LOOK FOR SOMETHING ELSE TO BLACKMAIL ME NOT S@X

In this 2018, we are still allowing people to use sex to scare us or shame us or bully us into silence? S@X . S@X o!

I don’t want to be sounding this way but apologies to all the pastors on my list and every person of God that saw me as a shild of God. Give me 3 minutes and I’ll be back to pick up my golden crown from the heavenly basket when I’m done writing this.

I am writing this specifically to the women/girls like me. Embrace s@x Own it. Embrace your valid desire for copulation and intimacy. Embrace it with all of your heart and soul. You can’t let someone shut you up with something so beautiful and natural as s@x. So you had s@x with him? And so does what? So you had s@x with nineteen men? Ehen! So does what? How does that affect you? How in God’s grand name does that affect your value as a person? Why do you buy into this erroneous belief that s@x incapacitates you as a person or that it subtracts from you? Why are you placing your life’s worth in between your vagin@?

As a people, we have inherited a legacy of shame surrounding s@x, especially when it relates to women. S@x  has been used as a weapon over the years to make women keep quiet, be subdued or cower into fear and shame. In whatever angle you look at, the female sexuality has been policed. If you don’t look ‘sensual’ or sexually forthcoming, you are called a prude or killjoy. If you are too sensual, eager or sexually excited, you are termed, ‘loose, harlot, etc’. As a woman you don’t need to do anything to be called “ashawo” especially in the Nigerian context. Just be a woman or girl and that tag follows you.

As women, we will keep getting bothered and affected by these ‘blackmails’ or ‘cheap attacks’ if we keep running away from embracing our sexuality. When you live without fear of the judgment of your sexuality or the lack of it, you become free. Those words hurled to shame you lose their potency and power when you accept your sexuality.

S@x is the core of our stories as humans so why should you be disturbed because someone said ‘you had s@x  with him’ or ‘did not’ or that you love s@x.

I understand that due to the deep moral and religious insistence in our society, sexual shame has made home with many of us women. Sexual shame is a feeling of humiliation and disgust towards one’s own body and identity as a sexual being, and the amusing thing is, ‘we are all sexual beings’. We are a product of this. When you question why s@x is used to shame you, you discover the hypocrisy and silliness of it all. You might as well walk in your sexuality and give a middle finger to the people who want to shame you with it.

Gone are the days s@x  is used to bully women. I love s@x . I want s@x. I need s@x. What else? Nothing. In the words of Lasisi Elenu, Abegi!

It is time people start looking for something else to use to blackmail you. Not s@x now. Haba! Habatically. This thing is too basic to detract us from the mountains we are to conquer.

Credit: Enwongo C. Cleopas