The month of May is masturbation month! I did not know this until a few weeks ago. This month I was invited to give a talk on young people and mental health concerning sexual and reproductive health and rights at the African Union’s Youth Pre – STC conference. I was

I have been going through some rough patches in my life. I look okay on the outside but am pretty much a broken fella inside. I grew up in a religious family (Catholic) and went to the seminary too. Some of my challenges trace way back to the seminary when

I have been unmotivated to post anything on my blog for the past two weeks. Meanwhile, I have had lengthy conversations with my friends and colleagues about love. I started to feel that perhaps I was overdoing this. Maybe I am overcompensating for the time I should have thought and

My blog post today is inspired by Aisha Chaudhary. I first learned about Aisha through the movie "The Sky is Pink", based on her life story. Aisha left this world at 18 because of an illness that made it progressively difficult for her to breathe. Before she died,

I had to summon up a little more courage than usual to write this blog because I feel embarrassed to admit that my love and romantic life have been pretty much messed up. In any case, I will still write about how the fear of rejection is real for boys

Let me start by putting to you these facts: 1. At puberty, the biophysiological events in the human body prime the person to become interested in sex, love and romance 2. It is normal for adolescents from the age of 10 years to engage in lower-level sexual behaviours and progressively

On 17thDecember 2021, I convened a meeting at Ufulu Gardens Hotel in Lilongwe. The aim of the meeting was to discuss Malawi's legal position on the termination of pregnancy for pregnant girls below the age of 18, whose pregnancy is due to sexual violation. Health professionals attended the

Intro - sexual safety Sexual safety is one of the elements of sexual well-being and mental health. Protective sexual behaviours such as using condoms and dental dams increase sexual safety and reduce the risks of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).   Heard about dental dams? I am sure that

I posted a note on sexual wellbeing and mental health in which I defined some terms describing sexual and mental well-being. And boom! Here comes Brad Pitt (one of my favorite actors) to provide me with a practical application of one of the terms: Forgiveness of past (sexual) experiences We

The Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS) found that adolescents between 10 and 14 in Blantyre engage in romantic relationships. Some already initiate sex. Teen love can be a positive experience as part of growing up. In this blog, I share thoughts about how teens can make the best of this

As a parent, I share with other parents the hope that our teenager does not start to engage in sexual intercourse too soon. But the billion Kwacha question is how do we assist teens in delaying sex? In this blog, I discuss how parents could approach this project. Introduction One

We are socialised to believe that men are hardwired to pursue their sexual desire and that inevitably it drives them to pursue the objects of that desire - women. We are made to believe this is the nature of male sexual desire. It justifies that men do the pursuing and

African parents who care about their teen who has prospects of a bright future from a good education will be careful to not encourage their teen, especially the girl, to be dating. The typical advice from parents to their daughter would be something like - "My daughter, please focus

My last post was rather philosophical as I attempted to define sexuality. It is a term that is rather complex. I did end up saying something like sexuality is the core of our being human and it is not just about sex. I also pointed out that sexuality is many

What we believe or do not believe about sexuality, even if we might never have thought about that, structures our relationships. The importance of understanding our beliefs about sexuality is that we shall not act in ignorance. Further, we might even pursue our dreams with much more conscious choices than

Some years ago, we were having this conversation when my colleague shared about the spontaneous emotion he felt when he heard the news that his daughter had had her first menses. He told us he 'cried'. What he said had stuck with me for a long time, and

I am grappling with writing a book chapter. I have entitled it "The nexus between COVID-19 and Sexual and Reproductive Health of Adolescents: Bringing adolescents ‘home’". I am not going to talk about the book chapter in this post, but just the heading of the post. I was