Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wordpress-seo domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/bcm/src/dev/www/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121 Lesbian | Zikoko!
A new season of “The L Word” is out, Bette and Tina are getting back together, and suddenly, you have the grand idea to text your ex from 2019. If you don’t put down that phone and sleep! Instead of making the mistake of a lifetime, here are fun things you can do. A new season of “The L Word” is out, Bette and Tina are getting back together, and suddenly, you have the grand idea to text your ex from 2019. If you don’t put down that phone and sleep! Instead of making the mistake of a lifetime, here are fun things you can do.
Clear out your contact list
No, you’ll never talk to that one ex who’s technically not even your ex, and those group chats are one too many. Also, end that situationship before 2023, abeg, your inner child is tired of crying.
Call your friend
It’s been three months since y’all hung out, and no, I’m not talking about those random times you saw each other at a party. Call them and just chill on the phone. That’s a better way to spend your time.
Learn how to code
Instead of getting into another codependent relationship, learn to code. Not only are you upskilling, but you’re also healing. Wow, someone put that on a t-shirt.
Exercise
You’ve been meaning to anyway. Anytime you consider texting her, do 100 push-ups. When your fingers almost break, you’ll have sense. You’re not Bette and Tina; your relationship was even more problematic.
Organise your clothes
Maybe you’ll be able to face the shame of the insane amount of your clothes still in your exes’ wardrobe. That’ll definitely give you sense. Are you ready to purchase a new wardrobe? No? Exactly.
Rewatch “The L Word” from the beginning
Think of it as a Christmas gift to yourself. Remind yourself that your ex sucks, and you guys deserve to remain exes forever. Also, simp over Shane.
Calculate how much you spend on love
Maybe you’ll finally come to your senses. Only you, six failed relationships, six different promise rings and almost proposals this year alone. Is your bank account not tired? Rest, abeg.
Sex Lifeis 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 21-year-old lesbian who finds it difficult to orgasm with partners. She talks about only ever having orgasms she gives herself and having sex for intimacy.
Tell me about your first sexual experience
One day, my 14-year-old self was taking a shower. And I touched something that felt good. When I went back to my room, I decided to find out what the feeling was. After lights out, I touched myself till I had an orgasm. It felt really good, and it became something I did frequently. Whenever I got the chance, I masturbated.
My first sexual experience with someone else wasn’t until a year later. There was this girl in the room beside mine. We’d become very close within our first few weeks of talking, and had progressed from sleeping on opposite sides of the bed, to cuddling each other through the night.
One night, she woke me up because she wanted to talk. After a while of staring at me as I spoke, she kissed me. It was a kind kiss, like she was testing the waters. It felt nice.
Did it progress past that?
No, it didn’t. But after a while, the kisses were very heavy. I wanted to have sex with her, but there were people around and she was hesitant. I walked her back to her room, and she kissed me again.
The entirety of my relationship with her constituted of stolen kisses. Then when the school term was over, I transferred to another school and that put an end to it.
In the new school, there was this girl I really liked. When I told the new friends I’d made in my all girls’ school, they tried to set us up. It worked, and the girl and I started dating. So even though I’d tried to suppress how I viewed women, because a friend of mine said it was wrong, it didn’t last.
Hooking up with her wasn’t anything special. She had long fingers, but it felt like she didn’t know what she was doing. It wasn’t really a comfortable experience. The kisses were nice though because I liked her, but her lips were always cold. We parted ways after she started being abusive toward me.
It’s okay. She kept trying to put me down and dictate who I spoke to. Then she’d come to beg me with money or ridiculous gifts.
The relationship ended just as my secondary school experience was ending. When I got into university, I met a guy, and we started dating. The first time we hooked up was in his mum’s shop. She was gone for some business, and he had to man the shop. I came over to keep him company, but we ended up going into the inner room to have sex.
How was it?
Well, for one, it really helped reinforce the fact that I was a lesbian. I wasn’t interested in his orgasm, and I knew it would not be possible for me to have one anyways.
But we dated for about a year and some months.
Why did you stay if you were a lesbian?
I was battling some religious guilt. I’d gotten more involved in religion at the time, and lesbianism seemed like a much worse sin than regular fornication.
And now?
I’m a lesbian with my full chest. The only problem is I’m a lesbian who isn’t having any orgasms that aren’t self-given.
How come?
I don’t know. After I broke up with the guy, I got involved with two more women. I loved having sex with them, but it was never enough to get me to orgasm. Luckily for me, I wasn’t into sex for the orgasms.
What were you in it for?
The intimacy. I’ve been a lonely person for as long as I can remember. The only times I’ve felt a sliver of the kind of intimacy I read about in books, was when I was having sex. The eye contact, the way they speak to me and hold me makes me feel wanted. That’s all I needed from sex. If I want to have an orgasm, I can do it myself.
However, it made me feel really bad. Like there was something wrong with me that made it impossible for a partner to give me an orgasm, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I didn’t like knowing a woman I liked might also never fully enjoy sex if her enjoyment relied on making her partner have an orgasm.
Do you think there was something they weren’t doing right?
No, actually. I just feel like it’s my cross to bear. I enjoy sex, but sex with another person might never give me an orgasm.
I do know, however, that when I went on medication for my depression in 2020, having an orgasm by myself became even more difficult. It’s like the medication killed whatever I had left of a sex drive. I couldn’t even masturbate because I felt so dry. It was so bad, I thought I was asexual. But then the doctors switched up my medication and orgasms became attainable and enjoyable again. Still, I haven’t tried sex with another person for a whole year.
Well, since intimacy is what I really look forward to when it comes to sex, I can’t hook up with someone I don’t have romantic feelings for. And after my last relationship ended, I haven’t been able to fall in love with anyone.
Sure, I’ve bought a vibrator to keep me company, but that takes away whatever form of intimacy I could have gotten from masturbating. I’m not even touching myself. There’s a machine doing the work.
How’d you rate your Sex Life on a scale of 1-10?
A -2. I feel like a burden to everyone I’ve had sex with. I just wish I was normal and could get both intimacy and orgasms from sex.
Sex Lifeis 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 27-year-old lesbian who describes herself as a pleaser. She talks to us about discovering her sexuality, sleeping with many women to make up for what she’s missed, how kissing has never felt right and learning she has better sex when she’s not being touched.
Tell me about your first sexual experience
I was 14 years old when I kissed a boy for the first time. He attended my church, and during the children’s vigil, we snuck into the bathroom and kissed. I didn’t know what to expect, but the kiss felt wet. It wasn’t magical or special. It just felt like someone’s mouth touched my own. On the other hand, he was smiling from ear to ear. I went along with it, but everything about it felt so wrong.
I thought it was because I didn’t know how kissing worked, so I kept kissing different boys. Every single time, I was met with disappointment. I knew it couldn’t have been them. There’s no single way every boy I kissed from when I was 14 till when I was 19 was terrible. I knew it was a me thing. I just didn’t know how.
What happened at 19?
That’s when I switched it up and kissed a woman for the first time. That day, I had gone out with a guy and had another disappointing kiss, so I was complaining to my roommate. I told her how this is something that’s been happening since I was 14 and that maybe I just couldn’t kiss right. She told me that maybe I needed to learn how to kiss properly. Then, she offered to teach me. I agreed and she kissed me.
The thing with kissing her is it, sure, it was a mouth touching mine and it was still wet, but the kiss felt different. I always knew my roommate was attractive; kissing her made me very aware of just how attractive she was.
When she pulled away, she told me I was probably overthinking it because I’m an amazing kisser. I’d like to think that kiss was what began my descent into discovering I was a lesbian. It’s just that it was a slow process.
Well, lesbianism isn’t something a lot of people talk about. I hear more about being a gay man than being a lesbian. Whenever women act in anaffectionate way towards each other, it’s always written off as women being women. But if a man so much as smiles at another man, the word “gay” is thrown around a lot. It’s not like I didn’t know lesbianism existed. It’s just that when I was considering my options, it didn’t come to mind. Add the fact that I dress very feminine, nobody was moving to me or throwing the L word around me. Very distressing times.
