JZ has now put 20 candles on the cake of his loins. Twenty kids, five wives (or are there more yet?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on (wife or not). He very obviously has multiple wives, but he also has multiple partners — the latest baby’s mother was not married to him (yet). He knowingly had sex with an HIV-positive women, spawning not children but the infamous shower above his head in Zapiro cartoons. He’s 67, not exactly in his sexual prime, but this indoda ain’t stopping. He’s like the energiser bunny.
Now enough of the jest — like a celebrity, President Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private. He was elected as a representative for where we want South Africa to go in the future. His sexual life speaks volumes about his commitment to achieving an HIV-free, single-partner sexual culture. As far as I can see, he is not committed at all.
He is obviously not keen on using condoms, despite the fact that condom use is South Africa’s primary strategy to stop the spread of HIV and other STIs. The fact that he is often in pursuit of young women is part of a broader South African problem with “sugar daddies”. One of the major contributors to the spread of HIV among young women is a culture that encourages them to have sex with much older men, in pursuit of the benefits of financial security that come with it. Unfortunately the older the man, the more likely he is to have had multiple sexual partners, and the more likely he is (especially if he doesn’t use condoms) to have contracted an STI or many STIs. In addition, there is a huge power imbalance between old men and younger women, and I bet that that power imbalance is further strengthened when the old man is the president. There is nearly a 30-year age gap between him and the mother of his 20th child. His behaviour represents the acceptance of a dangerous sexual culture.
He has multiple concurrent partners which is again, a major barrier to the spread of HIV. Any person with limited mathematical ability will tell you that the more people you have unprotected sex with, the more likely you are to contract something or share what you have with many other people. And unlike chocolates, these are things that you should not be sharing.
His behaviour is bad for South Africa’s sexual environment, as well as the physical environment. If everyone did as he did, we’d have an even more drastic overpopulation problem than we do have already. South Africa simply doesn’t have the capacity to deal with more people, and as those people grow older to provide jobs for them.
I’m losing tolerance now, and it is time for President Zuma to answer for his actions without his trademark laugh. It is time to be serious about his responsibility as a leader and a role model. If he doesn’t, I’m scared for the type of future South Africa will have.
‘Who are we to tell the president who he can have sex with?’
Only the voters, Grant, only the voters.
How could SA’s voters have less freedom to express their view on the president’s behaviour than the president has the freedom to do what he likes?
SA’s said to be a ‘democracy’. Remember?
@ John: This is not an issue of culture. When you are president you put yourself forward as a role model. Zuma is undeserving of this powerful position.
@Benzol: I’m not talking about morals, I’m talking about sexual safety.
@Roy: not sure if you followed the rape case, but he didn’t use protection there either.
@Mo: I’m Afrocentric. I want Africans like myself to be able to live in a society led by inspiring leaders. Right now we’re short on leaders, nevermind inspiring ones. I don’t need to research his background to know that he’s not having safe sex.
@Mosotho – I don’t care about the vote I’m not worried about black and white. I want people to have safe sex. If you want to cast black people as sex-crazed, sexually-risky people by nature then I think you’re going to have some answering to do.
@Ivan- wow. I’ll remember that next time we have our ‘general’ elections.
@Navmas – Exactly!
@MP – It’s time for Zuma to talk for himself. If he wants to deny it then why hasn’t he done so already? Or are you just another brick in the poorly built ANCYL wall?
@Kylie – I think you’re wrong. If you plan on having multiple concurrent partners please use a condom. For their safety and yours.
@Kylie, if you think I’m wrong, have a look here.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-02-03-mr-zuma-my-drunken-uncle
What is it the Zuma defenders don’t understand? It’s not about his sex it’s about how he does it (without a condom, remember he slept with an HIV+ woman), it’s about sleeping with his friend’s daughters. It about his lying and cheating. It’s about him saying one thing and doind the opposite. It’s about his message to young chauvanistic men that women are there for the taking. It’s about having more children than he can afford (financially and emotionally). It’s about the head of state spending more time bedding women than running the country. It’s about him forfeiting his private picadilos once he became president. And most of all it’s about thos poor children who will grow up not really knowing their father as he has little time to spend with them. We DEMAND and EXPECT more of our president! He gets paid to run the country and not ro run a harem!
Cant be much time left for work
Jennifer- its Roman catholic policy to
a)discourage any contraceptive use including condoms
b)be homophobic and sexist- how many women priests do you know.
So if you are roman catholic HIV is your destiny and multitudes of zumalets is your goal.
Why dont you go after them instead- i can give you the popes e mail adress..
Men want to screw loads of women- most men here want to screw a load of other women. The sex industry has a lot of married men as customers. Porn industry depends on married men for business.
be realistic Zuma is just being a man. His problem is he is too hoinest about it.
Go after the pope for now
Seems as if politicians worldwide have extraordinary libidos (France, America, Italy, England, etc.) our Pres being no different excepting that he has 5 legit babes lined up at his “homes?”. What could a virile 67 year old want more? Must take powerful muti as he still has the strength for a bit on the side.
