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When veteran journalist and relationship expert, Bunmi Sofola launched the collection of her works about ten years ago, it was an instant hit. Page after page, you are brought face to face with knotty issues that affect relationships and of course, some of the intrigues that also go with relationships.

 Aunty Bunmi as she is fondly called, is frank, down to earth and will call any sex organ by its name and not by any contraption.
Sex is a major issue in her writing and counselling. These are issues parents will not address.  The churches are too spiritual to talk about it. Faced with sexual problems, a lot of people turn to Aunty Bunmi for help. Over the years, these problems have drawn hundreds and thousands of people to her column.  

As she turns 60 next week, the amiable journalist is set to launch another collection of her works, entitled “Yours Sincerely  - The Vanguard years”. Billed for Wednesday, May 6th at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the event will attract friends and well wishers to a programme expected to be a memorable one. In this chat at the Vanguard office in Lagos, I took up Yours Sincerely on the knotty issue of sex. She had a good laugh at my questions as she spoke once again very frakly and true to type. Enjoy

The issue of sex is big with your column. Even though a lot of people wouldn’t like to be seen reading soft sells, they hide behind serious newspapers to gulp information on sex.  Why is sex such a big issue?

My column is not just about sex. It is about relationships but sex oriented. You’d discover that in Nigeria, the average person is either enjoying sex or not enjoying sex or having too much or too little sex. And of course, there are problems attached to sex that they take so seriously. When you are young, you have all these STDs and when you start getting older, the women have menopause to grapple with while the men have prostrate issues to grapple with. At one stage or the other, you always have one sexual problem or the other and that is what I try to address in my column. It’s not strictly sex all the time.

So our lives revolve around sex?
Yes, because without sex, you won’t have children.

But sex sometimes is not for the purpose of having children?
Yes, I agree but let me tell you, without good sex, you won’t have a good marriage. One thing you should know is that with good sex, bad marriages have been sustained. So sex is part of you. It is part of everybody, therefore, it has to be addressed. It’s a big deal. I talk to people on one on one. When you read my answers, you feel as if I am talking to you. I don’t preach. I don’t admonish except if I have to. I just put the person in my position as if the person is in front of me and make it as personal as possible.

When are we going to get to the point where people can be open about sex and not hide under anonymous to ask questions?
The average Nigerian is hypocritical about sex. When you are having sex, you don’t talk about it. But now, the younger ones are open. They know what they want. The men talk about sex.

They brag about sex all of the time. Women seldom do. A few of them do these days but they seldom do. It’s going to stay that way for a long time except you want people to give you a bad name. If your focus is to get married, you can’t start bragging that you’ve slept with about 6-7 men in the last three, four months. People would not want to marry you. You are not  marriage material. So whatever you do, you keep to yourself.

So for young people who need counselling, can’t parents be open so that children can have correct information?
Some parents are open with sex but most of them are afraid that if they urge their children to go for it or don’t go for it, they might take them more seriously. If you have a 19 or 20 year old child, you suspect she might be having sex, but you won’t take her to the doctor’s to kit her with birth control pills.

It’s like you are saying now, I know you are having sex, then go ahead and do it. Because you don’t want that, you sort of skirt around the matter. It’s a very difficult situation. Each parent will have to use her own method. You tell her, let me know when it happens. She will never tell you.

However, let her know that whatever friend she has in this world, you are always her number one best friend and she would always come to you to talk. But some of them will come to the mother when they realise that their friends are not telling them the truth. The truth is you have to be your own counsellor. You know what you want, you know what you want for your children because even your friends will come and as
k you questions they already have answers to. They are just testing your own ground. It’s a very tricky thing.

So beside sex, what are the big issues with relationship?
Deceit is very rampant. Men have two to four women on the wing. Women do the same too sometimes. You cannot be sure who has affection for you. These days, you have couples coming together to get married. Then three to four months to the time, the wedding is called off and in the next six months, the girl has remarried.

They always have contingency plans. I don’t blame them. With all these things they see happening every day and with this economic situation, women are earning fantastic salaries now. So, they can do what they want and they can tell a man to go and take a jump. All these are a fall out of the economic independence. And when they get married and see that this man is a nasty man, they just decide to hang around, have two or three children and then leave.

