Although there is no definite definition of the word ‘slay queen’, the word is widely used in social circles. The phrase is used widely across the continent to special group of women who roam social media and share pictures of their lavish lifestyle. For these ladies it seems that the party never stop as they enjoy fancy holiday trips and drive luxury cars as well as show-off the latest fashion trends. The ladies have no definite careers (“social media careerists”), but if they do they live above their pay-grade. They are often seen in the company of the wealthy and the famous.
Ghanaian writer Francisca Kakra Forson writes that “the era of social media has highlighted a new phenomenon of ‘slay queens’, a phrase whose meaning has varied over time; from the positive - women "killing it" in their careers and lifestyles to the negative - women dating rich, often married, men to fund their lavish lifestyles”. Forson’s observation appears to suggest that the term slay queen has both positive and negative connotations.
In his study on the involvement of women in transactional sex, Unisa academic Johannes N. Mampane argues that sociocultural, socio-behavioural and socioeconomic factors such as poverty and social pressures are behind transactional sex involving younger women.
Slay queens are therefore a social phenomenon. Writing for Malawi’s biggest newspaper Nyasaland Times, Mike Fiko calls the slay queens a “movement” and estimates that they are “mostly aged between 23 and 25, often with a child or two with other people’s husbands.” Nevertheless, Fiko attempts to provide an explanation of what the slay queen means. He says that a slay queen is “a woman who wants to choke everyone else with how beautiful they feel they are and how they do their ‘cool stuff’…” This characterisation may seem too simplistic but it helps to build an image of a slay queen in one’s mind. Apparently, these girls have no education although they speak “crispy’ English. They also have no income but they live large. In addition, they have no business ventures but they always flash flight tickets while seated in business class.
One Kenyan commentator remarked that “slay queens are a very specific and logical response of young women. They are monetising what their mamas gave them, using the marketing skills they paid for privately in school”.
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Transactional Sex and the 'Blesser's Game'
In her book ‘Bare: The Blesser’s Game (2018), which is based on her own experiences as a ‘slay-queen’, Jackie Phamotse opened up about transactional sex and the way society covers it up. Phamotse’s book pierced the veil that covers the underworld of ‘blessers’ (rich men) and ‘blessees’ (young women, also called slay queens). Even though Phamotse’s allegations were never proven even after threats of legal suits, one thing became apparent: there is another world out there that is concealed to mere mortals. This world is dominated by fast paced life, fancy cars, luxury, hotels, sodomy and drugs.
In 2017, Congolese and blesser Serge Cabonge appeared in a television documentary called ‘MTV Shuga: In Real Life’ where he explained that he targets students. The reality is that some of the bad things that happen to women including violence, human trafficking, rape and diseases will never be sorted because it is likely the people who are involved in these horrendous acts are the ones who are supposed to solve them. Nonetheless, the world of transactional sex and its rigours remain unexplored, and the society is not ready to deal with its hidden side.
Slay Queens / Blessers / Morals
The Slay Queen Economy
Money and ‘soft life’ motivate them to engage in what is increasingly becoming a vibrant trade involving millions of rands and movement of goods and services. The existence of slay queens is no longer a social occurrence but a parallel economy with its currency called the clitocurrency (Ç) and also adheres to the basics of economics such as demand and supply.
At its base the slay-queen economy is made up the opulent male clients who drive up the demand for the clitocurrency through their excessive spending and lifestyles. These men enjoy better standards of living than ordinary people. They thrive in an economy that hardly grows and which also create almost no jobs. Poverty and inequality which predominantly affect genders differently heighten the command of these men. They have become a parallel stream for earning money for many destitute people who include males and females.
On the supply side, young people feature in the slay-queen economy as suppliers of their bodies that exploited for sex. South Africa’s youth unemployment rate exceeds seventy-five percent and this means that cheap sex is available in abundance. It is not only socioeconomic hardships that attract young men and women to the slay-queen economy but other social drivers push them to pursue easier routes to the top. There are newer fashionable trades like social media influencer which make young people to believe that can gain stardom overnight.
