How many men and women, especially if they are public figures, can talk publicly about their orgasms? Many people in places like Uganda just cannot, just do not. They will say: “We are Africans—we are not supposed to talk publicly about private matters like sex and all that goes with it.”

But Bank of Uganda economist Pumla Nabachwa is in her own league. In video clips that have been shared widely on social media, she talks about her sex life extremely freely (if there’s such a thing), and the candour with which she speaks makes it seem like she is a white woman with a black skin. Why? Because whites, for the most part, talk about sex in a no holds-barred manner.

In the clip in question, Ms Nabachwa says she did not have sex until she was18, which means she abstained much longer than many Ugandan teenagers do. A single mother of one son, she got married in her early 20s and separated with her husband after seven years. In those seven years of marriage, she says in the video, she never once reached sexual climax. But, she says, she enjoyed sex anyway.

It is not every day that you get to hear a public figure working for a well-known corporate entity telling it like it is about their sex life. So Ms Nabachwa’s revelations have surprised many people.

On social media, some have been saying that she overstepped the mark and are wondering whether the Bank of Uganda does not mind what its employees say in public. But others are standing with her. They have argued, with reason, that she is talking about her own private life and that nothing she says in the video is embarrassing or brings the Bank of Uganda into disrepute.

We are all products of sex. Apart from food, which we eat daily, sex is another extremely important human need. It is not only an integral part of our lives, it also paves the way for us to start life as human beings. We are more than eight billion people on planet Earth because of sex. There are, of course, people who are born without their parents having had sex—but they are precious few.

So, if we have something as central in the lives of people as sex, what is wrong about talking about it publicly? What is wrong with talking publicly about that moment during sexual activity when feelings of sexual pleasure are at their strongest—which, by definition, is orgasm? What is wrong with sexual pleasure?

A weekly column about women and men. Views and commentary on everything from love, marriage, sex, money, desire, betrayal and power to all the glorious mess in between. No sides. No sacred cows. Just The Third Chair: unnamed, unaligned and sitting close enough to hear both sides.