MOTHERS, YOU HAVE TO LET YOUR DAUGHTERS KNOW THIS

I was three or four years old, in nursery one, in class, wondering why I felt so stimulated. I had rolled my socks and inserted it into my panties, grinding it against my entire vagina, feeling pleasured, but oddly wondering why that was. I repeated the motion a few more minutes before I got exhausted and removed the socks from my panties and kept them in my bag. That act meant nothing to me.

But I had discovered the power of the clitoris to give sexual pleasures.

But that was before the days of soft and hardcore porn in films and TV's, so I had no idea who to blame for this discovery. My parents lived discreet lives, hence couldn't be fingered as examples of bad parenting. Somehow, in the midst of my non exposure to sexual acts, I had taught myself the pleasure of masturbation.

I was just three or four.

But these days, the reverse is the case. Children of all ages have unfiltered access to what their eyes should not see and what their ears should not ear. But more worrisome is the fact that the society has become so pervasive and morally decadent that I'm getting jaded with news of elderly men sexually molesting girls as little as three or four years old.

OMG. It could have been me!

Each time I come across such stories, I try to imagine the family set up, to see if the mother had a functional relationship with the daughter, or if the victim had been left to herself by the mother who had hoped that her daughter's innocence that haloed over her was sufficient to ward off sexual predators who had been let loosed in their numbers. And frankly speaking, it seems there is a strange spirit hovering over some men that makes them think little girls are good enough for play. More often than not, I see a mother who never thought her child could be a victim.

So before the blame game begins, I ask, did you do your part?

I'm not going to blow the trumpet of fear by making mothers paranoid and suspecting every male that comes too close to their daughters. That's left to their discretion, even if it means being careful with their husbands. I have to admit the rising cases of fathers sexually molesting their daughters give one jitters. What I am particular about is to ask, if as MOTHERS, you are not in denial that your daughter's sexual organs, though underdeveloped is much connected to nerve endings that could make them feel sexual pleasures if stimulated .

Or how do you think these sexual predators usually get to molest these kids before they are caught?

If anybody, either male or female. decides to slap a three or four year old girl, IMMEDIATELY, the girl will scream. There is no way such a person can threaten the girl to keep quiet. Her screams will give such a person away. Obviously a slap is brutal and painful but fingering a little girl's clitoris might be painful but pleasurable and that's exactly where the problem lies. The little girl can't fathom if she should cry or enjoy the sensation. And so, much eventually, the man will have his way and the little girl fuzzed as to the gravity of what had happened. Then during revelation time, you'll hear stuff like he said if I tell anyone what happened he will kill me. Believe me, except for rare cases this act can go on and on without the molester being caught because that four, six, or ten year old girl had been betrayed by her clitoris.

Please don't be the next MOTHER or FATHER to find out the hard way.

Preventing this is so simple. I'm not going to say teach your kids about sex. Nah, there are too many resources on that. I'll rather say, teach your daughters about their clitoris and the power it carries, not the vulva or the labia. By yourself, stimulate them. Let them tell you how they feel about it. But let them know that they shouldn't allow any man at all to make them feel that way; not event their brothers or fathers. It is the clitoris that gives them away, that makes them easy prey to all those "agbayas."

Don't be deceived. They aren't that young not to be aroused.

Keep telling them until they can't put the blame on anybody but themselves if they choose to be so betrayed.

By Akintuyi Abike