By Professor Marilyn Okeke
By all appearances, Nigerian men are confident in the bedroom. Assertive. In control. Always ready. But scratch just beneath the surface of this masculine bravado and you will find a far less flattering truth, a deep and persistent emotional vacuum.
For many Nigerian women, sex is not an act of mutual pleasure but a ritual of performance endured under the weight of male-centered desire. It’s a lonely, one-sided act with someone who rarely meets their gaze, let alone their emotional needs. It is not just disappointing; it is dehumanizing.
This is a serious indictment of how far too many Nigerian men misunderstand intimacy, mistaking sexual dominance for connection and performance for love.
Over the course of several months, dozens of Nigerian women from various regions, ethnic backgrounds, and social classes were interviewed for this article. Despite their differences, a common frustration emerged in their stories: for many, sex has become mechanical, rushed, and lacking tenderness.
It is rarely about intimacy or connection, almost never about affection. Often, it feels transactional at best and domineering at worst. Intimacy, if it ever enters the room, is told to wait outside.
Across Nigeria, from Kano to Port Harcourt, from Lagos to Enugu, and Uyo to Abuja, women are speaking about the intimacy deficit with growing boldness.
What they are describing is neither isolated nor accidental. Eight out of ten Nigerian men are inattentive, insecure, and emotionally absent in sexual relationships. The cultural script they’ve been handed is unambiguous: sex is an act of conquest, not connection. In this mindset, the woman is not a partner but a vessel. Her pleasure is secondary, her presence reduced to a means to an end. Satisfaction is measured by the man’s ejaculation alone, not by mutual intimacy or shared experience.
Sex Without Soul
Aisha, a 29-year-old school teacher from Kano, recounted her first sexual experience with a man she thought cared for her. “He never kissed me,” she said. “Not even on the cheek. He just went straight to my breasts, like that was the only part of me that mattered.” Aisha’s story is not unique. It echoes across the voices of many women who described men who neither linger nor listen, men whose idea of foreplay is undressing and whose idea of consent is silence.
Chinwe, a 34-year-old civil servant in Enugu, described a lover who laughed at her when she asked for eye contact during sex. “I told him, ‘Please, look at me. Let’s connect.’ He laughed and said, ‘I’m not here for romance, abeg.’” The absence of emotional presence is not just painful, it is humiliating.
Even worse is the performance of pleasure that many women feel forced to adopt. Fatima, 26, from Abuja, admitted, “I’ve faked more orgasms than I can count. They never ask if you’re okay. Once they finish, they roll over and sleep. It’s always about them.” Fatima’s story reveals the unequal labor of sex—women giving, men taking; women producing, men consuming.
The Tragedy of the Three-Minute Man
Beyond emotional detachment lies another, more literal problem: the brevity of it all. Nigerian women often speak, with resignation, of the “three-minute man”—sex that ends before it even begins. Ngozi, a 36-year-old pharmacist in Port Harcourt, said, “I once timed it. From start to finish, under three minutes. No kissing, no touching, just physical sex and then collapse.”
Halima, 38, in Kaduna shared her quiet resentment. “I could be sick, stressed, or just not in the mood, but he sees that as rejection. If I say no, he sulks. If I say yes, he finishes in minutes and rolls over. Sometimes I just lie there staring at the ceiling, wondering if this is all marriage is.”
Sex as a Solo Act
Bisi, 41, in Lagos, put it simply. “It feels like sex is something done to me. Not with me.” Her words capture what many women describe as a deep emotional absence, even when their bodies are physically present.
Sex as Emotional Exhaustion
And Nkoyo, 45, in Uyo summed up the emotional exhaustion many women described. “I do everything, care for the kids, cook, clean, manage the home. By night, I’m drained. But when he comes in late, all he wants is sex. No help, no tenderness. I just keep giving, and I receive nothing in return. I feel invisible, used, not loved.”
It would be comedic if it weren’t so common. According to interviewees, non-Viagra-induced sex with Nigerian men often ends in premature ejaculation, followed by silence, sleep, and often, snoring. And this, perhaps, is the most damning critique: that women are left not only unsatisfied but unseen; treated as a collection of body parts rather than whole beings with desires, rhythms, and souls.
What Lies Beneath
Why is intimacy so scarce? Why is sex in Nigerian heterosexual culture so often one-sided?
First, there is the toxic script of masculinity. From a young age, Nigerian boys are taught that to be a man is to dominate. Emotional vulnerability is considered a weakness. Tenderness is shamed. Crying is mocked. In such a climate, it is no surprise that Nigerian men struggle to be present in bed, not just physically, but emotionally.
Second, pornography has replaced real intimacy education. A recent study led by Okunola Lola John of Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, found that over 80% of men in Nigeria in their sample consumed pornography. In fact, other studies show high levels of porn addiction. Many men model their sexual behaviors on what they see online: hard, fast, impersonal, and always male-centered. The art of slowness, of listening, of attunement, is lost.
Third, religious and cultural taboos suppress open discussions about sex and pleasure. While abstinence is preached, understanding is denied. Most Nigerian men do not know what a clitoris looks like, let alone how to please it. And worse still, many do not care to learn.
Finally, insecurity fuels performance. With so much pressure to “be a man,” many Nigerian men rush the act, fearing failure. The result is a hurried, shallow experience that lacks depth or duration.
What Can Be Done
The good news is that sexual dysfunction and emotional detachment are not permanent conditions. They are learned behaviors and what is learned can be unlearned.
The first step is education. Nigeria needs age-appropriate, comprehensive, pleasure-focused sex education that includes emotional intelligence, communication, and mutual respect.
The second is therapy. More men need to be exposed to counseling that helps them unpack childhood trauma, religious guilt, and cultural conditioning. Therapy is not weakness. It is self-awareness.
Third, there must be a cultural reimagining. We need books, films, and media that model intimacy, not just sex. That show Nigerian men being gentle, listening, caring. We need to expand the image of manhood beyond hardness and conquest.
Fourth, women must be empowered to speak out, as they are beginning to. Silence has never protected pleasure. The more women demand emotional reciprocity, the more they call out lazy lovers, the more this culture of male-centered sex will begin to shift.
A Call for Intimacy
In sum, the real tragedy of heterosexual sex in Nigeria today is not just how quickly it ends, but how rarely it begins with intimacy. Too often, the most intimate act takes place between two people who move like strangers, with bodies touching and hearts distant. A woman’s heart is seldom felt, only her curves, breast and sex organ are acknowledged.
But this doesn’t have to remain our story. Nigerian men have the power to move beyond the lack of intimacy. They can choose love that is present, patient, and wholehearted. They can learn to truly see, to listen deeply, to linger without urgency. A mutually fulfilling sex life nurtures not just the marriage, but the well-being of the entire family.
Because sex, at its best, is not a sprint. It is a dance. And no dance is beautiful when only one person moves. So, Nigerian men, tonight, in the bedroom or wherever both of you feel comfortable, look her in the eyes, go gentle, invest time in foreplay, caress her, kiss her, listen to her breath, her body, her rhythm.
Let pleasure be mutual, not measured by speed or rate of ejaculation, but by connection. Let her know she is deeply felt. Make the moment not just about release, but about tenderness, respect, and shared joy. You owe this joy to your spouse—because love, in its fullest form, gives as much as it receives.
