<!-- wp:paragraph -->A Tongue is a Whip: How Tongue-lashes Affect Women’s Attitude Towards Sex<br /><br /><br />For real, for real, men are scum. So, I thought I had something going on with this senior colleague from my borrowed Psychology class; he had carried over the course, but it turned out I was building a mansion in the clouds. And it crashed really bad. There were no good memories to look back to.<br /><br />Dude had everything I needed in a man. The boy literally swept me off my fee that day after class when he approached me to tell me he thought the way I answered a particular question earlier on was really smart. I knew he was patronizing me but sadly, I had left my common sense back in the hostel. That is the only logical explanation I could give myself at the time. The usual me would have given him one of my legendary, literal cold shoulders reserved for men who wouldn’t stay in their lanes. I engaged the him in a conversation and that was my greatest undoing.<br /><br />As a girl, growing up in an African home is equivalent to living in a class room. Every day of your life is a lecture. Series of dos and or don’ts would be hammered into you so much so you can become the best version of a woman there is. It even gets worse if yours is a Christian home.<br /><br />I grew up like this. At first, my mother taught me that once a man touches me, I would get pregnant, which would ultimately make me drop up, suffer to cater for a child and ultimately ruin my future or worst off, get an STI. Although, thanks to condoms and pills, most girls have abandoned that school of thought and embraced their sexualities. Some of us are not as liberal.<br /><br />As a child, due to my mother’s teachings, I was afraid of having males touch me. Once time a boy in Basic 4 touched me, I cried all the way home, afraid to me bones that I had gotten pregnant and my life was ruined like that of Auntie Praise who attended JAMB lessons only to come back home to sport a rapidly growing belly. I was inconsolable. My mother came back from work and prayed for me, casting out the pregnancy.<br />Eventually, I grew up and they could no longer maintain the “if a man touches you” lie so they changed the tactic. While the pregnancy and STI scare stuck, the touch own couldn’t. Promising the eternal flames of hell, alongside the painful urination of Gonorrhea on any child who dared had sex outside marriage, they made me afraid of sex.<br /><br />So, this was me at twenty in the university campus getting swayed from the warnings of my parents by a man that was up to no good. I thought we were in love.  I was in love and he was in the know.<br />He knew his plans but I didn’t. When he first approached me that fateful day complimenting my intelligence, it swept me off my feet. We had something going on for a while. He didn’t rush it. Then one day, he suggested it would be a good idea if we consummated our relationship. He said “If we have sex, it would only bring us closer. Make us more in love with each other.”<br /><br />Assuring me all the while that there was no need to rush if I was not ready. He was kind enough to give me time to think about it.<br />And over-compensating me decided, ignoring the voice of reason that said he seemed too eager decided to agree. Mostly because of the guilt that told me he had been really kind to me, getting me lunch, paying for my tutorials and basically being there.<br />I asked my friends for advice. While Hilda told me that she didn’t trust him enough to have me sleep with him, Mira mocked at her and asked if I wanted to be a 40-year-old virgin.  Mira’s seemed to be the wisest advice at the time because coming to think of it, all my peers seemed to be living their youth. Just doing young people stuff. Hook-up and casual sex, partying, smoking and alcohol and I was there being a prude.<br /><br />I remember the way his eyes lit up when I told him I was ready for us to make love. It was in apartment he shared with his roommates that called me our wife whenever I visited. When I got there, they had all gone out. We had sex and for something that did not take so much time, it made him so happy. He looked very victorious.<br /><br />I was going to know why in no time. We had psychology the next day and I arrived late but the lecturer hadn’t. I stepped into the noisy classroom and it seemed like a hush had fallen upon the world. I wondered why everyone was staring as I walked stiffly to find myself a seat.<br /><br />I noticed people close to me spoke in hushed whispers, all the while turning in my direction. It only became clear when this guy known for his booming voice walked past me and, in a mock, absurdly loud excuse of a whisper said “the latest popped cherry”.<br />It all made sense now. The way Chris, the guy I slept with avoided my gaze, the silence when I entered class. It was that very moment that the lecturer choose it enter the class. I could barely sit through the two-hour class.<br /><br />How the class got to know, he and his friends had the group chat where they discussed women and who their next conquest would be. Chris had gotten quiet the reputation for being a cherry popper and I was just one of the numerous girls he had done it to. Somehow, one of the guys in the group made a screenshot that found its way to the class’s group chat. And then, I officially became a laughing stock.<br /><br />I was depressed for a long while and this ultimately destroyed my view on relationships and sex. I thought men were all out to use and dump women. At the moment, I’m very asexual and I don’t know if that is ever going to change.<!-- /wp:paragraph -->