By Rita Okoye

During the days of my mothers and grandmothers, virginity was the pride of every young maiden. A priceless gift they present to their husbands on the night of their wedding.

Those days, couples looked forward to their honey moon with so much anticipation. Because for the bride (sometimes the groom too), it’s a new beginning of their sex lives. All the things they’ve heard in whispers would be totally put into practice.

Wow! I could imagine how she would feel as she spread her innocent legs wide and watched the Almighty Anaconda slowly and ticklish penetrated her cubicle, breaking the gate that has been shielding it and then welcomes her into the ever-exciting world of sexual ecstasy.

But could the same be said of our contemporary society? Impatience and moral decadence has really stolen the virginity pride from us. Girls wouldn’t want to be told about sex, they want to experience it for themselves. While men of nowadays would do anything to lure even under-aged girls to their bed.

I was indeed very surprised when a 13-year-old JSS 2 student sent me a text asking if she is old enough to indulge in sexual acts. I asked why she wants to make sex her priority in life instead of her education – the same act she would start running away from in due time – so why on earth must she rush into it at that tender age?

I also remember those days, when men get frustrated in their attempt to see a lady’s cleavage. The women made sure they wore clothes that cover up every vital part of their bodies.

Lost by the beauty of her eyes, heart, character and other little places they manage to see through, they would crave to have her for keeps, so as to have the opportunity of seeing all her endowments in full, the moments she becomes his wife.

The eager husband-to-be would be so eager to unveil his bride and devour all she has been hiding. His impatience would make him agree to all terms and conditions.

It is totally a different ball game now. In reality women, don’t wear panties; instead they tie coloured ropes round their waist. Amazingly, I have heard people say that real women don’t wear panties. How true could that be? Their reason for coming to such conclusion, I can’t say, but hope your guess is not as good as mine – i.e. for easy access to their treasure islands.

You will also see ladies dressed in two-piece clothes that could easily be mistaken for a scarf. The most annoying part is that you would still see the same girls battling to draw their skirts down and in the process pushing the little cloth barely covering their boobs up and down.

They keep acting as if they were compelled to put on such scanty dresses or perhaps they didn’t know it was not their size when buying such.

In my formative age, my breasts were still as little as a nut when my mother kept cautioning me to stay away from boys. She told me if any man or boy came close to me or as much as touch me, then I will automatically become pregnant.

The fear worsened when I launched into womanhood with the first flow of blood. I quickly started recalling my movements in the previous days to know if I have been wrongly touched by any boy like my mum cautioned; perhaps, I had become pregnant. After while, I gathered enough courage to confide in my mum.

She scared the hell out me by telling me that now my case had worsened, because not just by mere touch, but my sitting close to any boy would get me pregnant. But how can I avoid that? I went to a mixed secondary school;  tucked in-between four boys in a seat. So if by any chance my mum’s scary words were true, I’d be impregnated by those four boys on a daily basis because we had exchange notebooks, biro, food and what have you.

Ironically, when I grew much older, I damned the consequences and ate the forbidden fruits and detected the difference between the touch of a boy and the ‘banging’ of a man. But I believe I was matured enough before I embarked on that journey.

God help our secondary school female students because sex to them is a subject better experienced before being taught. Believe it or not, some of them now know more about the latest sex position and latest contraceptive, than even grown ups. They believe virginity is no longer a virtue. Sad.

Let’s join hands together and bring back our lost moral values.

I know, now is the jet age, the era of the ubiquitous social media and easy access to internet. And for that we are paying a great price. Right before our very eyes, our morals are dying out. What do we do?