Sex! Oh my god, Sex!!!

As a child, nobody talked to me about  sex, my sexuality or the way the human body functions. I was quite the late bloomer too because in primary school, I would find myself staring at illustrations on  toilet walls and wondering where people came up with such ideas.

Needless to say, I was often told emphatically that there was something fundamentally wrong with talking to boys and that if I dared get too close, I would wind up pregnant. I remember when I first started seeing my period and spoke to my step mum about it; somewhere between fixing her hair pins and rubbing her lipstick, she said to me “You are now a woman, you cannot go near boys again”. And that was it, the finality of her statement forcefully dismissing  the incredulity in my eyes and the questions that danced around my head.

“Why can’t we play with boys? Where do babies come from? And why was I firmly slapped when I repeated the word ‘blue film’ in the middle of an adult conversation? These questions refused to be silenced. So in my second year in secondary school, when my science teacher explained that sex was the act of inserting a penis into a vagina, I thought she was mad. Of course it didn’t even matter that as a biology teacher, she couldn’t even mention the word sex. So it was this one lecture, inefficiently delivered, that formed the basis of my opinion on sex. Naturally, I made up for my lapses from the pages of romance novels.

As the years advanced, hormones began to rouse the questions I had long buried, gently nursing them into a flame of rebellion. The realisation that sex was awesome and that the adults were being mean by trying to keep it away from us. Because even though as grown ups, we learnt to edit our language and hush our tones, we cannot deny that we live, eat and dream about sex.

But you see, this article is not really about sex or raging hormones or board room executives who squirm when you mention the word ‘penis’. It is rather about children who are being robbed of their sexuality by parents, uncles, aunts and trusted people who carry out unimaginable acts of violation on their unsuspecting frames, and succeeding in the vile offence only because those who should have empowered them with the right information decided to speak in hushed tones.

I once met a lady who began her sexual experience at the age of four. I met another who started at the age of eight, and most recently, a man who was likewise abused when he was just six years old. In the case of the second lady, she told her mother that her uncle had been inserting his fingers into her vagina, and instead of getting her the help she deserved, she was again, sentenced to silence by a deafening slap by a mother who was bent on living in denial.

The truth is that, sex shames the larger part of society. We love it, but we are embarrassed by it. This is the same sentiment that compels rape victims to stay silent. And the problem is traceable to three sources

1. False Security: A lot of parents think that by hiding information about sex from their children or wards, they are somehow saving them from some sort of moral decadence.
2. Cultural/Religious Prejudice: Moral extremism has downplayed the role of social intelligence. Everything is categorized into good and evil, and sex by ideals within culture and religion, is interpreted to be more evil than good.
3. Social Prudence: There is an unspoken expectation of society to raise sexually modest people. And the hypocrisy of this expectation is the reason we edit our language and refuse to inform young people about sex.

This is perhaps why the courts are littered with sexual offenders who defile innocent children that know nothing of what is being done to them. Recently, Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola, approved the creation of a register for sexual offenders. This must be commended because at least it gives all stakeholders opportunity to profile the perpetrators of such vile offence and ensure they don’t filter into larger society and continue their act.

A few months ago, a 25 year old male teacher in Abeoukuta was arraigned for violating a 6 year old girl. He was consequently granted bail and in less than 3 weeks, was found in the employ of another school.

It was Myles Munroe who said “when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable” and my argument is; if our children do not know about sex or the purpose of their sexuality, how will they know when they are being abused?

How does a five year old child know that it is wrong for her uncle to pull down her panties? How does a four year old boy know that his nanny is not supposed to view or touch his penis?

Legislation may be an effective tool for social change but damage control is more expensive than pro active parenting.

It is time to talk about sex! At homes, in schools and in religious settings. It’s time to talk about sex, not in the derogatory narrative it has enjoyed, but in its practical reality.  Let us instruct the children and let us do so early.

Let’s talk about sex!!!