Confessions of Nairobi women: Sex addiction among defilement survivors

Confessions of Nairobi Women by investigative journalist Joan Thatiah uncovers how decades of sexual abuse in childhood contribute to the mental breakdown of women's sexual health.

The astonishing read elaborates on the discreet lives of Nairobi women and how atrocities meted out to underage girls trigger dissolute sexual emotions.

The introspective book enlightens readers on how a multitude of women, who experienced sexual abuse as children and watched their guardians endure intimate-partner violence, undergo adult adversities. A sexually abused child's understanding of sexuality is not developed.

Her maltreatment directs incorrect messages on what sexuality is and how it is to be expressed. Therefore, her sexual arousal becomes associated with victimisation, discomfort and violation.

In adulthood, when the victim begins to act out on her arousal towards other people, it often leads to confusion and promiscuity.

Sexual abuse from a family member can even be more devastating. The victim would be confused of what sex is, its rules and boundaries, and how to live an appropriately confined sexual life.

A person who had been violated at an early age is helpless and vulnerable. She can easily lose control of her body and feelings. She can also possess a lifelong struggle of trying to regain control of herself.

One of the victims in the book is Mia, an attractive and financially secure woman used to flirtatious attention from alpha males, who are eager to seduce her.

She has just returned from a visit to Istanbul, Turkey, to collect her custom-made wedding dress, for her upcoming event in Karen to her fiancé George, a calm, confident Kileleshwa resident with a lanky frame.

She was attracted to him because, unlike most men who were errant, disruptive and validation-seeking, he had a disinterested appearance towards her, enthralling her to aggressively pursue him. He was sexually gratifying, compassionate, thoughtful and consistent.

She had craved consistency as a young girl, having been raised by a single dad who was working tirelessly to provide and missed most of her school events, after her mother died of breast cancer.

When George proposed a year later, it was his reliability that she said yes to. On days she'd be overwhelmed with work, George would drive to downtown Nairobi from Westlands where he worked, through heavy traffic to offer moral support.

He subscribed to a fitness centre to bulk more muscle. Mia also has a secret side boyfriend, Kush, with whom she meets every Monday afternoon, for a sexual romp.

She's been in six serious relationships. In each of them, she had someone on the side to quench her adventurous sex drive. Before George, she dated Keith and informed him of her enormous sexual voracity.

They intermixed with a travelling swingers group that engaged in group sex. Keith later demanded her exit from the group's sexual encounters, to her refusal, causing her to terminate the relationship.

Sexual addiction

Though she doesn't divulge a specific figure, she states that she has slept with many men. They include a tout, whom she describes as a 'lousy lay', a neighbour in her former apartment complex in Ngong who lived with his girlfriend and her 60-year-old boss who bought her expensive gifts in exchange for sex.

According to psychiatrists, our minds don't stop developing until our mid-20s. Therefore, prepubescent children have an undeveloped decision-making capacity that is indicatively preyed on by sex predators and paedophiles.

At the age of 11, after her mother passed away, Mia's father sneaked into her room and defiled her.

Childhood trauma can cause an individual to develop sexual deviance and mental health complications that, if not tackled, can contribute to a spontaneous insatiable sexual addiction.

If a child had a catastrophic event, and was exposed to abuse in a household where there may have been intimate-partner violence and other types of childhood adversities, she may recurrently begin to participate in health-risk behaviours like drug use, alcohol abuse, and promiscuity.

One of the worst effects of surviving sexual violence of any kind is that for a period of time, you lose the conscious power to make decisions about your own body. Someone else takes control.

Whether they physically wrestle or coerce it away, they take it. It is an indescribably dehumanising feeling that victims endure.

Clinical psychologist Candice Norcott states that for children and teens, long-term planning in their brain has not developed yet. They feel the excitement and the rush but cannot make the right decisions.

An adult with nefarious motivations can use those shortcomings to his advantage. Mia's father’s paedophilic felony robbed her of her childhood and destroyed her adulthood.

Jeff Anthony is a novelist, a Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother).