Nigerian Men and Homophobia

In my experience of interacting of Nigerian men, I've discovered that one common ground that most (read: 100%) of them share is their views on gay men. I've polled both ends of the spectrum and found that whether the man was raised in the trenches of Nigeria, or he was raised abroad and otherwise considers himself to be open minded, when it comes to the topic of gay men, they all think along very similar lines. In summary: Very deep rooted homophobia.
What I've found pretty interesting is how lesbian women get a pass and these men aren't as averse to the idea of two women together...but a man and man? God forbid! Even the Lucifers amongst us will bust out their moral compass on this matter.

A while ago, I was discussing the gay people topic with some folks and one of the guys said that people like Bobrisky should be definitely be imprisoned because they are sending the wrong message to young men. He then added that "homosexuality is not part of the Nigerian culture and values", to which I scoffed and asked what exactly the Nigerian culture and values are. I mean, there's old ass men marrying underage girls, a lot of men and women who sleep around for money, plenty embezzlement and corruption in the system, etc, so I highly doubt that gay people are any threat to the so-called Nigerian culture and values when there's bigger fish to be fried. How is a man who chooses to date another man a part of Nigeria's problem? Chileee, the thing pass me abeg.
Another man in the group stated that no gay man would ever be allowed to visit his home (but please note that lesbians absolutely got a pass). He then gave a ridiculous recount of when he worked in Nigeria as a supervisor, some gay dude came to the office to visit one of his subordinates and he walked the man out of the office and told him never to come back. When the subordinate asked him why he did such a thing, he told her to shut up and face her work or else she would get written up. Brethren, I was speechless.

What really baffles me about the Nigerian man's view on homosexuality is how hypocritical it always is. Ninjas who are not even prepped and primed to see the Kingdom of Heaven instantly start to preach and quote scripture whenever whenever the topic comes up. As I've asked a lot of people, "if you are out here fornicating. What makes you better than them?". And one man's response? "In my book, fornication is not a sin because sex between a man and a woman is natural". I ain't eem have a response for that one. I no fit shout.

Seeing that pretty much all the men I know want to choke every time homosexuality is mentioned, the question that I always pose to them is...how would you react if you found out that your son is gay? The varying responses always always go like these:
"God forbid, that will never be my portion" 
"Then from that point, he is no longer my son"
"What? I will send him to Nigeria so that they can pray the gayness out of him"
"My son ke? I will drop him in a whorehouse for 2 months so that those women can cure him of being gay"
etc etc

I tell you that absolutely none of them wants to entertain the with the idea that hey, this could happen. And I get it to an extent. I'm sure that as a Nigerian parent to a gay individual, life will probably be hard because no matter how open minded and loving you are, you still have to deal with the opinions of Nigerian society and try to protect your child from any backlash. But still, there are Nigerian gay men in our midst...some of who were probably taken to MFM for prayers and then pressured to get married because their parents hoped that prayers and marriage would cure their sexual orientation. We all know how stories like that end...

Sha, after all the outrage and "chillaligans" ontop this matter, according to what I hear, there are still plenty gay/bi-sexual men roaming around Nigeria. I'm sure they are not sleeping with themselves. So much for our so-called culture and values.

And that is all she said.

Kiss and Don't Tell

When a woman gets into sexual relations with a man. It can go a few ways:

A. It will remain strictly between you two (your best girlfriend doesn’t count, hehe) and the man will lock up your business and you will never hear pim from anybody about it.

B. The man might have the best intentions in keeping the relations discreet but somehow can’t resist telling his homeboy. Now depending on the type of homeboy, it might either stay there or spread far and wide.

C. The man have served in a town crier role in his previously life, and currently has a PhD in bitchassedness. As a result, the whole world will know that about what went down, and how it went down.

