By Funke Egbemode
It all started with an ambitious shopping list of a woman looking for a husband that my friend sent to me. The single and searching woman wanted a man who can cook, earns ten million naira monthly and is good in bed, of course. The lucky dude should be handsome, romantic and God-fearing. I responded to my friend that “It’s a legitimate list”. No, “it’s illegitimate”, he responded. How? He zeroed in on the “good in bed” part. He insisted that “good in bed” is relative. I vehemently disagreed. If a man is not good in bed, he’s not good in bed. Even he will know. A good lover proudly flaunts his prowess. He does not leave his woman in doubt. A man once told me that the best way to shut the mouth of an angry woman is by thoroughly ravishing her.
‘Take her as many times as possible. Let her pant, sweat and run away from the bedroom. Do her well. I don’t understand men who say their wives are angry with them, keeping malice with them for weeks. If you are making love with her regularly, the matter will settle.’
Now, that’s a man who can give a good account of himself. If he’s not good in bed, how will Madam feel the heat? If a man is a once-in-a-while or monthly lover, how can he thoroughly ‘do’ his wife? So, I told my friend, the definition of ‘good in bed’ is clear. At least, if the man doesn’t know, his woman will know, and we are the one who grade men. My friend must have gotten a tiny bit angry.
‘Wetin? Shouldn’t a woman be good in bed too???’ Note the three question marks. Mark of anger, I know.
Okay, both man and woman should be above average and meet each other halfway in bed.
‘We men labour too hard on you women’
Imagine! So women don’t labour hard under men?
That’s when he threw in the Apala Maestro, Ayinla Omowura’s line.
‘Pekele pekele, ise oru kii se ise kekere”
I laughed out loud. Translation: ‘The work that men do at night is a lot of work, it’s not child’s play’
Seriously, do men do all the work? No, it’s a partnership. It’s a joint venture. That’s what makes a ‘night shift’ sweet. Sure, in most cases, on many nights, men do the ‘heavy lifting’ but my friend insists that it is the hard work that shortens the life-span of men. In other words, sex kills men. Without saying it in so many words, my friend was saying. ‘Only men die during sex.’ Trust me, I fired back.
‘Women die in action too’
He retorted, ‘women die of excitement, not exhaustion’. See me see trouble, what’s the difference? Both excitement and exhaustion can wear out. Orgasms can make the heart fail and we all have hearts, right?
I must, however, reluctantly agree that more men die during and after sex than women. Maybe we are more careful and do not have sex to impress.
Men should really watch their bad habit of wanting to ‘go harder’ even when their bodies are balking. Why should a man die trying to impress a woman? Those who have been reading me know that I do not support men dying in active service. All smart men should serve diligently but leave the arena alive. That way they can serve some more. It is absolutely unwise to die on the pitch.
Think of it, if a man who is in the service of three to four women die in the bed of one of them, how fair is that? What becomes of the other parties? They all start looking for new investors? No, it’s not right.
But on a serious note, nobody should die having sex, man or woman. The reason why more men die in active service is because they do not listen to me. They do not listen to logic. The duties of a man outside the bedroom are already plenty. To fend for and defend a family is already a lot of work. The hours a man puts into their careers and businesses all day is enough to kill a horse. Add that to the number of things he has to worry about. The number of people waiting on him to fix their problems. His life after hours of work should be relaxing and pleasureable. It should not be about overreaching himself. It should not be about popping blue pills. But who is listening to me or heeding this sane advice? Not the older men. No, they want to win sex championship. They want to impress their sweet sixteens. It is their way of convincing themselves that they are enjoying life. If you ask me, sex championship men confuse me just like the ones who drink wine or whiskey that is not sweet, beer that smells and looks like urine and everything that gives them pounding heads or hefty headache the following morning. I’ll never understand how all that mean enjoyment. Lagos people call it ‘Faaji’. How is pain pleasurable unless a few screw are loose or loosening in your head or mind?
Enough of the digression. Let’s leave the ‘Faaji’ men to their enjoyment and their blue pills. I hear women are doing it too, mixing stuff, popping pills, drinking herbs to enjoy sex. What’s going on here? I also heard that it is not just to satisfy their husbands, that these women are doing sex till death. It is the thing about the ‘forbidden’ apple and dying in active service that we cannot ignore. Note, you rarely hear men dying on top of the women they married, the real owner of the equipment. Now the women are also titrating chemicals to satisfy men who are not their husbands. I hope we are all appropriately and adequately shocked.
Imagine this, a mother of five died somewhere in Ekiti after sex with her lover. The heartless bloke dragged her body into the bush and dumped her there. Another one died and was left to be discovered by hotel cleaners.
Now, I’m not insisting that all sex-till-death are consequences of blue pills and sachet concoction. Indeed, I am more concerned with the carelessness and levity with which we all treat our health generally.
As we get on in years, we all should reduce the number of times we go to battle. A wise warrior knows when to step back and acknowledge his humanity. No man is cut or designed to do the things he used to do at age 30; no, not at 65. If he tries it, he may end up at best in the intensive care unit. Chances that he will end up in the morgue is quite high.
As for my ladies, stop ‘falling my hand’ by letting a man, or worse still, a small boy, drive you to death. If you love a particular dish or meal, you do not and should not eat it all in one sitting. Eat slowly, neatly and nicely so you can eat for a long time. Don’t gulp it or you will choke and when you do, there will be no tomorrow.
My guys, my girls, make sure you are in good shape for physical exercise. Check your blood pressure, heart rate before you convince yourself that you are fit for sex. Don’t kill yourself trying to prove a foolish point to people who will turn around to mock you for expiring in a woman’s secret place.
*Egbemode (egbemode3@gmail.com)
