The ‘Kitchen Stool’ Sex Tape is not a breaking story so why wait so long to talk about it? It is simple. I am the person who laughs 17 years on after the joke has been told. With that ice broken, let’s talk and I just may have to keep it short and straightforward as my temper is too short to be telling tall tales.

So it was Monday morning. Quite a hard earned weekday for me as I woke up with a splitting headache. I hardly slept a wink the night before and in my mind’s eye I could not see myself going to work. Ah, the traffic jam, noise, insults from driver to driver; the mere thought of those events even worsened my headache. After I successfully phoned my job to request a day off, I made myself black coffee with no sugar. I needed to stay awake to be effectively lazy that day.

Practicing a usual ritual, I jumped right onto my Twitter timeline for what was trending only to discover a freaking ‘Kitchen Stool’! Same old underrated piece of wood was trending for all the wrong reasons. I scrolled through numerous posts for some time and still couldn’t figure out exactly what all the fuss was about. Almost immediately, I discovered a video. A potential two member cast sex tape game changer. So there was this fairly older man who had been identified as a head teacher. He had mounted a relatively younger woman, apparently 20 years of age on a freaking kitchen stool as though she were a newly unboxed Plasma Television, as he thrusted in and out of her from behind. What I had seen did not look anything like rape; two adults had clearly agreed to have consensual ‘doggy’ coitus on a freaking kitchen stool! Imagine the thirst as they couldn’t even afford to have sex on the decency of a bed.

So there I was, a little shook as I read the comments discussing the sex tape. It wasn’t the age gap nor sex position that got me shook, but the overwhelming reactions the video had received. It was a bit unnatural being that the growing number of witnesses of the video seemed quite unperturbed about the gruesome blueprint of the video. Think about it; a head teacher decided to have sex with his ‘schoolgirl’ on a kitchen stool while filming on tape. How is this even not enough to make Ghanaians angry? Instead, as many as those comments came, they were all jokes and heavy promotion of a piece of wood. Not a single comment expressed any sort of anger so the question here is how did we get here?

The unavoidable logical conclusion that came to mind was that perhaps Ghanaians were just really over constantly complaining about issues of this nature without getting any real results. We know the stories from the Captain Mahama ghastly murder right down to the Rashida Black Beauty ‘melanin downloading’ housefly leaked video. Even Patapaa’s making of ‘One Corner’ was an issue that never really got addressed properly because Ghanaians were busy having ‘fun’. The oversimplication of complex issues by Ghanaians is a direct reflection of our psyche and if this is not enough to get our leaders to strengthen our institutions to reinstate and inspire hope, I doubt anything else would.

While the sexual intercourse in itself may not have been an issue because of the age factor, the academic relationship shared between the two individuals made a clear issue of the intercourse. For those still wondering what really is on trial here, hold my coffee. Before this case gets dragged until Ghanaians forget about it, let me just chip in for ease of reference, the July 2008 Presentation to the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service (GES) re the RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT FOR TEACHERS IN GHANA. It is emphatically stated in this document under Sexual Conduct that no teacher, in this case head teacher, shall directly or indirectly do anything that may constitute sexual harassment of a pupil/ student. It further stated that any teacher who has carnal knowledge of any female or male pupil/ student of any AGE, with or without his or consent, shall be guilty of professional misconduct. This is what is on trial, and with this July 2008 Presentation still in existence, one would have expected that this head teacher wouldn’t even be offered the agony of a trial which could potentially have him walk Scot free if he were to present a good case. Nevertheless, this is not an attempt to make the young lady the victim, but being the student and seemingly the ‘exploited’ party some sort of therapy is preferably a good path to pursue but any punishment whatsoever metered out to her would not be justified.

So there! About that wraps it all up. At this point my headache couldn’t be ignored any longer so I needed to take something stronger than the remaining half of my coffee which had already grown cold after sitting all through the morning’s events.  When next I read this I hope that it would be out of joy for getting a student mounting sex offender into jail ultimately. Not an amusing joke, but that prediction could put a smile on the faces of Ghanaians  even 17 years later after it goes live.

Till the next time, be the change you want to see. Hey, write your own story!!!

AUTHOR: Maurice Boye