Sex — The Nigerian Society Taboo
As inspired by Orifunke Lawal’s post Before You Start to Have Sex — What Society Won’t Tell You Because We’re All Supposed to Be “Saints”.
I felt to share a bit more in resonance as this is a real problem that plagues many societies and sub-societies with Nigeria.
Silence is golden but sometimes, its dangerous.
The topic of sex has always been looked at or spoken about from the religious point of view as pointed out by Orifunke. Sadly, topics around sex and “sex” itself still remain unspoken.
Having knowledge has never hurt anyone, and sexual knowledge is a plague that is sickening the adolescence society with each unwanted pregnancy case and each sexually transmitted infection case. All these which could have been averted if adequate knowledge had been passed down.
I belong to the school of thought that believes that knowledge should always be passed down so that lessons can be learned from past mistakes and also further mistakes can be averted.
A story of a mother and a child.
Angela wasn’t given enough knowledge about sex by her parents and along the line, she got pregnant and in shame and disgust (which is the normal response of most Nigerian parents — “Sad”) she was pushed aside and neglected.
Angela gave birth to a baby girl 9 months later.
17 years after the birth of her child Susan, she began to notice that her daughter had started taking interest in boys and vice-versa. Understanding the situation, she responded in fear of what happened to her and started to restrict Susan’s movements — “Come back home immediately you’re released from school”, “Stay away from boys, you don’t have to be friends”, and the occasional “Don’t let a boy touch you, you’ll get pregnant”.
We all know that the adolescence age is quite synonymous with a lot of stubbornness from both boys and girls, a period where the urge to try everything kicks in strongly and as you would expect Susan fell into the same path her mother walked in.
Angela should have passed the knowledge she had about sex, given her daughter tips about prevention/protective methods. Perhaps in the process of trying things out, she would have protected herself.
I hope this speaks to as many parents out there. Pass down knowledge about sex to your children, yes both male and female. Don’t ever think they won’t know these things or assume they are too young to know about it.
The same way you’ve taught them life values and good ethics, teach them about sex too.
I’m not saying tell them to have sex. But I’m saying teach them the pros and cons of sex. There’s so much to be known about it and its better they hear it from their parents who have their best interests at heart than someone whom may have ulterior motives.
Once the knowledge is passed down, the cycle begins.
