men? Gone. Vanished. Spiritually translated.If you listen closely, you can hear them whispering from the shadows: ‘I don’t know how this happened.’ Every time sex work comes up in conversation, men suddenly develop amnesia and theology. We are quick to quote Scripture, culture, morals, ancestors and the Constitution, usually in that order while staring very hard at the floor.
According to the national narrative, transactional sex is caused entirely by loose morals, TikTok and bad parenting. Men, of course, are just innocent bystanders who happen to be driving slowly past the same corner every night.
Let us ask the question that keeps dodging police roadblocks: Who is paying? This is because unless women are invoicing themselves, something is not adding up. Those lights around Matsapha are not powered by prayer. Someone is there after the late shift. Someone is negotiating prices with the confidence of a man who knows he will still be called bhuti and head of the household in the morning.
Please spare us the ‘it’s foreigners’ argument. If it were foreigners alone, Matsapha would need a passport control booth and a duty-free shop. Here is the uncomfortable part, brace yourself. Many of the women we judge are the same women we underpay. The textile worker wakes up at 4am, stitches our economy together all day, earns a wage that barely survives transport and then gets blamed for doing arithmetic at night.
We call it moral decay. She calls it rent.
Research has been repeating itself since 2010 like a stubborn aunt at a family meeting: When wages do not meet survival, survival finds another employer. However, instead of fixing the wage, we fix our mouths to judge.
The irony deserves a national holiday: We keep wages low to attract investors, then return in the evening to buy the dignity we deducted from the payslip.
Since we are men of ambition, we don’t just buy sex, we buy risk. We pay extra for unprotected sex, in a country where HIV prevalence is still around 31 per cent. Then we go home, cough twice and blame the health system. Sir, the clinic did not follow you into the shadows. You walked there with confidence.
Which brings us to the question that turns family WhatsApp groups into crime scenes: Why do men leave their homes to seek sex elsewhere?
Is the mattress at home too comfortable? Is the wife’s conversation too logical? Is emotional honesty suddenly unAfrican? No! Men leave because the street corner does not ask questions. It does not ask where the money went. It does not ask why school fees are late. It does not ask why you’re angry all the time.
Transactional sex is intimacy without accountability. No emotions. No receipts. No follow-up meeting. At home, you must be a partner. Outside, you are just a customer.
Furthermore, we have raised men who would rather risk bringing HIV home than bring honesty into the bedroom. We have confused masculinity with secrecy. We have taught boys that silence is strength and vulnerability is weakness. So instead of saying, I am bored, I am struggling or I need connection, men say nothing, and then act surprised when everything collapses.
Now let us connect the dots we pretend are unrelated: Gender-based violence (GBV).
The man who treats women as commodities outside the home does not magically become respectful inside it. Disrespect does not clock out at 6pm. The same thinking that reduces a woman to a transaction is the same thinking that escalates into control, intimidation and violence.
You cannot buy dignity at night and expect peace in the morning. HIV? Let us stop calling it a medical mystery.
It is a social receipt. A record of secrets. Proof of how often my freedom was chosen over our safety.
So, what is the solution? Another raid that arrests women and frees men before sunrise? Another sermon that scolds daughters and excuses sons?
No. If we genuinely want to reduce sex work, we must stop hunting women and start confronting mirrors. The antidote is not punishment, it is honesty. Honesty about money. Honesty about desire. Honesty about boredom, frustration and fear.
When marriages are built on respect, where women are not treated like appliances and men are not reduced to ATMs, the market for secrecy collapses. Transparency disinfects shadows. Respect destroys demand. Yes, pay workers a living wage. That matters.
But also pay your spouse the respect of truth.
Until then, do not lecture us about morality.
As long as factory gates lead conveniently to street corners and silence protects male ego, the only thing truly moral about us is how confidently we lie. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the punchline, laughing at us while staring us straight in the face.
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