Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of today’s Sex Life is a 28-year-old heterosexual woman who finds sex triggering and struggles to maintain romantic and sexual relationships due to past horrible and violent sexual experiences. She talks about how these experiences shaped her sex life and how she is trying to dig herself out of the mental hole she feels she is in.
Trigger warning: Parts of this story contain information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors.
What was your first sexual experience?
When I was 12, my dad’s step brother came to stay with us because my dad wanted him to gain admission to the university in our city. So he was taking JAMB classes. One day, he called me and fingered me. It didn’t progress beyond that for a while, then one day, he forced himself on me. I remember crying, but this happened on an afternoon when no one was around. He threatened he would beat me if I told anyone, so I didn’t. By the time anyone came back that day, I was shivering, had developed a fever and couldn’t talk.
I am so sorry.
Thank you. I don’t know if it was the way I reacted that scared him, but he never touched me again. He left our house a few months later because of an inter-family quarrel. Sadly, that wasn’t my only non-consensual sexual experience.
Wow.
Years later, I went to a party at university. It was hosted by a friend who was celebrating her birthday. There wasn’t a crowd at the party, but you could still get lost. A guy I met came up to me and was trying to dance with me. I declined because I don’t dance, so we talked casually for a bit. I left to find my friend who I came with but didn’t see her. Then I went to one of the rooms. There was only one other girl who was changing there so I tried to sit down. I dozed off for a few minutes, and when I opened my eyes, the girl wasn’t there again. The guy I had been talking to earlier had entered and — I would later learn — locked the door behind him. He begun touching me and trying to initiate sex, and even though I kept saying no, he didn’t stop. All I could think about was crying after my uncle forced himself on me. So I did the only thing that made sense to me, I just let him have his way before he forced me.
That’s awful.
Yup. It didn’t last long. Once he was done, I got up and that’s when I realised he had locked the door. I opened it and just started walking even though it was really early in the morning.
What did you do next?
I got home, cried a lot, showered a lot and stared at my ceiling all night. The next day I carried on as though nothing happened. Do you know the funniest part?
Tell me.
I would see the guy around school, and he would act normal. He would wave at me and act like we are random acquaintances. A few months back, I saw his Twitter account. He is living a very normal life and is very much Mr “Oh So Regular Goodie Two Shoes”. But he fucked me up. It would be funny if it wasn’t hilarious.
Have you ever had consensual sexual intercourse?
Yeah, I have. But if you ask if I have ever enjoyed it, the answer would be no.
Why is that?
Every time I have sex, I just want it to end. I find myself remembering the first two times I was forced into having sex and I feel disgusted and want it to stop. Even when I consent, I feel like I’m being raped. My mind just fights it.
How has that affected your sex life?
Man, where do I start from? I used to think I was asexual, but I’m not. I’m attracted to men and want to date and sleep with men. However, when I try to get in bed with one, all I think about are those experiences. So it paralyses me. I don’t think I have ever really enjoyed sex; I have never had an orgasm. Even when they ask for consent and do everything right, I’m just unable to enjoy it. A year ago, I stopped trying.
Stopped trying…?
To have sex. I used to do it just to keep my partners pleased, but I can’t keep doing that to myself. I might be damaging my mind even more.
Have you ever tried to seek professional help to deal with this?
Yup. When the university one happened, I started seeing this woman that was working with an NGO. Unknown to me, she was a very religious and conservative woman. When I told her what happened, she told me it was my fault and that I brought it upon myself for going to late-night parties and mixing with boys. I was stumped. Hearing those words, as a rape victim, when the wounds were still fresh and when I was still blaming myself inside, was fucked up.
That’s so unprofessional. I’m sorry you went through that.
Thanks. Anyways, I found a therapist who had a good head on her last year. She’s part of why I stopped forcing myself to have sex — I thought I owed it to my partners.
How has therapy been going?
Really really good. It’s a slow process, but I’ve felt some shifts and I’m hoping to successfully work through it all eventually.
You definitely will. How would you rate your sex life?
0. My sex life is nonexistent and I think sex and men, in general, have taken so much from me, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a 10. But I hope so.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 35-year-old woman who discovers she isn’t attracted to only men relatively late. She talks about finding out about her sexuality, how her husband helped her explore her pansexuality and rejecting harmful teachings about sex.
What was your first sexual experience?
I was in my late teens, 17 or so. I had a crush on a prefect in my school, and we would touch each other in corners. One day, he invited me to his friend’s house, and we had sex. It was my first time. Looking back at it, it wasn’t groundbreaking, but then it felt like it was. I thought he was my prince charming, the person I would end up with.
What happened?
We had a very childish breakup. I can’t remember the details, but I was so heartbroken then. That was it for secondary school.
Uni?
I stayed home for two years after secondary school before I went off to uni. My mum wanted me to learn a trade for a year, and I didn’t get enough points in my JAMB examination to gain admission. I got in the following year, three years after I left secondary school.
Within that period, did your sex life change?
A lot. At first, I felt more adult. I had friends and some freedom. I didn’t do much, but I did date a few people, and I think I slept with two boys. I was learning about myself, which was great, but my mother started noticing, and it made her so worried, she started coming down on me hard.
How so?
My mother was convinced I was becoming a prostitute. She would beat me or yell at me at every chance she got. When she wasn’t doing that, she was giving me bad advice about boys and sex. She would talk about teen pregnancy and how that would lead to my being a waste of space and a nuisance to society and how it could kill me. All of that fucked me up.
I went from a flirty young girl to a reserved and scared babe who didn’t want to mess up and bring disappointment to her family. When I went to uni, I did not make friends fast because I didn’t want to mix with the wrong crowd. I didn’t mix with boys. This was a stark difference from who I was in secondary school.
What was your sex life like then?
Nonexistent. In my first two years in uni, I didn’t date or sleep with anyone. In my third year, I finally had a boyfriend that broke my heart and all I was thinking was, “hey my mama talk am.”
LMAO. What happened?
He cheated on me with my roommate. It was messy, but we move.
What’s your sex life like now?
Much better. I’ve let go of all of those harmful, patriarchal beliefs that my mother taught me and now I’m having a lot of sex and a lot of it is with women, so it’s good.
Women?
Lmao. So a few years ago, I realised I like women and men and even people who don’t identify as either.
Oh, so pansexual?
I identify as pansexual.
Got it. When did you realise you didn’t just like men?
Two years before I got married.
I had started pushing against these horrible ideas that my mum had taught me about sex — how my virginity was the greatest gift I could give my husband — and started enjoying life and sex. Around this period was actually when I met my husband — who is the best person I have ever met and a true God-sent. But just before I met him, I met a friend of a friend, and she was so damn gorgeous. I was struck and that was when it hit me that I really am attracted to women. Before this, I would look at women and find them attractive but never really understood that I was attracted to them. I think I didn’t want to confront it back then.
Long story short, me and this gorgeous friend of a friend kissed for a bit and that was what sealed the deal. Not long after, I met my husband, and it was a monogamous relationship for the longest time.
How did you meet your husband?
Twitter. It was a very random interaction that turned into DMs and then a friendship and eventually, a marriage.
How’s your sex life as a married woman?
The best. My husband is willing to learn and explore things with me and in me. I fell in love with sex because of him. 10/10 easily.
Wow. So what do you mean by “monogamous for the longest time”?
We opened our marriage about two years ago. I told my husband that I liked women and wanted to try it. He wasn’t overly enthusiastic at the beginning, but he was supportive. We talked about it for months and agreed on how it would function.