That’s why I didn’t try to kiss a woman again until two years after I kissed the first one. And just like the first time, it was a friend who wanted to help me out. After I narrated my problem to a friend of mine, she told me maybe I was going about it all wrong and promised to introduce me to someone who might help. Turns out the someone was a woman she knew. I was confused at first, but my friend explained that maybe I was just kissing the wrong gender. I remembered the kiss my former roommate and I shared and decided to see this through. The woman and I talked a lot that night. When she asked me to come back to her place, I agreed without a second thought. I had sex that night for the first time, and I am so glad I didn’t do it with a man.
How was it?
Well, I didn’t know anything I was doing because I had never gone past kissing men and giving them handjobs. But she was so patient with me, kind too. She asked me questions throughout. When there was blood and I panicked a bit, she just removed the sheets and gave me a bath. It was the softest experience I had ever had. I enjoyed every minute of it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to leave her house.
Before, I thought I was a prude who wouldn’t enjoy sex, but something woke up in me that day. I was unstoppable. I wanted her to teach me everything she knew and she was more than happy to indulge me. I think she found my curiosity sexy. When I was leaving her house after living there for a couple of days, I made a promise to myself that I’d never go back to doing anything sexual with men. That was also the day I called myself a lesbian for the first time.
Yes! The only problem was there was a bit of involuntary celibacy on my part. It was difficult to find women to talk to without putting yourself in danger. The woman I had sex with for the first time left Nigeria soon after. Turns out she only visited occasionally, and I was back in square one.
So, I started befriending the extremely “masculine” women who people actually threw the L word at. I was determined to fix my involuntary celibacy.
Did you?
Tough times never last, only tough people do! And I am a tough babe. I knew I had a lot to learn and by befriending these women, I learnt it and found community at the same time. With every new woman I slept with, it felt like I discovered something new about myself. At 23, I learnt I loved performing oral sex. That same year, I let someone use a strap-on with me for the first time, and I used one with someone else too.
I think after discovering I was a lesbian, I tried to fit everything I had missed into a couple of years of sleeping with different women. Once a partner wanted to try something, I was down with it. But after two years of sleeping with everyone and their mums, I found something I liked and stuck to it.
Tell me about it
I linked up with a woman all my friends told me not to because she was a “pillow princess”. Apparently, she did none of the work and just wanted to be fucked until she couldn’t walk. I was curious. I had never actually met one of those before. I wanted to see what it was like.
When we linked up, she refused to touch me. I felt like I had to earn her approval and it was very sexy. Every single time she had an orgasm, I got more turned on, and I didn’t stop until she couldn’t move. When she finally kissed me and touched my breasts, I had my only orgasm of the day. But it didn’t feel like it was just one because it was so strong I had to take a breather.
When she got into a relationship, I started looking for women who could reciprocate that exact feeling with me, Before we’d have sex, I’d tell them not to touch me until they felt I had earned it. I found myself gravitating towards “pillow princesses”. A lot of them think I’m bluffing because they’re not used to feminine women who enjoy pleasing, but it makes it even more fun for me.
It’s not like I don’t like being touched. I’d just rather not be. Knowing my partner’s having a great time is really all I need. If they tell me I didn’t earn their touch, I would go home and masturbated.
Rate your sex life on a scale of 1-10
9. I wish I had figured it all out earlier. But now, I’ve done all my exploring and my girlfriend and I are having really great sex. She understands my need to not be touched, and it works perfectly for her.
As a lesbian navigating the complicated experience that is queer dating in Nigeria, if you go into it with expectations based on what you see in any form of media you consume, it will end in tears. But, because we care about you, here are the realities of dating as a lesbian.
1. Double wardrobe, more fun outfits to try
Expectations: You guys will love each other’s sense of style and wear each other’s clothes, especially if you live together.
Reality: One of you will have fewer clothes before the relationship ends. Also, you’ll likely find her sleeping in your T-shirt you only wear on special occasions or stealing your socks. Be prepared for annoying behaviour.
2. She’ll move in with you and it will be fun
Expectations: You’ll adopt or buy a cat, make breakfast for each other and will barely fight or argue.
Reality: Like every normal human being, you’ll argue sometimes. Being a lesbian doesn’t cancel our arguments. Sharing a pet is hard, especially if you guys break up. Also, living with someone — a lover or not — can be exhausting. Maybe don’t do that?
3. Her friends will become your friends
Expectation: if her friend group is exclusively queer, they’d all automatically be friends with you.
Reality: They probably won’t even like you, but who knows why? Especially if one of them has had a crush on her for a while. Good luck. Be friendly, but always remember that they are her friends first.
4. Your partner will care for you when you get your period
Expectation: when you get your period, your partner will pamper you and make you tea and give you belly rubs.
Reality: your partner may want to do all that but your periods will probably sync up, so now the both of you will cry together. Good luck.
5. Unlimited orgasms
Expectations: You’ll orgasm 24 times in 24 hours every day of the week.
Reality: you and your partner are not rabbits, please. And even God rested on the seventh day. Don’t you have work? Do you want to die? If you get 24 orgasms in one day from one person, report the person to the police for attempted murder.
6. They know how to treat women because they are women
Expectation: your partner will reply to all your texts, be able to read your mind, be overly romantic.
Reality: it’s not a packed deal that comes with being a lesbian. They can be assholes, too. Being a woman doesn’t make you an expert on women’s affairs.
Love Lifeis a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
Uju, 45, and Sirry, 40, have been dating for five months. Today on Love Life, they talk about meeting on Twitter, navigating dating as older women with kids and being in an intercultural relationship.
What’s your earliest memory of each other?
Sirry: I found her Twitter account in May 2020. I went through her profile, read her book on racialised identities and I thought she was pretty smart.
Uju: We liked each other’s tweets quite often. The first time we talked was on Clubhouse in a room I set up to discuss income and social class differences in lesbian relationships. After that day, our mutual friend organised a Zoom meeting about racial inequities. The aim was to bring experts from different disciplines together. It was a rich conversation, but Sirry and I were the only ones with PhDs in the room. Every other person was a medical doctor and we kept joking about how we weren’t that kind of doctor.
Sirry: Towards the end of the Zoom meeting, Uju sent me a private message on Zoom asking if I wanted to continue the conversation in a private room. In that room, we laughed a lot. Uju is very funny. We talked about race, lesbianism, and academia. Uju has two kids and I have a daughter so we talked a little about parenting. The conversations were easy and I felt safe expressing myself with her. We agreed to meet again on Zoom. This time with wine.
Uju: I enjoyed that meeting as much as I did the first one so we set up another one to watch a movie together. After the movie date, I asked her out on a physical date towards the end of January.
What was that like?
Sirry: I was excited because I liked talking to her. She is intelligent and funny. During our calls, we talked and laughed a lot so I knew meeting in person would be cool. I got to the restaurant first and waited for her to show up. When she walked in, she looked around, adjusted her hair and looked at her phone, which I think she uses as a mirror sometimes. I thought to myself, “Is she trying to look good for me?”
Uju: I was, LOL. I was thrilled to see her so I took a lot of time to dress perfectly for the date. I wore this sweater that made me look respectable and hot. I aimed for plausible deniability — I could say I wasn’t trying to look hot; you just thought I was hot.
Sirry: It worked because I kept staring at her boobs the whole time. She looked so beautiful.
Uju: You too. She had long dreads, and they were gorgeous. Her smile was gorgeous as well. I just wanted to chat and chat with her.
At this point, did either of you have any concerns considering you were meeting for the first time?
Uju: Sirry is a little bit intimidating.
How so?
Uju: Sirry is a black 40+ tenured professor who is also African, liberal, irreligious and progressive with a great political stance. Plus, she is masculine-identified. She is such a rare find and I was excited about that but I needed to make sure we were compatible.
Sirry: She asked me a lot of questions that day. Questions about my principles about relationships. Questions about my past, my politics, etc. I could see she didn’t have time to fool around. Answering those questions gave me a better idea of how she thinks.
I knew that she was someone I would get along with just fine. It was such a fun date.
Uju: Yup and she brought me a present.
Awwn. What was the present?
Uju: It was a little cactus that I later killed because I am not good with plants. I thought it was really sweet though.
Nice! What happened after that first date?
Uju: We continued our Zoom dates but I was careful to not get too attached to her because I didn’t want to get into a long-distance relationship. We both live in Pennsylvania but Pennsylvania is a long state so we are about four hours apart. I wanted a regular local relationship.
