Private Parts

Toni Braxton sang a lyric that was on the minds of hot blooded youngsters when in the song You’re Making Me High she started off by stating:

I’ll always think of you
Inside of my private thoughts
I can imagine you
Touching my private parts…

Now… shockingly, that ‘touching my private parts’ sentence looks like it was straight forward but as you can appreciate, if there is something, or anything, trust the Kenyan Courts to end up making a comment about it.

So first, do you remember how this country was before the Michuki Rules took over? Passengers were packed like sardines in the Kenya Buses and as it would sometimes happen, some men were standing behind some women and getting excited when buses hit the potholes and the sleeping policemen aka bumps.

Away from buses, the discotheques were packed with revelers who would swarm the dance floor to get their groove on. With dance-styles that spoke volumes and gyrations that would make some men inevitably rub themselves against women in the pretext that it was Ndombolo…and thinking the ladies were still in the Toni Braxton mood:

The very thought of you
Makes me want to get undressed…
All I want is: moonlights,
With you there inside me…

Inevitably, the question came up. If such misguided men made contact with a woman’s breasts or buttocks, would the woman have a right to go to court and state that the man was guilty of indecent assault?

No less an authority than the Court of Appeal was called upon to adjudicate on this issue in the case of Omambia v Republic.

The accused according to evidence adduced in court, put his hand under a woman’s blouse, also touched her buttocks and even pressed his exposed penis between them. He was charged with indecent assault for touching the woman’s private parts.

The Court of Appeal spend time trying to figure out what the words ‘touching my private parts’ meant!

The Judges sought to know what the word ‘touching’ means. They said that the word ‘touch’ without any particularization, can only be by hand so technically the fact that the accused used his external genital organs to press against the woman was different from touching which can only be by ‘hand.’

Talk about handing out leniency!

Then according to them, breasts and buttocks are not private parts. They even went ahead to quote the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and limited private parts to mean ‘external genital organs’! In fact, in one telling straight extract from the case, the Judges actually stated: She talked about her buttocks and not her private parts.

Talk about the law being an ass!

You can picture the discussion as the judgment was written.

Judge A: Hey…why stop at ‘pudenda’. Why not ‘labia’ or ‘mons pubis’

Judge B: Am not into the scientific mumbo jumbo. I prefer: ‘Centre spread’ or ‘Honey pot’ or ‘Kandahar’

Judge C: What about the touching bit?

Judge A: Hmmmm. He touched her with his… er… should I say ‘dick’

Judge B: You can also say: ‘Magic Stick’ or ‘Browser’

Judge C: No way. Touch can only be by hand.

I know, I know. The Court of Appeal judges should all get a listing on the entries on Dickipedia.