Can you tell me about how it functions?
I can sleep with women, but it must be women we don’t know and it must be far removed from us. He doesn’t step out of our relationship, but once in a while, we bring someone to bed with us.
How has that been for you guys?
Great actually. We’re in sync now more than ever and our sex life is just banging. Pun unintended.
What has sex with women been like for you, especially compared to sex with men?
I think it boils down to individual partners. Some men are clueless; they just hammer on and think if the woman is screaming, it means they’re enjoying it. On the flip side, some women too are clueless. However, in my experience, I think women are more willing to listen and adapt and give you what you want. Men tend to take feedback as an attack on their masculinity. So overall? With the exception of my husband, all the best sex I’ve had has been with women.
Fascinating. You’ve had a hell of a sexual trajectory. What do you think is the highlight of all this?
The game-changer wasn’t discovering I was attracted to more than just men. It was meeting my husband. He was so willing to learn and unlearn with me, to push against norms and we were able to change our relationship and marriage so it fit us even better.
Nice, nice. How would you rate your sex life?
A solid 10. I get to be with the man I love while exploring my inner freak. I can’t believe how lucky I am.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of today’s Sex Life is a 28-year-old gay man who recently discovered he is a side — a gay man who isn’t interested in penetrative sex. He talks about how this affects his sexual and romantic life and how he hopes to meet someone open-minded enough to know it’s not all about penetrative sex.
What was your first sexual experience?
It wasn’t consensual actually. We had a house help who would rub our genitals together and hump on me. I was nine and it went on for about two years before one of my aunties noticed that something wasn’t right. She immediately raised an alarm and the girl was sent packing. That was how I finally came to know peace.
That’s fucked up. I’m so sorry.
It’s fine. My first proper consensual sexual experience was when I was fourteen. It was with a guy I liked in secondary school. He was a year above me. One time, I went over to his and we kissed. That was when I had my first proper kiss. He was my first boyfriend.
Do you remember how it ended?
He went on to uni, then my family relocated. It made me sad that we didn’t keep in touch but I’m over it now. This was around the time I discovered masturbation.
Oh?
I think I was a late bloomer regarding masturbation. I didn’t know of it or start doing it till my mid-teens. I think other kids discovered it earlier.
Do you know why it took you longer?
I’m a very ‘mental person’. I exist largely in my head so it’s harder for me to do or connect with physical things like most people.
When you say you are a ‘mental person’ what does that exactly mean to you?
My relationships with people are very mental. I don’t know how to physically be present and enjoy or even really feel things. I exist in my head. I grew up alone and the only other person who was around me and that I would have connected with was the house help and because of the abuse, I couldn’t connect with her and had to close myself off from her. Now I don’t know how to leave my head and be physically present. With things like masturbation and even sex, it’s like I can’t turn my brain off long enough to get into them or enjoy them. So when it happened with masturbation, I was ecstatic.
Can you remember how it happened with masturbation?
I came across the word ‘masturbation’ and I was curious about it. Then I discovered porn and it kind of clicked. When I finally allowed myself to come, I was like ‘wow’.
Finally?
When I started masturbating, I never let myself climax. I just played with my genitals then stopped. One day, I went all the way off and it was magic.
LMAO. Fair enough. Do you remember any other memorable first time?
The first time I tried penetrative sex.
Oh? When was this?
When I was eighteen, I think. So I met this guy I had been texting on Facebook. The sex was not what I expected.
How so?
It was awkward. It didn’t help that the guy didn’t have a great technique and it was my first time. Before then, I had never had sex and all I knew about sex, especially sex between men, was from books, movies and porn. Let me tell you, it’s not at all the same.
I kept waiting for the moment I would enjoy it to hit, it never did.
Wow.
Yeah. I told my friends and they told me it was probably because it was my first time. I thought the same too for a while.
For a while?
I tried having sex a few times after that, and it didn’t quite hit. It bothered me for a while because I would get attracted to a person, flirt, go on dates sometimes, make out and even fool around. And I’d enjoy all of it. However when it came to penetrative sex? It never hit.
Did you have any partners around this time? How did they take it?
I dated two people. The first didn’t know — it was a short relationship — and I just pretended to enjoy it. I told the second one but he didn’t quite understand and that eventually led to the end of the relationship.
Damn, I’m so sorry.
Yeah. I stopped dating for a while because it felt pointless. It was around this point that I realised I was a side.
What’s a side?
Essentially, a side is a queer man who is not interested in penetrative sex.
Has it been easier since you made this discovery?
Yes and no. It’s great knowing that I am ‘normal” and that there are other people like me. However, being a side affects your chances of dating, having a serious or even a non-serious relationship. Sex — penetrative sex — is a huge part of dating and when that’s not on the table, your dating pool becomes almost none existent.
What’s your sex life like?
I don’t know if I have one. I’m trying to figure it out myself, I don’t know anyone who’s like me so it’s me trying to find guys who are open-minded enough to want to date someone who isn’t into penetrative sex.
These days, I don’t bother committing. I mess around, make out and sometimes have oral sex then just stop before they ask for more. People probably think I’m a player but in reality, I just don’t want to have to deal with rejection.
Have you wondered if this has anything to do with you always being in your head like you said?
I think it’s all connected but at the end of the day, these are things that make me the person that I am. I can’t change these things any more than I can change my sexuality. I do think I’m too in my head to be present to enjoy penetrative sex like most people but I don’t know for sure, what I do know is that this is me, this is who I am.
What do you think you need for your sex life to get to where you want it to?
To meet more people, even just one guy sef, who is open-minded enough to realise that sex doesn’t begin and end with penetrative sex.
On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your sex life?
Definitely a 1. It’s so unfortunate and trash to be honest.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 32-year-old woman who decided to stop having sex after she turned 30. She talks about her toxic sex life in her 20s and how this decision has helped her improve the quality of her life, relationship and friendships.
What was your first sexual experience?
When I was 16, I had sex for the first time with a neighbour who was my age. We had been planning to do it for weeks just because we hadn’t ever done anything sexual before. At the first opportunity — his parents were out and my sister travelled — we did it in his place. Before this first experience. I had read too many romance novels and read the sex magazines my sister had. So I was prepared — with lube and condoms — and had high expectations. The sex was really good.
That’s great to hear.
Yup. I later found out that it wasn’t the guy’s first sexual experience. He’d been lying to me, thinking that I wouldn’t have sex with him if I found out he wasn’t a virgin and was excited about “taking” my virginity. I found out through another neighbour. I was livid. But I was also dumb, so I continued to have sex with him until I had a pregnancy scare, told him and he said that if I kept the baby or told anyone else, he’d deny that we’d ever had sex. That was my first experience with wicked men. I panicked for a while. My period came that night.
Lmao. Wow.
It was scary. I didn’t know how I would tell my sister or my parents. My parents would regret ever allowing me to come to Lagos to live with my sister. I decided that I needed to be more careful with sex, because I wasn’t planning to stop.
Mad. What was your next sexual experience?
I went to university and made sex my criteria for a fulfilling relationship. Well, that and you had to be very attractive. So I was constantly hopping from relationship to relationship. The most memorable one after was the guy who had an even bigger sex drive than I did and wanted sex almost every day. I was in my second year in university. He lived in a boy’s quarters, so I moved in with him for a while. We would have sex before I left for classes, when I returned and at night. And all the time, it was good. In hindsight, I wonder if he was doing drugs or something. I didn’t know much about him to be honest.