Sirry: She told me about the distance thing when I asked her out on an overnight date. She said she liked me, wanted me, but she didn’t want a long-distance relationship. My heart skipped. I was like, “Oh she’s thinking about me like that.”
Uju: I had just started a new job in Pittsburgh. I moved with my two kids to a house that I had so much fun furnishing. I planned to live in my house for ten years, nothing less. There’s no way I was going anywhere else in the short term. If we were going to keep hanging out, she had to know that.
Sirry: When she said that, I started thinking of how to remove the barrier.
She doesn’t know this because I didn’t want to freak her out, but in my head, I had already started thinking of how to move to Pittsburgh, where she lives. I knew that I could find a job in Pittsburgh or wherever I wanted. In that moment, I realised that I was falling in love with her.
Ah, after how many dates?
Uju: Do you get? This is news to me oh. If you had told me then I would have blocked your number sharp, sharp.
LMAO. Sirry, how did you end up fixing the situation?
Sirry: I decided to move to Pittsburgh anyway. Uju found out I was in the job market looking to settle in Pittsburgh when I had to do an interview in front of her on one of our overnight dates.
Uju: I told her that day that I was not responsible for any of the decisions that she was making. Sirry is a walking unicorn and any school would be lucky to have her. I just didn’t want to take responsibility if things didn’t work out.
Did you want her to move though?
Uju: Of course. I desperately wanted her to get that job so she could come to Pittsburgh but I also wanted her to make the best decision for herself, her career and her daughter. I didn’t want to think too much about it so we continued to date casually.
When did this casuality end?
Sirry: I think we started dating, but we didn’t say we were dating.
Uju: In August 2021, I travelled to Mexico for my birthday. I had a wonderful time there, but I called her every morning to let her know that I slept alone.
I didn’t want her to think I was fucking around in Mexico and I had forgotten about her. I knew I was falling in love with her but I was yet to admit it even though my friends were pointing it out. Also, all the other women I was talking to started to fall off. I gave excuses to cancel dates with other women and focused most of my time on Sirry.
Our calls grew frequent and so did texts. Then there was that visit…
What visit?
Sirry: Uju had a conference close to my house, and she showed up. It was a regular visit but that visit changed everything. She had met my eight-year-old daughter on Zoom calls but on that visit, they met physically. We cuddled and kissed around the house during that visit.It was quite intimate.
When I dropped her off at the airport, my daughter, who was in the car, asked if Uju was my girlfriend. I asked why she was asking and she said, “Because you called her ‘babe’ all weekend and I saw you two snuggling on the couch when you were watching a movie.” At that moment, I realised that Uju was my girlfriend, but we hadn’t had that conversation yet.
Did you?
Uju: Yes. A few weeks later, I went to the hospital for my annual check-up, which included checking for STIs. When I got the results, I texted her, “As it turns out, you’re the only person I’ve been having sex with and I just wanted to let you know that I had my STDs panel and that I’m all clear.”
Sirry: She said it as if she wasn’t deliberately cancelling dates with other women for me, as if it was a magical occurrence. LOL.
After that day, we went on a date and that’s when we became official. This was in November 2021.
Nice, I am curious about how you two told your kids that you were dating and how they took it.
Sirry: My kid figured it out after that day at the airport, and she had been telling me before then that she wanted me to find a nice black woman. When she confirmed that I was dating Uju, she started telling everybody about her mother’s girlfriend.
Uju: A lot of women move in and out of my life, and I am careful to not expose them to my kids until it is serious. I eased Sirry into their lives. They met over video calls but my kids knew Sirry as my friend. The first time she visited my house, she stayed at a hotel. After that visit, I told my kids that Sirry and I are girlfriends. They were happy for us. It’s important for me to expose my children to healthy loving relationships, so I don’t let just anyone in until I am sure about them.
I am also extra lucky with Sirry because we have similar parenting styles. Sirry does not beat her child and she feels very strongly about that like me, despite being from a background where parents beat us. If this relationship gets to a point where we become a partnership and join households, I know we will be fine.
Have you guys had any fights yet?
Sirry: Arguments, yes but fights no. We argue about things like whether eru, a Cameroonian dish, is really just Nigeria’s afang. One time I made her egusi soup without palm oil. We had a little back and forth about whether or not egusi should have palm oil or not. It was funny but I learnt something from that conversation. Apparently, my mum stopped using palm oil in hers because of one petty beef she had with her neighbour.
Personally, I think people romanticise fighting in relationships. I don’t believe that people have to fight to understand each other better.
Uju: Yeah, we’ve disagreed with each other but we both know how to talk to each other. We are very lucky that we found in each other people who can effectively communicate and express themselves. When we want something, we ask each other for that thing.
Sirry: She even gave me a book about emotions to help me teach my daughter how to communicate her emotions better. Maybe, as we spend more time together, fights will come, but right now we’re good.
Aww, what’s your favourite part of each other?
Sirry: Her mind. But I also love that she is gorgeous and that she challenges me. I’m a hundred per cent at home when I’m with her. I like how she mothers her children with softness and care. I also like how she talks about her friends. You can tell she really cares about them. This woman is everything, and I am head over heels in love with her.
Uju: I’m going to stop blushing and tell you about Sirry’s ass. You have not seen a booty like this. The shape is so perfect. You may not see it in the clothes she wears, but mehn, I’ve seen this thing, and it is the roundest, smoothest, most gorgeous ass I have ever seen. It is a phenomenal ass, no jokes.
Aside from that, what is uniquely loveable and absolutely irreplaceable about Sirry, is her beautiful mind. I love the way her mind thinks. I love the way she expresses her mind in all the different contours, either in emotional or intellectual ways. She takes time to understand how things work and explain them. She is also a woman who understands trauma and healing. This means that she takes good care of herself emotionally and those who are lucky enough to be loved by her get taken care of too. I love her so much because of that.
Sweet, what’s the best part of your relationship?
Sirry: It’s our conversations for me. Our conversations are never boring. It keeps me laughing. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night cackling because of something that she has said. Our conversations are both entertaining and nurturing. We could be talking about random stuff but there’s a richness of it that just adds to our knowledge.
Uju: Yes, and it’s the same for me too. Sirry stimulates my mind in many ways. She speaks my language — my cultural language, my food language, my body language, my sexual language, my love languages, everything. I have such a profound connection and compatibility with Sirry. It’s always exciting to talk to her because we agree on so many things.Then there is the sex. It’s so good I had to ask her if she came to bury juju in my house.
Sirry: LMAO. The sex we have makes me feel whole and I absolutely love it. One day, I was looking at her and she asked me, “Are you trying to fuck me right now?” And I said, “There’s never a time when I’m not trying to fuck you.”
You two need to get a room, but before you do, rate your relationship on a scale of one to ten.
Sirry: 12 and I’m not even exaggerating. People who know me know that I’m pretty straightforward on things I care about. Uju is a fantastic person and I feel really lucky and fulfilled to be with her. I am deeply satisfied with our relationship.
Uju: This is not a competition, but Sirry is definitely beyond the scale. I would never have imagined that being with her would feel this good. It’s all so new. Maybe after a year of us living in the same town, I would have something different to say. Until then, I am profoundly satisfied and content to be loved by Sirry.
Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.
If you want to share your own Love Life story, fill this form.
The subject of today’s What She Said is an 18-year-old lesbian who is living her best life. She talks about wanting to be a Reverend Father when she was a child, her hatred for skirts partly because of assault, living in a glass closet, and being scared of men.
Tell me a memory from your childhood.
When I was four years old, I was very short. I’m still quite short, but then I was way shorter. In the Catholic church, there’s a time where they ring bells to raise the bread during the liturgy of the Eucharist to signal the breaking of the bread. Although we sat in front, our church was built in a way that if you knelt you’d be forced to look up. Because of this, I couldn’t see the altar boys who used to ring the bells. I thought the sounds came from heaven. When I grew older and taller, I realised that the altar boys were the ones that rang the bell. I was crushed, most especially because I wanted to be a reverend father.
Reverend father? Why not reverend sister?
