DISCLAIMER: This piece contains graphic description which may be sensitive to reader.
Tobi was the toast of St. Patrick’s High School, Igbida. At age 12, he already spotted a towering stature, paired with a confident gait and he appeared smarter than most of his peers.
Tobi spoke the English language with the most refined diction and was a pro at mimicking accents, an attribute which made him every teacher’s favourite and the envy of students at St. Patrick’s. He was an equally great sprinter and to the delight of his peers, could twang on a guitar in the most unconventional ways.
Tobi loved the Arts so much and was a budding star. At his young age, he was vast in his comprehension of the minutest details in literature and he understood blends of colours in Fine Arts, notes in Music and English language composition- all in great depths.
Everyone knew Tobi as a brilliant and confident chap and he was easily one of those in the class whose future was predicted to be unmistakably bright.
*****
Aunt Clara had fiddled with his genital severally in the past but that evening she had encouraged him to maintain his manly erection which had followed. Tobi remembered her taking off her purple thongs but he ironically did not realise his innocence was snatched in that split second.
He remembered feeling pleasure from the warmth of her lips on his swollen penis…he remembered the surge of adrenaline and blood building generously around his genitalia. Aunt Clara had secured a full erection before sitting on him and slowly lowering herself onto him whilst gently guarding it into her vagina.
She had let out a moan which Tobi found amusing. Suddenly she started to move her waist in rotations, albeit rather slowly before gaining momentum and doubling her pace.
Tobi had remembered the build up of what he felt was pleasure and mixed emotions that made him scream for a “leak” but before he could help it, he had emptied his “leak” in Aunt Clara’s vagina.
In that moment, he looked down at his genital, limp, wondering how the excitement and what he felt was heightened pleasure suddenly died and he had no idea if or how aunt Clara had enjoyed what had just happened. He deeply questioned his rationality as he believed he should have enjoyed every bit of it as aunt Clara promised. He rather felt a strong feeling of guilt, worry and shame.
Aunt Clara seemed unperturbed and had told him that he was “now a big boy” and was lucky to have been “exposed” on her watch.
She would repeat the act severally in the weeks and months that followed. Soon, for Tobi, it became something to look forward to.
***************
He stood in utter shock and disgust as to what had taken place yet again, a few minutes ago.
However, months down the line and little Tobi had become a shadow of his once bubbly self. He had no idea what was wrong with him and wondered why he was acting abnormally.
He could hardly live a day without craving Aunt Clara’s unclad body or even masturbating for relief whenever she was away. He had begun patronising the local film vendor for pornographic movies and the local newspaper vendor for erotic magazines. What was however constant was that with each act of masturbation he would feel a strong sense of guilt and filth.
Somehow he knew his life was messed up and there was no one he could really confide in. With every act he would recline into himself, unable to describe why he felt so guilty and dirty following what seemed pleasurable.
Who would he talk to about his fears and worries? Everyone would laugh at him. He was a big boy afterall. A lanky 12-year-old whom everyone in school wanted to identify with.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
**6 years later**
Back in therapy, Tobi recalled how following the incident he had reached out to his best friend Smart, who would later ridicule him for saying he was “disvirgined” by Aunt Clara. Smart had told him that he was a man and should have instead been grateful for the encounter.
He vehemently reiterated that he was not in anyway sexually abused by Aunt Clara as he thought he enjoyed every bit of what she had taught him even though it left him with guilt feelings and resentment for women in general.
In fact, he would argue with Dr. Damini that his marijuana and pornography addictions could not have been as a result of that experience. He had only always thought himself a bad boy who just couldn’t live right.
Tobi however recounted memories of the nights when all he could do was fantasize about Aunt Clara’s naked body and he would masturbate afterwards before he could find relief and sleep eventually. A situation which soon became an addiction that when Aunt Clara was unavailable to satisfy his sexual cravings he would resort to pornography and masturbation. Painfully, each time he orgasmed he felt so much disgust, pain, filth, shame and even frustration. He could never understand why he had to keep resorting to something that caused him so much agony because each time he had to wrestle with the after effect of his deeds.
He told of how he discovered a new addiction in a bid to distract himself from the “unholy pleasures” of masturbation and pornography. He had found solace in marijuana. The feeling which for him was intense and numbing in the beginning and he would even convince himself that the lust after Aunt Clara and the adult film stars in the X-rated movies he was hooked on, were no longer there. Unfortunately, in his low moments, he had realised that the marijuana even heightened his cravings for pornography and sexual acts.
He admitted he had battled severally with suicidal feelings and isolation, which the doctor told him was depression. But until therapy, Tobi had no idea how badly damaged he was from that early sexual encounter by his dear aunt Clara.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
I am Dr. Damini and as I look deeply into the dark and lonely eyes of my broken new friend Tobi, I can see through the masked bitterness and anger, the feelings of guilt, filth, betrayal, lost sense of worth, and above all, the heart shattering sadness of the bottled up pain… My heart bleeds for the boy child who has no voice.
In that moment, I managed to mutter, “let me be your voice my friend”… Let me be your voice, I said!
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
There is a lot of girl child advocacy out there that we oftentimes neglect the equally vulnerable boy child. This piece is written to fill a possible lacuna in child advocacy.
Female predators oftentimes go unnoticed. The boy child also needs a voice. Statistics has it that more males commit suicide. A lot of boys are unable to speak up as society expects a false sense of strength from a male figure. Let us end the biases. The days where it was a taboo for a man to cry have long ended. Now we teach our boys that it is okay to cry, it is okay to have a voice too.
The male gender is less likely to seek help for depression and suicidal thoughts because society has placed a faux taboo on male “weakness” in moments of pain. This only makes them more susceptible to death by suicide despite having lesser statistics than women who are more likely to attempt suicide, but less likely to die by suicide.
ATTN: The story in this piece is purely fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
(C) 2019
**********************
Yvonne holds an LLM in International Commercial and Maritime Law from Swansea University in Wales, United Kingdom. She is a Legal Practitioner, current Publicity Secretary of FIDA Bayelsa Branch and a Writer. She is passionate about Child Right’s Advocacy, Mental Health Advocacy, Rotary International, Teaching and Volunteering. She loves writing, baking, photography and the Arts in general. Yvonne lives with her familly in Yenagoa, Nigeria.
Tamara's Addiction 