How did the relationship end?
I slept with one of the people he lived with.
And I oop—
It was bad. The day after I had sex with him, I ended it with my boyfriend. I didn’t even say too much and neither did he.
Why was it so easy to end things?
It was a purely sexual relationship, as most of my relationships were back then. There wasn’t love, and we didn’t date in the conventional way, even though they did ask me to be their girlfriends. The relationship usually started with sex and after a few weeks, they would ask me to date them. Some started with hanging out though and ended up in bed.
Throughout university, did you sleep with someone you had feelings for?
Oh yes. A bunch of times. I dated someone in my final year whom I really loved. He loved me too. The sex was not as great as what I was used to. Sometimes, I didn’t have any orgasms, and he resisted when I tried to teach him what to do. We spent our entire relationship like this: he would want to go out and have fun with me, I would want to stay in bed having sex. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the first man I loved wasn’t great in bed. He was enthusiastic about sex, but not just as much as I was. Me I didn’t have sex-life balance. So I kept trying to make our sex lives work, while at the same time, dreaming that one day, we would get married.
Though I was still in university, a few colleagues had started to get married, so I was already thinking of the future. Then he broke up with me.
Ouch.
He said I was obsessed with sex and that I wasn’t even that good. This was shocking because I was doing a lot to pleasure him. I show love the way I want to be loved. That was why I was so into pleasuring him and getting him to pleasure me. And at the end of the day, he broke up with me. I felt bad.
Did his “feedback” make you feel weird about your sex life?
No, but it made me obsess over getting feedback from the people I was sleeping with. So after university, anytime I hooked up with someone, I would ask them to rate the sex. It was always great.
Did you get into any more relationships?
Not at first. I kept hooking up with people and having one-night stands. I was horrible. I had sex with people who were bad for me. I slept with my friend’s ex and lost a lot of my female friends.
Yikes.
Yup. They were afraid I would sleep with their partners or their exes. I admit, I fucked up.
When I did start dating again, the number one criteria was that they had to be good in bed. I didn’t even care if they were attractive. I dated someone who was very ugly and yet amazing in bed. He’d give me multiple orgasms in one round and still ask me if I wanted more rounds. I think I removed “attractive” from my criteria because of the uni boyfriend that broke up with me. I continued this way for years, accumulating exes and lovers everywhere. I never dated anyone for more than three months. Meanwhile, all my friends were getting married, having babies, settling down. I was obsessed with marriage then. I really wanted to get married, yet I didn’t want to have a boring sex life as I’d heard a lot of women had because their husbands didn’t have their time. Every woman from my mother to my sister had this opinion. They believed sex was for men, not women.
What did you do to fix this?
I tried to decenter sex. So it stopped being my criteria for a while. I think I was 26 at this time. I dated one fine boy and the sex was so bad, but I promised not to run away. He ended up breaking up with me after six months and didn’t tell me why. I dated another guy for four months. He wasn’t even into sex. Found out he was cheating on me with a guy. There were a couple of more relationships like this before I snapped and went back to having sex.
How old were you?
28. I told myself to forget about marriage and enjoy my life. But that thing where you’re not looking for something and then you find it, happened to me. I fell in love again and he was perfect. The sex was great. He was smart and attractive. He had a good job and even wanted to get married.
Several reasons. Cultural differences was one of the big ones.
Wow. I’m sorry.
He wasn’t going to defy them. We had this very prolonged fight about it, and at some point, I went and had sex with someone else because we weren’t having sex while we were fighting. He found out and we broke up.
And then you became celibate.
Well, I turned 30 a few months later. I didn’t do anything for my birthday. I just went to a cafe and started thinking of my life. On a whim, I decided I would become celibate. Also, I was becoming a bit religious, so it was rational.
Was that easy?
Oh no. That was when I discovered masturbation. I was vigorously masturbating everyday. But I soon realised that this too was going to become a habit. I had to break away from it and just started taking each day at a time.
It’s been three years?
Yup. Three hard years. I plan to end my celibacy vow soon, but I’m not sure. My life has been really good since I became celibate.
How so?
I have two best friends now. Two women I met after I turned 30. Before them, I did not have any well-meaning female friendships.
I have also been in very healthy relationships and I am friends with my exes. I also enjoy working too. Sex takes time to be honest. A lot of time you can spend doing other things. I mean, that doesn’t mean it’s not great. Sex is great. But it’s important to sometimes step away from it.
So why do you want to go back to sex now?
I miss it.
Fair enough. Do you still want to get married?
Yes. But I’m not obsessed with the idea of marriage anymore. My criteria is friendship and kindness. I want to marry someone who is my friend. If I don’t get married before I turn 35, though, I’m planning to either adopt a child or get pregnant and have a child outside of marriage.
Why?
Selfish reasons I’m not proud of. But it does get really lonely.
Fair. What would you rate your sex life?
When I was having sex, it was a 10. Now that I’m not having sex, it’s a zero.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 30-year-old asexual Nigerian woman who has only ever had penetrative sex twice. She talks about discovering her asexuality after years of being uninterested in sex and how she’s lucky to have married someone who feels the same way about sex as she does.
What was your first sexual experience?
I’ll answer this as my first exposure to sex. When I was 12, one of my classmates brought a porn magazine to school, and all day, everyone was talking about sex. I didn’t even know how people had sex, but my mates said they had already had sex before. I was shocked because I grew up hearing sex was bad outside marriage and had associated it with evil or something only adults should do. So imagine hearing that other 12-year-olds were having sex? I was shocked. At some point, I thought they were lying, but during a school party later that year, people were caught having sex with each other.
Wow. And what were your general feelings about sex?
I was going to wait for marriage. There was no arguing about it. I didn’t feel any pressure to have sex because everyone was doing it. Also, I’m pretty close to my mother, so I told her about what my mates said, and she kept telling me to face my books and instilling the fear of sex in me.
When I started dating in senior school, it was a long-distance relationship. We dated for three years and never had sex or made out. We rarely even saw each other during our relationship. However, I often wonder if the guy wasn’t cheating on me.
So sex never came up?
Nope, but then again, we were both religious and naive, although I felt more naive.
We met when he was still in my secondary school, but he changed schools midway, and the relationship became long distance. When we saw each other, my mum was there, so there was no opportunity even to attempt kissing.
So when did you make out with someone?
Not until I was in university. My boyfriend and I had just broken up, and I was sad. I was looking for distractions, and I found it quickly in a random senior in my faculty who told me he liked me but didn’t want to date me yet because he needed to talk to God to be sure. I went along with it because, as I said, I just needed the distraction.
We didn’t do more than make out because he needed to be sure that I was the one for him from God. Once he had the confirmation, we could start having sex if we wanted. So it was kissing and me giving him head. He never asked what I wanted. He kept demanding. He strung me along for about a year, and that confirmation never came. I brought it up once, and he got annoyed and broke it off. It’s not as if I wanted to date him sha.
Did you enjoy making out with him, though?
Nope. I was waiting to feel that explosive feeling that I heard came with making out with someone for the first time. It never came. I assumed it was because I didn’t have feelings for him. He wasn’t that attractive honestly. So I decided to find someone who I was emotionally and sexually attracted to. But before I saw anyone I had feelings for, I made out with a bunch of different people and didn’t enjoy it. It felt like I was forcing myself to do something I didn’t want to do.
So when you found someone you were attracted to, what happened?
