THE SEX THAT CHANGED MY FEMINISM

"I spent years learning how to say no to misogyny in public. I never realized how often I was saying yes to it in private. This is the story of the night I realized that the hardest patriarchies to dismantle are the ones we've unknowingly carried into bed."

I met Ololade on Substack six months ago. He came into my life at exactly the moment I wasn't looking for anyone. My Substack Yoruba man. We flirted in the comments section under a few of my notes, but I didn't think much of it. I'd just gotten out of a situationship I had no business being heartbroken over. But what ifs are the worst kind of heartbreak, and that was exactly what happened with Jay.

All the sense I had gained from my last situationship seemed to evaporate the moment Ololade posted a photo of himself. 6ft. Clean goatee. Buzz cut. Fake piercing. Moisturized lips. A dark-skinned man in senators. Eishhhhh. A part of my body rose. Jesus, the boy fine! As though he was the prototype of humanity.

I stared at the photo for a few minutes, wondering how someone could possibly be that beautiful before commenting, "Lade, ma pami na." He replied, "Mo fẹ́ pa ẹ. 🫦" If only Substack's translator had existed then, I might have realized he was foreshadowing everything that would unfold over the following months.

As a sharp girl, I sent him a message request with the cheesiest line I now deeply regret:

"Do you know any cardiologist? I don't understand what's going on with my heart rate after looking at your photos. Call 911."

I'm literally throwing up in my mouth remembering that wack-ass line coming from an African-recognized poet. Chai! But it worked. And really, does the process matter as long as it produces results? Abi?

It did.

It sparked a chain reaction of endless conversations about everything and nothing.

Lade reacted with a "😂😂😂" to my message, and I heaved a sigh of relief. It was certainly better than the dry "smiles" I'd gotten from the situationship I had just escaped. He subscribed to my Substack, and we moved from flirting in the comments to talking in the DMs. I loved his face just as much as I loved his mind, and I just knew I was going to love his voice.

One of Substack's greatest flaws is the absence of voice notes. Since he still didn't know what I looked like, we exchanged Instagram handles, and after deleting and re-recording a video of myself an embarrassing number of times, I finally sent it.

He told me that with almond eyes like mine, the stars would be considered dim. Eishhhhhh.

But this isn't the story of how I ended up liking this boy silly. It's about coitus.

The talking stage continued. He read every article I published almost immediately and would send me thoughtful reviews in my DMs, glazing me on what an amazing writer I was. The day I heard his voice, I knew that more than anything, I wanted to be between his thighs. I was right. He looked good, sounded even better, and I was convinced he'd taste better than he sounded.

That call unlocked a series of late-night conversations.

Your mother was right, by the way. Calls with men after 11 p.m. will have you making life-altering decisions like falling in love and engaging in all the other silly games you people play these days.

The man knew exactly what his voice did to me, so voice notes gradually replaced texts. There was something about his voice I could never get used to. It was like water. It satisfied me every damn time.

I confessed my feelings for him, and he confessed his too (of course... na me na). That pushed us into another level of closeness. I'd already told him that relationships were a touchy subject for me. I preferred leaving things undefined because labels came with expectations, expectations bred disappointment, and I hated disappointment.

Looking back now, that logic makes absolutely no sense. Situationships have expectations too. They just refuse to acknowledge them.

Lade was the sweetest man. We got so close that he became my partner on Flo, and he never failed to send me money for red velvet cupcakes and ice cream whenever Flo predicted that my mood was about to become everybody's problem.

But once the clock struck 11 p.m., all hell would break loose. The demon I wanted so badly to have sex with would emerge.

This is not an Olu story because, unlike Olu, the nudes were very much solicited. He'd send me pictures of his dried dates (Kisha or is it Lulu?) when they were soft, followed by the veiny cassava they eventually became. Only a man with real confidence would send a nude before he was fully inflated.

I loved every bit of it, especially when he'd stroke himself while saying my native name in that deep baritone of his. As it called, I answered. His voice would grow huskier, and I'd tell him what I was wearing while he became the tour guide to my own body. The man was excellent with adjectives and adverbs. My photographic memory did the rest, leaving me moaning into my pillows, hands between my thighs, imagining his blessed sacrament claiming my holy ground.

It was torture, but the good kind. The kind that lets you please yourself after spending an entire week pleasing everyone else.

Lade lived in Lagos, in case you're wondering why, despite being such a great man, I was still subjecting him to the torture of releasing on my screen. It was a long-distance situationship. Neither of us wanted to say the L word—it frightened me—so we left things exactly as they were: two Substack strangers savouring sex sounds on Saturdays. The alliteration alone cannot capture how desperately I longed for Saturdays. 😭

By the third month, we couldn't take it anymore. The sexual tension had become unbearable, and we were convinced that if our poles ever met, we'd create magic. We were attracted to each other intellectually, physically, and sexually. So, we decided to meet on the anniversary of my wack-ass pickup line.