Well, their clothes were cool. All of that layering appealed to me and I liked how they looked. My brother was an altar server, and when he got dressed for church I was always in awe. Also, I was jealous of the ability of reverend fathers to talk to God directly and relay his message to the masses. Communication has always been hard for me, and so talking to people is difficult. Imagine talking to the person that created you? I wanted to be able to do that with the ease of which Father explained in Sunday mass. The thought of being a Reverend sister was never appealing to me because they had to wear skirts, and I hate wearing skirts.
What’s your issue with skirts?
Men. I grew up with a lot of guys around. Some were good, but there were irritating ones. The ones who used to rub their hands up my leg because I was wearing a skirt. At first, it started off as a joke, but then as I grew older the touches became more suggestive. Our house was connected to the company my dad owned and so most of the goods needed were in our house.
It started when I was six and spanned six years. The tiler, the painter, the bricklayer, my uncle, one guy that was always around, the PHE teacher when I was in secondary school and the catechist. I had a skirt on every single time they assaulted me. My school uniform was a skirt and as the last girl, my mother said I had to wear skirts every single time. It started with them grabbing, asking me to sit on their lap, running their hands up my fucking skirt.
It also is one of the reasons I crave attention. Growing up, I never got the good type of attention, so now it’s all I want. When people give me that type of attention, I get so attached. When they care about me, it feels nice.
Oh my God. All those men? I am so sorry. Did you ever tell anyone?
I told my mum, but she always told me I was lying. So, I just stopped telling her and I haven’t told anyone else till this interview. If my mother wasn’t listening to me, who was going to? My only defence mechanism from the assault was to act more masculine. I thought that the more masculine I acted, the less these men would be interested in me.
Did acting masculine work?
Yes, it actually did. The men laid off my back, but then the problem changed. It became people constantly hounding me to “act like a girl”. I don’t know what acting like a girl meant. To me, I was a girl. What they wanted me to do was follow a strict set of rules and regulations and frame it under the guise of “being girly.” I was not having it.
Being masculine makes my mum disappointed, but she has always been disappointed in me. At this point, it’s normal. My elder sister is the good one that followed the rules and regulations. I think since I am the third child out of four, my mother already had the impression that third children are the unruly ones. It also didn’t help that I never listened and always wanted to do things my way.
Sounds like you and your mum have a rocky relationship
Yeah, we do, but it has gotten better than it was before. During COVID lockdown, we had time to be in each other’s faces and bond. Friction still comes up whenever she wants me to do something and I refuse, but we’re good. She’s there for me financially. Emotionally? She tries her best. Spiritually? She should be. I don’t know. I don’t really fuck with the whole spiritual thing anymore.
Wait, from wanting to be a Reverend Father to this? Why?
The whole idea just seems weird. There’s supposed to be one man who we all refer to as God, and then he created us to vibe, but then he also sprinkled so many misunderstandings into our life. Is all the conflict and death necessary? Like he’s playing games with us. Is this squid game?
As a child, believing was easy. It was just that you had to obey God, but as you grow older, there are things that you never bothered with as a child that are now considered sins. It’s hard. The whole idea is unnecessarily hard and I want no part of it.
What are the things in particular that became hard?
Everything was hard. It was like who I am is a sin. I don’t fuck with people that don’t fuck with me. I want to be a free spirit. I want to go with the flow and be spontaneous and I felt like I couldn’t do that as a Christain. You have to live life a certain way so you can make heaven and that’s so stressful.
Also, because around the time, I thought I was bisexual. At the beginning that wasn’t a problem for me. I thought liking women was something everyone did. I had loved women since I was a child. I wanted to be their friend and protect them from everything. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of women around me. However, that changed when I went to an all-girls boarding school. I went from barely seeing women to seeing them all the time.
As someone always trying to remove women from uncomfortable situations, I felt like a knight, and knights were meant to fall in love with women. It made sense to me. When I was 15-years-old, I realised I was a lesbian. Men don’t move me sexually or romantically. I could never bring myself to just touch them or let them get close to me.
When I got into my first year in university, I met a guy. He was nice to me and I don’t like hurting people’s feelings so we got closer. At this time, I had tried being feminine again. Then one day I went to visit him at his place and he tried sleeping with me. That just solidified the fact that I am not interested in men in any way and I am definitely a lesbian. I also went back to my masculine ways and that drove all the men away and brought the women closer.
Now you identify as a lesbian?
Yes. I am gay as fuck 100%. Men don’t just do it for me and that doesn’t really sit well with God and his people. It seemed like everything on the “do not do” list is what I embody. It’s hard.
I haven’t officially come out to anyone yet, but they know. My closet door is made of glass so people can see right through it. I avoid the whole marriage conversation, have a rainbow flag in my room and never ever talk about men in a romantic or sexual way. I openly talk about how much I think women are perfect, so anyone that asks the right questions will know.
What’s life like for you now?
Living life afraid of men. I am studying engineering and there are so many men in my department. They make comments about how all they need to change me is a good dick. The fact that there are so many men constantly around me just scares me. I just want to live my best life, no matter what that looks like. I want to be a happy person and just vibe.
For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here
The subject of this week’s What She Said is a 27-year-old queer woman who talks about being abused as a child, navigating her sexuality, and getting an abortion at the age of 20.
What is the earliest memory of your childhood?
The earliest thing I remember is being molested by my brother’s lesson teacher at age 3 or 4. I was always there during my brother’s lessons, so on this day, he asked my brother to go buy biscuits. After my brother left, he put me on the table and tried to finger me.
I am so sorry.
Oh, it’s fine. My parents found out because my brother saw and the teacher got arrested. I mean, I had a bunch of other not so good experiences. I was molested multiple times by neighbours and lesson teachers, trade people that came to work in the house and even a family friend.
Shit. Were there any good experiences?
Well, when I was 9, my 12-year-old female family friend started messing around with me. I felt comfortable and I liked it. In secondary school, I knew I was attracted to some of my schoolmates. I’d even say my first relationship was with my best friend then. Back then, I didn’t know I loved her but when I think about it now, I totally did.
At some point, I stopped sharing my bed with friends or hugging cause I felt many types of ways and I didn’t want to act on it. I went to an all-girls Catholic school, so they preached hellfire and brimstone for lesbians.
I’m sorry, that must have been tough. Did you ever figure it out?
In 2011 when I left for university, I started watching loads of YouTube videos about gays and lesbians and started taking those “how to know if you’re a lesbian” quizzes. I figured out I was queer in 2014 but I still identified as bisexual even though I knew deep down I wasn’t attracted to men.
I was religious around that time so I started dating and sleeping with men a lot cause I thought that would cure me. That’s when I got pregnant.
I was 20 and the guy was a family friend. He knew about my sexuality and was someone I was relatively comfortable with. He also had a massive crush on me, but I only saw him as a friend.
I moved back to Nigeria from the UK in 2014 for NYSC. He was in the house and lived with my parents. In 2015, I was still figuring out my sexuality and he knew this. He would come and beg me to have sex with him. I would sometimes oblige. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but I didn’t hate it either.
This particular time, it was on a Saturday night. He came to my room and begged again. I remember being completely still while he did his thing and then he came. He didn’t use a condom and I didn’t realise until I felt liquid in and on me. I let him know I was upset, cleaned myself and went to bed.
The next morning, I got the morning after pill and took both pills as prescribed. A couple of weeks later, I felt ill.
Yes, even with the pill. I am one of those people whose periods come at the exact day the app says it would.
My period was late so I knew something was wrong. I got my aunt to get me two pregnancy tests. I took one in the night and that was negative. I still wasn’t relieved because I knew something was wrong. Immediately I woke up, I took the second one immediately and it came out positive.
I reached out to a friend who I assumed might have had a similar experience and she gave me the names of the drugs to buy for an abortion.
Why?
I’d always said I would never keep a child I didn’t want. I was also about to leave for my master’s the next year and I genuinely did not like the father as anything more than a friend. The fact that he was borderline obsessed with me meant if I kept it, he would do everything he could to be directly in my life. I knew I couldn’t let that happen.
Well within your right. So, how did you go about it?
This is where my privilege comes into play. I’d just gotten back from the UK, so I had a UK account with money in it. I googled and found an organization that delivered abortion pills around the world. They would ship the pills free but typically wanted some sort of donation so others who couldn’t afford to could get it. I paid €60 and then the wait started.