There were parts to the making out that I enjoyed. I enjoyed kissing him. I enjoyed giving him a blowjob. But I didn’t feel ecstatic when it was his turn to give me head. I mostly always told him I wasn’t interested in that. To make matters worse, he wanted to have sex, and I didn’t. I told him I was waiting for marriage, and he wasn’t buying that. Every time we made out, he would try to remove my underwear forcefully. I was becoming terrified that he’d rape me, so I broke up with him. It was a short-lived relationship.
What happened after this?
After university, I decided I was going to have sex. It happened like this: during a night out with friends, I met a guy, and he invited me to his house. I went. I wasn’t thinking. We started making out the next day, and he raped me. He kept saying ‘just the tip’, ‘just the tip’, and I was like, no, I don’t want to.
I’m so sorry.
Thanks. I didn’t even think of it as rape at the time. I kept wondering why I didn’t feel anything. So I decided that I would try sex. That was when I gave up on waiting till marriage. I tried it with a colleague. To be honest, I didn’t feel like it, but I was determined to try. Unfortunately, I was dry down there and each time he tired to penetrate, I would scream from the pain. So it didn’t happen then. I thought it was because I wasn’t physically attracted to him. I tried with someone else, and it was the same thing. I decided to speak to someone about it — a friend who was studying medicine. They said I could use lubes for the dryness, that it was normal, and that if it was associated to low libido or not being aroused, that was also normal and that I shouldn’t fret. They suggested I try masturbation.
That worked out well. I was watching porn and having multiple orgasms with just my fingers. But I started to feel ashamed of it, so I stopped. No thanks to my religious beliefs. It didn’t correct the way I felt about sex.
I went back to sex — I tried a few more times with different people. All painful experiences. That was when I met the man who became my husband.
How did you meet?
I met him through a friend. We kissed on our first date, and I loved it. The first time I went to his house, months after our first date, we had sex, and it worked. It actually worked. I was excited. I didn’t have an orgasm, but I enjoyed it. He was the one who initiated it.
Mad.
But we didn’t have sex again for long after that because once I knew that I could have sex and enjoy it, I felt like I was normal and wanted to go back to waiting for marriage. But because we had had sex, we were very open to talking about it. It was during one of these discussions that my husband told me that he might be asexual. I had never even heard of asexuality. But once he explained it to me, I was like; I think I’m asexual too.
But what about the sex you both had the first time?
He said that there were days when his libido was fine and that because it was our first time sleeping together, he felt the need to initiate sex. He said that if I had said I wasn’t interested, he would have stepped back and not pressured me.
Fair enough.
Yeah. So I realised that it’s not that you don’t feel like having sex, or you don’t enjoy it when you do, at least for us. For me asexuality means I’m rarely interested in sex and I rarely get aroused. His interest level when it comes to sex is similar to mine, but he doesn’t have a problem with arousal.
When I told a friend that my boyfriend was asexual, he was so shocked and said that how can a guy that has mad sex appeal be asexual. He was like, nope, my boyfriend is cheating on me, that all guys want sex. And I bought it for a while. The friend even told me not to marry him oh.
But you did.
The more I discovered that I was asexual, the more I realised that it would be wrong to do life with someone who isn’t asexual like me. There would be so much pressure to have sex, internally and externally, and I’m not sure if I’d be able to live with that.
Since you married, how often have you had sex?
Just once more. We’ve been married for a year, and in that time, we mostly just make out. We enjoy that more than anything. We cuddle, we hold hands. We are very touchy people, especially in public. Nobody would ever guess that we’re not killing each other with sex every other day. And when one of us is horny or stressed, we get each other off. He’s very good with his hands, and I’m good with my mouth.
How often?
I can’t say, but maybe monthly? But most of the time, we’re doing other things without really having sex.
That’s cool. Would you say that you’re satisfied with your sex life?
To be honest, I’m not. There are days that I feel very abnormal and wonder what I’m missing out on and if there’s a way to fix myself. Because we’re kind of newly married, everyone jokes about having sex — from pastors to our parents and friends. No one knows we’re asexual. I am learning though that sexual needs can change over time, so maybe ours would.
Most of the time though, it’s all good. I’m glad I found my husband. And sometimes, just knowing that he exists is all that matters.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 28-year-old heterosexual Nigerian woman who recently got married. She talks about how rumours about her sex life and stereotypes about being a Muslim woman gave her more reasons to stay celibate until marriage, and also made her detest men.
When was your first sexual experience?
It’s interesting. If you asked me a month ago, before I got married, I’d have said I had never done anything sexual before. But that’s a lie.
Holdup. Explain it to me.
Let me start from the beginning: my first sexual experience wasn’t consensual. I was 11 or 12. An older cousin made me give him a blow job, and I was traumatised by it.
I’m so sorry.
I know. Everybody is. However, it opened me up to sex and I became so curious about it, I was making out with everyone in school. It wasn’t that bad, but when I think of how young it was or think about me having a daughter who is kissing different boys at that age? I almost feel like shooting myself.
Was it just making out?
Yes. Kissing, and sometimes a bit of oral sex. I didn’t particularly like making out when I started. But when puberty properly kicked in, I began to enjoy it like mad, so it did get better and more intense. I would spend hours after school making out in a secluded area with different people, mostly seniors.
Funny thing is, everyone at home and in school thought I was a good girl. I went to a conservative school, so everyone was quiet about their exploits. I was also careful with hiding these things. I didn’t talk to boys a lot, even the boys I made out with, just to create a facade that I was a good babe. Also, I never got caught.
Did that change?
After secondary school, yes. I started taking my life seriously and became religious. I come from a Muslim home, but I had never taken religion seriously.
What made you start taking religion seriously?
Nothing really. I guess I just became more mature. This made me become serious about waiting for marriage to have sex. I wiped my slate clean and began to lie about my history: I told people for years that I had no sexual past. I won’t say I was lying to be honest. I just created a new truth and ran with it until even I believed it was true.
What happened in university?
I didn’t know how sexually charged university was. I grew up somewhere in the north and moved to the south for university. I started wearing a hijab in my first year of university, and it felt like a lot of people were interested or attracted to me; I didn’t know why. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m attractive and I have a huge ass, but a lot more men than was reasonable were moving to me. It was very uncomfortable.
What kind of advances were you getting?
Men following me to my hostel, cars stopping on the road trying to pick me — all within campus. I used to get a lot of gifts from male classmates too, lol. They would offer to do something for me in order to sleep with me. I kept telling them I wasn’t interested. My classmates were even more adamant for some reason.
Wow. How did you navigate that?
I tried to never move alone. I was always with other sisters or classmates. But honestly, there wasn’t much I could do. When I got even more religious and started covering fully, it got worse. That’s when I started hearing that women who wear hijab and other kinds of full covering were considered “sluts”, that we’re all just hiding behind our dressing and they know what women like me, especially me, do behind closed doors.
Wait what?
It was a friend who told me this — she heard it from some boys in school. She said they said more about me, but didn’t say what else. She didn’t want to upset me. I eventually found out. So it was two things: they had come up with a stereotype about hijabis. Two, they were saying I was loose and anyone could get with me — a ton of boys in my class were claiming they had slept with me and were saying my pussy was tight or that my breast felt or looked a certain way.
Some of my friends almost believed it because the guys were apparently quite detailed about what they’d done with me. It was a very weird period. Worse because I was the only muslim lady in my class. There were others in my faculty though, and they shared that at some point, they had heard the stereotypes.
