To many Nigerian parents, schools and religious houses, sex education means preaching celibacy and threatening young people with pregnancy. The average Nigerian gets their very first version of sex education from romance novels, the internet and from anywhere else but home. Making sex talks taboo means we don’t have a lot of honest conversations about sex and reproductive rights.
In the same vein, a lot of people may think normalising conversations about sex means opening the subject of women’s reproductive rights. In this article, we talk about what it means to normalise conversations about sex and whether conversations about women’s reproductive rights should include men.
Should we normalise conversations about sex in Nigeria?
“Almost every Nnamdi, Nneoma and Chidinma is having sex”—Raldie
If everybody acknowledges that sex exists, why do we keep pretending that no one is having sex? Making sex a taboo is why there is stigma around buying protection. You see this happen when someone walks into a pharmacy to buy condoms, and the cashier gives them a dirty look. We should be applauding people for having safe sex, not shaming them for it.
Young people will have sex whether society likes it or not. So, instead of shaming people into having sex in secret, it’s best to create spaces where we can have honest conversations about safe sex and teach people the right way to do it.
“Parents talk about everything but sex with their kids”— Omoleye
If more parents spoke to their children about sex, they would be less likely to try out sexual fetishes they find on the internet. Many people have bizarre first experiences with sex — from house maids touching them inappropriately to stumbling across porn videos on someone’s phone — simply because no one tells them what to expect. Kids who aren’t given sex education will get it from somewhere unreliable on the internet.
Because we’ve made sex such a taboo topic, there is a teenage boy somewhere convinced he has wet the bed after his first wet dream. Teenagers tend to make safer choices about sex if they have the necessary knowledge given to them earlier.
“It is hypocritical to not want to talk about sex” — Brookes
The hypocrisy factor in every Nigerian manifests when a parent who had a child who was the flower girl at their wedding refuses to talk to that child about sex. In religious spaces, encouraging young people to be ignorant about sex and then turning around when they are married to ask them to spice things up in the bedroom is asking for the impossible.
Because of this taboo culture around sex, many women have no idea that sex is supposed to be pleasurable for them. Religious houses forget that ignorant young people outside marriage remain ignorant young people in marriage.
We should have honest conversations about sexuality, consent and contraceptives in schools and religious houses in addition to preaching celibacy.
Do men have a right to decide on women’s reproductive choices?
“Medically, it’s your body, your choice” — Dr. Ileri
After sex, the man’s contribution to making a child ends. The rest of the process happens inside the woman’s body. Whether she decides to keep that child or not, both decisions will take a toll on her, physically and emotionally.
Because she has more to lose from the process, it only makes sense that she decides what kind of contraceptives to use and whether or not to keep a child. If men really want to have big opinions on the matter, they should insist on using male contraceptives.
“It takes two to tango” — Imisi
As a woman, if your partner wanted to have a vasectomy and you still want more children, wouldn’t you want to have a say? It takes two people to make a baby, so it should take two people to decide what to do with the baby.
At the surface level, men in general do not have the right to decide on women’s reproductive choices, but in the context of a marriage, or where the man has a stake in her choices, there should be room for them to make inputs. Ultimately, though, the decision rests with the woman.
“Having sex without protection is implied consent to father a child” —Esther
Under Nigerian law, a woman can’t get an abortion if there are no strong medical reasons for it. Even in countries where it is legal, the decision is ultimately the woman’s. Pregnancy is nature’s automatic response to heterosexual sex. The only thing contraceptives do is try to prevent that consequence, and there is always a possibility that prevention will fail. When two people decide to have sex, they’ve automatically already agreed to pregnancy as a possible consequence of sex.
“Insisting on bodily autonomy means having to deal with the consequences of your actions” —Deji
Every woman who has consensual sex with a man unwilling to have a child should bear some personal responsibility for the consequences of the act. We live in a patriarchal society where a man isexpected to be responsible for the upkeep of any child that he fathers.
When a woman gets pregnant and insists on keeping the child against the man’s wishes, she forces him to become a father, forgetting that some men simply are not ready or willing to be fathers. Men also deserve to have a say in deciding whether or not they want to be fathers. If women insist on bodily autonomy, it should also extend to childcare.
Next read: 4 Sexual And Reproductive Health Screenings Women Should Undergo and Why