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In 2017, Wandile Ngcaweni wrote in The Times that slay queens on social media were pimping innocent girls. The reason Fiko calls slay queens a movement is because they know each other. They represent a growing class against their captive market of rich men who have the resources and knowledge on how to make things happen. The women experience hardships of the slay queen economy when the season is dry. For example, the emergence of the coronavirus and harsh lockdowns almost collapsed the slay-queen economy and its currency.
The clitocurrency has some notable features. It is based on the commodification of the female body and characterises an entirely new economy that has grown out of the exploitation of erotic capital. The currency is pegged to the South African Rand like the currencies of Lesotho, Namibia and eSwatini. When the rand depreciates these currencies suffer. However, the clitocurrency is very difficult to predict since it is not regulated by the South African Reserve Bank. At times, it outperforms the rand and its users become instantly wealthy.
Tiisetso Maloma likens slay queens with cryptocurrency: “Slay queens meet the characteristic of ‘acceptability’ of a currency- although not acceptable to all members of society”. This simply means that slay queens exist in our midst like everybody else, yet society either pretends that they are not there or it treats them with scorn. There many people who have made millions from Bitcoins as there are women who earn a good living from their not-so conventional life.
Social Perceptions and Double Standards
Slay queens are often accused of engaging in subtle prostitution but they fight back. They raise one fundamental question “as to why one gender [male] irrespective of the level of their wealth can acquire sexual and domestic services from the other gender [women] who for the lack of capital must exchange these services for capital or its benefits.” The point is that men can easily splash money to be laid yet they do not face condemnation like women. Why shouldn’t a women volunteer sex in order to get money? In an interview with CNN’s Christine Amanpour a Ghanaian actress named Moesha Boduong admitted to o dating a married man who took care of her because of the harsh economic conditions in her country.
Players meet in what Forson calls the “Global Sex Exchange”, which has no share indices or big screens, but only bartering between men and women. The exchange entails such things as prostitution, marriage, cohabitation or side relationships (sugar daddy, side chick and slay queen affairs). The slay queen economy is therefore an extension of social structures. Therefore, it is entirely up to individuals to elect which type sexual engagement they prefer, but based on the existing social realities many women cannot choose. “The imbalance of capital creates a relationship of negotiation and exchange between men who have the capital and women who have it not yet need it in the capitalist world,” argues Forson.
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As in elsewhere, many well-to-do South African men are also not really interested in making investments in high-yield sectors of the economy, but they are rather invested in the unfruitful sectors. In 2018, Billionaire businessman Johann Rupert remarked that his generation “didn’t go and buy BMWs and hang around at Taboo and The Sands all the time…” This was in reference nouveau riche black middle classes that have created a sub-culture of reckless spending and conspicuous consumption. During major events, they pay unimaginable bills exceeding R100,000 a night on booze and food alone. At the time, Rupert’s comments drew mixed reaction from mainly black people and he was accused of racism and arrogance. It may have been that Rupert was dismissed because he is white, or maybe most people did not expect him to comment on their lavish but highly unproductive lifestyles. Everybody knows that this life exists across South Africa: from Ayepyep in Pretoria and Eyadini in Umlazi to exclusive places in Umhlanga, Sandton and Cape Town. Large events like Durban July, political events, music concerts, etc. This glamorous life runs parallel with slay queens.
Cultural Erosion and Modern Identity
We are keenly dancing to the melodies of the westernized culture. It has become an established fact that the mutual relationship between the Youths of Ghana and their western idols cannot be estranged until its bubble has busted into the relaxation of the free flow of fatalities involved in sightlessly and wholesale copying from a culture which is alien to the African continent. Alvin Toffler was indeed on point when he said that "the illiterates of the 21st century are not those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn"!
What has blindfolded and compelled us to uphold vehemently that the African culture is outmoded? Or, because it has taught us to lower our gaze when we see something inappropriate, not to speak when our elders are on the floor speaking, to maintain the widest possible gap between the opposite sex and to never trade sex for gifts? As far as these and others accede with the injunctions from the obvious books it must be adhered to! Nature handed it down [our culture] and we know that it encompasses all the embodiments of common sense not forgetting that civilization first started in Egypt!
