Sex Life is 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 25-year-old pansexual woman who went from trying to disvirgin herself and not knowing what masturbation meant to exploring her sexuality and learning about her body.
When did you have sex for the first time?
I was 20 and in my first year in university. I met this boy during university clearance, and we started talking, then we dated. I fell in love with him and it was beautiful. In the first year of our relationship, I told him I wasn’t ready to have sex, so we just used to make out — very intense making out sessions. Then one day, I was like, you know what? I’m going to have this sex. It was like a bomb went off in my head. I was 20 and my mates had been having sex since they were 14/15.
Wait, what?
Hahaha, see you.
Wetin Ope no go see for gate. So what stopped you from having sex at that age?
I guess it was purity culture. All I had heard about sex before that time was that it was bad, that you’ll get pregnant or get AIDs.
Anyway, so I was 20 and curious. On this fateful day, we finished eating, saw a movie and started making out. Then I grabbed his dick and I was like, biko, put this thing inside me. He was like, are we really doing this? I was like, sure, why not? I mean, I had tried to disvirgin myself by myself…
Like masturbation?
Not really, because I hadn’t discovered masturbation then, didn’t know what it was. I was just using my hand to do the thing and it was painful AF.
Why did you do that?
Like I said, I was just curious and tired. Everyone — classmates etc. — assumed I was having sex because they thought I was a slut. Me that I wasn’t even getting any. I don’t believe in that term “slut”. But they were conflating being sexually liberated with having sex and having multiple sexual partners; I basically had no shame when talking about sex or other sexual activities, so they called me a slut.
People.
Yup. And even when I had sex for the first time, it was so painful. I kept telling him it was hurting, and he was like, Ah, I don’t want to hurt you…sorry… But I wasn’t going to let him stop, I couldn’t have waited all this time and gone through all that pain for him to stop. He better continue this thing so that we can be free to fuck anytime. At the point where he had completely entered, I was still in so much pain and it felt like the guy was in heaven because he kept saying, “Are we really doing this?” “We’re really fucking, we’re really having sex right now.” I was like yo, stop talking fam. And there was no blood.
Wait, you thought…
Again, purity culture. People often said that the first time you have sex, there would be blood. I had already planned how I would dispose of the bedsheet.
So yeah, I didn’t enjoy sex the first four times. In fact in that relationship, I only enjoyed sex a few times.
Yikes.
I remember one experience I enjoyed though. It was this time in his sister’s bathroom, she’d gone to spread her clothes downstairs and she was literally about to walk in on us. The sex was literally just 20 seconds, but it was fucking amazing. It was the rush, the adrenaline. So there’s this thing my body almost always does: it chooses to orgasm in the midst of danger and it’s always fantastic.
Mad oh.
I just remembered this other time before we broke up. I had already mentally dissociated myself from him because I was falling in love with someone else, a girl. We had sex on the floor, I was on my period and I let him come inside me. While we were having sex, I was thinking of her. It was great. There were a few other times I enjoyed sex with him, but I feel like I willed myself to enoy the sex. I was madly in love with him, but I was not physically attracted to him.
Oh yeah, I also think I liked him because he was a bit effeminate, and I love effeminate men. We were together for three years, but the energy started dropping after the first year.
What happened next?
I just realised that even before we broke up, in the second year of our relationship, I cheated on him with some guy I met who I was attracted to from the jump. Hahaha. Like when I saw him, I was like yep, I’m going to have sex with this guy. So I literally would go from having sex with this guy, to hang out and have unethusiastic sex with my boyfriend. And I didn’t care because I knew what I just got. So yeah, we broke up and I moved to the babe I had fallen in love with.
Have you always known that you were not just attracted to men?
I guess I had always known. When we were kids and we played mummy and daddy, I always liked to do it with a girl. I didn’t necessarily know that there was another way to be because heteronormativity is forced down your throat. But as an adult, having feelings for a woman was very weird. I always chase passion. So I told her I had feelings for her, and we got talking and she asked me to be her girlfriend and na so relationship start.
I have to quote Rihanna, sex with her so amazing. There is just something more close to home when you sleep with a woman as another woman. So the first time, the twenty fifth time, they were all so great. I mean the relationship did get bad. I feel like there were times we tolerated sex with each other. And that’s because I feel like we didn’t always like each other. This was 2017. There’s this thing that my body does when I don’t like the sex — the sex always hurts.
So what do you identify as?
I’m pansexual. For me, this means that it’s the person I fall in love with. It’s not your genitals or identity. It’s you as a human being — the skin and the organs and the pulse in your veins. That’s why I can’t choose a side. It’s the connection for me. It’s not what you look like or what you identify as.
I love how well you know your body, how you can tell what you want and what you don’t want. Must you have some sort of connection with someone before you can have sex with them?
Honestly, yes, but I’ve had some dead nacks in my life to know that that may not always be the case. There’s this guy that I used to like, we had sex and it was so good. Then in 2018, I contacted him again to have sex and it was rubbish because it hurt — clearly my body didn’t want to be there. So sometimes, you just want to fuck, and you’re too tired to fuck yourself.
This just made me a lot more curious about “fucking yourself” because when you started having sex in 2015, you hadn’t discovered masturbation. How did you get here?
In the beginning, it was hard. Many times, I tried and failed to give myself pleasure. Up until 2018, I didn’t know how to masturbate. I hadn’t learned my body, so it just didn’t sit right. I would touch myself till it felt good and just stop there. I don’t know what I was afraid of. I guess I just wasn’t ready to take that power for myself. But one day I did.
Wiun.
It was amazing. I cried a bit, hahaha. Then I laughed hysterically after. I was sitting in my own cum and pee and just laughing because I knew that it was the beginning of self pleasure for me and I had been waiting for a long time to come into myself this way.
Sounds Amazing.
It really is.
So what’s sex for you these days?
Me and my toys!
Don’t you ever feel like you need more?
Oh I do. But I’m not sleeping with anybody I don’t want to sleep with again. Recently, I travelled to see someone I had known for three months. I had planned to have sex with him just because I wanted sex. He’s sweet, kind but I’m not attracted to him. Anyway, my period came and he did not touch me because men are afraid of a little blood. I was a tad disappointed because I don’t know when next I’ll have sex with another human being again, but I felt okay. It would have probably hurt sef.
What’s your opinion of sex now?
I think sex is beautiful and hot. When you come, for those 2.5 seconds, it feels like everything is alright with the world. You get?
Haha. I think so. After having to unlearn so much about purity culture, what will you tell your children about sex?
I’ll tell them to enjoy sex. I’ll tell them my stories about masturbation and the times when sex hurt, so they won’t be afraid or ashamed to tell me anything. I’d really want them to learn about themselves and their bodies, so they know what they want with sex. I would hate to hear that my child was having sex just to fill a gaping hole in them — which I sometimes do — I only want them to have sex when they want.
How would you rate your sex life?
A solid 7/10.
