The Matter of Nigerian Sexuality

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.

In recent years, I’ve heard increasing numbers of our young women refer to their sexuality as a tool with which they can “make ends meet”, as though they 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. The promiscuity itself may not be 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?

If you will, picture a time in our history when female virginity was lauded as a symbol of virtuosity and purity, when the virgin represented of all that was good about womankind. Men desired her, women admired her. Her entire community respected her chastity and upheld her honor. We maintain this reverential attitude in our consciousness today, to a degree. Young women, particularly of the Christian faith, still think virgins are more virtuous than non-virgins and our young men still find at least the concept of virginity appealing. And who can blame them? Imagine being the only measure of competence, the first and perhaps sole provider of another’s intimate pleasure. And as for the virgins themselves, what a massage to the ego to be viewed as a divine beacon shining through the growing swarm of sexually active (read: tainted) youth. For both, male and female, the appeal alone would be enough to create waves of orgasmic gratification.

Nevertheless, these same young men are simultaneously turned off by the definitive inexperience of a virgin because, though “pure”, she’s boring. And, honestly, when a man can walk into the boudoir of a femme fatale, who always knows just the right buttons to push, kiss and tickle, why would he allow himself to be distracted by the divine?

It would seem therefore that those of us who still believe that female virginity and all it entails is still a central component of our culture, only say so by force of habit. Clearly, modern Nigerian life does not adhere to this principle. We say we do but few, if any, are actually interested in having relationships with virgins. It simply doesn’t matter to us anymore. On the contrary, people nowadays are all about looking and behaving sexier, in mimicry of popular Western culture, and it is this attitude that is all the rage among young women.

Today’s Nigerian women see their sex lives as being just as important to their personal development as any other component of individual growth. You’ll be hard pressed to find a woman who is naïve or inexperienced in other aspects of life, so why would she restrict herself to being sexually naïve? The freedom to choose, rather than prolonged innocence, is the key to making her sexual experiences memorable and most claim that they enjoy sex too much to ever want to be virgins again. If they could reclaim their virginity, they’d only want to lose it to someone more experienced. So sex is important, whether it occurs in a long-term monogamous relationship or during impassioned short-term couplings.

I can accept this truth, which is why, as I previously implied, I do not subscribe to the ideology that having casual sex reflects negatively on one’s character. Turning casual sex into a money-grabbing exercise, however—not so good. In economically-turbulent Nigeria, the individual’s quest for financial independence has managed to supersede the value systems which once upheld sexual integrity and which could have guided us to a natural, healthy acceptance of being a sexually active society. But our dubious actions in the naked pursuit of money have instead turned (some) Nigerian parents into pimps and reduced their children to game pieces on the giant Monopoly board that is our country.

Faced with the reality that Nigeria is now just one huge brothel, now is the time to publicly—unabashedly—address this culture of silence that enshrouds the topic of sexuality. We can no longer afford to take it for granted that our children and peers are either 1) not having sex at all or 2) being responsible when they do. Somehow, I doubt the young girl or boy who rubs on Chief’s rounded belly and recondite nether regions for a few thousand Naira is in a position to make demands about how his or her body will be used that evening. And if we don’t acknowledge that they are in Chief’s bed in the first place, then how can we even begin to protect them from the plethora of life- and lifestyle-threatening diseases out there?

Some might argue that this is a private matter for the family to deal with. I say the folks at home have failed in their duty and someone else needs to take over the discourse. The media, the government, the private sector – anybody that will facilitate an open, wide-scale debate on how we Nigerians feel, think and act when it comes to sex. Without it, we are in danger of inadvertently teaching generations of new Nigerians that the sex act is naught but a tool to be used in the acquisition of material possessions. Gone will be the reverence we should have for our most intimate selves, and we will have lost the opportunity to see our culture evolve into something more honorable than its current semblance. But the full tragedy will be the abuse we will have caused and endured, to the detriment of our complete human integrity – sexual and otherwise.