Ironically, a few days after the Film and Publication Appeal Tribunal set aside the “16N” classification of Brett Murray’s controversial painting of President Jacob Zuma: The Spear, a large penis has appeared behind Zuma on The Star’s front page.

Penises and the President are all the rage again, and the large penis, drawn on the chalkboard in the background, almost appears to be looking intently at the President.

Zuma had been in Cullinan, just outside Pretoria, yesterday, to launch the Integrated School Health Programme.

Part of the programme entails “equipping boys and girls with information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies,” so it’s understandable that there is a penis involved in what was going on in the image.

Zuma has more on that:

About three-quarters of learners who become pregnant leave school at the time of the pregnancy and only between a third and a half of these return to school. It is almost always the girl child who has to deal with the stigma and other negative consequences of the pregnancy. We know that this subject makes parents uncomfortable, understandably so. But we have to face the reality that some learners are sexually active, no matter how much this knowledge troubles us as parents.

Arguably, parenting is something that the President knows a lot about, so it was good that he was on hand to deliver his personal insight about the dangers of rogue penises.

He continued:

To deal with this reality and promote primary health care, the school health nurse and team will provide sexual and reproductive health services including contraception as well as HIV counselling and testing, where appropriate.

[Source: Twitter]