The use of condoms is strange to many men in Makoko, a densely populated slum where the majority live in wooden shacks built on water, writes ARUKAINO UMUKORO
Following his pleasant discovery earlier in the day, Hueze Huesu, in his 50s, couldn’t wait to get home later that night. He felt like a school boy preparing for a first date.
He was excited about exploring the world of sex with a ‘rubber.’ “Nobody had told me about condoms until I heard from some people that it prevents pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases,” he said.
However, his excitement was deflated when he tried to explore his discovery with one of his wives that night. He said, “For the first time, I tried to use it when I wanted to sleep with my wife but she bluntly refused. She said she was not a prostitute and queried why I wanted to use a condom when we have been married for years and never used one.”
Since then, Huese, who has 10 children, has never tried to use a condom with any of his two wives. “I have never believed in the use of condoms anyway. This has not stopped me from having sex regularly. The woman knows the sign when the man is about to Erupt or reach orgasm. So she has already even enjoyed it more than the man before he withdraws,” noted Huese animatedly.
Like Huese, many Egun people in Makoko, as well as Oko-Agbon and Ago-Egun communities in Yaba Local Council Development Area, Lagos, do not like using condoms due to their long held traditional belief in the old practice of Reproduction interruptus, also known as the withdrawal or pull-out method during sexual intercourse.
For centuries, this has been used as a method of birth control worldwide.
The history is not lost on the Egun people whose forefathers migrated from neighbouring Francophone West African countries like Togo and Benin Republic, as well as from Badagry, Lagos. This age old practice has been transferred to the current generation, where most of the people speak their local Egun dialect and sometimes French. Their major occupations are fishing and farming. Only a few understand English and the residents, whose maj live in wooden shacks built on murky waters oozing with an unpleasant odour.
“The use of condom means nothing for us here as Egun people. We don’t like using condoms because we know ourselves, both women and men; we don’t go outside or sleep around. It’s those people who go outside sleeping with different people that contact such diseases like HIV,” said Lowato Luke, one of the traditional chiefs in the area.
Luke, who has two wives and 12 children, gleefully boasted that he had mastered the withdrawal method and understands his wives’ ovulation cycles. “I know the particular times to have sex with my wives, even if they are breastfeeding and I want to have sex with them, I know how to do it to prevent another pregnancy,” he said.
Like Huese, he also claimed that his wives enjoy the sex more than he does. “But if you use condom, it won’t be that enjoyable. I have never used a condom,” he noted.
It is the same case with Kirianko Goi, in his 40s. “I don’t believe in the use of condom because I never heard that from my father. It’s not for me to say whether I will advise my children to use condom or not. If the young boys and girls want to have sex, they won’t tell you. This generation is clearly different from that of my father and mine. But if I’m in a position to do so, I will advise them, it is my duty to advise them,” he said.
Goi’s nephews, two young men in their 20s, one married and the other unmarried, giggled intermittently during their uncle’s brief condom talk. But they declined comments when asked if they use condoms during sex.
Many of the men who spoke to our correspondent in the community expressed their aversion to the use of condoms during sexual intercourse and were insistent that their women enjoyed it that way.
Twenty-five-year-old Bernadette Sato, who has two children, agreed. She does not like condom. “We don’t like using condom. But if we don’t want to get pregnant, we know how to do it by ourselves; it pays us more that way, because we don’t like using condom. I was told in a hospital in Cotonou, Benin Republic, where I gave birth to my first child, that people who don’t want to get pregnant can use condom. Sometimes, I use a family planning drug before and after sex with my husband to prevent pregnancy,” she said, noting that many of her friends also don’t like condoms, while some claimed it could bring about disease. “I don’t know the type of disease, but I just don’t like condom during sex,” she added.
Pipi Olorunwa, who has been married for 12 years and has six children, gave an insight into the female perspective. She said: “Although there is no official report that says condom is bad; personally, I don’t like it because God did not create it. Those who created it did so because of the level of immorality in the world today so that they can enjoy themselves. There are several methods to avoid pregnancy. A couple can have sex without the wife conceiving.
“I also don’t like the chemical and odour from condom because I believe the chemicals used in preserving the condom could cause problems and is harmful to the body. Although I didn’t get the information from a medical expert, but everybody does according to their belief. I don’t use any drug either to prevent pregnancy. I just do it the natural way with my husband.”
“We don’t use need it or any other contraceptive because we understand how to do child spacing,’’ noted the head of the traditional chiefs in the area.
55-year-old Mr. Francis Agoyon Alashe. When probed further, he gave a timeline of the spacing among some of his 14 children as proof. It showed a two or three-year gap among them. “My children are well spaced. Some of them, including the twins, were born in 1984, 1986 and 1989. I stopped having children in 2003,” he explained.
Source - Punch.ng
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