The expansion of ukungwi practices has not only been financially lucrative for wakungwi, but it has also expanded the heteronormative boundaries of who is deemed suitable to receive sexual and relationship health education to include unmarried, sexually active women. Perhaps more importantly, it has expanded the discourse on sex to openly include pleasure.  

Owing to a culture of taboo around sex in Tanzania, there has never been a mandated sexual education programme. Instead, the government has largely relied on NGO-led sexual health and reproductive initiatives that were introduced en masse at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These programmes focused on curbing the potential dangers of sex to prevent further infection and employed the ABC approach (Abstinence, Being Faithful and Using Condoms). In this framework, sex is conflated almost exclusively with reproduction and avoidance of bodily harm, while the focus on abstinence reinforces the idea that sex and marriage are inextricably linked.  

In her 2023 paper, ‘Sexual Pleasure as Feminist Choice’, feminist thinker and writer Patricia McFadden reminds us that ‘a fundamental premise of patriarchal power and impunity is the denial and suppression of women’s naming and controlling their bodies for their own joy and nurturing.’ The lack of avenues for sex-positive discourse that centred sexual expression and pleasure, particularly women’s, further encouraged this suppression. By the early 2000s, some conversations began to appear in tabloid newspapers, films, and, more recently, in certain music genres like Singeli, which often feature lyrics about sexual expression. Still, such discussions remain scarce, which makes the efforts of today’s wakungwi to include them in their teachings especially significant.  

Nonetheless, the expectation remains that women use their sex education to maintain the satisfaction and pleasure of their male partners, with women’s own pleasure often as secondary. While young men historically have their own coming-of-age rituals, they do not centre sexual adherence to their partners needs in the way women’s rituals do. Abdul agrees: ‘In wedding rituals for men, we mostly focus on cleansing practices and reminding them to be understanding of women going through changes like pregnancy.’ She adds that patience is particularly emphasized when the bride is significantly younger than the groom.  

For women, however, there is a strong emphasis on sexual performance as duty to the marriage. Marshed recalls: ‘One of the first things that happened in my lessons as a bride was my aunt pointing at my vagina and saying, “You see that? That’s your husband’s food from now on. If you don’t offer it, then there might as well be no marriage.”’ In the 1962 book, Swahili Poetry, Lyndon Harries references the 1858 Swahili poem by Mwana Kupona on these rituals that pay special attention to ‘personal attention bestowed by a Swahili wife upon her husband.’ These attentions ranged from beauty regimens including the use of fragrant incense and essential oils, suggesting that the performance expected of women extended beyond the bedroom, yet it remained a performance nonetheless. When I asked where duty ends and autonomy begins, Abdul simply replied: ‘When you’re married, your husband owns you.’ This sentiment is not only common in Swahili communities but in Tanzania at large.