As he booked his flight, I found myself wondering what lingerie he'd like. We settled on February 5, 2025. He initially suggested Valentine's Day, but I refused. That would've turned it into something more, and all I wanted was this. This, and nothing more. I wasn't ready to have all of him, so I convinced myself that some of him would be enough.

The week he was due to arrive, I found myself singing happily in the shower before heading off to my 9-to-5 prison (if you know me, you'd know this was a rare occurrence). I counted down the days to my "sick day" on Friday like a child waiting for Christmas.

His flight landed in Abuja on Wednesday, and he texted me about how excited he was to finally meet me. I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep a wink. He slept just fine because he was jet-lagged from the trip. (I was absolutely going to make this an issue later.)

After my hot bath on Thursday evening, I smiled as I read the details he'd sent:

Ortega Restaurant

8:00 p.m.

I'll be waiting outside with a bouquet of orchids. I know you don't understand the concept of flowers, but I had to bring you something. They're artificial, so they won't trigger your sinuses.

My coochie shed a tear, not just because I'd just finished shaving or because she was excited, Lade was thoughtful. The location was perfect. It was close to where I lived—the place where service would eventually be held.

I slipped into a short, strapless black dress, boobs bare, silently praying that he'd slip me out of it as effortlessly as I'd slipped into it. I hoped my eight months of celibacy and countless nights spent groaning into my pillows would finally pay off.

I know what you're probably thinking. Meeting a man for the first time with sex at the back of my mind? Young ho mentality, abi?Maybe but I genuinely liked him. We lived in different cities, and opportunities to see each other were rare. Why should we pretend we didn't want what we both so obviously wanted?

And why am I even explaining myself to you?

I was going to fuck him.

Period.

The ride he booked for me arrived as I stood staring at the heavy clouds, convincing myself they were a sign from the Most High blessing my hedonism with weather made for two. The venue wasn't far, but by the time I got there, my knees had already gone weak.

He stood there in a black senator, a purple àṣọ òkè cap perched on his head, smiling as I stepped out of the car. Thankfully, I was spared the awkward "Hello, where are you? I'm outside." I spotted him from a few feet away.

My heart dropped, and my coochie immediately took over my thinking.

I ran into his arms, the orchids still in his hands, and as his biceps wrapped around my trimmed waist, I knew every Sunday school lesson I'd ever learned was in serious danger that night.

We hurried through our meal, not because we were hungry, but because we were hungry.

Yes.

The weather was threatening an outpouring, and Lade, much like salt, did not go well with rain. As his teeth sank into the chicken thigh on his plate, I caught myself thinking that maybe being a chicken wasn't such a terrible fate after all. I inhaled my meal, and minutes later, we were in transit to Sodom.

The ride home felt like the longest of my life. Electricity danced through my fingers as he held my hand and stared out the window. Neither of us said a word, but I knew our thoughts had already arrived at the same destination before we had.

We sprinted into my apartment after getting drenched, delayed only by my stubborn padlock, which had apparently chosen that very moment to become too tight for the key to penetrate. The familiar scent of my strawberry-scented air freshening packet welcomed us inside.

I tossed him a towel. As he dabbed the rain from his face, he let out a laugh that made my walls tremble, effortlessly breaking the silence. He stepped closer to hand the towel back, and before I could figure out what he was doing, he leaned in and whispered,

"Pulchritudinous."

His kisses trailed from my ears to my collarbone as his hands found my already hardened nipples. He lingered at my neck, tracing its contours with his lips as though he were trying to memorize it by touch alone.

I gently guided his face back to mine and smacked his lips playfully twice.He pulled me closer by the waist, closing the distance between us, and devoured my lips with the kind of hunger that left no corner of my mouth unexplored.

This was good.

I pulled away briefly and breathed, "Lade..." He smiled coyly.

I led him to my bed. I helped him out of his clothes as he slipped me out of my rain-soaked dress, revealing the blue lace panties I'd eventually settled on after staging countless Victoria's Secret pageants in front of my mirror. I swayed over to the Bluetooth speaker and put on Tonongo by Sarz(ft. Lojay), hoping it would swallow our sounds beneath the rain splattering against my windowpanes.

I jumped into the bed with him and felt his little boy -the one I already knew so we'll from the pictures- and I instantly got ready for the ride he was going to take me on. We started with kissing passionately as if trying to know each other's history by our saliva with his hand placement on point as he grabbed my waist with reckless abandon. I promise everything was going really well until he brought out his tongue.

His tongue swirled around my mouth with no discernible direction while he let out soft moans. My face must have looked puzzled, but it was only the beginning, and I wasn't about to hand him a D-minus before we'd even sat the exam. Lade was the experienced one between us, so I convinced myself that maybe I just hadn't been French-kissed enough to appreciate it.

So, I moaned.