Wow. How did this affect you?
I couldn’t report to anyone or change anything, so I just kept pushing men away and away. I didn’t want to prove their rumours or validate their stereotypes, so I didn’t even go on dates. That was the point that I realised that men don’t have sense. If I felt anything for a man, I’d convince myself he was rubbish.
This continued until after university. I had never dated anyone as of the time I turned 23, and my parents were worried about me. They were proud that I was committed to God, unlike some of my siblings, but they wanted me to relax a little. I didn’t know how to tell them that I couldn’t let my guard down.
I’m so sorry. You’re married now. How did this change?
Well, I first had to find a sensible man and that was tough. I went on so many dates. My friends introduced me to all kinds of men. If they said one thing that made me feel uncomfortable, I left the date and blocked them. Until I eventually went for my masters and met someone sensible. I met my husband and we dated for about three years before I actually let him even kiss me.
Three? Wow.
To be honest, we were only in close proximity to each other in our first year. I went back to move back after my masters, so we didn’t see each other for a bit. It was always off and on. We tried to do phone sex a few times, but it was weird. I also used to send nudes and risky texts, just to sort of keep him interested. Won’t lie that I wasn’t afraid I’d lose him since we weren’t sexually active or afraid he wouldn’t cheat on me. Then we got married.
How has married sex been?
The best. It’s just great. I love it. My husband prioritises my needs. I prioritise his. I don’t like the idea that everybody has to fight for their orgasms. No. When you go into the bedroom, you forget yourself and put your partner first. Those are my two cents.
At first, it was difficult to get into each other’s bodies, and I was scared that I had fucked up by not having sex before the wedding, but we’ve only been married a little while and so, I had to cut myself some slack and understand we’re still learning the ropes. And sex positions. Lol. It’s gotten really good. I read stories about women not having orgasms and I can’t relate because I get multiple orgasms.
How do you compare these experiences with what you were doing when you were a teen?
Lmao. See, until now, only my husband knew about that part of me because I erased it from my memory. There’s nothing to compare. I was a child who didn’t know what she was doing. Now I do. I’m more mature, so I’m enjoying it.
I am curious though, if those rumours and stereotypes didn’t exist when you were in uni, would you have done anything sexually?
Not really, tbh. I wanted to wait till marriage. While it was a horrible experience, it kind of gave me more reason to wait. The major thing it did though, is that it made me scared to even date or think of sleeping with a man I wasn’t married to. I’m glad that’s over.
How do you rate your sex life?
10/10. Orgasms, 10. Stroke game, 10. Experiments, 10. And it’s only been a month oh.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of today’s Sex Life is a 39-year-old heterosexual woman who left her husband after 10 months. She talks about how the end of her marriage and her return to Nigeria accelerated the course of her sex life.
What was your first memorable sexual experience?
I think I was 16 or 17. I went out with a few friends in Central London, and we bumped into a couple of guys. One of them liked my friend, so I started talking to his friend. A few days later, we all ended up at my friend’s place.
She had a bunk bed, so she was on the top bunk with her guy and I was on the bottom bunk with mine. We made out for a bit and then he went down on me. It was nice.
What happened after that?
A few months later, we started dating, and I had sex for the first time with him. The sex was fine — it wasn’t fantastic, but it also wasn’t bad. I had heard a lot of bad “first time” stories, but that wasn’t the case for me.
Then shortly after we started dating, he brought up the idea of us having a threesome with his best friend — the guy my friend hooked up with. I agreed, and when we did it, I realised his friend was a better lover.
LMAO. Wow. Did you sleep with his friend again?
Yeah. Once my relationship ended — it lasted about three or four months — I started having sex with him. It wasn’t that serious. It was just a friend with benefits situation that lasted for about a year.
How did your ex react to that?
He was cool about it. There was even a time I went back to sleep with him, and when I didn’t enjoy the sex as much as I had before, he joked that his friend’s bigger dick had made me stop appreciating his.
LMAO. What happened after you stopped sleeping with his friend?
I got into a few more relationships. They were either very short or mostly about sex. Then when I was 23, I met the guy I ended up marrying. We didn’t have much in common, but sex with him was incredible.
We broke up for about a year, I dated other guys, and then we got back together. I used to do the whole body count thing before I realised it was stupid and stopped, but before we got married, I had definitely slept with a lot of guys.
How old were you when you got married?
I was 26.
How was married sex?
It was lit. The only thing we had going for us throughout that relationship was great sex. By the time we actually got married, the relationship was already disintegrating. I found out that he was a compulsive cheater and liar.
We lived together as a married couple for about 10 months, but even when things were really bad between us, we still had sex. For me, it was like, if I needed to get my orgasm, I would.
LMAO. I stan. Can I ask why you married him though?
At the time I met him, that was just what you did. I had finished university and was working, so it felt like the logical next step. I also got pregnant a few months after we got back together.
We started living together, but we broke up again months after we had our daughter because it became clear to me that he wasn’t serious. He came back to beg, and I forgave him. Then we got married pretty quickly after that due to family pressure.
So, what went wrong?
I found out he was cheating on me with his ex, with whom he already has a child, so that derailed the marriage. After I left, I learnt he had gotten another woman pregnant while I was pregnant — my daughter has a stepbrother that’s four days younger.
Then to top it all off, he got his ex pregnant again in the 10 months we were married.
Na wa. How was sex after married life?
LMAO. That’s when the fun really started. I knew my marriage was officially over when I visited Lagos and ended up hooking up with one of my brother’s friends. That unlocked something in me because when I returned to England, I was wilding out.
I got back to sleeping with any guy I wanted to. Then I moved back to Lagos about a year and a half after the marriage ended, and it was insane. People always told me about Nigerians being shy about sex, but that was not my experience at all.
Before I came to Lagos, I never used to understand how a woman could get pregnant and not know who the father was. Then in one day, I had sex with a guy, got head from another and almost slept with a third. The last two happened at a sex party.
LMAO. Wow. Did you have a steady partner during this time?
For about five months, yes. I met him during my NYSC year. He had a girlfriend in a different state, but we really connected — he was basically my soulmate, but he still had his girlfriend.
Once, I decided to end things, and we ended up having goodbye sex for seven hours. But then things continued till I left Lagos.
Damn. How long were you in Lagos?
About two years. After my marriage, it’s not like I hated men, but I didn’t trust them. They were just a means to get my orgasms. Living in Lagos was also cathartic because no one knew me, so I didn’t have to answer questions about my marriage.
It was also very easy to meet men. When I was in London, I only ever dated Black men, so being in Lagos and seeing only Black men made me feel like a kid on Christmas Day. Plus, unlike British men, Nigerian men were not shy about chatting me up.
Even married men were always trying to get with me.
Oh? Did you ever answer them?
Initially, I was very black and white — I didn’t sleep with or date married men. Then on my 30th birthday, I made out with a married man. The attraction was palpable, and we would have had sex if either of us had protection that night.
Then a few years later, I met one of my brother’s friends who I had made out with when I was 18. He was now married, but he didn’t seem happy in it. To be honest, I didn’t actually care whether he was happy or not. I slept with him because of our past connection.
I think once I crossed that line on my 30th birthday, the lines got blurry. Now, I no longer believe in monogamy. If you’re married, that’s on you, it has nothing to do with me. The only thing I hate is when men lie about their marital status.
Interesting. So, how different are things now that you’re in your 30s?
