‘#WomenTalkSexByPulse’ is Pulse’s weekly series designed to capture the thoughts of everyday Nigerian women on sexual health, pleasure, and what women expect good sex to be and feel like.
How does an active sex life riddled with guilt work? Not so well, according to the subject of this week’s #WomenTalkSexByPulse. Read on.
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Let’s start from the beginning. What was your first time like?
Pleasant, I’d say. I mean, I had attempted, or let me say, there had been attempts to do it but it wasn’t until I was 17 that I eventually got to have sex for the first time. And it was nice. I think I came. No, I actually did.
Oh?
Yeaaah. I get that reaction from everyone who has heard this story. I mean, my roommates in school were surprised too, some of them even think I am lying about it.
Can’t blame them. It’s not all the time you hear that
Yup, yup. I realise that now. He was 20 at the time and by some surprising magic, he knew where the clit was and he just keep flicking and rubbing in such a delicious way that I actually came! I mean, at the time, I didn’t even realise how rare it is to find a 20-year-old who knew where the clit was, let alone what to do with it. In fact, the whole idea of having pleasurable sex at the very first attempt… that’s rare. I consider myself lucky. LOL.
Can’t say I don’t like that for you
Hehehe. Thanks oh because I’ve seen things after that experience. I’ve been shown just how clueless these boys can be about women’s bodies and pleasure.
They have shown you shege
See ehn, no be small. But I quickly learnt how to quickly filter out people like that and deny them access to my body. Can’t be wasting body count. If I am having sex, it should benefit me abeg. I take my pleasure and orgasm very seriously.
Word. So your sex life is looking good like these days then?
Kinda. Can’t complain.
Can’t or won’t? Which one gangan is it?
Can’t, actually. I’m getting it good. I can’t even lie. That man is a handful and sometimes when I am out of breath and just climbing down from all the clouds he has stroked me to, I wonder what I have gotten myself into.
LMAO is that a complaint I hear?
Hell no. I like it, please. It gets a bit too much sometimes and I beg for mercy but I wouldn’t have it any other way. LOL. I hope he never reads this sha, so his head will not be swelling too much. He’s already full of himself as it is.
Aren’t you lucky. I wanted to ask though: what part of the general Naija sex culture do you hate most?
Omo. There is a lot oh — female genital mutilation, shaming women for liking sex, poor sex education, terrible sexual health awareness… it’s a lot, to be honest. The fact that sex still has to be so hush-hush and overly repressed in young people even though it is clearly what many of us [and even the older folks in their 30s, 40s and 50s] think about almost all the time. These are the issues oh, my brother.
My sister, it is what it is
I know right. And even on a personal note, mine is guilt.
Guilt?
So I’ve always struggled with internalised guilt whenever I have sex, have sexual thoughts, masturbate and do other sexual stuff. It’s been six years since the first time and the thing never completely goes away. I am trying to shed it and sometimes, it looks like I am making headway with it but some other times, the guilt is overwhelming. You know, like you’ve done something bad, when in fact, I have done nothing wrong.
I have to ask what your religious beliefs are
Now you see, that’s the thing. I am not practicing any of those. And that’s not a thing that I just started when I grew up. My folks aren’t so religious either so there wasn’t any serious religious indoctrination in my upbringing apart from maybe moral instructions in school and all that assembly ground talks. Shey you get?
I do
So it’s really wild to me that I have such strong, violent bouts of guilt. Don’t know where it came from but if I have been trying to let go of it for 6 years and it’s not gone, then it apparently has such a strong grip on me.
True
See, I am just fed up. I just want to enjoy sex like the next woman without being riddled with all of this guilt but I guess I have to still wait and see.
Maybe a therapist can help get to the root of it?
LMAO. No be only therapist. I’ll use the money and eat shawarma and Ribena while I wait for the thing to naturally sort itself, please.
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