The pills were due here in about two weeks and I was so nervous. In the meantime, my best friend and her sister who was dating a doctor helped get a prescription for the exact pills from him. We went to almost every pharmacy in the Lekki/Ajah axis and we could only find one of the pills. I think the first pill was to stop the hormones that helped pregnancy grow in the body and the second was to eject/remove the fetus from the body. We could only find the ejecting pill and not the stopping pill. I became so depressed, I contemplated suicide for the first time in my life.
I really could not imagine having a child at that age and worse still, with that man. Thankfully, the drug came in less than two weeks so I took them as prescribed. The website also has a doctor who checks in on you.
How did you feel?
I had the worst cramps I’d ever had in my life. I couldn’t even show the pain because no one else in my house knew what was happening except the guy, and I wasn’t talking to him. Two days after, I went to pee and felt the clot of blood slip through and I knew it was done. A week after that, I went to the hospital where I had my test done and they said somehow I wasn’t pregnant anymore. My womb was empty and for the first time in such a long time, I could finally breathe.
Not everybody who has an abortion was raped or did not take the right precautions. Sometimes you just don’t want to be a parent so you do the right thing and let it go.
Did you tell anyone in your family about it eventually?
The only person who knew in my family was my aunt, the one who bought me the pregnancy tests. She was also the first family member I came out to. I recently told my older brother about it two years ago. He didn’t really care, was just happy I was fine.
I don’t plan on ever telling my parents, but if they found out, they’d be disappointed. Eventually, though, they’d be fine.
Would you ever want children though?
I mean, I probably want a child or two. I had the abortion because I simply did not want to be responsible for anyone. I also didn’t want to rely on anyone and having a child would mean I’d have to lean on either family or friends.
Well, it took a while because I didn’t want to be very conclusive while I wasn’t too sure. Most of my friends now say they wondered why I came out as bisexual cause they apparently all knew I was a lesbian. Now, I use queer because there is one guy I know I genuinely liked. I’m not attracted to him in any way but I just feel like saying I’m a lesbian is diminishing whatever we had then.
For more stories like this, check out our #WhatSheSaid and for more women like content, click here
Oyin* reached out to me when I put a call out for women to tell me about the worst thing a friend has done to them. In her message, she said her best friend and girlfriend at the time outed her. I was curious about how that played out and I asked more questions. Here’s what she told me:
I knew I liked girls since I was a child but I didn’t have an opportunity to explore it until I joined a new school in SSS 1. On my first day, I recognised Ese*, a classmate from primary school. She remembered me too. We spent the rest of the day together. After that day, we did everything together. We were seatmates in class and we ate together during break time. On the weekends, she came over to my house, and we watched TV.
I had come across the word ‘lesbian’ before I met Ese. I knew I liked her more than a friend but I was too scared to say anything to her. One Saturday, we were together at my house watching TV. We were waiting for the commercials to end when she asked if I liked her. I told her I liked her as a friend and she said, “I mean, do you like me as a girlfriend?” I was too shocked to say anything. Then, she kissed me. It was unspoken, but we started dating that day.
We dated for about a year, stealing kisses in between classes. Midway through SSS 2, she stopped coming over to my house as often as she used to. One day during break time, I got our food and headed to the spot we always ate. Ten minutes after I arrived at our spot, one of our classmates walked in. He asked why I was sitting there alone, “Are you waiting for Ese?” I was annoyed that he was asking because I knew he liked her but I didn’t want to be rude. I ignored him, and on his way out, he said, “I just hope you have not infected Ese with your lesbianism.” I said it was too late. He rushed to my seat and slapped me, followed by blows to my face. He beat me until I passed out. I woke up in the sickbay where the principal told me I was being expelled for fighting in school.
After the incident, Ese stopped talking to me. My classmates pretty much avoided me till we graduated. I thought there was something wrong with me, so I tried to stop liking girls. I got on Facebook and flirted with the boys. In my first year at University, I tried dating a guy. He was dark-skinned, tall with an afro — the kind of boy the girls in my hostel liked. I knew I wasn’t attracted to him but I indulged him whenever he made moves on me. It dragged on until my second year at the university. Then I came home for the holiday, and I met Tosin*.
I was running an errand for my mum in our estate when Tosin passed me on a bike. She stopped after she saw me and came to talk to me. She asked if I lived in the estate and I pointed at my house. We exchanged numbers and she left. The next day, she came over to see me. We talked and walked to her house. We held hands as we walked through the route without street lights. She told me her age, and I told her we were agemates. We talked about school. It was a nice conversation and I didn’t want it to end.
We continued to take night strolls from my house to hers. We would take a route that was often deserted. One day, she pulled me to her and kissed me. I felt so good but I was also worried about the few houses around there. What if someone saw us? She didn’t mind though.
Her parents were pretty cool. Tosin told me that they both schooled abroad, so they didn’t mind a lot of things Nigerian parents did. They were excited that she had a friend in the estate and encouraged me to come over often. My mum was also excited that I had made a new friend. Tosin and spent a lot of time together. Sometimes, we just watched TV. Other times, we had hot make-out sessions.
One day, we were kissing when her mum walked in. I pulled away immediately but I wasn’t sure if her mum saw us. He asked Tosin to get her something like nothing happened. After Tosin left the room, her mum turned to me and said, “There’s no need to hide. I am a bisexual woman and I used to date women before I got married to Tosin’s father.” When Tosin returned, she told me her mum knew we were dating. It’s still one of my favourite memories to date. I realized that even her dad knew and none of them ever made me uncomfortable. We started to hang out more at her house because I was scared of my mum and my sisters finding out about us.
Tosin and I got closer. I went to school and while I was there, we stayed in touch. I couldn’t wait to come home to her. In August 2018, I came home for the holiday. That night, we took a walk around our estate. We held hands and talked about how much we missed each other. When we got to the route we often took, she stopped to kiss my cheeks. Suddenly a man walked past us. I hadn’t realized that he was following us. I became scared but she didn’t seem to care. We fought about it and our walk ended abruptly. She went home, and so did I.
Two weeks later, my mum sent me to the house behind ours to buy pap. The compound was empty when I walked in. As I was figuring out what to do, the man from that night walked in through the gate and locked it. He walked past me into the building and locked the door behind him. I was afraid and I wanted to leave immediately. I knocked on the door of his apartment but he didn’t answer. I could hear him shuffling inside the house. I kept knocking for a few minutes before he opened the door and pulled me inside.
I screamed as loud as I could when he started hitting me but we both knew no one would hear me over the sound of generators blaring. At some point, I stopped trying to fight back. When he realised I was too weak to move, he raped me. I don’t know how long I was out for but I know when I woke up, he was out of sight. Outside, I could hear someone moving around. My crying must have been loud because the woman I came to see opened the door. She rushed to my side and took me to her apartment where she cleaned me up before taking me home.
She didn’t ask any questions and I was grateful to see that my mum was not at home when we got there. I was glad she didn’t tell my mum what happened either. I couldn’t have been able to deal with the reactions that would have come out of it at the time. Tosin came over later that day to check on me as usual but I couldn’t talk to her. She kept pushing, asking me what was wrong and I snapped at her. I told her I didn’t want to be with her anymore and I hated what we were doing. I could see the confusion on her face as she walked out of my room. I was so scared that man would rape her too. In my head, the only way to prevent that was to stop doing what we were doing.
I blocked her everywhere and deleted everything that would remind me of her. I didn’t even pick her mother’s calls. I knew they were planning to move back to the UK later that year, so I convinced myself that I was doing the best thing for everyone.
Back in school, I returned to dating guys. I went back to my ex-boyfriend. This time, I was determined to feel something for him so I had sex with him. It was such an underwhelming experience for me but I kept trying. A few months later, Tosin’s mum called me. After deliberating for a few seconds, I picked up. She asked how I was doing and I said I was fine. She asked after my mum and siblings as well. Towards the end of the call, she told me that Tosin had died. I screamed. She said Tosin had been sick for a while — something about her heart. I cried so much that day. I thought of all the times she complained about her chest and I wished I urged her to take it seriously. I became even more depressed in the months that followed.
