Do you recall watching a movie with your parents, talking and laughing, when suddenly a sex scene comes on which seems to drag on forever? That awkward silence as everyone tries to find the remote control, ashamed to be in the presence of such a scene.



Advertising and Hollywood movies proliferate ideas of sex, yet traditional African parents still treat the act as a taboo topic, one which is not to be discussed with teenagers (Source: Simon Watson/Getty Images)




That happened too often in my household. Nollywood movies were family-bonding sessions. However, when Nollywood went Hollywood, I ceased watching movies with my parents. It was more for their sake, because I didn’t want them to feel embarrassed. Sex was the unspoken taboo that nobody dared to mention, so watching it was a silent abomination. It was easier to act like it didn’t exist.

Sex education
However it did and it does exist. We are a sexually charged generation, in a society where sex is at the forefront of everything that sells. Sex is the universal act that triggers a common feeling amongst people, whether in the Bandundu region of Congo or in metropolitan cities like London. So why have some of our African parents avoided teaching us this very important thing whilst growing up? Why is it an unspoken rule not to mention sex in a sex-saturated world? How do we learn without being taught?

There is an African proverb that goes: ‘It takes a whole village to raise a child’, but we all know that education first begins at home. So if our parents don’t teach us about sex, then ultimately we will learn it elsewhere, to our detriment or not. I always say a lesson hard learned should teach a person not to make the same mistake twice, but what do you do when that mistake stays with you for life? And who is to blame? Sex education at school was the first and only time some of us received it. Some of us in our twenties are still waiting to have that ‘talk’ with our parents. Many will die waiting.