Real alley cat stuff here. Alley cats are notoriously unscrupulous. Hope this behaviour stays in the bedroom but I doubt it.
I think he makes a great role model for people who want to know how not to do it. Having multiple wives is one thing but this guy has no boundaries and looking at his level of activity one has to wonder where he finds the time to govern. Maybe it’s just a whole lot of quickies. Who knows?
Kylie, you’re not being serious I hope?
How much of a father can he be to 20 children? How much time does each wife get? When does he do his real job inbetween all that?
We pay his wages remember. He’s costing us money every time he finds he needs another sex partner or chld, and he’s making a complete mockery of being faithful and/or condomising, which is his government’s stance iro HIV.
President Zuma unabantwana abayi 20, the last one with Dr. Khoza’s daughter. DA leader was the first person to complain about Zuma having babies all over South Africa G20. DA leader is always linking Zuma & HIV that worries most activists & law makers in South Africa & abroad. My question was always around the issue of linking polygamy and HIV, is there any research study done to prove weather polygamy is spreading HIV&AIDS South Africa? Coming to the issue of Zuma having 20 of kids. Helen Zille got kids too and that means she was not using a condom, and Patrick Lekota got a son that means he was not using a condom. My father got a son and his name is Mbulelo Dyasi and that means my father was not using a condom. Our population is 48 million where are these people coming from including DA leader. Mr. President do not be ashamed of your children like other leaders in South Africa, where their children are in hiding. If you have a child with Dr Khoza’s daughter or whoever, please care of your child and take action against those linking your marriages with HIV&AIDS. For that matter Ms. Khoza rejected the baby claim and why continues debating it.
For the nation to move forward, I want to appeal to all women involved in polygamy to speak out so that we know if the polygamy is another form of human trafficking not to single out President Zuma.
Mbulelo Dyasi
Dave Harris, our resident black commentator with an identity problem, is all alone. Shame.
On many other blogs and in the street, ANC supporters, even some staunch ones, are shaking their heads in disgust and disappointment at their president.
If we read Dave Haris correctly, he is basically warning whites not to take an oppositional stance against the ANC and Zuma in case the blacks one day rise up against us. He totally ignores the debate at hand because he, just like Zuma, can say nothing in defense of Zuma’s behaviour.
One of those stubborn fools who will insist on defending a lost cause till his dying day.
@ Dave Harris
Ah Dave Harris – never one to let the facts get in the way of a good (biased) opinion!
Quote:
“The ANC won the 2009 General election by an even greater margin (than the 2004 election)
ANC 2004 result – 66.35%
ANC 2009 result: 65.48%
Erm Dave old chap, I believe that 65.48% is less than 66.35%.
Perhaps like Mr Zuma, whom you admire so much, you, too have a std 4 education? (or is that Std 2 – opinions seem to differ).
There is an argument that says that the ANC’s majority in and of itself proves the gullibility of the SA public.
Re: Davos – Zuma embarrassed HIMSELF with his answers – the audience howled in shrieks of laughter at his ridiculous response – laughing AT him, not WITH him.
Have you not cottoned on that whenever we hear his own thoughts rather than prepared speeches written by his speechwriters, that the most incredible gaffes are committed, and we get glimpses of the “true” Zuma.
Ie – rape trial – kanga comments, shower comments.
- Comments on gays.
By the way, “Dave”, what is your real name? Dave Harris is clearly a pseudonym / nome de plume.
And what’s with your obsession with the DA? Nowhere in the article was the DA even hinted at, never mind mentioned.
I don’t think it’s a question of morals – the South African government has a ‘strategy’ to try curb the spread of HIV/Aids, and yet our very own President isn’t seen to be supporting this strategy by following it himself. Who are we to be telling him how to conduct his sex life? We are only the people he is meant to be leading – he accepted that position, and he has to accept that consquences that come with that position of power. He is meant to be a role model to all South Africans, but right now his message conflicts with the message of the government. What kind of role model is that?
I feel so sorry for Clinton. Look at the fuss over a couple of his blow jobs.
Zuma is not part of the problem. He is the problem!
Oh please, 1 more spoilt Oxford educated, westernised wailer and that is evidence? The REAL electorate has MUCH more important daily issues to concern themselves over. Lets wait until the next election to see who REALLY is wrong, shall we? Bookmark the page, why don’t you.
Condoms are not infallible. If you’re not bound by the missionaries and their ridiculous prophets and words etched into stone, and if you plan on having multiple concurrent partners, it’s wise to use a condom, but be prepared anyway.
I wish this much fuss was made over BOTOX treatments. Now THERE is a real feminist issue. And it might explain why a certain someone’s lips seem to go into uncontrollable, high-vibration mode every time someone in government twitches.
And what will change in the country and in your life if Zuma marries five more times? Not much, in fact nothing. Will you make any difference by making a fuss… NO – (except giving Julius some more opportunity to spew more nonsense)
Don’t be distracted – rather focus on the important stuff like Unemployment, Education, AIDS, Electricity Generation, Zimbabwe, Crime ect. We should be more concerned with the important issues than Zuma’s personal life.
