By Funke Egbemode
“I didn’t buy love,” Bintu once said. “I bought what my marriage could no longer provide.”
That statement may shock many people, but it opens the door to a conversation we rarely have.
Women also pay for sex.
Noooo.
Yes o.
Why?
Because contrary to popular belief, women also have sexual needs, frustrations and complicated emotional lives.
Bintu is 46, successful, elegant and married to a retired banker. If you see them at parties, they look like the perfect couple. They dance together.
They coordinate their aso ebi. They smile for photographs like a toothpaste advert but behind the expensive lace is a bedroom that has been on life support for years.
Her husband suffers from erectile dysfunction. They have tried herbs from Ibadan, concoctions from Kano, pills from London and prayers from every mountain between Lagos and Jerusalem.
Nothing has worked.
Bintu loved her husband. She still does and had no intention of leaving him but she was also a healthy woman with healthy desires.
Eventually, through a trusted friend (whose husband was also having a problem getting his JT to rise to even a monthly occasion), she met a discreet young man. There was an arrangement. No emotions. No promises. No Valentine’s Day drama. She paid him, he came when invited, and everybody went home happy; Bintu satisfied and the loverboy richer. Both parties relieved and less tense.
There’s another group of women whose problems are different from Bintu’s. They are like Ireti.
She didn’t have a husband with erectile dysfunction.
Her own problem was worse, I think.
Her husband had enough energy, perhaps even too much energy, for everybody except his wife. The man was like a he-goat with an erection that can’t be pacified. He had a side piece everywhere.
Office girlfriend.
Gym girlfriend.
