Impotent or Impotent or both?

There are impotent men, and then there are impotent fathers

There are men who cannot make babies but are awesome fathers

There are men who cannot raise children but are natural baby-makers

There are men who are both…

There are women who cannot carry babies but are wonderful mothers

There are women who are woeful mothers but can deliver babies with ease

There are women who are both…

So it was at the beginning, and so it will always be among men and every other creature on God’s earth.

It was no secret that he was impotent

He knew it long before he became a man of means

He was fifteen years old when he noticed there was something wrong with his manhood.

It was not growing as the other parts of his body were growing

It did not tickle or rise or fall or show any sign of life

He wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if he was not thrown into the boarding school by his parents

It was there that he was able to see other boys and compare what he had with theirs

He saw a guy in broad daylight masturbate and release sperm into his hands when there was an argument about age and which of them was old enough to impregnate a lady

Some argued that they were already having sex, while others just kept quiet and watched

One of them, the most vocal, was called a small boy who was not old enough to have sperm

Everybody laughed

The boy went quiet for a few minutes, and then he stretched out his palm and there in the middle of his hand was sperm, yellowish and whitish

He said, “Who said I don’t have sperm yet? Let me rub this in his face.”

Everybody ran out of the room

The halls rang with laughter

It was an event he never forgot in a hurry

They were all between the ages of 14 and 16, and some of them already had sperm.

He didn’t even know what an erection felt like, and he never saw girls the way other guys in his room saw them

Boys are always talking about girls in the boys hostel

As young as they all were, everything they did seemed to be motivated by the desire to meet the girls and impress them

Washing their clothes, ironing, washing the hostel clothes, ironing, going for prep, going to read, making the choice of where to have lunch and with whom

Everything revolved around girls

In the male hostel, especially among the seniors, “who is dating who” was the most important discussion

Not Mathematics, Ababio or Literature or even any of the teachers

He found it odd, but he played along

Eventually, he told someone about his issue

An illiterate local security man was employed to guard their hostel when the issues of kidnapping became rife.

The man claimed to have juju and other charms.

So he got close to the man and confided in him about his genitalia and their condition.

The man promised to help him by bringing him a herb to drink every day, at midnight, for 21 days

The concoction worked

He saw tremendous improvement in the size of his manhood

It was as if it was pushed out from wherever it was hiding, and it also began to tingle oddly once in a while

The increase in size was a big confidence boost for him

He could have his bath without facing the wall or waiting till others were done so that they would not make him the butt of their jokes

He even began to sleep nude whenever the heat became excessive in the hostel

By the time he was 23, he realised the size issue, which was solved, was just a smoke screen

A particular lady in his class when he was an undergraduate pursued him tirelessly until he gave in one day when she came to visit him in his hotel

All his roommates left the room to give them some privacy when she arrived

They kissed and groped a bit

She tried touching him, then using her mouth, and eventually, she took off her clothes to show him her nakedness in full to provoke a reaction from him.

He was able to give nothing.

She dressed up and, without saying a word, left him there on the bed, looking like a thief caught in the act

It was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him

He feared that she would go about telling people about it, and this would then make him a laughingstock in their department

He came up with all sorts of excuses in his head

“It was stress.”

“She had body odour.”

“I slept with her; she is lying to save face.”

He thought of many things he could do to salvage his reputation, but it turned out that he was fretting in vain.

The lady never breathed a word of it to anybody

He never allowed another lady to get close to him that much, however

He joined a church and became an advocate of holiness unto the Lord and no sex before marriage

He graduated and began his practice as a pharmacist

Needless to say, he had researched his condition and tried very hard to find a solution to it through his chosen field

He had discovered his erectile dysfunction issue was a result of a gene called SIM1 and that if he was to be sincere to himself, he could not be cured

So he focused on his work and forgot about getting married altogether

His younger ones, age mates, cousins and others got married

His mother began to pester him to get married

He could have just told his mother the truth, but he knew it would make her very sad, and the news could even push her into an early grave.

He was the only son, and it was expected that he would carry the family name into the next generation.

One day, his mother came to his house to visit, and she brought with her a lady from the village.

When he opened the door for the two of them, he immediately realised he was in trouble.

He knew his mother would not leave unless she got what she wanted

He had given her all sorts of excuses, and he was already thirty-nine years old

They had a tranquil dinner.

His mother had prepared the meal from her apartment with the help of the young lady.

His mother introduced the young lady as a good Christian sister from her church.

Her mother said she had prayed, and the pastor had prayed, and this lady was the will of God for him to marry as his wife.

He wondered why God didn’t reveal to the lady, the pastor, or his mother that he was impotent.