The idea that something wrong with me seeped into everything I did. I felt like if I could correct myself, everything would be fine. Every trail left me feeling worse. I had decided to take a break when I met Emily*. It was a new semester and she was my roommate in the room I was assigned to. She laughed at my jokes and liked to sit on my bed.
One day, she asked me if I liked girls. I was too tired to lie, so I said yes. She hugged me and invited me to hang out the following day. I went with her to a lounge where other girls who liked girls gathered. She introduced me to the group and they cooed a welcome. We spent the rest of the day, eating fries and chicken and gisting. On my way home, I remember telling myself, the jig is up, you are a lesbian. In that moment, I wished Tosin was alive so I could call her and apologize — tell her I know I love women and I love her. I cried all the way home.
Now I won’t say that accepting my sexuality has cured my depression but I know it’s made me a little lighter. I am even happier knowing there’s a lot of people like me who are done living in shame.
I put a call out for women to tell me the things that affect their mental health most. In Ada’s* message, she said her parents found out she is queer. I was curious about how that played out and I asked more questions. Here’s what she told me:
I am the first daughter of my Igbo family. This means I am expected to act a certain way and live a certain life as my parents’ daughter. They hate that I prefer wearing a T-shirt and jeans to the things other girls wear so my mum buys dresses for me often. She also makes sure I wear makeup before leaving the house because according to her, it makes me more womanly and more likely to find a husband. Even now that I am 26, they still insist on knowing the exact places I’m headed when I leave the house. It’s been difficult to break free from them especially because I am queer.
I have always known I liked girls. When I was about 14 years old, my mum had this friend she visited often, who had a daughter called Nkem*. Most times, I went with my mum to her friend’s house so I could see Nkem. She was so beautiful. She was a year younger than me so we bonded fast. We would watch movies, play video games or just talk when there was no light. I found myself drawn to her in a way I didn’t understand. I guess she felt the same way but we both didn’t know how to say it. One day, when I was at her house playing video games, as usual, she kissed me and I liked it. After the kiss, we just stayed there, leaning on the bed frame, holding hands. That was the day I confirmed I was queer.
Before then, I thought it was a phase that I would get over. I knew I liked some of the girls in my class in secondary school but I stayed away from them, hoping the feelings would go away. I started dating guys to distract myself but the relationships never lasted. I would kiss them but I didn’t want to do anything else with them. When my friends talked about having sex with their boyfriends and I couldn’t relate because it wasn’t something I even desired.
I kept forcing myself to like guys until I got into the university. I thought I had a problem because conversations with guys were always awkward. Trying to get intimate with them was even worse — it didn’t feel right. But talking to girls was easy. In my first year, I had a crush on a girl that lived in my hostel but she was three years ahead of me. I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world but I never told her because I was scared of how she would take it.
In my second year, I met Isoken*. I liked her and she liked me too. We would always hang out together and if we weren’t able to, we would be texting each other. I knew what we had was love so I brought it up one day and we talked about it. That’s how we started dating. Sex with her was epic — I finally understood what my friends were always gushing about. But we also had our issues. She’s from a religious home and was committed to going to church. Whenever we kissed or had sex, it was bittersweet for her because even though she liked it, she felt like she was sinning against God. One day, she loves me and another day she’s sad because she thinks God is angry with her. I understood it because I was a worker in my church at the time but I had gotten to a point where I knew nothing was wrong with me. I would tell her this but it wasn’t enough.
We had to end our relationship after eight months because she couldn’t deal with guilt anymore. I cried for weeks because we had both decided to stay away from each other so we could heal. It felt like hell but eventually, I got over it and was able to be friends with her. I continued dating other women after her until I graduated from university.
Since I returned home from school, my parents have been asking me for a boyfriend. My mum said she has never seen me with a boy before and my dad agreed. I told them I was too busy to sustain a relationship. This excuse worked until sometime during the lockdown. My dad noticed that I had not been wearing the dresses my mum bought me. He asked my siblings if they knew what was going on with me. It was funny to me because they are just clothes. However, one day, I had just returned home when my dad cornered me in the kitchen. He said, “I know you are a lesbian.” Before I could respond, he grabbed my phone. Then he said, “Open it before I slap you.” I did. He went through my pictures. He read my messages with women I was flirting with and some groups I was in with other queer people. He called me a disgrace to our family. He followed me around for the rest of the day calling me names.
The next day, he asked me to pray with some bible verses against the spirit of homosexuality. I pretended to so we could move on but that wasn’t the end of the harassment. A few weeks later, my father grabbed my phone again and went through my messages. He slapped me and kept insulting me until it was time to eat. Another time, he used a koboko to flog me, while threatening to kill me, “aka m ka m ga e ji gbuo gi ma obu na I choro I kwusi I bi ndu ndi okpo ntu.” That’s when I knew that I was living with a psychopath.
What scares me most is how my father doesn’t care about how I feel or what anyone else thinks of how he treats me. I have always been the perfect child — the one with good grades and a calm demeanour. He doesn’t think of that when he is hurting me. He calls me an abomination whenever he gets the chance. On some days, he wants me to go for deliverance to cast the demon out. On other days, he is convinced he can cast it out himself. My siblings can’t do much for me except console me after his rage has subsided but when he’s there, they have to act like they hate who I am too.
I have fallen into depression. I have bad dreams where he is beating me nonstop until I wake up. I am now under a form of house arrest. No one can come to visit me and I can’t go out unless I am supervised. They know I’m a strong-willed person and I could run away but where would I go? I am glad I have my phone and I can still talk to some of my queer friends. I made a burner account on Twitter that I log out of often because I realised my dad could be monitoring my main account. I delete texts as soon as they come in so he doesn’t find them. I try not to spend time on my phone when I am in front of my parents or answer any calls so they don’t get suspicious and ask questions. Every day feels just as painful as the one before. I don’t know how I am ever going to leave this hell.
Lesbian Visibility week started on April 26th. It is a week set aside to celebrate lesbians around the world. Being a lesbian in Nigeria sometimes involves listening to people volunteering their assumptions about lesbians. In this article, I asked 7 Nigerian lesbians the funniest misconception of lesbians they’ve heard. Here’s what they had to say:
Dinma, 27
The one I keep hearing is that I hate men. They also say I have never had a good fuck from a good dick. One has even suggested that I should be have threesomes with men to enjoy sex better because there’s no sex without dick. Another person said it’s marine spirit that possessed me.
Nkay, 24
The funniest thing I’ve heard is that I’m practicing lesbianism. A practice, LMAO!
Titi, 27
My ex boyfriend asked if it’s because he impregnated someone else that I became a lesbian. One man was trying to convince me to have sex with him by saying that if I had sex with him, it won’t stop me from being a lesbian.
Cynthia, 30
One man once told me that I have not had sex with a man I truly connected with that’s why I am a lesbian. He said I should keep trying until I learn to love it. LOL.
Oby, 25
My mom used to say lesbians have sex with tools. This means there is a special place in hell for us.
Nike, 19
My friends used to say a woman can’t give me what I need in life. I don’t even know what means. What do they think I need and why do they think they are the ones who know it better? One time, one of them asked me why I was depriving myself of a good life? LOL
Simi, 22
The funniest thing I have heard is that too many men must have broken my heart and that is why I am gay. I laughed when they said it.
Vee, 20
I was 18 when my mum outed me to my dad. He told me that lesbians never make it in life. I said, “What about Ellen Degeneres?” He said it’s because she’s white. My aunt said lesbians get mouth cancer because they are always eating pussy. Omo, I couldn’t talk.
Love Lifeis a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
Audio: Becoming Best Friends Helped Us Stay Together
Jennifer, 28 and Emem, 26, have been dating for eight months. In today’s episode of Love Life, they talk about navigating a lesbian relationship in Nigeria and learning to work together as business partners.
What’s your earliest memory of each other?
Jennifer: I was walking back from the gate after seeing my friend off. I saw her from a distance. It was dark, but she looked lovely. She was smiling so much that I knew she was going to speak to me, and she did.
Emem: That day, as I saw her walking towards me, I was like OMG! Who be this fine babe? My friends and I were at a party within the neighbourhood. The party was fizzling out, so my friends and I sat outside beside a car. I spoke to her when she came close and invited her in, but she said she had friends waiting for her and had to let them know where she was going.
