Why Sex is Overrated and
Love is the New Black
It starts
from the moment you lay eyes on her. Apparently, you’ve all of three seconds
from that point to leave your mark… smile… approach… say something! From then–
their first words unfortunately birthing their last. Others, however, will
successfully graduate to the next stage, strolling into the “what’s your name? Age?
Job?” interrogation, but yet still fall at the final hurdle—No number… No Pin
(I’m old school!) And then there are the lucky ones, call them the
charmers…players…brothers with a little game…. They may move to gain her
acceptance, but what next? A few raunchy messages followed by a steamy
late-night conversation or two… First Date… Second… First kiss… Mind blowing
sex? That’s what you see in the movies right?
As
clichéd as the above scenario may be, it’s one that never ceases to make me
chuckle. Unlike the constant horde of glorified images and sexual innuendos we
are bombarded with every day via the media or even the embellished banter that
happens to strike up at lunch with the girls in the staff canteen, sex
in real life just isn’t the same–try taking it down a FEW pegs! I mean,
the woman that swears she always has multiple orgasms, or the guy that boasts
he’ll last till six in the morning… Really? OK, I confess, I do, but that’s a
whole other convo!
I’d be
lying if I told you that I loathed the act—not in the slightest. It’s a
blessing to be able to cradle in the arms of the one you love and experience
the heights of pleasure and intimacy that sex can bring to a relationship. But
unless there is anything substantial between the pair of you, just like the
high of a drug or the intoxication of alcohol, the euphoria will simply last
for a while and with time eventually subside. Hence why the feelings of remorse
often kick into play the moment he’s turned over and shut his eyes. For many,
the most distressing fact is that premarital-sex will usually signal the
beginning of the end. It’s as if all the spoken words, hours consumed, pennies
spent up until those precious three minutes of elation slowly grind to a halt
afterwards.
Which
begs the question—if it’s only going to be a temporary bliss that will
inevitably leave us feeling discontent later—why? Was it worth it?
The LBD, the fresh trim, your unpaid phone bill? How about your purity? Or in
some instances, your sanity? Heck, your life!
So as I
was shaping up my bald patch at the barber shop a number of years
back, the subject of women came up—-a novelty. In my naiveté, I regretfully
interjected, suggesting that maybe sex was a little overrated, that maybe their
recollections of events were somewhat distorted, a few numbers and timescales
inflated, that sort of thing. “You’re clearly just not doing it right,” one
joked, as the others laughed. I joined in the heckles to keep face, but within,
something stirred, a rippling effect, as feelings of inadequacy and doubt began
to pulsate from my core. I guess boys will always be boys, but with years gone
by—a ring on the finger, a little more mileage on the clock—I’d like to think
that things might just go a little deeper and better than that.
I’m no
guru, but I have come to realize that when we have sex with another person
we communicate with them in a number of ways–physically with our bodies,
emotionally with our hearts and spiritually with our souls.
Sex is
everywhere. It sells everything. Everything from the 10-packed freak on the
front cover of Men’s Health claiming that he has the “5
Keys to Give Her the Big O”, to the melting yolk of my Cadbury’s crème egg.
There is clearly no shortage of exposure to what sex is in its physical form.
And from time to time, things do even out somewhat, as the Drakes and the
(insert your favorite female R&B singer here)’s—think of this world as they
let us in to some of love’s emotional side effects.
However,
aside from the weekly debates at the Christian Union fellowships that I
sparsely attended during my Uni days, I rarely heard much, if anything, about a
spiritual connotation. Though Pastor did warn us to abstain. Simply, “God said
so!” And at age 13, I cringed as mother sat me down to fill me in on the
birds and the bees. The conversation was brief. “You’re a man now?” she
patronized, adopting that localized Lagosian twang, before proceeding to tell
me that sex before marriage was a grotesque sin, and that all sinners went to
hell. “Heaven’s forbid that you get a
girl pregnant!” she harped.
So,
grasping the three voices of sex—the physical, emotional and
spiritual—can go a long way to achieving the ultimate climax in a
relationship. The physical is definitely the dangerous ingredient in this
trio, but even then:
the best sex won’t make up for a dead relationship that
seriously lacks in every other department.
I know
the whole settling down with kids and the detached suburban house dream doesn’t
appeal to all, but how many more hearts will be broken? How many
more sores need to break out? And how many more blameless fetuses will we
unjustly abort, before we begin to realize that it’s all just vanity?
Trust me. Minus the sores, I’ve been there.
In
reality, things aren’t clear cut; it’s all a lot easier said than done. “I’m
still young, let me live,” one says, whilst another interjects, “I’m just
having a little fun, I ain’t hurting nobody.” And I’m sure there are
plenty of guys (and girls) out there who would agree. Many of
whom will continue to head to the bars and restaurants this evening,
squandering their wages, all in the hope that they’ll bag a suitor for the night.
But
what next? I guess we can always do the same the following weekend, right?
We’ll recite the same lyrics and fritter away even more cash, repeating the
cycle, only to become appalled all over again.
We only
live once, right? And who am I to judge? As they say in this world, each to
their own!
Originally appeared at Shy Boy Diaries written by Banji Makanjuola
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