Sexuality Article - A Snippet

All right, so this is part of the article that I needed all your input for. The editors are changing it, but this is the version I wrote. It might get published, it might not. But, without further ado, I present...

Virgins and Whores: The Matter of Sexuality in Nigeria

Nigerians don’t talk about sex. There are 140 million of us, so we know that we’re having it (and superfluously so), but nobody talks about it. Oh, we’ll hash out the gritty, raw details within the relative “privacy” of our neighborhoods, the juicy gossip flitting furtively from family compound to beer parlor and back. But as far as public discourse is concerned, we might as well all be eunuchs. It was clear to me from a very young age that Nigerians constitute a fairly randy population, but I’ve often wondered why we ostensibly prefer to blindfold ourselves to our own promiscuity. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” seems to be the policy generally accepted in society, at the expense of our collective health and even our culture. Gone are the days when sex and intimacy went hand in hand. Nowadays, in a land that has become increasingly commercial, sex is just another commodity to be haggled over and sold on the open market.

Recently, I’ve heard several of our young women refer to their sexuality as a tool with which they can “make ends meet”, as though they completely lack other legitimate resources to achieve these ends. Their perspective, however, reflects a large-scale transformation in the national psyche. If I remember correctly, it wasn’t too long ago that such women were aggressively eschewed and derided for utilizing their bodies in the pursuit of monetary gain. But now, things have changed. It was a gradual shift, barely perceptible to me until I realized, with mild shock, that we as a nation have embraced a casual sort of prostitution and simply called it by another name. As women, we are no longer [sleeping around] for money; we’re simply “making ends meet”, because that, somehow, sounds nobler than admitting the truth. What I find most shocking, however, is how the society at large has merely adjusted itself, so that it is now molded around this new mentality, rather than rejecting it with the same defiance and force with which it sets suspected thieves ablaze in the street.

I’m not arguing for the quick and fiery death of young women who don’t know what better to do with their talents. I don’t even think promiscuity is inherently bad. I just want to understand what has happened to our values over the past decade or so, and why we were so willing to let them go. We certainly work very hard to create the illusion of sexual propriety; so who exactly are we trying to deceive?

* The rest of this article might (or might not) appear in the first edition of the BHF magazine, to be launched this summer. "Grab your copy NOOOOOW!" Or later. When there are copies to grab.