I saw her again when the party ended as I was walking home. She was standing by herself, so I sharply asked for her number. I told her she better respond to me when I message her. She wondered why I thought she wouldn’t respond to me, and I said I know fine girls don’t talk to people. She promised she’d respond, and we parted ways. The next day by 6 a.m., I texted her and guess what? She didn’t reply. I had to keep bothering her.
Jennifer: LMAO. I remember the next day when I woke up, and saw her text on WhatsApp at 6 a.m. I was like, who messages anybody at 6 a.m.? I don’t like people disturbing me in the morning, so I thought this girl will be a nuisance.
She called me later that day; I picked by mistake, so I had to talk to her. We spoke, and I liked her, but it was awkward I kept thinking, a tomboy is asking me out. I kept the conversation short and ended the call fast. I didn’t talk to her for a few days, even though she was texting me.
One day, I was at the salon fixing my nails when her messages kept buzzing my phone. Again, I mistakenly opened it, and had to reply because I didn’t want to be rude. I saw that they were long messages, so I sent her a video of the technician fixing my nails and told her I would text her when I was done. She said we should hang out. That’s how she seized me. That day we hung out is the day we started dating.
Emem: When we saw, I just said, you know you are my girlfriend now, right? It was so easy, LOL.
Emem: The relationship has been amazing. We’ve had ups and downs, especially because we are both girls. I let her have way every time because I am the man in the relationship. I hate it, but it’s more peaceful when I do. I prefer it that way because I don’t want to lose her. One day, I will catch her, and everything will go my way. Jennifer is a fucking handful, but she does everything for me, so that part is great.
Jennifer: It’s been challenging because of how people perceive us when they see us. Emem is masculine-presenting, so it’s easy to tell that we are a couple in public. We either get admiration or judgemental stares from people.
Emem: Yup, they look at us like we are supposed to be afraid of them. I challenge them in my head like come and beat us now. But at the beginning of our relationship, it wasn’t easy for Jennifer. I have always accepted myself as I am, and everyone around me, including my family, knows it. For Jennifer, it was new.
There are times where Jennifer would be cranky and upset, but she can’t tell me what’s wrong because she didn’t want me to feel like she doesn’t want the relationship anymore. She eventually told me how she had to battle with her family and her friends. She knew she would lose people because she is dating me. But she wanted to be with me, and that’s also why I stayed. I could have left because there are other girls, I didn’t want to be with someone who would be unhappy, and I would blame myself for it. She got over it, though.
Jennifer: It was terrible because I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I met her. What started as a joke started getting serious, and I was scared. I was thinking of how my parents, siblings, friends, and cousins would take it. I’m from a very strict home, and I didn’t want to ‘shame’ the family. So there were days I spent just crying, unable to do anything else. I was thinking, why do I have to explain my love to anybody? Emem would sit beside me helplessly. I felt terrible for making her feel bad, but I think I had to go through all that to get here. Also, I think the fact that we became each other’s best friends helped us stay together. We would fight over the littlest and silliest things but also laugh over those things. That helped our bond and helped us overcome the societal pressure of being in the relationship.
So how are things now?
Jennifer: Sofar, my siblings are in love with Emem. Funny enough, they already knew who I was before I told them. In secondary school, I always had pictures of studs on my phone. I would make them my wallpaper, but I didn’t think much of it. So when I told my sisters, they were not surprised. My mum knows Emem as my friend. She comes to my house often, and they exchange pleasantries. My family is always pointing out how we look alike.
What’s the best part of the relationship?
Emem: Food! She cooks for me every time.
Even if I’m hungry at 12, Jennifer would get up to cook for me. It blows my mind how much she cares about me. With her, I’m free — I could be anything with Jennifer. I love that she trusts me, and no matter what anyone says, she would talk to me first. It’s that bond for me.
Jennifer: The best part for me is having the best friend I can be intimate with.
Emem: We run businesses together. There was this time we fought for two weeks straight because we couldn’t understand each other. We are two different people, so it took a while to navigate. I am pretty stubborn so getting me to be on the same page with her was difficult. She was so angry at how I was handling things. I thought we would break up, but eventually, we got through it.
Jennifer: I didn’t think we were going to make it too. I broke up with her twice during that period. I don’t think we sat down to resolve it. It just passed. Emem found a way to let me do things the way I wanted. When I do, and it doesn’t work, then we can talk about it. These fights were about decision making in our business. Emem is slow and steady; I’m not that patient. Also, we figured that we never came up with solutions when we fought.
Emem: Yeah! So we decided that we must talk about every fight. She tells me, hey, I’m upset, and I promise not to do it again. Jennifer’s head is very hot, so you have to let her have her way.
What is your favourite thing about each other?
Jennifer: She’s kind. That’s one of the things that pulled me to her. You would never hear Emem say anything bad about another person. She is tough on the outside, but she does that to shield her softness. My favourite thing is that I am the only one who gets to see that part of her— she can be mean to everybody and nice to me.
Emem: She knows how to love. She makes everything easy for me. She reminds me every day that she is on my side. On Saturday, I went to play soccer, and I won a medal. Jennifer hangs it beside her bed so she can look at it every day. I don’t deserve her love, but I’m grateful. She is interested in my well-being. She’s the sweetest woman ever.
Rate your relationship on a scale of 1 to 10
Emem: 10!
Jennifer: Yes, 10! I am so here for this love. We have regular relationship issues, but most times, we’re goofy.
Emem: Plus, we wake up beside each other every day, and it’s just so beautiful.
Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.
If you want to share your own Love Life story, fill this form.
Love Lifeis a Zikoko weekly series about love, relationships, situationships, entanglements and everything in between.
Audio: Love Life – We Hate Having To Hide Our Love
*Dorcas, 22, and *Lara, 18, have been dating for 9 months now. For today’s Love Life, they talk about hiding their long-distance relationship from their religious families, all while trying to plan a future together.
What’s your earliest memory of your partner?
Dorcas: Swiping right on Tinder. She didn’t even have a profile picture, but I thought her name was interesting. We matched. . She wasn’t very active on Tinder, so we took things to WhatsApp. Then she asked me out.
Lara: Funny thing is, I remember her asking me out with a song. I think the song is “Suited” by Shekinah.
Dorcas: I told her that I was done dating for the year and just wanted to have fun, but she kept shooting her shot. After a month of chatting, I realised that I actually loved her.
What do you love the most about her?
Dorcas: Her smile. I had no idea that people with gap-tooth could be so beautiful when they smiled. Every single time she smiles, I’m like, ‘Oh my God. She is so beautiful’.
Lara: Dorcas gives the best advice. I cannot make a decision without letting her know. She knows what to say at any given situation and she is so supportive.
Speaking of support, how is your family handling your relationship?
Lara: They are not aware. My parents are conservative and religious. They do not accept our kind of relationship, so, right now, only my close friends know.
Dorcas: Right now, only my brother is aware. He found out because he kept probing, but he is super cool about it. I can’t tell my mum because I don’t think she’s ready. I have been dropping hints about not bringing home a husband. I’m always like, “Don’t be too disappointed if I don’t get married”.
So, marriage is not in the plan?
Dorcas: It is, but marriage isn’t an endpoint. Tags are not my thing, but I want us to always be together in a committed relationship. If that ends up being a marriage, then sure.
Lara: Dorcas and I have spoken about it and yes, it’s something we’d like to do. My biggest worry about marriage is disappointing my family, but I can’t help it. I am not going to live an unhappy life to make them feel better. If things get to a point where they cut me off, then I’ll learn to accept it.
Dorcas: I grew up in a very religious family. I think my mum might die if she finds out. She’s slowly accepting the fact that I don’t have or want a boyfriend, but she made me promise not to join the ‘LGBT+ clique’. She said it like it was a cult or something. I have sha been preparing her for the worst.
Speaking of which, do you plan to have kids?
Lara: YES. I want children, so we are definitely having kids.
Dorcas: I am not really a baby person. They are cute and I love my nieces and nephews, but I am not freaked out by the baby thing Larawants them though, so, yes, we are having them.
Nice. Do you feel heterosexual relationships are different in any way from what you share?
Lara: I haven’t been in a heterosexual relationship so I’m not sure how it works, but I’ll say that in a lesbian relationship, both parties are getting more pleasure from the sex because they understand their bodies.