And some can even discover that after the two or three children, they can sort of manage him. So they hang it there as long as it doesn’t bother them too much. But when it is an abusive relationship, then that is an entirely different kettle of fish you have to deal with. A man will be goody-goody before you get married then after marriage, the fangs are out.

Isn’t it ironic that our mothers who didn’t have a choice in who marries them have more lasting marriages than young people today who by themselves decide who they want to marry?
Do those marriages really last forever? Most of those women weren’t doing anything. The highest level of education some of them attained was secondary school. Those women didn’t have a say in the matter. Today’s woman have a say in who she wants to get married to. Our mothers would have loved to leave but they didn’t have any place to go to because the parents had sent them out and they couldn’t take them back and they didn’t have any job to go to. For better for worse that is why they cling to their children. You’d find mothers in law not letting go of their sons, not letting go of their daughters, interfering in their affairs because they aren’t really happy. They didn’t get that satisfaction in their marriages.

What are some of the new issues that have arisen between your first work and the one you are about to launch?
If you compare the first book I launched ten years ago, you’d see a lot of maturity with this new one and you’d see a lot of problems that didn’t crop up then. Like these relationships we are talking about now, how flippant and uncaring people are and all these sexual problems. We didn’t hear too much of AIDS and all these religious things, it's like a cult now.

People are so despondent and discouraged. They are hanging on to religion for an answer they are not getting. Sometimes, they are conned and you read about all these things in the papers. You have to be your own counsellor. You talk to yourself. You can’t deceive yourself when you are having a good conversation with yourself. This is what I have, this is what I can give out and this is what insult I can take. With that, you can have a focus and move on with your life without much interference.

Before the Vanguard years, what are some of the knotty issues that affected relationships?
Well, I’ve told you all these nonchalance towards relationships then these mega bucks, girls are now earning, driving fantastic vehicles and you see that in their attitude. You go to all these society weddings, millions of naira are pumped into them, three or four months later, the girl has packed her things and gone. They don’t want to hang on. They prefer to have children rather than go through a bad marriage or a bad relationship. Some will just settle down have two or three children by two or three different men. They don’t care as long as they have the money to bring up the children

Do we encourage this kind of thing?
No, we don’t. But they see it as an alternative to an abusive marriage. You see a man who ordinarily wouldn’t talk down at you talking down at you and then you say what the heck! and you walk away. Why would you want to stay with a mediocre when you know that first and foremost, you earn a better salary, you have better brains than he does? Why would you want to hang around so that he can lord it over you, tell you what to do? So things like these are the issues. It will stabilise with time but it’s going to take a long time or never. In spite of these, we have some good marriages because there are some mothers who really stay at the background and beg their wards to please stay.

Would you say your readers are the ones who actually give this sex slant to your writings?
No, not at all. I talk about whatever I want to talk about but if it is sex they are always hankering after, you discuss that and move on to other things. Sex is not everything. Some are worried about their future, some are worried about their education and some others are worried about their children.

They say as you grow older, thoughts of the spiritual become upper most on one’s mind.  But here you are talking sex most of the time. How does this whole thing affect you?
I’m a very happy-go-lucky person. What I write has nothing to do with me.  Like I said, I don’t think sex, sex all the time. But if you don’t think about it, you won’t write about it. And even if one were not writing, sex is something we think about. At 60 I am re-branding myself. They say 60 is the new 40. So now, I am a 40 year old.

And hot...
If I don’t look hot to you, I look hot to me. That’s what matters.

For the launch what do you look forward to?
I look forward to people who have read me to come and rejoice with me, to come to the hall maybe buy the book if they can and ask questions after the launch because I am going to be around. It is going to be very interesting and entertaining, no dull moment. I have a committee chaired by Dr Omolara Adadevoh and they are working hard to help package the launch. It’s going to be a lovely get together and then I’m cutting my birthday cake there.

After the launch, where can people get the book to buy?
After the launch, I’ll put it in my column where they can get the book to buy.

You’ve been in this profession for many years now. What has the practice of journalism been like for you?
It’s fun. If it wasn’t fun, would I still be there? It has its challenges, it’s a very tasking job but you are still there. Larry King says it all the time that it is the best job in the world, doing what you love and getting paid for it. It has its hassles too but I wouldn’t change all that for any thing.