I’ve mostly stopped giving a fuck. I’ve always attracted men, but in my 20s, I went out of my way not to draw too much attention to myself. I have a big ass, so I always tried to avoid dressing too provocatively.
Now, I’m just like, “This is the body God gave me. Deal with it.”
Mad. What about sex?
After I came back from my sex spree in Nigeria, I decided to take a break and actually deal with the end of my marriage. So, I was celibate for about 18 months. By the end of it, I was gagging for sex.
It’s been a rollercoaster since then. For about four years, I went through a dip where I couldn’t find guys that could satisfy me sexually, but now, I’m with a guy who is my sexual match and then some. We’ve been together for a year.
Are you sleeping with just him?
Yes, but I think that’s mostly because of the pandemic. Sex with him is great, but I’m missing the emotional aspect of a relationship, so I’ve been curious about seeing other people once the world opens back up.
Like at the same time?
Yeah. I want to try polyamory. I know it will be hard to find willing men, but I want to. I also want to try more threesomes and finally have sex with a woman. I’ve found myself admiring women’s bodies a lot more, so I’m curious.
How would you rate your sex life on a scale of 1 to 10?
I’ll give it a 9. I’d have given it a 10, but every now and then, the lover shows his ass and reminds me that he is a man. That being said, I’m having the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a heterosexual Nigerian woman in her early 40s. She talks about barely caring about sex when she got married in her 20s and how this is changing now that her children are grown up and away from home.
When did you have sex for the first time?
When I was a teenager, I was raped in school by senior boys. They told me that if I told anyone, they would kill me.
I’m so sorry. Were you able to talk to anyone about it?
Not immediately it happened. I knew my parents would blame me because I had heard them blame other women who got raped in our vicinity back then.
That’s messed up. When was your first consensual experience?
A few years later, when I was about 17, I liked a boy, he liked me back and we often made out. We didn’t date, but we once tried to have sex. I felt very weird when we started — even though I was quite horny and eager to do it at first. I was sweating profusely, gasping and it was painful. I was having a panic attack. I told him to stop and we never tried it again. I didn’t try to have sex again until I got married.
Do you think being raped had anything to do with the panic attack?
At the time, I didn’t think about it as much. But eventually, I realised that the two incidents were probably related. I must have been afraid and was projecting the pain and fear I experienced when I was raped.
Back then, I thought that sex wasn’t for everybody. Being raped really framed my thoughts and feelings towards sex. Nobody had talked to me about sex, so I didn’t know much about it until it was time to get married.
Who told you about sex?
I was lucky to have a marriage counsellor that was very liberal. Back then, I thought she was crude. The kinds of things she said about sex were not things you’d expect to hear from a 60-year-old Christian mother.
She talked about sex positions, looking at sex as pleasurable and not just for having kids, pleasing your husband and more. It was hilarious the moment I became comfortable with her.
I was in my 20s at the time. She was the first person I told about being raped. She helped me get through it emotionally and for the first time, I broke down and unleashed all the pent up emotions I had.
I’m so sorry.
Thank you. My perspective about sex didn’t change a lot, though. But I felt I was ready to have sex, and I began having it once I got married.
You didn’t have sex before marriage?
No, we didn’t. We were both saving ourselves for marriage, due to our religious beliefs. I’m a Christian and he was a Muslim.
Did you enjoy the sex?
Not really, but I did it. In my mind, it was still only the means to an end — children. In the beginning, we were having sex two times a week. I told myself I was going to cope with it, but eventually, I couldn’t even stand sex once a week.
I didn’t know what to do. I loved my husband. I wasn’t sure how to tell him without causing a fight. Yet, I didn’t want any resentment to build up.
Why couldn’t you stand sex anymore?
So my first year in marriage was great. The sex was okay enough. I didn’t feel the ecstasy and pleasure that I was told I would feel, but it was manageable. It made my husband happy. Then I got pregnant and my body changed.
Within a year, I got pregnant again and was so frustrated by it. When I had my first two children, I wasn’t ready for them. I didn’t even want them. That affected the way I treated and related to them. But with my last two children, it was different. I really wanted them.
Having my first two kids, working, and taking care of them and the home was hard. Add sex to that kind of frustration, and all I wanted to do was disappear. Some people see sex as an outlet. I didn’t. It was an itch to me.
How did you solve that?
I didn’t. Our sex life disappeared shortly after my second child was born. I would typically tell him I was too tired to have sex or give all sorts of excuse. I think he got the idea. He tried to talk to me about it twice, but I would always divert the topic. We would have sex once or twice a month and that would be it. I guess I was also punishing him somehow, because he wasn’t really helping me at home.
When I turned 30, I became an entirely different person. I felt like I had missed out on my 20s. I wasn’t the best mother or wife or person or even colleague. But I felt I had been given a new slate. And the first thing I wanted to do with that new slate, was to have a child again.
I wanted a do-over on everything. My friends thought I was crazy. How could I want to live my best life at 30 by starting with kids? They wanted to know if the two I had weren’t enough. No one really understands. Even I don’t understand it completely. I can’t really explain how I felt. Then I had twins, lol. I wasn’t expecting that. There are no twins in my family and none that we know of in my husband’s family.
After the twins came, maybe because I was interested in fixing my marriage, or maybe it was just hormones, but I couldn’t keep my hands off my husband.
LMAO. Wow.
We started having sex a bit more often. I wasn’t as frustrated as I was when I had my first two kids. Maybe because I wasn’t working full-time. That went well for a while. I was enjoying the act of sex, but wasn’t having any orgasms.
Wow. Then what happened?
I guess time happened. Sex slowed down again for a few years. We were not deliberate about it and just had sex based on how we felt. I realised that you can’t leave sex to emotions, at least for us. He might be in the mood today and I might not. It took me a while to learn, but we’re there sha.
How did you get there?
A lot of things. So I started speaking up for myself and fighting him when he wasn’t helping out. Which was a lot of fights. LMAO. I also had to be patient because we were both unlearning. We both grew up in a time when we believed the husband shouldn’t be doing domestic chores.
Then two more things happened: my husband became a Chrisitan, even more serious than I was. He wanted us to fix things between us. He confessed he had been tempted to cheat many times but hadn’t. I was mad at this because it seemed like he was blaming me for almost cheating. I calmed down from that anger and explained that, it wasn’t my fault I didn’t want sex. I told him for the first time about being raped and all of that.
The second thing was that our two older kids went to university and then we went to drop the twins in boarding school. The summary is that we became free.
LMAO. What has changed now?
A lot. Like I said, one of the things we realised was that you have to plan these things. Give room for spontaneity, yes. But still plan it. Also prioritise each other’s pleasure. I would not say I ever prioritised his pleasure, even though when we first married, I was happy to see him nut from sex and felt good about it, but I wasn’t just doing anything extra. So we are both discovering sex now.
We have sex regularly, maybe four times a month, but it’s mostly always good. We act like we’re dating and sneak around to have sex, even though we don’t need to. It’s just fun, being able to lose your guard and be vulnerable with each other. I learned a lot about my husband and he’s learning a lot about me. And my body.
What about the orgasms?
They’re coming strong. I can’t remember when last I had sex and didn’t orgasm. I remember one time, I went out and my friend saw me and said I was glowing. I told her it was sex o. I have that same glow since then.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is that, when we started discovering sex again, we didn’t use any form of birth control. I got pregnant. I had to go and abort the baby. I travelled to get this done. I didn’t even care about anything anyone was going to say to me. I didn’t tell him at first, because I was scared he’d want me to keep it. When I did tell him, he was so angry at me. But mostly because he wasn’t there for me. A few months later, he got a vasectomy.