Two Scenarios recently come to mind that illustrate one or more of the type of guys highlighted above:

Scenario #1 – Maryjane and Tom
There is this babe that I know who is always carrying face anyhow. For purposes of this gist, let’s call her Maryjane. I don’t care much for Maryjane…and neither do a certain group of friends that I have. I mean, to be fair sha, she has no real offense besides the fact that she is always squeezing face but still…who she be sef?

So one day I was gathered among that group of friends and Maryjane randomly came up in the gist.  And the conversation kinda went like this…

Jerry (part of the group of friends): Forget that babe jare, always acting like she no dey see pesin. That’s how she smashed Tom but be boning face like she say she no sabi am.
Some of us: Wait…whaaaaat? How do you even know this?
Jerry: Yes na. Remember that baby shower that Mike hosted a few months ago? Apparently Maryjane ran into Tom there and acted like she didn’t know him and so in annoyance, he told us that he had smashed her in the backseat of his Honda a few years ago.
Mike: Yeah, he told us that day…boys were amazed mehn!
Some of us: [A mix of different reactions ranging from “Tom is such an agbaya” to “dayummm, Maryjane gets down like that??”]

My personal stance was that for one, Jerry was a fool for bringing it up. And Tom was definitely a bigger fool and major fuckboy for telling Jerry and the boys about relations that happened years ago. Ol’ boy is a married man with 2 kids so Maryjane’s matter should not even be on his radar. Shouldn’t he be facing his front and thinking about how to provide for his family rather than exhibiting major foolishness and “exposing” babes about relations that happened years ago, all because they see him and don’t greet him?

I mean, like I said ol’ girl’s main offense is that she too dey bone face. Did that warrant such exposure on her palzonal marras? Just like that, I an innocent bystander (along with a few others) knows what ol’ girl did in the backseat of a Honda about X years ago. I wither o.

Scenario #2 – Chris Brown, Rihanna, Drake and Kid Ink
In another scenario, I know this guy called Chris Brown. Once upon a time, Chris Brown was always parading one babe named Rihanna up and down the place. I mean he was with her at weddings, parties, babyshowers, get togethers…you name eeeeet! Then all of a sudden, we went from seeing Rihanna all over the place, to never seeing her again. Babe just faded like she was never there.
One day, among a gathering of a very small group of friends, I asked Chris Brown “Yo, whatever happened with you and Rihanna? Babe just dropped off” and he responded “I really liked Rihanna and thought she was awesome but I couldn’t get past the fact that she had smashed the boy Drake so I had to eventually drop her”.
Please note that Drake lives in North Dakota and is NOT even friends with Chris Brown. I mean, they know about each other but they aren’t boys by any stretch. So, what screwed things up for Rihanna, you may wonder?
Apparently, a few years ago, Drake came into town one weekend and was introduced to Rihanna by a mutual friend – Kid Ink. Somehow, Drake and Rihanna messed around, and apparently, Rihanna was so fire inna di bed that Drake was very impressed and went and gisted Kid Ink about every single detail of the hookup.
So, how did the gist reach Chris Brown na? Wellst Kid Ink and Chris Brown are best friends so umm yeah, that’s what happened.

Down the line, Rihanna crossed paths with Chris Brown and as a yeye man he remembered her gist and wanted to sample the goods and check out the hype for himself but he had absolutely no grand plans for her. So when she started asking questions about “where is this going?” “what are we?”, Chris Brown pulled the classic “it’s not you, it’s me” and dropped the poor girl. At least the boy Kid Ink had the nerve to admit his mistake in interrupting Rihanna’s potential destiny when he said … “I know I messed up. I told Chris Brown too much…”. Smh. All this could have been avoided if Drake had carried his excitement to fry yam as opposed to going to gist Kid Ink about the chillaligans.

So like I say to my ladies, the minute you decide to climb into bed with a man, it can go a variety of ways. Which is interesting, because I don’t think that women are into that kiss and tell life. Half the time, I think women are trying to code their business and won’t be out there saying “Yeah I climbed Johnson on the backseat of an Okada so how dare he see me and not say hi”. I wonder whether our coding is because we truly are discreet or because of the double-standard that goes with women and sexuality. Who knows.

