By: Funmilayo Obasa
I
At eleven years old, you find the tongue of your tutor between your lips, his fingers on your little buds, his words in your thighs. You find his eyes taped to your body or his body taped to yours. Dear, it is your fault for making him feel that way. Why do you look appealing to him, huh? Your body turns into a door for him because you sit with him on the same table to receive lessons, [why didn’t you sit in the living room while he teaches from the dining table, you silly little attention-seeking whore]. You smile at him like you smile at everyone [because you are a girl and girls have to smile always —now why do you smile at him seductively?]. But you know, you are the dictator of his actions towards you. You are a child, he is a man — Mr Lucas is a good teacher with a wife and son and he always says that he wants a daughter like you, may God in his infinite mercy bless his soul. So why on earth do you want to ruin him? Liar! You just want to stop receiving lessons because you are lazy. He is a good man…
II
The priest invites you to his office on a Wednesday evening, he wants to give you a prayer. He gives you on the floor with your naked body and his half-naked body, grunts and a hungry dick. But you call it rape, shame! How dare you? Even if he raped you, he is human, a man in fact. And men like this, they are always horny. It is how God created them. Doing the Lord’s job is tough; so “touch not my anointed” even if they threaten to kill you. Next time you visit a man of God, whether it is a Pastor, Priest or Imam, wear all the layers of clothing you possess and make yourself look unattractive.
III
There are bruises everywhere, broken bones in you, fractures, blood, a black eye because your husband does not like that you disobey him. Because he does not like that you search his phone all the time and find evidence of his intrigues; so he hit you, and it is okay. It is okay because men are violent and angry creatures. After all, you always consider their only emotion to be anger and there is nothing you can do about it. Don’t you know you should not do such things to men? You only provoke and make them hit you more, one day you may even die during a cold stone session of receiving blows to the head. But don’t worry, if you are silent your marriage will be fine —this is very essential for a woman. Your mother went through it, your mother-in-law, your grandmother, and everyone’s mother went through it. Have this at the back of your mind, “there is light at the end of every dark tunnel”. Your silence will be heard by God eventually so don’t you dare leave that marriage, a divorce is not an option. How about your kids? And your title as a grown mature married woman? Do you want all that to go down the drain? No? Lovely. Try not to yell at your husband, do not search his phone, allow him to visit other women whilst praying for him to come home and kneel for him always, wash his clothes, feed him, clean his shit —men love a humble and submissive wife that is equivalent to a slave. Sooner or later he will love you back. Amen.
IV
A man makes snake noises at you but you ignore him. ‘Ashewo’. That is what he must call you, ‘ashewo’. Of course, it is your fault for getting insulted in that manner. Even if you do not ignore, ‘ashewo’, if you do, ‘ashewo’, if you get raped by him, ‘ashewo’. Because your trousers show the shape of your hips and ass, because you chose to reject his advances —if you like, continue rejecting the men that come your way, by the time your vagina and uterus expire after three decades of your womanly life, you will die single with no children and husband to live for! Remember that your ultimate aim in life is to marry and reproduce, forget the degrees, forget the jobs, forget your ambitions. Just look for a man and you are successful. ‘Men will always be men’ and when they want to fuck, they fuck, even when they fuck in a very trivial way, just manage him and earn yourself a ring.
V
Let me be frank with you, the Nigerian man; the logical gender, head of the home, protector and superior overlord of the masses and sometimes woman; neck of the household, inferior gender, helper, the less intelligent and emotionally disgruntled gender, have said all these are your fault. Who are you to object? If you are a victim of sexual abuse, it is your fault and you are to blame, so suck it up and deal with it. You are alive, breathing and existing hence, you have yourself to blame for the things that happen to you. This is a man’s world and nothing must disrupt its balance.
Obasa Funmilayo is a lone girl, poet and upcoming photographer searching for ways to speak with her images and metaphors. Her words tend to paint her imaginative sentiment of people & equality [for all], desires, emotions, attractions, fears, denials and opinions in obscure and abstract manners. On Twitter, she materializes as @funmi796 & funmi796@gmail.com is her email address.