Where civilization is defined as ingenuity, for example, our ancestors nicknamed an indigenous Twi woman as 'Aketesia' [A well covered and chaste woman]. They believed that an ideal woman must be cladded in an ornament which would conceal her privacy as she remains maiden awaiting marriage. That said, the foundation of these have been uprooted abruptly and fallen and disintegrated into the sand, so our dear ladies are no more called Aketesia but now beautifully crowned as “Slay Queens”! Satirically, the crown that they wear is symbolical to a wreath thrown onto a grave or used to decorate a casket or an artificial flower which is only seen on snap chat but also advertently demonstrating the amorphous state of their kingdom! The name [slay queen], most of us are still racking our brains to get it demystified but yet it has yielded no positive effect unlike how it has drilled profligacies throughout the nooks and crannies of Africa. So let us use the simplest methodology; breaking the words down to understand it the more. In a layman’s point of view, slay means [to kill, eradicate and defeat], while queen is what has been defined to us long before the birth of Gold Coast.
Undisputedly, the moral fibre of Ghana's culture has been badly crippled with flagitious accounts pertaining to the real life of the Slay Queens. Slaying is the new fad in town; a lady is shamed if she is petrified to espouse the slay queens’ phenomenon.
The Role of Media and Society
How do they slay? They foremost and often have a wardrobe malfunction if it is to be rubbed against the touchstone of our ancestral code of dressing! They appeared elegant and well classed when they show up for an event, however, if we are to put on rose-tinted glasses we would see that upon all the flamboyant and exorbitant dress they fail to veil their 'delicate parts'! I mean not only covering their real innermost parts but they expose the parts that could make men aphrodisiac.
The first people to be wiped are the media outlets. They are the source of vital information; some are very circumspect with what they put forth. In the name of entertainment, some media houses first consider getting traffic on their site than entertaining to educate but they rather entertain to indirectly misguide the gullible ladies! The dress, flashy cars, ornaments and apartments of female actress would appear in the front page while the issue of a deplorable condition of the people of Zabzugu is kept in the 14th page! Ladies are mostly enticed by what they see and hear and by so doing they are being induced to become exactly what they have read in the graphic or seen on the television!
Our elders have said that charity begins at home. This goes to our dear mothers who during the early days of their girl child's life envisioned them to look so curvaceous and walk stylishly like a pregnant fish! But, when they are adults they now want them to behave like Virgin Marry, how possible? Is there anyone who could invest at Unique Trust Bank and withdraw his proceeds from Capital Bank? Parents are aloof when they start watching the needless telenovelas without a proper check of the contents shown. If a female actress in a fictitious movie slept with big men and excelled, she would perchance consider it as a real life situation and become morally inhibited. They mentor wrongly by copying rather the pitfalls of successful women.
Above all, the guys must be wholesomely vituperated! Men patronize the slay queens because they feel that they could be easily eaten like fruits! They are more than half of the reasons the ladies want to be impressive and appealing but unfortunately appalling. If we are to stop patronizing slay queens the market would collapse but we are the same people who would tell the very dark girl to look fair and sexy! You cannot come visiting by wearing a tight jean as if you are going to stare in Jesus's [as] film. And I do not go out with ladies with flat tits, boobs and buttock.
If you are a slay queen consider dethroning yourself because some of the Slay Queens’ soup are tasted by pleasure seekers and they go free; our elders have said that “if the owner of a calabash calls it a worthless calabash, others will join him use it to park rubbish”. Slayers do find it hard when they need that faithful man to settle with; anyone who might come their way would only want to have a taste of the Persian spring, you can confer it with Princess Shyngle.
The phenomenon of ‘slaying’ or adorning one’s self in ‘attention seeking’ apparels to make fashion statements has transcended beyond the Red Carpet and has now taken center stage on social media. Though a clear definition of a ‘Slay Queen’ is yet to be arrived at, various operational definitions have been given for the term. While some may define a ‘Slay Queen’ as one whose extreme fashion sense becomes an attraction on a Red Carpet, others simply believe that a ‘Slay Queen’ is any lady displaying questionable lifestyles on social media mainly to attain fame. The rise in the number of ‘Slay Queens’ seems to have become a nuisance to many with some blaming the surge on the deliberate attempt by bloggers to promote such lifestyles.
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