Blesser culture in South Africa isn’t as glamorous as you may think

A few years ago ‘blesser’ was a holy word.

Fast forward to 2017, a blesser is just a click of a button away and the word has taken on a whole new meaning – a life of its own. A ‘blessing’ is a transaction between an older man and a younger woman – sex for material goods. Nothing spiritual about it.

Blesser culture may seem simple, but what lies beneath this ‘transaction’ is complicated.

How consensual is a relationship if what is being exchanged is a person’s body? Researchers and activists have compared the way blessers prey on young women to sex trafficking where women are ‘owned’ by traffickers and sold for sex. With jobs hard to come by, young women in this country are left vulnerable. Of course not only women are affected by sexual slavery, but women are the most targeted group in our country. Some are trying to support families whilst holding down jobs, others have children to protect and provide for, but all of us are ultimately fighting for more opportunities.

Young women are faced with many challenges. They are already treated unequally and the blesser culture is all about the power being in the blesser’s hands.

What adds fuel to the fire is that blessers aren’t found in darkened alleyways and streets, you can find them on your cellphone screen.
People use social media to connect with each other – how we communicate on the Internet acts as a virtual lifeline between us, and the rest of the world.

We echo our desires and our fears in cyber communities where we feel safe. So it makes perfect sense that blessers would use social media to lure individuals with promises and expensive price tags.

There are plenty of sites and apps dedicated to the search for a young blessee, and vice versa – sites like blesserfind.com, Twitter accounts like @blesserfinder, and blesser versions of Tinder where you can swipe right or left for a sugar daddy.

Blessers use social media to brand themselves and blessees create their own personas, creating character profiles and stating their needs. It becomes a virtual contract where all you have to do is make a thread on what you need your blesser to provide and request the re-tweets because he may “be on your timeline”.

These relationships are in high-demand, with this situation slotting neatly into South African life. I wonder where we begin to solve the problem and find a solution where we break the cycle of the blesser relationship?

Young women are the most vulnerable group in our country. We need to stop this form of sexual exploitation but NOT by slut-shame and victim-blaming girls who are trapped in bad circumstances and just want to find a way out.

We need to end the silence and create a culture where women who report instances of sexual abuse are heard – a culture where women have options that allow them to be financially independent so they don’t need to rely on ‘blessers.’

What do you think of blesser relationships? How do you think we can break this cycle?

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