The lady was beautiful and well-educated

He wondered why she allowed herself to be dragged into his mother’s scheme

He decided to reason with the lady rather than make a fight of it

After the meal, his mother left him and the lady alone to get to know each other

As soon as his mother left, the lady said, “Your mummy has already informed me that you may be having issues with erectile dysfunction; she said it is rampant in your family, and she suspected you had it since you were young.

I think you should talk to her and hear what she has to say on the matter

She said you have always been very sore on the topic,

She said, your father should be the one to guide you here or any of your uncles, but most of them have either travelled abroad or found other means of solving the problem for themselves.”

He was shocked

He thanked the lady and went straight to the guest room where his mother was.

His mother told him the culture they had in his father’s family, in which the men slept with each other’s wives whenever they visited each other’s homes, was to help those who had serious erectile dysfunction issues in the family bear children within the same gene pool of the family.

This was the culture she married into, and it was through the custom that she was able to marry and bear her four children.

She had prayed that her children would be spared from the genetic issues, but he was not.

So they have to find a solution to the issue without much fuss

His mother told him she had spoken with one of his cousins

The cousin is married and has borne three children in five years

The cousin will sleep with his wife, but the children will be his children by right, as it has always been done in their family.

He told his mother he would think about it, and he did

He spoke to the lady and asked her why she wanted to go through with whatever it was his mother told her.

The lady told him she wanted to be respectfully married to a man who would be a friend and a companion

Having children for the man or from another man or surrogacy does not matter to her as long as she is sure he will love and cherish her

She knew he could not be unfaithful, and that was good enough for her.

He asked her about her sexual needs and how she planned to meet them

She told him she was a circumcised woman

He realised why his mother picked the woman and groomed her for him

They agreed to terms and signed a civil contract witnessed by a judge

They got married

His cousin donated semen, and his wife got pregnant through IVF

She delivered two sets of twins in four years

He got a job with a multinational company based in Milan, Italy

He relocated his family to Milan in 2019

 

PS:  Mr and Mrs A. E. Obasa sent in their story via a series of voice notes when they read my article about “Grey Areas” yesterday

They said the series excited them because of the practical decisions they had to take to overcome their challenges in life.

I asked him if it felt like the children were his.

He said I should ask any pet owner why they cry and sometimes become depressed when their dog, cat, fish or even snake dies

How much more a child have you nurtured from childhood till adulthood and given your name?

He said his children are his, and nothing in this world can take them from him.

He said his favourite TV show is Family Court, and whenever he watches it, he sees how grown men would cry and fret over paternity issues of children they raised whose paternity was called into question.

I told him there had been a lot of paternity issues in Nigeria that we are dealing with every day.

He said he understood the difference between being deceived by a partner, having a cheating spouse and marrying someone with whom you can share everything about your life apart from the sexual intimacy aspect and finding a way to solve that problem.

Men willingly marry women who have had children before through another marriage or are single parents, and they adopt the children as their own

It is the deceit that spouses cannot take.

Nobody likes being made a fool of.

If a man or woman is open, honest and reasonable with each other, most of the things we cry foul over will be non-issues.

There are lots of families in Africa and Europe who found themselves saddled with a problem of erectile dysfunction as a result of their genes; some of them could have children, while some couldn’t

They came up with a custom that, to the outside world, looked ridiculous and unacceptable

They share spouses within their own family but never with outsiders, and whatever children came from such spouse sharing they consider to be the legitimate child of each nuclear family.

Such customs and traditions were put in place then to help those who couldn’t have children become parents and for them to regard the children as theirs because they share the same DNA.

Of course, such practices are no longer acceptable today; however, is it wrong to get your blood brother to donate sperm for you to have children with your wife if you find out your sperm is not good enough to make a baby? Is it wrong for you to ask your sister to donate eggs for my husband to fertilise and I will see the child as my own?

What about surrogacy? Is it allowed?

I met a woman once who couldn’t have children, and the husband’s family decided they were going to get rid of his wife because she was the one with fertility issues, and this man was a king who must have at least a child to take the throne after him.

The husband discussed surrogacy with her.

She said No

She said she would wait for a miracle even though she didn’t have a womb

After ten years of waiting, the husband came home one day with a set of triplets that he had through surrogacy

Two nurses who will take care of the babies also arrived with him.

All he asked of his wife was to adopt these children as her own and accept them while they kept trying for her to get pregnant

This woman was distraught and refused to accept the baby

A week after the children were brought into the palace, she packed her things and left

The husband has still not remarried

This happened in 2021

Ideally, a husband and a wife should be naked and not ashamed; they should both be free to discuss everything from their shortcomings to their successes and find amicable solutions to their peculiar needs unless they are married to their enemies.

-GSW-