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 this week’s Sex Life is a 28-year-old bisexual man who, three years after he got married, discovered he also likes men. He talks about how his sex life improved once he started exploring his sexuality.
When did you have sex for the first time?
When I was 18, I had sex with my best friend. We were in university at the time and had never had sex or made out with anyone. We decided to try it out and it was disastrous to say the least.
How so?
I didn’t know what to do. I had never watched porn, barely watched sex scenes in movies. She was just as clueless. We ended up making out all night and that was really nice. Every other thing was meh.
Did she feel the same way?
Yes. We agreed to never try it again but, instead, help each other learn about sex and find other people to experiment with. So, we both started watching porn and reading books, which, ironically, led us astray.
What do you mean?
There’s a lot of misleading information about sex out there. Porn was one of our primary materials, and from watching porn, you’d assume that men and women came at the exact same time. Or that foreplay wasn’t as important as sex. Suffice to say, all the sex I was having between the ages of 18 and 20 was nonsense.
It took finding someone more experienced than I was to actually enjoy sex. She was an older woman — I think five years older — and we met through my best friend. We had similar interests and became quick friends. One thing led to another, and she invited me over to her house. First thing we did was make out and then have sex. I had my first orgasm at the age of 20, and it was amazing. For the rest of that weekend, I stayed over at her place and we kept having sex.
She recognised how bad I was because she was very patient with me and eager to make me come — at the expense of her own orgasms. However, she eventually lost her patience and started teaching me how to make her come. After this point, I went to her house almost every other weekend and we’d have sex throughout. It was like I was doing weekend lessons. Every weekend, I learned something new.
What happened next?
In my head, it felt like the key to having great sex was having it with older women. So after we ended things — she started dating someone her age who was rich and definitely more experienced — I decided I wanted to start dating again. And so, I went for another older woman who eventually became my wife.
How much older?
Six years older.
How old were you then?
I think I had just turned 22 when we met. We were just friends at first, even though I had the hugest crush on her. She said she could never date someone who was six years younger than she was, especially since she was ready to settle down. I agreed to be just friends, but I told her to try to keep an open mind.
We were friends for like two years before anything happened between us. In the meantime, I was meeting up with other women and having subpar sex. For one reason or the other, it never worked out with these women. Either they weren’t good enough, or we weren’t attracted to each other.
In my head, I knew that if I just had sex with this 28-year-old woman, I would get back what I used to have with the other older woman. I should mention that during this time, that first older woman came back to me for a bit — her and her boyfriend broke up and she needed someone’s shoulders to lean on. I was there for her emotionally and physically.
Did your now wife know about it?
She didn’t know at the time. She didn’t need to know, anyway, because we were not involved sexually or emotionally. Eventually, sometime around the time I turned 24, she told me she was ready to give me a chance.
That was how we started dating. We didn’t even date for long before we got married.
How long did you date for?
Six months.
Was there any reason for this?
I wasn’t ready to get married in all honesty, but she was and I was afraid that I’d lose her if I didn’t propose to her soon. Besides, we had known each other for longer. So it didn’t feel like I didn’t know her or that we were rushing.
Another reason, though, is that she was celibate. She was saving herself for marriage and because we were dating, I had to be celibate as well. Those six months were torture. I proposed to her in month six and within a month, we were married.
Wow. Interesting.
I’m still so shocked that I got married so quickly, because it wasn’t in my plan. But I love her and was willing to do anything to make her happy.
Did the age difference come up at any point?
Nope. Her parents were supportive, and so were mine. Well, I do look older than she does. It helped that our parents actually knew each other before we even became friends. Her mum and my mum had worked together when they were younger.
So what is married sex like?
It was and is still so good. She is a freak in the sheets. Parts of her that she had carefully hidden from me came out, and I was pleasantly surprised. Best part of it was that she was open to trying new things, which was one thing I had been afraid of.
Why were you afraid of that?
Well, I had been having mediocre sex, except for a few exceptions. So I felt that I needed to experiment more. Unfortunately, it was at the same time that I wanted to begin experimenting that she told me she was ready.
I had to put everything aside to date her. Sex was off limits while were dating, so there went my experiments.
What kind of experiments?
One time, she suggested that we watch porn, and I was like, no, I don’t do that — because of my history with porn, I wasn’t into it again. Anyway, she cajoled me and we watched a really good one. She has really good taste in porn, which is shocking. She asked me if I’d be open to a threesome, and I casually said yes. Lowkey, I was screaming “HELL YES” in my head.
We tried a threesome with my best friend from university, and she was so into it. We decided to make it a regular thing. I think twice a month. After a while, she suggested she was bored of threesomes with just women and asked if I’d be interested in having a man in the equation. My first instinct was to say no. But eventually, I was like, “Yeah, sure, but only once”. And that once was a really defining moment for my sex life.
How so?
I enjoyed it so much and became infatuated with the guy who joined us — her friend. I was going to keep this to myself, but I decided it would be good to tell her how I felt. I first asked her if her interest in sex with women meant she was bisexual and she told me she doesn’t do labels. That is literally what she says about everything.
I told her how I felt about her friend, and she was like she’s always suspected that I was into men. I was quite shocked because it had never occured to me that I could be into men. There was a level of maturity with which she handled the conversation that even I don’t have.
Why did you think you could never be into men?
Homophobia, I guess. I felt that to be straight was “normal”. I unlearned that as a married man.
Oh okay. What did she say about your crush?
She asked if I wanted to explore, that she didn’t mind. I told her no oh, that I can never cheat on her. She told me she was literally giving me the permission, that she’d rather I not cheat on her. And so I eventually had solo sex with him and, gosh, it was amazing.
It was also confusing: it had taken me so long to learn about sex with women, now I had to do it all over again with men. Well I didn’t have to, but I thought I had to. So in the beginning, I did nothing about it and we went on with our life as normal. But it now began to seem like our sex life was missing something.
So I made the mistake of cheating. I would go out on dates with other men and lie that I was working late or something. I don’t know why I felt the need to lie, because she would have understood. Eventually I got caught.
Oh wow.
We had our first huge fight, which took forever to settle. When we did settle it though, we agreed that I had to be more honest with her and that I could date other men, but only have one male sex partner at a time.
How did that go?
Oh yeah, it went really well. I started dating someone recently and somehow, having sex with him has really been good for my sex life with my wife. I don’t know how to explain it, but it felt like something was rekindled between us and the sex just became a lot better.
So how would you rate your sex life?
With my wife? 10/10. With my boyfriend, maybe 6/10. I’m still learning work here.
Do you love your boyfriend in the same way you love your wife?
Not yet. I don’t think I can love anyone the way I love her, but I also really enjoy exploring my sexuality. It feels like I’m actually living for the first time.
