Don't worry. I'm not about to do a 'Femi Fani-Kayode'. But I remember the first time I heard the word, 'conji'. I was freshly arrived at University - sitting out in the evening, with a friend, on the wall separating our hostel block from the next. He kept fidgeting. After a while, he said it was 'conji' that was 'worrying him'. It sounded like an ailment. So, wary of contagion, I shifted away slightly and said 'sorry'. It took a few seconds - because he carried on speaking – before I realized what he was on about.
'It's been three months', he said, looking genuinely distressed. 'Honestly, as I am sitting here, I can't concentrate.' Then he looked at me and said, 'How do you do it?' Not a problem at the time, seeing as I was barely 17, and hadn't actually done anything yet. And I wasn't alone either; take this other friend - let's just call him Lukman - who returned to his room once and found it mysteriously locked from inside. And when he went round the window to look, my brother, what he saw made him gasp out: 'My God! They're doing it!' I haven't stopped teasing him about it. And about the fact that they didn't stop, even after he'd shut his eyes and asked the Lord to arrest every offending cell in their bodies.
That's how difficult it is, apparently, to hold it in once you've let it out. You start calibrating Time around the instances of its occurrence (hence, the invention of a term like, 'conji'). I tried, once, to dissuade a roommate. No. It wasn't out of concern for his lecherous soul. I was just tired and about to go to bed. Then I heard whisperings at the door. 'Where you dey go? Dike dey inside o. He's sleeping.' A long thoughtful silence. Then the reply: 'Okay. No problem now, we go dey quiet. I no go disturb am.' WHAT? I sat up in bed. This guy was not serious. Quickly – it was the only dissuasion strategy that came to me in the seconds it took him to turn the door handle – I dragged my desk over, grabbed the biggest Bible available, opened to the middle, and bent my head over it. For where? He entered the room with the girl in tow, didn't even say a word to me, pulled a mattress to one corner and disappeared beneath the blanket.
It made me think, 'Jehovah, what will I not see in this world?' Yes. But then I also chalked it down to youthful exuberance, and all the heady feelings that come with encountering FREEDOM for the first time in one's life. Surely, it is something people out-grow? Well, not exactly. You outgrow puberty. You out-grow curiosity – one way or the other, whether by listening to people, walking into situations, reading books, watching stuff, wandering down a few (or maybe not so few) paths yourself. These things WILL happen. What you don't out-grow are consequences. And! THE dilemma. Yes. THE dilemma. Forget those drawings in Biology; not every part of you is actually linked to your thinking brain. And, once you turn this thing on, sooner or later, it will want someone your heart, or your soul, or your spirit, or just plain common sense, doesn't. That, my friend, is THE dilemma.
So – for the sake of giving him one – let's call my friend, Bobby. 'Okay, Bobby, I'm ready for that question now, ask me again.' And Bobby scratches the back of his head, shifts around a bit, looks at me and says, 'Men! I haven't had sex in three months. How do you deal with it?' Well, Bobby, it HAS been seventeen years (God forbid! I meant since that conversation). But the thing is, unlike a conscience, erections don't actually always point you straight. They don't care if you're in school, or still trying to find your feet in life. They don't care if, midway through kissing this person you met an hour ago, you reach into your back pocket and can't find the condom you put there. They don't care if you have enough children already, either with the person they are leering at now or with someone else, someone waiting at home, watching the clock and worrying. They DON'T care. Even if you're breaking hearts and risking reputation, they DON'T care…
What can I say? It's just the way we're wired. Learn it early – no secret formulas – how to take deep breaths and cold showers. Because, compared to what you will find down some of these roads, the miserable state of 'conji' is pure heaven.
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