I have accepted the fact that our president likes to have sex, even with the daughters of close friends. He also does not use a condom, that I have accepted. He also does not see the need to be married to those he has all that sex with, and whether they fall pregnant or not. At his age I don’t see him changing anytime soon. I will also have to accept that by 2015, say, he’ll have about 30 kids. That I will also have to accept, if it comes about, but it is possible, statistically. I hope he will accept that I will not vote for the ANC in the next election. That is not too far off.
To Jennifer (or anyone who cares to read this):
Please direct me to the article explaining how you know that there is a “drastic overpopulation problem” in RSA.
There are two separate problems.
One is that Jacob Zuma is making use of his wealth and power to seduce and abandon much younger women. (The fact that he has paid money to the family does not excuse this, since the money comes from his financial backers and not from himself.) In this he is not unlike a large majority of South African men. He is simply a bad role model for them. (The people who are turning this into a racial issue are idiots. It’s a gender issue.)
However, in addition, there is the question of whether a man unprepared to take responsibility for his sexual behaviour is prepared to take responsibility for his political actions. There is a link between, for instance, Zuma’s shameless promiscuity, and Zuma’s habit of making promises which he immediately breaks (e.g. the mythical 500 000 jobs, the R2,4 billion for job training which never got spent, the 34% cut in carbon emissions which is not going to happen).
That’s a more serious pattern of which Zuma’s sexual behaviour is a symptom.
@ Masotho
I was wondering when someone was going to throw in the race card!
Now can you feed, clothe and educate your five children to degree level so that they will have a future? Can you provide the medical attention they need to grow up happy and healthy? Will you raise them well and teach them to be good citizens who respect and love their fellow human beings? Or will you leave them to be raised by their mothers alone. Will they join the other hordes of fatherless young who turn to crime and die young? Is it any wonder that HIV/Aids is killing 2000 South Africans every day? You are not better just because you are a man. Its time to change, to be responsible and stop laying your promiscuity at the door of tradition.
Haiwa tigere,
The type of men you’re talking about, the type of men like you, are the reason why we having soaring domestic and sexual violence against women in South Africa.
You, like Zuma, are part of the problem.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-02-04-all-the-presidents-children
Another article with some more info on his loin cake and its candles
@Benzol: For the first time I have to agree with you. Most South Africans are black-including the ones otherwise classified as “white”. About 89% of white South Africans have between 6%-18% black blood in their veins (a few as much as 25%). So if we say black people behave immorally, are we including the “whites”?
Also, what about the many white men in Cape Town who frequently visit brothels and pick up prostitutes on the streets or the many white people who belong to swinging clubs?
All of you forget that our last great white president FW de Klerk also had an affair while he was still married to Marika – so much for socalled western values!!!
I don’t even read Dave Harris anymore. It’s not worth the effort
Great article, Jen
@Dev who seemed to question if we have an overpopulation problem …
the flip side of overpopulation is unemployment. We have 40% unemployment (using the wider, truer definition), much of which is structural i.e. parents who have never held a job will have children who will never hold a job.
one test of overpopulation is the ratio between people paying taxes and people receiving grants. One economist held that one taxpayer covers 15 grants, which is the most extreme ratio in the world, and quite beyond our sustainability.
Can help with these stats?
@Alto I really hope you’re right!
If you want to rid the country and the world of HIV/Aids, you have to start with the opinion leaders as well as the elected leaders. So basically all of you who are saying that we should leave JZ’s sexual preferences alone are encouraging a world full of HIV and unprotected sex..good on you and good luck with that because one of you will date someone who shares that idea and the chances are that you may be on the receiving end of the HIV virus..Lets use our heads instead of our genitals guys!!!!!
There are a few facts that we must keep in mind:
1. Zuma is not unique, there are many examples of “worldleaders” that did and are doing exactly what he is doing – Clinton, Mitterand, De Klerk, Berlosconi and even King Mswati!
2. The biggest question is whether they are lying about it (like Mr Clinton lied under oath). Because if they are prepared tp lie under oath, then who can believe them again in the future.
3. Poligamy is not the question. It is an eccepted way of life in many parts of the world (In some parts you also get one wife with two or more husbands). The question is whether he have the extra-marital affairs with the consent of his wifes and whether they approve of him not using condoms.
4. Lastly, at present he is the face of SA and whether he like it or not,(like Clinton and Berlosconi) his bedtime escapades are not good for people trying to sell SA on the international front.
Silage is right – Zuma’s ‘private’ life is very much public – in London it was featured on page 3 of The Metro, the joke story page. He is turning us into a laughing stock.
Jen, weak article, but it nonethelss got a conversation going.The real issue here is not about the seemingly brash behaviour that polygomy encourages, but Zuma’s extra marital activities. The problem doesn’t lie with the practice of polygamy (or polyandry), but with the individual. That said though, I also have to say that I don’t like the dude, but like Andre pointed out; I’d sooner judge him as a President according to his policy making or to be more exact- his lack thereof than to castigate him because of his shitty sexual escapades.I think that he should step down. The end
Surprise You did a actually good job on this item.