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 ejaculate 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 coitus 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.
