TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ABUSE
As a queer man, sex is a significant part of my life. When most cis heterosexual people learn of my sexuality the first thing they do is sexualize me and think or wonder ‘ wow, so he fucks guys?’ or ‘ is he the one who fucks or the one who gets fucked?’, often times they vocalize this and say it right to my face. When other queer people especially fellow queer men meet me – in real life or online – there is often times a form of sexualizing. This happens a lot when the meeting takes place online, I have lost count how many times people – usually queer men – have quoted pictures I posted with ‘destroy me daddy’ ‘choke me’ or DMed me ‘I’m pregnant for you’ ‘I want you to get me pregnant’. I’m unsure of how much money these fellows think I make, newsflash: not enough to raise a child in this economy! The attention is flattering and I know it is hardly ever sent with any malice in their hearts however to me, to someone like me, it is very triggering.
Vincent Desmond
I wasn’t dragged into a bush, my mouth wasn’t covered, I didn’t scream – all the things the media made me believe were elements of rape didn’t happen to me, so for a long time I felt my rape experience was invalid
When I was younger I was sexually assaulted. Raped, actually. I, however, find it hard to admit that I was raped because my experience lacked the physical violence I was raised to believe comes with rape. I wasn’t dragged into a bush, my mouth wasn’t covered, I didn’t scream – all the things the media made me believe were elements of rape didn’t happen to me so for a long time I felt my rape experience was invalid. I was raped in my house and by people I was more than familiar with and they did not wear masks. It took me years to admit that although my rape did not come in the form I was raised to believe rape traditionally comes in, it was and still is rape. I was a child and I was taken advantage of. Not by one person. Not by strangers. But my paternal uncle, by my maternal aunt’s housekeeper. People I grew up with who were supposed to be my caregivers, who I was supposed to trust. When I grew up, my relationship with my body and my sexuality evolved but that experience became a stumbling block. It became something I wanted to forget or push away. I couldn’t. I tried seeking help from adults around, from a pastor – who told me that my unholy relationships with boys was what was responsible for bad things happening to me – and eventually I just gave up.
I spent quite sometime on this earth thinking I was asexual. I realized that although I found people attractive, sex was something I just couldn’t quite completely indulge in. It made no sense to me, how was I attracted to boys and wanted to hold their hands and kiss them and sometimes even get aroused by them but the moment they tried to kick it up the notch I panicked. When I had my first ‘boyfriend’ – boyfriend in quotes because sometimes I wonder if he was technically my boyfriend – he wanted sex and on some level, so did i.
I have come to realize that I do want to have sex, I am not asexual, there’s just a part of me that is broken. Maybe forever. There’s a part of me that gives in to the sex, that gives into what my partner wants. The first time I was involved in sexual activities it wasn’t on my terms and now, I don’t know my own terms. Silly as it may sound but I give in to what my sexual partners want, I submit because it’s the only way I know. It becomes all about what they want and how they want it, I’m just an object of pleasure. When people sexualize me, I feel triggered because I imagine they see me as just an sexual object, a pretty face to get their rocks off to – and far too many times I’ve been right, that is what they see me as.
Going through life as a queer man living in a society as homophobic as the Nigerian society is hard, there are very few things we have going good for us and one of those things is having great sex. It is more than a bummer knowing that I can’t even have that. Knowing that I’m complaining about finding a boyfriend but how will I find a boyfriend when I know I am a sexually liberated queer man who talks about sex a lot but barely has it and hardly ever wants to have it? How?
If you or someone you know is struggling with this topic? Get the right resources