And that is all she said.  

Packaging

My first real crash course in packaging was in 2012. I was in Nigeria that Christmas chilling with a friend and we decided to hit up a new bar that had just opened and was touted to be this cool and swanky spot. It was a hot afternoon and we were dressed in what I thought was appropriate hot afternoon attire - a maxi dress and casual sandals for me, and since this spot was literally down the street, I skipped the makeup. Ol' dude also kept it pretty simple in jeans and a polo shirt. I didn’t think anything of our baffups, after all it was in the afternoon and we were just going for regular ol' drinks. So that's how we landed at the spot looking very casual and unbothered, and the bouncer gave both of us once-overs and dismissively said "Sorry, only members are allowed inside". Hollup, Hollup! We had so many questions: Members? I didn’t realize one had to be a member to get into a lounge and cool off with a drink. Everything screamed BS but what could we do? The bouncer wasn't giving us any face despite all our questions so we jejely chopped our ela ojukan and carried ourselves elsewhere. But the thing peppered me small sha...like ahn ahn, a whole Mgbeke like me getting bounced? Did they not know who my father in Heaven was? Some real nonsense and ingredient.

Now the funny thing about this cool story was that my sister and some of her friends had planned to meet us at that same "member-only" bar. So when we got dismissed, I sent her a quick text, telling her not to bother going to that bar and to come and meet us at the other place instead. Darris how my sister rolled up to the spot looking fly in heels, a nice outfit, and makeup on fleek. Her friends were also looking just as nice and put together. Me sef I come shame small, like kai I no even try sha. In all their flyness, they rallied me and my boy up claiming that we should all go back to that bar since they really wanted to check it out. And while I was so skeptical that we would get another round of bouncing, we got to the door and that same bouncer who claimed members only, let all of us in just like that without any wahala at all. No hassle, no questions. I was quite amaxed.

That was how I truly learned that sometimes in order for people to take notice, you have to package yourself accordingly. Best believe that for the rest of my trip, I made sure that every time I left the house, I was looking as takeaway as possible. The fear of ela is the beginning of wisdom.
Since then, I have seen/observed how packaging has helped some people's cases. A girl/guy might not even be that fine, but the way they carry themselves and pull things together just gives them that extra oomph factor that definitely gets them noticed and opens doors for them (literally and figuratively).
You know how sometimes you see people in the airport dressed to the nines just to fly, and you're wondering why they need a full face of makeup and need to be so dressed up for a simple plane ride. Well, my family friend once got upgraded to business class on an international trip for no reason, and she swears that it was because of how she presented herself at the ticket counter. Personally, I'm all for traveling in true comfort i.e. some comfortable shoes, leggings ('cos comfy leggings are forever the truth), and a make-up free face but if some nice baffs and a beat face will get me that business class upgrade, then please show me the way so that I can comply.

I also learned so many lessons about packaging in the workplace when I transitioned from working for the Government to the non-Government sector. The former is definitely way more casual than the latter. The first few weeks at my first post-Government job, I used to look around in awe at the falshunz in the office. From my experience, I quickly learned that a lot of times, people tend to take more notice when you are well dressed. You might not even be that smart, but by the time you dazzle them with nice baffs, you have won half the battle. Whoever came up with that "dress for the job you want" idea sure was onto something.

Even with all my observations and lessons learned, I still don’t have the packaging game down pat on a consistent level. Some days I step out looking like I made some real effort, and some days I don't.  But to people are consistently on their game, I say please keep it up. I absolutely enjoy seeing well-packaged people…It just so aesthetically pleasing. I appreciate the babygirls and babyboys out there who give me some visual candy to admire with their packaging game. Keep up the good work guys, and remember…if anyone is beefing you for doing too much, just wave them off and remind them that it is better to be overpackaged than underpackaged #Mgbekewisdom.

And that is all she said.

Happy New Year folks!