That’s cool.
Yes it is. The thing is, I had resigned myself to a miserable life in my 20s, and I feel like I’ve learned too many things. That’s why I was eager to share my story. One thing is that people do change, but it’s a frustrating and long process. I have changed and I am still changing.
Do you feel you wasted time?
No, I didn’t waste time. I don’t do regrets.
So how would you rate your sex life?
8/10. I’m a bit scared the sex life will still tank. But I’m a bit optimistic. My husband rates it a 10 sha.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 28-year-old heterosexual woman who says she met the love of her life while whoring through Lagos. She talks about ditching all her fuck buddies for him, and their penchant for adventure.
What was your first sexual experience?
I think I was six in Primary 1. One of my classmates, a girl, followed me into the bathroom when I went to pee, and she just kissed me. That was my first kiss, and I was very confused.
What happened after that?
A lot of assault. When I was seven, an uncle came to live with us. He would come into my room at night and do different things to me. This continued for about five or six years. He finally moved away when I was 12.
Masturbation was one of the ways I coped with the assault — I discovered it when I was about 10. Looking back, I realise it was more about stress relief for me than pleasure. I don’t think I even understood the concept of pleasure at the time.
I’m so sorry. When was your first consensual experience?
I was 12 or 13 in JSS 3, and I kissed this guy I had a crush on.
Nice. How was that?
LMAO. The kissed sucked ass. He didn’t actually like me; he liked my best friend, but I always do the most when I have a crush. I would do his homework for him and stuff like that. I think he ended up kissing me out of pity.
Immediately he did it, I realised I didn’t want pity kisses ever again. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we got caught by seniors while we were kissing, and they kept teasing us. It was embarrassing.
Yikes. Did you kiss again?
Nah. The aftermath was even more dramatic. His siblings found out about the kiss, and one by one, they all came to harass me, warning me to never go near their brother again. His elder sister said I was trying to make him a slut like I was.
Back then, I was known as the school ashewo even though I’d never done anything — you know how slut-shaming works. The whole drama turned me off him, so we never kissed again.
Honestly, secondary school wasn’t it for me at all. I didn’t have a good time.
That sounds awful. When did you have sex for the first time?
I was 20, in a university abroad, when the guy I was seeing was finally able to convince me to try sex. Before that, I had only been making out and giving blowjobs. That was initially the most I was willing to do. I really wanted sex to be on my own terms.
How was the sex though?
It wasn’t memorable. I loved him, so it made sense for him to be my first. I don’t think I was looking for something memorable at the time. I just wanted my introduction to sex to be as gentle, loving, slow, patient and safe as possible. He gave me that.
Then after we were done, I avoided him for like a month.
Ah. Why?
I knew he wanted a relationship. I loved him, but I wasn’t trying to be in a relationship. He finally caught me and convinced me to give us an actual shot. We were together for about a year.
Did the sex get more memorable in the relationship?
It got better. I liked having sex with him, but he wasn’t as into having sex with me. I threw myself into sex because I was just discovering it and really liked it, but he thought I was too into it. All that judgement ended up affecting our relationship.
What happened after him?
I had a lot of casual sex, trying to figure out what I liked. Then I entered my second serious relationship. The sex was mid because he wasn’t dedicated to pleasing me. My sex life wasn’t anything to write home about until I moved back to Lagos.
Oh? What happened when you moved back?
I wasn’t seeing my spec while schooling abroad, but Lagos has my spec everywhere. I had just broken up with my second boyfriend, so immediately I landed, I experimented and did whatever I wanted.
I was literally whoring my way through town, and that’s how I met the love of my life.
LMAO. What? How did that happen?
I used to sleep with his friend, but it was very casual — I didn’t want more at the time, and he was already in a relationship. His friend told him about me, and I guess he was intrigued because he followed me on Twitter.
After a few months, he entered my DMs. We chatted for a bit, exchanged numbers and spoke on the phone for hours. Three days after our first phone call, I drove all the way to his house, and we had sex.
How was the sex?
It was very, very good. I had been having sex with other people — I had a hoetation — but as soon as we had sex for the first time, I ended it with all my men. I had finally found what I’d been looking for.
Wow. You were that sure?
Yup. The one thing that stood out to me about the sex was how attentive he was. He is a very good listener, and out of all the people I’ve been with, I think he is the best listener. So, I knew I could sleep with him for the rest of my life.
We got married a little over a year after we met.
What has married sex been like?
It’s basically the same for us. Things only changed when we had kids. I really struggled with my sex drive, and that affected our sex life. He was patient and understanding during this time. He kept reassuring me that there was nothing wrong with me.
Thankfully, my sex drive eventually returned with a rush. Now, we are back to the way we were before. We have sex very often, and it somehow feels better than it was in the beginning. I guess it’s because we know our bodies better.
Have you tried anything to spice things up?
LMAO. To be honest, I don’t even know what spicing up a marriage means, but we’ve always been pretty sexually adventurous — we are up to try anything at least once. A while ago, we had a threesome with another guy, and I absolutely hated it.
Why did you hate it?
I wasn’t having that much fun, but the guy seemed to be having the time of his life. It was annoying. My sex drive was still low at the time, so I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. With my sex drive back up, we decided to try a threesome again.
How did it go the second time around?
It was still so mid. I actually caught my husband rolling his eye in the middle of it. Then when the guy left, and it was just the two of us, it was fantastic. I was like, “Yeah, maybe we should just stick to each other from now on.”
I can’t believe we are so compatible that it affects how we relate sexually with others.
So, no more group sex for you and your husband?
I don’t think so. I mean, there’s one couple we want to fuck. If they agree, then yes.
Fingers crossed then. What would you like your sex life to look like down the line?
I love how it is now, so I’d like more of the same, just with less fear and attachment to past trauma. Sometimes, it’s difficult to talk about the things I want to try with my husband because of how much assault clouds my sexual interactions.
If I can move past that, I think it would be great for both of us.
How would you rate your sex life on a scale of 1 to 10?
I would rate it a 10. We were made for each other.
Sex Lifeis an anonymous Zikoko weekly series that explores the pleasures, frustrations and excitement of sex in the lives of Nigerians.
The subject of this week’s Sex Life is a 39-year-old heterosexual man who was celibate for almost a decade before he got married. He talks about his wild sexual past and how he thinks that might be stopping him from fully enjoying married sex.
What was your first sexual experience?
I didn’t know anything about sex until I was 15 or so. Growing up, I thought sex was a thing where married adults lay in bed together and a few months later, the woman was pregnant. I was a really slow kid.
It didn’t help that I didn’t have a lot of friends and am an only child. Even with the changes that happened in my body from around the time I was 12, I didn’t think about sex. I was only interested in video games and reading. However, when I turned 15, my mum died and my dad sent me to a boarding school far from home. That’s when the horrors started.
I’m sorry about your mum. What horrors?
My boarding school was great in terms of amenities. However, the people were awful. It was a mixed boarding school, but senior boys would do all kinds of things to junior boys. Of course, none of it was consensual. It was about wielding power more than it was about sex. That was when I actually saw sex and was mortified by it.
Did this in anyway affect your sex life then?
Yes. If I was a normal boy, I would have been making out and having sex with any and every girl, as most of my classmates were doing. But I wasn’t normal back then, and what I had seen — boys molesting young boys — made me hate sex. So I stayed away from it for the most part. I was only there for two years. In my final year in secondary, however, I started seeing someone.