Dorcas: Yes. The sex is definitely longer and more thrilling. There are no defined roles, no head-neck thing here, just two women loving each other. Although, she tends to take the lead during sex, showing me what she wants me to do and I just follow through. She’s actually my first.
Awww, so cute. Asides homophobes and the Nigerian government, what has been the biggest threat to your relationship?
Dorcas: Like most relationships, we have misunderstandings. For me, it’s that Laradoesn’t like to step out of her comfort zone. I find myself making most of the moves to see her and I want her to do more. Another thing is having to hide.
My love language is spending quality time, and I hate the fact that I can’t love her openly and freely. The other day, she came to see me and everyone kept calling her my friend. I introduced her as my baby and they said they know, but I don’t think they do.
Lara: It’s the distance for me — we hardly get to see each other. We once had this fight about this online couple contest. We were supposed to send our pictures in for the contest.
I agreed at first but after asking a few questions, I wasn’t comfortable with it anymore. It caused a disagreement because Dorcas had already sent in the pictures and wasn’t sure how to tell them we weren’t participating anymore. Plus, Dorcas can get really mean, haha.
One thing you both have in common is coming from a religious family. How do you reconcile your faith with your sexuality?
Dorcas: At first, I used to be very churchy. My relationship with God involved a lot of praying for answers about who I am, but I soon realised that God doesn’t make mistakes. I am a masterpiece.
I know that God loves me and that’s enough for me. For people who like to threaten gay people with bible quotes, I’ll say this: there was a time when the bible was used to endorse slavery. Now, times have changed and a lot of things have to be revised.
Lara: It’s really difficult, but I still have to hold on to God. My parents are super religious and they carry all of us along so I’d say my faith is pretty strong. Although, I have found myself wondering what would happen if I wasn’t a lesbian. I didn’t choose to be like this. I like this life. I like loving my woman.
*Names have been changed for anonymity.
Check back every Thursday by 9 AM for new Love Life stories here. The stories will also be a part of the Ships newsletter, so sign up here.
If you want to share your own Love Life story, fill this form.
Sex Lifeis 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 lesbian in her early 20s who, after many trysts with boys, discovered her sexuality when she got to university. . After one traumatic sexual experience though, she’s now terrified of sleeping with women.
When did you have sex for the first time?
It depends on what kind of sex you’re asking about. In my head, there’s oral sex, there’s penetrative sex, which can be broken down into vaginal sex and anal sex, then there’s fingering, masturbation and more.
Ah. I see. So what was your first sexual experience?
I was doing some pretty weird things when I was a teenager. I was in boarding school, and we had access to porn because we had personal laptops. I explored with boys in my class. It was often in class, while the teacher was teaching, or in an uncompleted building after lights out. Handjobs, blowjobs and rimming. I used to lick their buttholes like tomtom — I find it absolutely disgusting now, but then I actually liked it. I even tried to finger a few boys in the ass a few times, but they never quite liked it.
That’s interesting.
I never let them kiss me sha.
Why not?
I was just following what I watched in Pretty Woman. In addition to that, I wasn’t attracted to any of them.
So why were you doing it?
I was called a weirdo for doing absolutely nothing. I was also bullied for it. It felt like I was excluded from a lot of circles, so I wanted to do my own thing. We were 25 in my class, and there were about 6 classes in my set. Before the end of JSS 3, I had done something sexual with all the boys in my class and at least half in every other class. But never seniors, because even then, I was hyper aware that my agency wouldn’t exist.
So what happened next?
I kept at that for a long while, then in SS2, I think, I tried anal sex with a new boy in my class. I didn’t want to have vaginal sex because of pregnancy. I knew anal sex was going to be painful, but I was like, “Isn’t that what all the white women are doing? Us here that we’re used to pain and suffering nko?”
How did it go?
It failed. I didn’t know that lube was important to make the process seamless. The guy too, ode, he didn’t know anything. So he forced it in and it was painful. I told him to bring it out quickly. I didn’t know when I started speaking Yoruba.
LMAO
Omo, I was so scarred by the experience that I just went back to normal handjobs and all.
Had you kissed anyone at that point?
Nope. Weirdly. Someone forced me to kiss him when we were having oral sex and I was like, isn’t it enough that I’m kissing your dirty penis, you now want me to kiss your mouth? I don’t count that because it wasn’t consensual.
True. When did you eventually kiss someone?
University, and I had just discovered that I liked women, not men. Which is interesting because that was about the time I started taking my faith seriously and started covering. It started slowly, but by mid-first semester, I was already wearing a hijab. Discovering religion is a story on it’s own. Things were falling apart and it began to feel like it was my fault.
Sha, sha, that’s how I used to have serious religious discussions with this babe who was my course mate. And one day, we were lying down side by side on her bed, and she began to trace lines on my skin. Everywhere on my body lit with serious fire and goosebumps. I had never experienced anything like it. She didn’t even start from my face. She started from my thighs and worked her way up. When she kissed me, I kissed her back; I liked it a lot.
Mad.
We started dating immediately, but I was still very conflicted about the entire thing because I had been with boys and those experiences didn’t do anything to me. Being with her did a lot to me. I started to realise that there were friends from secondary school I had crushed on but dismissed as nothing more than girl-on-girl infatuation. Whatever that is.
So how did you realise your sexuality?
There was no defining moment for me. From that time on, I just explored every attraction I had with a woman even if it meant that I was cheating on my babe sexually. Before I knew it, I wasn’t dating any men. I was definitely not emotionally attracted to them (men), not to talk of sexually.
So when did you have sex for the first time?
In my third year, I started dating someone new. I’m a bit picky with emotions. So even when I was cheating on my first girlfriend, I knew there was nothing there, that the emotions and feelings were with my girlfriend and the side chicks were just side chicks. We broke up after she found out I was cheating. I was yimu-ing because I knew she was cheating on me with an Alfa in our class, but let me not get into that.
I had a criteria for my new girlfriend. She had to be Muslim, with zero interest in men. I wanted us to commit to each other, not just date for dating sake. I wanted us to leave Nigeria immediately after university. That was my plan for whatever relationship I entered. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out.
Let’s start with the sex.
The sex mid gan, let me not lie. I just didn’t know how mid it was. I just knew it was so mid, I used to dread having sex with her. I could do all the other things with her, just not sex. Then I cheated again. Oops.
Wow.
I cheated because I just had to know what I was missing. It was with an older woman, sugar mummy material. I had real orgasms, and I was wowed by the explosions I felt. In fact, it was at that point I probably realised that there was no way my body was built for men.
The next time we had sex though, she passed out.
Oh wow.
I was so scared – I imagined she had died. I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I splashed water on her face and she stirred. That was when I knew that she was at least alive. Still I was scared, imagine getting caught like this (naked) in the process of asking for help? What do I say we were doing? It was my girlfriend I called for help.
Yikes.
We got her to the hospital and she was fine. Luckily, no one suspected that we were anything other than relatives.
What did they say was wrong?
She’d overdosed on something.
Did this experience affect you in any way?
Well, my girlfriend broke up with me — actually, she just ghosted. After that, I wasn’t interested in sex or casual dating for a while.
When I did try to have sex about a year later, I just couldn’t. I was so scared that the babe was going to pass out. I started crying in front of her. She was irritated with good reason – after all I said I’d do to her. So now, I just stay away from sex. God will not let them koba me.
You’ve not had sex since then?
Nope. I’ve done every other thing but sex. I’m dating now oh, but I’ve told her that I’m not ready to start having sex right now. She understands, but she’s saying therapy. Mama, it’s me that doesn’t want to have sex again, nothing is wrong. I guess.
Do you miss it?
Nope. I just want to be doing gently for now. What if I get to therapy, become “fine,” then have sex and something happens to my babe? Abeg.
Life is more than sex if we’re being serious. I masturbate and my babe and I do other things. Sometimes, I think I can go my entire life without sex. Let’s be looking. And don’t ask me how I rate my sex life, please. Oral sex is 10 even though it’s mostly me pleasuring my babe — I’m a bit scared to be touched. Masturbation is 10, but my overall sex life? Let’s just be thanking God.
Are you still religious though?
Yes now. Who do you think is helping me through this tough time without premium orgasms?
