Do not enter the place

This essay is not written by a gentleman so leave it if you do not have the stomach for thinking the unthinkable. Anathema is my ambrosia; needling the conventional is my nectar.

Hey, guy, who told you that you must get married? Yes, the society preaches the glory of marriage; the black suit of a handsome bridegroom and the lily-white wedding dress of a ravishing bride make us go ‘uh’ and ‘ah’. Most young men who are blessed or cursed, depending on your perspective, with the African skin, mentality and hair are cajoled, begged, intimidated, coerced and even blackmailed into a prison most of them would not enter if they had pure souls, unblinking eyes and rarefied consciousness. Alas it is not so for an overwhelming number of them have been brainwashed by the society into thinking that their lives are incomplete without some breasty and leggy belle bearing their surname, and for good measure, seed. In the deepest depths of their hearts where a man cannot lie to himself many brothers, irrespective of their marital status, know the bottom-naked truth: no man should be tied down.

Do not misunderstand me. The girls are great and without them the world would be as flat as unrefrigerated beer. Now that men shack up with fellow men and women cuddle each other on harmattan-cold nights I wonder if these folks really get it. The caress of heavenly female breasts on a hairy male chest; the love-charged manly hands on the secret points of feminine delights; the turbo-charged speed of the male sports car along the female highway…let me not be accused of producing a Nigerian edition of ‘Deep Throat.’

Yet these great delights are no reason to deliberately buy handcuffs. Sorry if you do not like this but the truth is not mild. So read these words and spill out your guts if you are not man or woman enough to retain them.

SEX IS NO JUSTIFICATION: Holy Joes teach that with marriage you get all the action you want between the sheets with the blessings of the Great One. With marriage you can ‘eat’ for life with a peaceful mind.

If you believe that you might as well believe that I will win the 2011 presidential elections. How many of our married men join the singles in hustling for pussy at ‘ashawo’ joints, nightclubs and female university hostels in this blooming Nigeria? How many married men can look me straight in the eye and tell me they are ‘eating’ with peace and joy? Hey, you must be the biggest mumu on the block if you think she will continue to serve it to you hot and spicy just because the marriage is barely two years old.
Wait until she consumes your seed. Show her all the evidence from Oxford University and Yale’s Medical School combined that both of you can continue burning the bed sheets well into her fifth or even sixth month; slot in all the CDs that depict gentler handling of heavy ones; she will close her mind and legs with the stiffness of a rigor-mortis afflicted corpse. If you are lucky to scale this hurdle be prepared for the drab, grandma style she brings to the bed for any or all of these reasons:

Since you have children now why bother her with sexual demands?

She is a feminist and has full control over her vagina.

She earns a fat pay cheque so why feed a chap with a lean and hungry wallet?

Her version of the holy books teaches her that the bedroom is a chamber of sin.

She is too busy chasing the dough.

She is just plain stupid.

Worse, she has wised up on this goddamned marriage and realized that bearing a ‘Mrs’before her name is not worth all the trouble.

But even if all these reasons do not apply to you perhaps you do not like pounded yam and egusi soup day in, night out. You want to vary your diet but the societal jailers of your happiness insist it is wrong. Come on, do you really need to go through this hassle?

FREEDOM IS THE FIRST POINT OF HUAN EXISTENCE: Recently I downloaded stuff about Casanova on the Internet. Know him? He is the Italian chap whose name is a password for skirt-chasing. His full name is Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt. No matter what anyone may think of his lifestyle I came away with the perception that for all his foils and foibles and the misery of his final years the man was free. Free to be, to explore, to roam, to eat and be eaten. No woman, no matter how luscious, could tie him down. He was the real hunter; the true man who did not bury the primordial instinct embedded in the heart of every real man since the dawn of creation: the instinct to be unroped to any woman.

This goes beyond the freedom to sample pussies from Egypt to England. It is about being unmastered, undictated to. A spade must be called by its saintly evil name. Friend, when you were single, who stopped you from attending every party in town? You could wear the same shirt for one week and damn the world. Who was that woman that dared boss you? She would be on the pavement faster than Jay-Jay Okocha’s goals. You could sleep till noon on weekends without some mucus-dropping brat bawling you out of your stupor. Remember how you could waltz off to Japan or Owerri from Lagos at the drop of a hat? Chase the mega deal? Buy the latest car? Grab the degrees or books if you are the intellectual type? Gamble away your life’s savings without any hang-ups? Quit church till Christmas? Guy, try am now she don sentence you to life imprisonment.

Marriage arrests the destinies of real ‘nigas’, not, to quote Leah, a major character in Peter Abraham’s novel ‘Mine Boy’, weaklings who put on pants and pretend to be men. Imagine what a real red-blooded man would do if a war he very much wants to fight breaks out and the missus chains him with her tears. Do you know how many heroes Nigeria and Biafra were deprived of by married skirts? True, many fought and died on both sides in spite of skirts, married and unmarried. But many more would have engaged in man’s greatest sport. I use man with reference to my sex. The sisters, even though they are great warriors and killers as history indicates, are not generally wired to play in this league. Even male peaceniks lose their liberty once the net of marriage ensnares them. So brother, the first point of human existence is not fresh air; it is freedom!

BABIES…: Who says you must be succeeded by someone? Anyone, whether sired from your loins or Ikejiaku’s? Babies, boy or girl, do not guarantee immortality on this side. That child may look like you but he or she is not you. He or She has his or her mission here and it just might be achieved by destroying all you stood for. Look for immortality elsewhere. Do you know William Shakespeare’s children? I doubt. But you know his plays, at least ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

Even if you are enthralled by cuddly cute little human teddy bears you do not need the hassle of a woman under your roof to have one. Let us face hard facts: which one is sensible and likely to be productive in the end; the child whose parents live together in a home the equivalent of a Wrestle-mania cage fight or the one whose parents are the best of friends yet are the best of friends? I am not implying that children whose parents live together end up sad cases. All I care about is the man’s well being. Brother, can you stick it out with a woman added to the challenge of rearing a child? Every one must answer for himself and that is why you, the smart guy, must always carry a pack of condoms in your pocket. If you do not want a marital Krikiri but fancy the lady ask yourself whether bringing in a baby is worth the Makossa dance between her legs. If both of you can care for the baby without marriage, great. But if you cannot, do not allow conception. I do not support abortion.

In any case there are responsible single fathers in Nigeria who strive to give their children a good life. If such a man has a good friend but not a wife i

n the woman who bore the child he is blessed and must treat the woman with affection and respect.

LONELY? GET A LIFE, NOT A WIFE: Akon’s hit song ‘Lonely’ should be banned. Who in his right senses should look for someone to call his own? Friend, you have no right to call any woman your own. The same rule ordinarily applies to the women but because they often operate on frequencies different from our channels perhaps they may be excused. But the earlier they accept they cannot own anyone the quicker they will save themselves from unnecessary pain.

Please do not assume that I come from the Arctic. I recognize the human heart’s longing for companionship; the innate and at times incendiary desire for a mate in all Homo sapiens. I have experienced it. But needing a mate does not translate to wanting a wife. A mate and a wife are not the same. The Holy Joes may dislike this but you, the honest man, will admit that even at the best of times you get tired and sick of your so-called wife. But because you are yoked by society’s chains you groan behind your fetters and pretend to be happy.

Many sensible men and women, black and white, have not resorted to marriage to satisfy their longing for a mate.