What was that like?
It was mostly a sexless relationship . She pretty much made me her boyfriend. It was good because we had applied to the same university and planned to be together even then. We even planned to get married. She was waiting for marriage to have sex, that’s why we didn’t do anything. However, during the time period where we were waiting to hear back about our applications, I started visiting often and one time, we had sex.
How did that happen?
We were just hanging out, and I had an erection, which she noticed. She knew I didn’t have any experience with sex, so she made the first move. She was my first kiss and pretty much everything else.
What was the sex like?
I don’t even like to think or talk about it, and it’s not that it was bad. It was actually a great first sexual experience. It was just that when it was over, she regretted the decision and was quite repulsed that we did it. She started crying and sent me out of the house. It was devastating because that was the last I heard from her. I saw her a while back, and we talked about it. We’re cool now.
So what happened next?
That experience opened me up to sex, and I basically abandoned all the other things I enjoyed doing to immerse myself in the experience and pleasure of sex. Sex was on my mind 24/7.
My dad, who was still mourning, didn’t have my time. So I was doing everything under his nose. Sneaking in girls, reading porn magazines, masturbating. I didn’t have to do much to hide it. That entire period of time was a mess. Sex was like food.
How did you find the people you were sleeping with?
Friends from school, family friends and neighbours. I had one consistent partner who was a family friend. She was a year older and would come over every morning to drop food that her mum sent down for us.
Before she left, we’d have sex, or at the very least, make out. I wasn’t even practicing safe sex. A few days before I got my admission letter, my uncle — my dad’s younger brother — came over and kind of caught on that I was having sex. He’s a pastor, so he was livid, but he didn’t tell my dad about it.
He gave me a very long talk about abstaining and not destroying my life. Everything entered from one ear and came out through the other. He stayed until I left for school and, even at that, I was still sneaking around to have sex. The day before I was to travel for school, he gave me some condoms and gave me money specifically for condoms. He emphasized the need to practice safe sex and told me not to get anyone pregnant.
Were you enjoying the sex you were having?
Yes, but I was also really slow in learning how to please women. That one took years. When I think about it, I wonder why some of these girls stuck around when it wasn’t like I was giving them premium sex.
What was uni like?
Sex overload. I knew I had to be serious with my studies, so I read and studied during the week with the understanding that my weekends were dedicated to having sex. I had a crush on someone and she was hinting at a relationship, but I didn’t want to be in a relationship, especially after what happened with my first babe. So, I kept on having sex with anyone that would let me.
Do you know how many people you had sex with during university?
I wasn’t counting, but I remember that I used to feel good about myself because for the most part, I had two or three consistent partners, with one new person every other month. I felt safe.
What happened after university?
If I was an animal in university, I became a beast after university. I had money to spend on women because I had a good job. I believe I might have been addicted to sex because I really just wanted to have sex all the time.
At work, I would be thinking about how I couldn’t wait to get home and have sex.
Did this change at any point?
Yes. I eventually started dating someone, and I had to put my desires in check. She was into sex, but not just to the same degree that I was. I really liked her, so I was willing to do anything.
Full disclosure, she was my colleague at work, so we used to have sex in the office a lot, even though office dating was forbidden. It was through sex with her that I became better at pleasing women.
Wow. Like how old were you?
In my mid-twenties. It was great sex too. She eventually broke up with me. You know all those stories you hear about people finding out their partners were getting married through Instagram or Twitter? My case was almost similar. She went for her introduction with another colleague, a more senior colleague.
I found out a few days later at work when people were whispering about it. She had told me that she was going to visit her grandmother oh. I confronted her, and she said I never officially asked her to be my girlfriend, that all we had was sex.
It pained me because I really liked her. But honestly, I actually didn’t ask her to be my girlfriend. Yes, we went on dates and had sex and I bought her things, but I had never called her my girlfriend or asked her to be my girlfriend. I really didn’t know that was how it worked.
Wow.
I only lasted a few months in the office. This experience plunged me further into sex and another vice: alcohol. I was having sex everyday with everyone. I’m pretty shocked that I didn’t get a viral infection or something.
I couldn’t get another job after I quit that job. For someone who’s always been smart and kind of successful, I couldn’t recognise this version of myself. This was nearly 10 years ago, nobody was talking about therapy. At least no one in my circle. My uncle took me to his church and they prayed for me. I don’t know that the prayers work, but the fact that it even had to happen was a wakeup call for me.
After this, my uncle tried to counsel me but I didn’t listen. I was still having sex and drinking, although I knew this wasn’t normal. Anyway, I got a job with my uncle’s friend and it was around that period I decided to become celibate and get my life together.
Why did you decide to go celibate?
Well, something happened in the office. There was some accusation that someone had stolen money. I was the new guy and everyone was claiming this had never happened. So, while they didn’t say anything, I knew they were pointing fingers at me and would tell my uncle’s friend that I was the one.
Omo, I went to my uncle crying that I can’t go to jail and all of that. Lol. At first, he was like, why would I take advantage of his help, then he went, “See what I have gotten myself into”. Basically, he was convinced I actually stole the money. A whole lot of money.
I did everything I could to convince him, and he was like, “Am I now ready to become responsible?” Long story short: I got saved and decided to never have sex again. It was a pledge: God get me out of this wahala and I’ll never have sex again.
Of course that’s not how it works, but that’s where my celibacy journey began.
Before going back to sex, how was the money issue resolved?
It never was. It just died down and six months later, I was out of there. Got a better job. I sha believe it was God that saved me. Because everyone was convinced, based on how reckless I was, that it was me that stole the money.
Okay, back to sex. How were you able to stay celibate?
Well, I had to research on how to become celibate. At first, I couldn’t. There was this babe I was sleeping with and she really wasn’t taking no for an answer. She would come over and seduce me and we’d have sex. But once I reduced the number of times I was having sex and the number of people I was having sex with, it was easy to become celibate.
How long were you celiabte for?
Seven or eight years.
Wow. Did you date anyone during this time?
A whole lot. But some either couldn’t stand the celibacy or it just didn’t click. When I met my wife, I knew she was the one.
How did you meet?
Social media actually. Our first few dates were not physical or in secluded places because I didn’t even want the thought of sex to enter my head. It would have been easy to say, since we’re getting married, let’s just have sex. It was like that up until we got married.
What’s married sex like?
Before we got married, I told my wife everything about my sex life, just to make sure we were on the same page. A lot of people — especially religious folks — have judged me for my sexual history.
Anyway, with that in mind, I told her I didn’t want to rush into it and wanted to ease into it. She was okay with that. So when we started sex, it could be once or twice in an entire month. She’s into aphrodisiacs and loves sex a lot, so there was a lot of sexual compatibility to work through.
But now, I think we are fully on the same page. It took years to get here sha. We understand each other’s bodies and enjoy sex quite regularly. Let’s say three times a week on a good week. And it’s not sarewagba sex — although we do that. We’re very intentional about our sexual experience.
That’s great. How would you rate your sex life?
Maybe 7. And my wife knows this. I think I need therapy to unpack some of the dark stuff I went through in my 20s. It’s just a feeling that the experiences I had may be limiting me from enjoying my full sex life. You know that feeling when you know you can be doing better? That’s where I am.
What’s stopping you from getting therapy?
Honestly, I don’t know. But when I’m ready, I’ll know.
