The average Nigerian woman does not have the guts to let her partner know when she feels like making love. The few women that do are perceived by Nigerian men as being too straight forward and promiscuous. As a result, Nigerian women are forced to keep their feelings dormant until the man initiates the act of love making. This some times makes me question the essence of being a Nigerian woman if I cannot express myself sexually.
Love making is an exciting event. It is an act that cannot be easily described unless experienced.
To a great extent, its an act that can make or break a relationship between two individuals. It's an intimate feeling that can be shared between two people. An intimacy that can be shared only if the two people involved mentally at a similar level. Unfortunately, a majority of Nigerian women do not share this kind of intimacy with their partners.
This is because most Nigerian women are raised not to express their sexual needs verbally or through body language. A lot of women are brought up to believe that as long as the man is satisfied, that is all that matters, thereby forgetting that we, as women also have sexual needs to be fulfilled.
Unfortunately, this upbringing has come back to hurt some of our women. In this day and age, the average Nigerian man does not want a dominant woman in bed. They would rather have a sexually liberated woman in the bedroom.
Sometimes you wonder what extreme Nigerian men will go to when it comes to love making with Nigerian women. Will the Nigerian man ask the Nigerian woman if she was satisfied by him or if she did not satisfy him?
Will he let her know? Of course not.
All he feels is that she lies down there "like a log of wood" while he deposits into her. It makes me wonder when the woman will take some control and stop playing the innocent game.
Based on the interviews I've conducted with Nigerian men, about sixty percent of Nigerian men said that they have no passion in love making when it comes to Nigerian women. By the same token, a majority of the women I interviewed also said that Nigerian men are not as romantic as they would like them to be.
According to one woman's response, "All they need is sex, and before you know it, it's over." In other words, the women seem used as masturbation objects rather than partners during love making. The Nigerian women I spoke to also lamented about wanting romance just like any other woman in the world.
The women also accused the men of not being verbal about their sexual desires. That if they were, this could make it fun in the bedroom. In my opinion, both men and women need to be outspoken. They need to tell each other their needs and what positions will work best for both parties.
To understand some of these sexual problems, we have to go back to history.
In some parts of Nigeria, women are circumcised. A majority of men seem to have even more problems in cases where the woman they are involved with has been circumcised. Since circumcision involves the removal of some of the clitoris, most men have expressed difficulty in sexually stimulating a woman that has undergone circumcision. To some extent, it's true that its a little bit harder to stimulate circumcised women but it is not impossible. In my opinion, men use this as a lame excuse for not being romantic as a result making the women feel guilty for what is clearly not 100% their fault.
Circumcision is a form of sex control as they put it. This could be true but if the woman does not have the urge to get sexually involved with any man that comes her way but it does not mean that it's because she's been circumcised. Circumcision in Nigeria is different from other African countries. In other countries, it involves the absolute removal of the clitoris and in cases where the woman does not undergo circumcision, she becomes an object of laughter and tease by the entire community. On the other hand, some parts of Nigeria that do not partake in the circumcision ritual. Unfortunately most of our men think that once a woman has been circumcised, the clitoris is completely mutilated which is not true. Maybe if the men will be just a little more sensitive and touch the woman's body, they just might realize that there is still that special zone. The men should be able to put their misconceptions aside and focus on fulfilling the woman's needs regardless of whether the woman is circumcised or not.
This will also help the men not to be so selfish and self-centered. As I sit and reminisce, I can recall that when I was still back home in Nigeria, my uncle used to tell me that most of our men did not know how to deal with circumcised women. He said this is mostly because they are romancing such women, they do not take time to touch her sensitive parts. In most cases, they do not know where to touch her and will not take the time to ask her where she will like to be touched. They are usually just ready for instant penetration and ejaculation.
Psychologically, our men have brain washed our women into believing that we cannot enjoy sex. As a result, when they come over to the United States, some of them chose to date only American women and the reason that they are are easier to stimulate.
Most of our Nigerian men want something that they have never experienced sexually. Most of them being here want explicit sex from our women.
Linda contributes her personal opinion to USAfrica The Newspaper on social and very personal matters. This article will appear exclusively in the July, 1996 edition of USAfrica The Newspaper. Subscriptions for USAfrica is only $40 for 24 issues/ $20 for 12 issues and should be directed to the attention:
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