How Sexual Naivety is Tearing Marriages of our Young Couples Nowadays

Anayo Nwosu

By Anayo M. Nwosu

Lizzy could only confide in Nneka the real reason why she refused to wed Umunnaka even after the wedding invitation cards had been sent out. She simply disappeared and only reappeared two weeks after the white wedding ought to have taken place.


It was a big embarrassment to the parents on both sides as traditional marriage was held without hitches. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the bigger occasion, that’s the white wedding.

Lizzy was more urbane and exposed than Umunnaka, the man she was supposed to wed. Umunnaka was what many referred to as a “Jew man”. He thought that handsomeness, comfort, good behavior and academic brilliance was all that a woman needs in a husband. Not for Lizzy.

Lizzy had hoped to marry a sexually versatile man who could explore her, comb all her body bumps and crevices with his tongue before he uses the rod of Moses for copulation. Not this Umuanuka who saw sex as perfunctory or as a mechanical in-and-out session meant to ease out tension or for procreation. He never saw sex from a modern woman’s point of perspective.


Lizzy had made it clear to Umuanuka that they must have a mock or trial sex before court and church wedding to enable both of them ascertain their sexual compatibility. For her it’s no sin but self preservation. She wouldn’t want to buy a product of unknown functionality that would either turn her to an adulterous wife or a frustrated woman. And she was undaunted.

If Umuanuka didn’t know Lizzy before proposing, as a tongue-speaking prayer warrior in their youth fellowship, she would have thought that his chosen wife was possessed. She was asking for pre-marital sex!

But Lizzy was quick to counter that Bible recognized only traditional wedding and having done that, that they could do it. As a risk manager in her bank, Lizzy understood the need for a thorough check before disbursement and as such was graphic in her explanation to her intended husband on the need for them to test before final irreversible commitment. But measures were taken to mitigate pregnancy risk.

It started well until Lizzy asked Umunnaka to use his mouth.

“To do what?” Umunnaka asked disentangling himself from Lizzy’s grip as if he was stung by gadfly.

“To use my mouth to do what? Put my mouth where? Never! Not this mouth I use to worship God!” was all Umunnaka said as he reached for his boxers and his trousers.

Umuanuka’s revulsion was very repulsive to Lizzy in that she too, out of annoyance reached for her braziers and her dress. In her mind, she could picture Akpan her former colleague who had proposed to her but her parents wouldn’t hear of that. They wanted her to marry an Igbo man.

Akpan, though a banker, is an experienced masseur. He could massage a corpse into life. He had a way of using his tongue to mop and brush any dirt on a woman’s body and make it sparkle. And he could be as patient as a midwife waiting for a woman under the labour of ecstasy to come even as he was imbued with a strength of a wheelbarrow pusher at timber shed.


Lizzy was in Akpan’s house that same evening Umuanuka proved his sexual deficiency. Akpan confirmed his rating and sent Lizzy to cloud nine. There and then a plan to travel to Dubai was hatched and executed a week after. Both returned to Nigeria in a good time to resume work but a week after the date Lizzy would have wedded Umunnaka.

Many parents don’t get to know why their children’s  marriages break as soon as they are contracted. Early broken marriages is rampant amongst young couples few months or weeks after wedding especially those who avoided premarital sex even though they had had sexual experiences before agreeing to marry.

The reality which has become tragic is that, the ability to satisfy a partner in bed has become one of the qualifications for choice a partner or continuation the marriage especially amongst the highly exposed or educated ladies. Many of them don’t hide it any more.

Some ladies proudly ask men “hope you can use your tongue or you can give a head?”
Intending couple should be bold enough to discuss their sexual proclivities, likes, dislikes and fantasies. Such discussions could provide a glimpse into a partner's sexual requirements.

Elevation of ability to perform un-African sexual acts is one of the unexpected corruption of our tradition by globalization. Nowadays, effective use of the tongue and fingers are now valued more than swinging in-and-out by modern ladies who already have most of the things men could use to entice them in terms of financial security.

To save many more marriages from collapsing, young men who are traditional or conservative in sexual orientation should marry their likes to avoid the separation resulting from one party not meeting the other’s performance expectations.

Some ladies who are inexperienced and would grace a young groom’s bed as a lifeless log of plantain stem, should better meet already married and “happening” women to coach them. A groom would understand if the bride is a virgin. He would treat her as a new car but for a while.

A female rookie may have to buy some adult films to learn many man-retention styles or skills which you hone or perfect via experience.

Young men should be told that the ability to make a woman happy in bed is key to creating a permanent glow looks on the face of their wives. For being so versatile and combustible in bed, a woman would ignore the multitudes of a man’s shortcomings which includes lack of financial muscle.

A rich man or a handsome husband with no demonstrable ability to make a woman travel to Honolulu, Paris, Venice and Kuala Lumpur all in less than 90 minutes is a mere owner without possession. He holds the goat but a guy somewhere holds the rope.


Even with my two traditional titles and as a regular communicant in the Holy Catholic Church, I still have to embrace modernity because if anyone doesn’t lick one’s lips, wicked harmattan in the form of an “amụfull" young man would do it for him.

When you see a highly rated woman sticking to a young man who from your estimation is subpar, allow them for all is not about looks, finance and even good candour.

Also, when you hear that whose who seemed a perfect couple have separated and none of them wants to discuss the cause, just ignore them. It could be performance related.

Our society could continue to pretend and keep forbidding an open and frank discussion on sex related issues while we harvest the repercussions in marital misadventures of our youth.