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 38-year-old bisexual woman who has been married for 12 years. In today’s Sex Life, she talks about how she thought something was wrong with her because she couldn’t orgasm, and how that eventually changed.
When was your first sexual experience?
I was 12 and it was with my cousin. We stole a kiss when we were alone in a room at a family event and then got caught by an older cousin who made a fuss of it and threatened to report. She blackmailed me all the time about it. Not sure if she even blackmailed my other cousin. Anyway, she never reported, but that event scarred me. Even talking about it is a bit scary now.
What happened after?
Actually nothing very eventful happened. Maybe because I was scared to make out with anyone, I don’t know. I didn’t even try to kiss anyone — related to me or otherwise — until university, and even that was uneventful.
In university, I was around people who knew a lot about sex or rather had a lot to say about it to anyone who was listening: my roommates. I had not had sex and wasn’t planning to, but I was curious about the craze with sex. My curiosity went as far as listening to them talk about it, and typically, they would talk about what the male partner was doing, never really about the woman’s response or part in it. I didn’t think much of it then until I started having sex myself.
When did you start having sex?
So my roommates thought I was naive since I didn’t partake in their conversations about sex and didn’t have any experience. One of my roommates was determined to change that and invited me to hangout with her boyfriend and his friend. I told her I wasn’t going to have sex with him, but I could talk to him and see if we were compatible. She said okay. When we got there, the guy flat out refused to have sex with me because he said I wasn’t his type. He was actually telling them in Yoruba because he thought I wouldn’t understand. I didn’t feel bad because it wasn’t like I had planned to have sex with him either. We hung out together for a few hours, after which the guy said he wanted to leave. When he left, I told my roommate we had better get going to the campus. She said that she couldn’t leave without having sex with her boyfriend. She didn’t even ask me to excuse them and neither did he. So I just sat in the corner watching them until her boyfriend asked me to join them. I was like what? My roommate also gestured for me to join them. I tried to say no, but I really wanted to, so I joined them and that was the first time I had sex.
Wow.
Yes. Who would have thought the first time I had sex would be a threesome? Certainly not me.
What was the experience like?
It was really good. I didn’t orgasm, but it was good. I was freaked out by the entire experience, but in a good way. It was also the moment I started suspecting I was into women as much as I was into men, because I really enjoyed making out with my roommate as much as I did her boyfriend. I had never felt anything like that before. I had a crush on her the entire year afterwards but couldn’t tell her because I didn’t know what to do with the emotions. I only got over it after I moved out.
Did you have more sex in the time?
Nah. I didn’t even try. It actually felt like except someone dragged me to have sex, I won’t make the first move. Maybe I was just lazy sha. It was when I finally got out of university and started dating that sex became a steady feature of my life. But half the time, I was asking myself, what’s the point of this sex we’re having?
Why were you asking that?
I just couldn’t orgasm when having sex. I initially thought it was about the person I was with, and that it would get better if I slept with someone else. It didn’t. I cheated on that boyfriend with someone else who eventually became my husband. I was way more attracted to him than I was to my boyfriend at the time, so I just expected it to be better. While the sex in itself wasn’t bad, I didn’t have orgasms.
At this point, I told myself that I was the problem and gave up trying. By the time I broke up with that boyfriend and started dating my husband, I was happy to have sex because I enjoy the act of giving during the sex, but that was all for me.
Did your boyfriend know about your difficulties during orgasm?
Actually, not while we were dating because like I said, I thought something was wrong with me. He’d try his best to please me sexually, and I would pretend to come when I wasn’t. And he’d be so pleased with himself after. I couldn’t bring myself to break it to him. No one really understands that you can enjoy the sex without orgasming — even though the orgasm is a big part of the enjoyment.
Right, so when did you eventually tell him?
Welp. A few years into our marriage. I think we were having a conversation and gutting our hearts about secrets and feelings we hadn’t ever told each other. They were not serious secrets, like say him admitting that he often farted anywhere and in public spaces. The big secret was the no orgasm confession, and my husband took it seriously. He wanted to improve my experience of sex. He tried literally everything and suggested I take up masturbation, which I had never done. I used to think it was a dirty, disgusting thing only men did. I took up masturbation and that worked out very well. I got my first orgasm on my first try, within moments. It was explosive, like I had been holding back years of orgasm in. Omo after this, my husband became twice as determined.
What did he do?
He bought me more sex toys — at some point, it felt like for any event I was celebrating, he was going to get me a brand new sex toy. We became more open about sex than we ever had been. I thought I was a good giver during sex, but it turned out that there were things he didn’t like me doing and never said anything about. Then we started to experiment. I told him about my threesome experience years ago, and we decided to invite someone we trusted to have a threesome with us. I won’t lie that I wasn’t scared that my husband would fall in love with her and leave me. My husband too was scared that I’d leave him for her. Luckily, we had gotten to the point where we could share our insecurities with each other. The threesome was amazing because this woman made me orgasm.
What did your husband think?
My husband was just like, at this point, na me dey do nonsense. I don’t even know what he did differently, but soon, it became easy for me to orgasm. I think he unlocked my g-spots and soon, I realised that I was a squirter. It’s like I started discovering my body in my 30s.
Sweet. So what’s your Sex Life like these days?
We’re not experimenting as much, but it’s still really good. We try to do something new regularly, and some of them fail woefully while some don’t. I’m actually glad we are way past trying to make me orgasm. It was an intense period. But I’m glad the period opened us up and showed us how compatible we truly are. It’s not like I orgasm every time I have sex oh, but at least, I do orgasm at least 70% of the time. I’m glad I have a husband that prioritises my sex experience.
How would you rate your Sex Life?
10/10 of course. Even when I wasn’t orgasming, it wasn’t like I was having bad sex.
