ON THAT OVERHYPED TOPIC…

Last week, I had an episode, a very interesting one at that. There I was, chilling in my cousin’s office and having a beautiful chat with her boss. He was telling me how sex was not the hallmark of the best relationships in the world. He said understanding your spouse was way more important than just romping under the sheets with him or her. Now, this is classified information, but he told me that there are times he would go months without touching his wife. Now, that is a very dysfunctional relationship as far as I am concerned. My cousin’s boss, who I’ve been referring to all day, happens to be the perfect spec of the physical requirement of a male specimen. He is really tall, built, has an impeccable dress sense and very jovial. He runs a very viable business outfit and he is quite passionate about his job. So, you can imagine that a man that successful and not keen on intimacy, especially with his very pretty wife is quite disturbing in a way.  Oh, did I mention that he is also a pastor in his Assembly too? His position on sex in marriage is what I found really strange. This is a man who has been married a long time now. I asked him how his wife coped and he said she has had to teach herself over the years to flow with him in that area as in other areas too.

At first, I just concluded that he had to be cheating on her. Well, it doesn’t matter what the truth is about that conclusion and I pray for God’s pardon if I concluded wrongly. Who could blame me though? We have been told on various occasions that men were insatiably horny creatures and women must always be ahead of them to keep them tightened to their loins. In fact, on one of these occasions, we were told that even when some women found it most unimaginably horrifying to go down on their men or be gone down on, it should be condoned where marriage is concerned. We were told to prepare to wash our husband’s ‘cores’ with our mouths as much as it is demanded for in order to ensure that other women, who were most likely to be single, would not be joyfully doing that duty for us. In fact, I have come to conclude over the years that whether I liked it or not, these duties are expected of me if I wanted to make the pass mark of the good wife. After all, the very reason marriage was established was to men very happy irrespective of the reservations, beliefs and fears of their wives. In the case of my elderly friend, just because he is not keen on sex, his wife has had to learn to rein in her sexual drives and tailor it to suit the husband’s sexual timetable.

This piece is not about the emancipation of the sexual freedom of women though so, you guys can like to down your looks of lethal weapons and ease up on the whole ‘these feminists have come again’ hisses. My question is this: is intimacy really the cement of a marital relationship? Let us consider the relationships of the very lasting unions of the popular and familiar people that I know. I will start on a personal note. Before my Grandpapa passed away, he had the most quarrelsome relationship with my Grand mama.  They always argued about everything, yet even when he was allowed to; my Grandfather did not marry two wives. He lived out his life with my grandmother. I really cannot certainly claim that it was the sex that kept that man stuck to my grandmother. During his burial ceremony, my grandmother was totally distraught. Then, I understood that what they shared surpassed the petty fights they always had to have and even now, Mama cannot most of the times, hide her loneliness.

Furthermore, take Charlie Boy and his eccentric wife for example too. They have been married for over three decades now. They have flourished in their madness together and Lady Di has not seen why she should leave that man. In fact, it seems like the more they stay together, the crazier Charlie Boy gets. It definitely cannot be the sex that has kept those two going for so long. Obasanjo and his harem of wives cannot also tell us that they have enjoyed so much intimacy for so long that the thought of leaving Baba would be so unconceivable. Look at Chief Anenih and that wife of his, Justice Anenih. That woman in all her elegance, education and intellectualism chose to be second wife to an eighty year old man. What about Olu Jacobs and Joke Silva? The most amazing of them all are late Odumegwu Ojukwu and that very fine wife of his. I had to pick my references from people who have spent so much time together because it seem like the most objective way to look at it. Not to forget my own folks. Those two have on so many occasions, made me believe that I was going to end up with separated parents. Yet, every time, they have managed to come out of the turbulence even as stronger people. It definitely isn’t about the intimacy. I asked them and the list I got was amidst other adjectives, strange.

I have had to wonder all my life why sex has had to be so overrated. The first time I was bold enough to discuss sex with a friend, I asked him how he felt after the whole episode. He told me that no matter the number of times he did it and no matter how amazing it was, five minutes afterwards, he was feeling hollow again. Not to say that it applies to everyone the same way, but my point is that sex may not be the cornerstone of any relationship. There are people whose spouses have been bedridden for years, or who became incapable of being sexually alive due to some circumstances and who still have a rock solid relationship. Believe me, there are people like that in existence. How come the lack of sex failed to drive them apart?

On a final note, this should not be considered as a conclusive opinion. I am just expressing my opinions and I beckon on you good people of my generation, (by that I mean men and women of marriageable ages, and the married ones too), to enlighten me on what keeps a relationship between a man and a woman lovingly lasting.