Neither do I condemn you: The profile of a 'prostitute' and Kennedy Agyapong

Who is a prostitute? A prostitute is any person who engages in sexual relations in exchange for payment or some other benefit. They can be either female or male, and there are officially forty-two million female prostitutes in the world.

By that definition, this could spread to cover almost every male or female, since there are many times when the reasons for sex come with an exchange for either payment or some other benefits, or for simple passion.

So we have an occasion whereby a woman gets dressed and hits the streets at night soliciting sex from men, so that she could earn a living; we have an occasion whereby a female gets employed with the terms of reference to sexually entertain the company’s associates or top customers; we have the occasion whereby a lady worker works her way into some of the top officials to get favors.

We have the occasion whereby a woman who gets some form of help from a man can only show gratitude by getting into a relationship and its attendant agenda; we have an occasion whereby a poor girl who was helped out in life by a rich man must get into a relationship by force; we have many occasions whereby sex comes in exchange of something, i.e. security, providence, and the ‘If-You-Love-Me-Then-Prove-It’ way of cementing relationships.

Sex is a sacred gift given to man by God, and once something good comes from God, Satan will always go the full length to profane it. God’s intention is for humankind to observe sex only in a marital union; however, the sinful, ginful, wineful man enjoys having it outside marriage. With this, we can all say that we have fallen foul in the sight of God, and have no reason whatsoever to accuse another fellow of sexual impropriety.

The story in St. John 8: 1-11 is quite obvious about what God expects from us. Jesus was sitting His somewhere and minding His own business, when some elders dragged a hysterical lady to Him, asking for His opinion before stoning her to death for committing adultery, as the Law of Moses demanded.

After persisting that He comes with an answer, Jesus simply replied that the one without sin should cast the first stone. Since they knew they were not worthy, they left one after the other with great shame. When Jesus, who was then scribbling something on the ground, lifted His head up and saw none of the lady’s accusers around, He asked her where they were, and she responded that none was around to condemn her. He said: “Neither do I condemn you…”

It is quite interesting to note here that Jesus was the One who wrote the Law, and knew why it was necessary and important. However, it was against the Justice of God for sinners to accuse others and wish them dead. It was only fair, as the Mercy of God demands that one has to show mercy to the sinner.

Hon. Kennedy Agyapong utters a word too many when it comes to women. He used very derogatory words to describe the late mother of his pal, Ibrahim Mahama, and got in his element when he had banter with Afua Schwarzenegger recently. Typical of him, all such insults center on the alleged sexual waywardness of the ladies in question. To Kennedy, they were prostitutes. But back to the question, who is a prostitute?

By the straight forward definition, it means anyone who had ever engaged in sex outside marriage is a prostitute, with males inclusive, for there are male prostitutes.

It takes two to tango, they say, and if extra marital sex involves both males and females, and out of that relationship there were exchanges of cash, kind or other benefits, why should someone attempt to degrade only women and accuse them of offering their dignity in exchange for something? The giver and the receiver, who both engage in the same transaction, stand collectively accused as participants in that common trade.

Prostitutes can never be said to be the worst of mankind, even if we want to class them all as those who go into full time commercial sex business – the kind we see hanging around cold streets at night in scanty clothing and over-exaggerated make-ups.

In the Holy Scriptures, we had a certain beautiful lady who disguised herself as a prostitute and her father-in-law unknowingly slept with her. Hmmm…this business really began at the dawn of time; no doubt it is called the oldest profession. This lady was called Tamar, and she gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah, (Genesis 38).

Another fine prostitute in the Book of Joshua, Chapters 2 and 6, was very instrumental in the conquering of Jericho, and her name was Rahab. It might interest readers to know that both women, the intern commercial sex worker and the full time professional one, were direct ancestors of Jesus Christ: Tamar, who gave birth to Perez of the fourth generation (St. Matthew 1: 3), and Rahab, who gave birth to Boaz of the eleventh generation (St. Matthew 1: 5), in Jesus’ genealogy.

Tamar had to do internship in prostitution to sleep with her father-in-law, who broke a promise to allow her to marry his last son, Shelah. In today’s world, there are prostitutes who got into the profession due to failed promises and unfulfilled dreams, primarily because someone violated their rights, or exploited their vulnerability.

Rahab, who was a full timer, had a sincere spirit that was why she gelled with the Word of God and fulfilled her role in salvation history by giving up her loyalty to her city for loyalty to God. Today we have prostitutes who have very good intentions, but are in the business for various reasons, and will readily quit at the least opportunity.

In short, since what leads a woman into commercial sex to earn the name prostitute are numerous and vary from person to person, so we must never condemn them, but show mercy and help them to get out of it, if we can. And since we are not too sure what a woman in our family line had to do to sustain the family, we must just be cautious.

It is very unfortunate that Hon. Kennedy Agyapong always makes it his will to have an unquenchable desire to call any woman he has issues with, a prostitute. Apart from debasing womanhood, he also succeeds in putting our country in a very bad light.

His recent wayward spree had him saying that the Electoral Commissioner actually did some part time prostitution to land that job. What if our colleagues on this continent come to accept that all Ghanaian women in high places got their positions through short-time prostitution?

We have women who struggled with men for academic, social and business laurels, and excelled without any man first patting their butts, or, as Fotosi and company will say, without knowing inside their pants. In academia, we have had women professors who had earlier beaten their male colleagues during their course studies.

In sports we have had the likes of Alice Anum, Grace Bakari, Hannah Afriyie and Rose Hart rubbing shoulders with the world’s best. We also have regional heroines like Elizabeth Bruce and Mary Manu, who were beauties to behold, and one may suggest that they had no business in the robust world of sports, but wait, they knew how to win medals.

Margaret Simpson is among the latest international medalists for this country. Kennedy Agyapong is not suggesting that these women got to the top by prostituting, is he?

In the field of industry, Esther Ocloo, Elizabeth Vilars, Grace Amey-Obeng and Gifty Lamptey, among many others, have made names through the dint of hard work, and nothing to do with what is on Kennedy Agyapong’s mind.

His rude attack on Mrs. Charlotte Osei has resulted in lots of condemnations against his person, character, and style. Charlotte has an enviable record, both home and abroad, and with that, she is even over-qualified for the position she is in. She might be hitting some hurdles, but that is expected when you take over the driving wheel of a moving articulator truck.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, Charlotte is not above reproach, but that does not warrant the debasing of her person by remarks of her alleged prostitution that can never be proven, even if they were true. And for the fact she is a married woman, she should, at least, be spared that level of insult, because she will not be the only one to suffer the embarrassment. Her husband and children, more especially the kids, could be taunted with this reckless statement from Kennedy Agyapong.

The honorable thing the honorable member has to do is to just withdraw and apologise, because, as I stated earlier, it is the reputation of all Ghanaian women in particular, and the nation in general, that will suffer from what he said. All because of such unguided comments.

If all women in Ghana are prostitutes, then what makes the men? So can someone in the NPP call Kennedy to order, since by inference, all who have ever engaged in sex outside marriage and profaned God’s sacred institution of sex are, in fact, prostitutes.

No one can dare cast the first stone at Charlotte, or any Ghanaian woman for that matter, because we are all sinners and stand accused, ourselves, in various ways, and guess what, Jesus Christ is saying to her and all women who were unfortunate to fall foul with Kennedy Agyapong that, “Neither do I condemn you.”