Watching a recent episode of CSI, in which a couple put some dildos and assorted other sex toys in the dishwasher after a ”swingers” party, I was reminded of my various attempts to get a dildo. To many people this might not seem a difficult task. But living in Zimbabwe increases both the degree of difficulty, and the danger.
My first dildo, called Roger (unimaginative I know), came courtesy of a couple of male friends who were conscripted to help improve my sex life.
They joined my partner and me for dinner at an Indian restaurant called Mayur in downtown Harare to hand over the goods. This was about eight years ago.
Downtown Harare still exists but Mayur and countless other eateries have moved out. Either out of the central business district and into the suburbs. Or completely gone, courtesy of Mr Mugabe’s (otherwise locally known as His Dickship — real not rubber) misrule.
Tim and Nick arrived for dinner with Roger nestled rather unglamorously in a white plastic bag. Apparently they had decided on size according to how well hung Tim was. Which wasn’t enormous, but very comfortable, thank you very much.
Not surprisingly, I outgrew Roger and went back to catalogue browsing, whereupon I settled on Frank.
I sent out a distress call to my friend Richard in the United Kingdom, who swung into action and went shopping on my behalf.
Creatively he rolled Dave in a copy of The Pink Paper and, in so doing, he bypassed the vigilant Zimbabwean postal authorities and Dave was duly delivered to my front door.
One thing led to another, which included a few years of intense activism during which I kept on thinking that the Men in Dark Glasses were going to come searching for subversive materials and in their ferreting would find my assorted sex toys.
Definitely not an ordeal I wanted to go through so, for a while, I hid both Roger and Dave under a bougainvillea in my garden. But fearing that the gardener would keel over dead on discovering strange objects I flung them into another homeowner’s refuse bin on the side of the road one dark night.
But clearly I’ve missed both Roger, and Frank.
So, on a recent trip overseas my partner boldly stated that she wanted a replacement, as much for her pleasure as mine. So I led the way into an Adult Store in Toronto and did the selecting and she did the paying. Job sharing.
All well and good but we still had to get our new acquisition back into Zimbabwe. Never mind the fact that we still had sisters to visit, and various airports to clear. I wasn’t terribly keen on having numerous security airport agents on high alert pulling me aside for dildo questioning.
So we put Roger the Sequel (RTS) in one of our bags that we left at Left Luggage at Heathrow while we flitted about seeing sisters and what not.
Back at Heathrow and ready to depart for Harare I said to my partner that I wasn’t into a showdown with Harare airport officials as soon as my feet hit Zimbabwean tarmac.
I had various ideas for the disposal of RTS, including simply lobbing him into one of Heathrow’s litterbins.
Of course with this option I had visions of heavily armed Bobbies descending on me and asking me to retrieve what I’d so suspiciously disposed of. No fun, I thought.
Then I toyed with the idea of pinning RTS up in a toilet cubicle with the graffiti ”Bob needs Bobbitting” scrawled underneath it.
But in the end my partner confidently said that she wasn’t having any of it and that she would take full responsibility for any fallout on arrival in Harare.
Fabulous! I said ”right, but just make sure that you take that Blue Bag because that’s where RTS is. I’ll take the Green Bag.”
We shook on it and exchanged keys for the right locks.
So, on a humid and hot Friday morning at Harare airport I stood cheek by jowl with our Finance Minister, Herbert Murerwa, waiting for luggage. Finally all our bags appeared and we sauntered through with nothing to declare. We drove home and unpacked.
And, lo and behold, I discovered RTS in my Green Bag.