Calling Them Out: Why Do Ghanaian Men Lie About Sex?

In 2001, during the two years that we had to stay at home waiting our turn to apply to Ghanaian Universities as used to be the practice, one of my friends told me that a guy I knew had told another guy who did not know me that he had slept with me.My girlfriend believed it. I was in shock. I could not believe what would motivate anyone to make up such a story. Though I knew it wasn’t true and I tried to brush it aside I still felt uncomfortable in the knowledge that it would always be my word against his and people say that women always deny things so they would probably believe his version of the story. It seemed that even my girlfriends had a hard time believing me because like me, they could not think of why anyone would just make up such an untruth. They probably thought that I slept with the boy and that maybe it was low of him to talk about it but I was just embarrassed to come clean. But I wasn’t. I hadn’t slept with the boy and was really baffled by it. If you'd asked me about this last year, I would have probably said that that's just something that teenage boys do. Afterall, we were about nineteen years old then. The boy wanted to brag, he had nothing to brag about, he knew me, he claimed to have had sex with me, it earned him some man points among his friends, never mind that it sullies my reputation, perhaps he thinks i’ll never find out anyway afterall i don’t even know his friends so well, he wins. But not this year.

I will no longer chalk it up to insecurity of teenage boys because fast forward to 2009 and I hear something similar. This time I’m crushed for a while and I think Man, I guess boys never grow up. Again I hear the story from a female friend who says that a male friend we have in common told her that he was hanging out with a group of boys, well, men, all graduates from Yale. My name came up and all of them claimed to have slept with me. She knows me so she knew there is no way this could be true which is why she told me about it. She too had experienced this before. When I heard this I laughed. I laughed because I have never slept with a Yalie. So for three or four of them to congregate and all claim to have had sex with me is quite interesting, and demands an analysis of the male mind. These people are not boys. They are grown men, Ivy-educated, supposedly smart men. Their egos are probably big enough. So, are they still just lying to look good? Sheesh!

Now I’ve always been a tom-boy. In JSS I used to fool with the boys waa. I fought them when it was necessary. There was a time in my life when I dressed like a boy (baggy pants, sneakers, and oversized shirts, cap to boot) and walked with a swagger. Then one day during my Presec days I was walking from goase to Mr. Peprah’s classes when Ernest Afatsawo (I wonder if he remembers this), walking behind me caught up with me and said he’d thought it was a boy. From that moment, I started to consciously dress like a girl. Even though I attended all female institutions for both high school and college, I’ve always been in men’s spaces. I say this to make the point that I know how to do boys boys and I know how to not make guys get away with nonsense. I will not wilt away because of this. But boy do I want to stamp out the devil in intelligent grown men that makes them do this over and over again? Someday they will do this to a woman who is weaker and she will agonize over it. Shame, shame, shame! Some women will just hope this kind of thing just goes away if it happens to them but I’m not just going to sit there and hope it goes away. So I’m calling them out on it. I wish I knew exactly who the boys are but I’m secretly hoping that someone who was present when all these boys lied will read this and confront them asking why any woman would be so bold as to publicly declare that she’s never slept with any of you if you were the ones telling the truth. Grow up, will you?

I heard a story about how back in secondary school, a guy had told a similar story about a girl and the girl in question made him go from class to class to tell everyone that he lied about it. Some people who heard it said the girl was brown (wicked) for shaming the boy so, but I think that is how such people should be treated. If they have no qualms about telling people they’ve slept with me, knowing full well how that is interpreted in the Ghanaian circles, why should I care how they look when people find out?

Despite how personal these things are (And i’d love to hear your own stories), I’d like to move away from the personal and look at the big picture. Is there something to learn from this? I talked to one guy who explained that sometimes when you’re in a group of boys boys, and a girl’s name comes up, then someone flows you fans (tr: pats you on the back?) saying shiee, boss, you be hard guy, I sure say you finish am (tr: had sex with her) longest (a long time ago). Meanwhile you haven’t even kissed the girl before. At this point, everyone is looking on, waiting for you to show yourself to be the man that you’ve just been admired for being. So as not to disappoint, and to keep your stature intact, you say something like...well, I don’t kiss and tell. I won’t tell you if I finish am or I no finish am. I am a gentleman...but you say it in such a manner that indicates say yeah, you finish am. From then on, someone else can pitch in and say Oh, but that shorty, den me den am be tight o. Which really means nothing, but in that setting, everyone accepts that to mean you’ve also slept with her. So they’ll wear this like a badge of honor instead of manning up and saying oh, actually, I've never slept with her. One guy told me that there are some girls you sleep with and you don’t want anyone to know because boys boys will tease you or laugh at you, but I guess one can look at the silver lining and say that if men who have not slept with you are bragging that they have, you’re not such a bad catch:)

In all this, let us not lose sight of the double-standards of these men who will flow their friends fans for sleeping with multiple women, but the woman who they only claim to have slept with is quickly branded as a slut. One guy told me that his friend is a don because he's supposedly slept with half the Ghanaian girls our age in the US. How does that make someone a don? The guy is probably carrying some unknown disease and you are saying he should be worshipped? Actually I take that back. He probably lied about sleeping with all those women anyway. From my experience, I'm not believing any guy who comes to tell me anything he's done with a woman. Those who do, don't talk. That's just a basic lesson in life. If he can lie about having sex with me, he can lie about everyone else. For all I know, he's a virgin:)

To all the Ghanaian women who have ever had this experience, tell us how it made you feel and how you responded. What's the best way to respond to this childishness in some of our men. To the men who have done this before, feel free to come here with your tails between your legs, analyze yourselves and tell us what made you do it.

Let’s drink to a fairer world!

Esi

ps: By the way, after six years, I saw the 1st guy who told people he'd slept with me and I confronted him about it and, guess what? he denied ever saying such a thing. Wimp!