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Tag: relationships

The Demons We Run Away From

The first time I had sex I was 20. With 5 years’ experience in masturbation. I got an STI. She manipulated me into sleeping with her. With mandazi. Yes, mandazi. I was a nervous wreck in that bed. Called me a coward for not ejaculating inside her. It hurt. But I was used to insults […]

Women Deserve Healed Men

I don’t blame women who are indifferent to the pain of men. It’s counterproductive arguing, “why don’t feminists speak when it’s men?””why do you keep quiet when it’s a man?” We have to look at the picture outside the frame.We have to investigate the impetus of this dissociation to balance our perspectives. It’s a trauma response. Women all around […]

“I Am Not Wife Material”

We sat put in the restaurant booth dreamingly gaping into each other’s eyes. It may have been just another date in the books, but this had a different air to it. “I am not wife material.” She muttered. Let’s talk about that. “I meet men who say they want this or that kind of a […]

Men’s Complicated Relationship with Loss

Men have a complicated relationship with loss. I was sharing space with a friend who visited yesterday for tea and conversation. We agreed that because of poor socialization for boys around emotions, they grow up to struggle dealing with difficult sensations that cause pain in their adulthood. Women tend to be attuned to loss from […]

Habits of Successful Relationships

Last night I stayed up watching TED Talks on relationships. Taking notes, gasping, laughing nervously and reflecting. It continues to astonish me how we’re barely taught emotional laws that explain our inner world and that of interpersonal dynamics, hence our over-reliance on our parents’ coupling styles. Not so many of us have had it good.  I […]

You Can’t Change People

Here’s what I learned: You are never obligated to work on a relationship that keeps harming you; mentally, emotionally, physically. We’re socialized to grow through struggle without boundaries. If it’s a parent who caused your childhood trauma and they continue disposing their unresolved issues on you; if it’s a partner whose violence spirals in an […]

Navigating the Man God Complex

Ever since I was a kid, manhood was presented to me as the solution to everything. All around me men were the center of attention even more than babies. Every Sunday we prayed to a man God. At home whenever food was discussed it was a man who issued money to cook it. At school […]

Youth, Sex & Trauma

The first time I had sex I was 20. With 5 years’ experience in masturbation. I got an STI. She manipulated me into sleeping with her. With mandazi. Yes, mandazi. I was a nervous wreck in that bed. Called me a coward for not ejaculating inside her. It hurt. But I was used to insults […]

Dear Lover

Dear Lover, Last night I smelled your black lace thong. To get a whiff of your ravishing scent. At the back of my lonely bed it lays spread on two tiny red couch cushions. I clutched it in my hands, wet thinking. I could hear the whisper of your voice surround my rose fragranced room, […]