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Let’s be honest! Women are not shamed for sex because sex is immoral. Women are shamed for sex because autonomy terrifies patriarchy.
Patriarchy does not fear women’s bodies. If it did, men would be running. What patriarchy fears is women owning their bodies. Deciding. Enjoying. Refusing to ask permission.
That is why people are so obsessed with what women do with their vaginas.
Who touched it?
When?
How many times?
With how many people?
Under what moral conditions?
With what face?
With what shame?
Else, why is it that a woman’s entire humanity still collapses into sexual scarcity?
Why are we compared to sweets without a wrapper? Spoilt milk? Used tyres? Padlocks that no longer lock? Second-hand cars? Open doors? Damaged goods?
Why is womanhood described only through metaphors of consumption and depreciation?
And why is it always women who are “used,” never men?
Men sleep around, and suddenly it is an experience. It is masculinity. It is proof of virility.
A woman does the same thing, and she is dirty. Reckless. Undisciplined. Unmarriageable.
This is not a coincidence?
This double standard exists because patriarchy does not see women as full human beings. And if you are not fully human, then your desire must be regulated. Monitored. Punished.
This is why women are told to remain virgins until marriage. As if marriage itself is not a historical system built on the sexual ownership of women. As if a woman’s first sexual experience must be supervised, certified, and approved by the patriarchy to count as legitimate.
And religion, let us not pretend, is one of patriarchy’s most efficient surveillance tools.
In Nigeria, sexual control is not just cultural. It is religious. Women’s bodies are constantly audited through God talk, morality talk, and purity talk. All designed to keep women obedient, grateful, and quiet.
And because patriarchy needs justification, it invents lies about women’s bodies and baptises those lies as science, tradition, or faith.
Who started the nonsense that vaginas become “loose” because of multiple sexual partners?
Loose how? According to whose ruler? A vagina that can push out a human being and return back in shape.
Vaginas are muscles. Elastic. Different shapes, depths, sizes, just like penises. A vagina expands during arousal and returns to baseline. That is basic biology.
So if a man feels “looseness,” it could mean the woman is relaxed, aroused, lubricated, and wet. Or it could mean his penis is smaller relative to her anatomy.
But patriarchy would rather invent moral decay than confront male insecurity.
Then there is the bloodstain obsession. As if virginity is a medical diagnosis. As if lack of blood does not come from lubrication, anxiety, vaginismus, hormones, or age.
Men who cannot locate the clitoris will still speak about women’s bodies with confidence and authority. Audacity is apparently a substitute for knowledge.
It is also a lie that sperm from different men stay inside a woman and alter her DNA.
A woman sheds her uterine lining every month. Monthly. Every single month.
So what exactly is remaining? Floating sperm ghosts?
And if a woman uses condoms, does the sperm bypass latex and logic? Does God suspend biology selectively to punish women?
Reason was never the point. Control is.
These lies exist to turn women’s bodies into moral crime scenes. This is why boys move freely, and girls are monitored like criminals. Why do sons come home late, and daughters are interrogated?
Why male sexuality is irrelevant and female sexuality is family honour. This is religious sexual surveillance. Girls are told their bodies are dangerous. Tempting. Sinful. Something to guard, not for their safety, but for the family’s reputation.
This same logic explains why women are told to know nothing about sex, yet are expected to satisfy husbands once married. If she appears inexperienced, she is mocked. If she appears knowledgeable or asks for pleasure, she is accused of promiscuity or adultery.
A woman cannot win. Women fake orgasms to protect the male ego. Women silence themselves to avoid emasculating men. Women carry the burden of contraception and are told to “close their legs” as if married people do not have unwanted pregnancies, as if sex only exists for childbirth.
Sex is a normal biological activity. Healthy adults engage in it. Animals engage in it. Pleasure is not a moral failure.
Yet women are shamed for masturbating. For owning sex toys. For exploring their bodies. For centring their pleasure. A woman using a vibrator is seen as deviant, while a man watching porn is treated as normal, even humorous.
The message is consistent. Women’s bodies exist for men’s use, not women’s enjoyment.
This logic also explains why men see sex with women as degrading to women. To patriarchy, being the receiving partner is humiliating because receiving is feminised. It is why lesbians are often tolerated only through fetishisation. Men do not respect women’s same-sex desire. They eroticise it for their own pleasure.
This same logic fuels sexual violence against children. Men prey on girls and excuse it by saying she is mature for her age, intelligent, and seductive. Children are blamed for adult men’s predatory behaviour. Nigeria repeatedly fails to protect girl children. Families shame victims rather than hold perpetrators accountable. Some mothers choose to preserve marriages rather than protect daughters from abuse, especially when the abuser is a husband or male relative.
This plays out when a woman, a lawyer, shared pictures of bloodstained bedsheets to celebrate her first sex as proof of virtue. The country applauded. Blogs amplified it. Nobody asked about her husband’s past. Only her body was audited. Only her purity was displayed. This is respectability politics in action.
Women lie about their sexual history not because they are ashamed, but because respectability is rationed. Love, safety, and dignity are made conditional on sexual silence.
Why should a woman have to lie about her body to be loved?
Cindy Gallop once talked about sexual values. Consent. Pleasure. Boundaries. Communication. Self-knowledge. She highlights how deliberately this information is withheld from women. Because informed women are harder to control.
Any man who stops loving you because of your body count does not love women. He loves ownership. Send him back to the streets.
A man who sees women as equals will not audit your vagina. He will not interrogate your past like evidence. He will not be threatened by your pleasure. Sexual agency is not rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It is a refusal. It is rejecting the idea that women’s humanity must be earned through sexual deprivation.
Respectability politics tells women to be desirable but not desiring. Chaste but available. Silent but satisfying. However, it is your right to refuse sexual shame, refuse ignorance about my own body, and refuse to shrink your humanity to protect fragile masculinity.
Women’s body is not a metaphor. The vagina is not a moral yardstick. Neither is women’s sexuality public property. No woman should ever pretend otherwise.