It was a relief when he finally left my mouth to explore the rest of my body. His kisses found my breasts, one cradled in his hand while the other disappeared into his mouth. The suckling sent a wave through me, and I let out a genuine moan. He pulled back, looked at me with unmistakable desire, and admitted he'd been wondering what I sounded like in real life.

I don't know whether that moan boosted his confidence, but he decided it was time to start playing with my nipples.

Bro bit me.

Ahh!

I moaned in pain, but bro took it as a sign that he was doing a fantastic job. I tried to gently guide his head back toward my lips, but he seemed determined to harvest both tits with his teeth, so he simply moved on to the other one.

It was a bittersweet season. I was moaning in pleasure and in pain, the two becoming almost impossible to distinguish. Deep down, though, I wished he'd skipped that part entirely.

His lips made their way to my coochie, who was already emotional and tearing up at the thought of the pelneez she'd been dreaming about. The trail of kisses along my thighs was genuinely pleasurable. I won't even lie—it almost made me forget the boob incident.

Then his tongue found my clit.

I felt...

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

I don't know what he thought he was doing down there, but whatever it was, it wasn't working for me. I stayed quiet for a while until he eventually looked up, searching my face for feedback.

That's when the performance began.

I softened my expression into pleasure, parted my lips, and let out a moan that belonged in a different room from the one we were in. I wasn't lost in ecstasy. I was painfully present. I pitied him. He had travelled all this way, and I couldn't bear to watch disappointment settle on his face.

So I lied.

Every fake moan encouraged him to keep going, and I gave them with the confidence of someone who had been playing this role for years. By the end of it, he'd had a wonderful experience. I had a C-grade one, and that's me generously factoring in how emotionally attracted I was to him.

This is where I'll pause the story.

I call myself a feminist, yet somewhere in my head lives a script I didn't write but somehow memorized. It shows up most vividly in the bedroom. It tells me that sex is something women give and men receive. It teaches me to protect a man's ego before I protect my own pleasure. It convinces me that performance is kinder than honesty.

Nobody ever sat me down and said, "Lie to men in bed." Society didn't have to.

It taught me to tell men their dicks were hitting my stomach when they clearly weren't. To convince them that infinitesimally small dicks were gigantic cocks capable of completing us. To moan louder than I felt. To praise what did nothing for me.

We lose our true voices in the bedroom and bury them beneath performances of pleasure so we don't bruise men's egos yet we're the emotional ones. Funny. I know nobody explicitly asked us to do any of this and that's precisely how conditioning works.

When I was pleasuring Lade, he didn't have to wonder whether I was enjoying it. He was free to guide me,bob my head to the rhythm he liked, help me find a more comfortable position, tell me what felt good. His pleasure was the goal, and my job was to help him get there.

But when the roles were reversed, something shifted. The moment he touched me, I became the audience to his performance. If I stared blankly at the ceiling while he fondled my boobs or went down on me, he'd pause, search my face, and wait for reassurance. My moans became less about communicating pleasure and more about grading his performance.

So I gave him the grade he wanted. A+. Not because it was true, but because I'd been conditioned to believe that protecting his confidence mattered more than expressing my own experience.

I'm not saying Lade consciously expected any of this, maybe he didn't. The point is that I assumed he did.

I'd heard "Did you come?" one too many times after sex. I'd been called hard to please enough times to know where those conversations often led. So, before he even had the chance to react, I did what I'd been conditioned to do.

Dear ladies,

Stop talking to your diary after sex. Talk to the man lying beside you.

Guide him. Correct him. Tell him which buttons to press. Tell him when something hurts. Tell him when something does absolutely nothing. If you didn't orgasm, say so. Your honesty is not an attack on his masculinity; it's an invitation to intimacy.

This, to me, is how we begin to deconstruct patriarchy in the bedroom and have orgasmic lives. It's not just by winning arguments on the internet, but by refusing to perform pleasure we never experienced.

Dear men,

Learn to unlearn. What worked for your ex may do absolutely nothing for Nkechi. Every woman's body is a different language. Come to her like a virgin, not inexperienced, but teachable. Leave your assumptions at the door and let her teach you what pleasure looks like for her.

Pay attention to the shifts. Notice the difference between pleasure and performance. Listen beyond your sounds. Create a bedroom where honesty is safer than validation. If she tells you something isn't working, don't see it as criticism. See it as trust. And if she doesn't orgasm, let her know that's okay, that you'll keep learning her body until she does.

And Dear Lade,

If you ever wander back onto Substack and somehow find this buried beneath newer essays, this is what I never told you.

I didn't orgasm.

About seventy percent of my moans that night were fake.

You weren't a bad man. You were simply loving a woman who hadn't yet learned that honesty belongs in bed just as much as desire does.

I'm sorry I lied.

And please...

Never bite another woman's nipple like that.

With all my love,

IT 🧜🏽‍♀️