The Conversations Men Were Never Taught to Have

 

by Victor Jacob

There are some conversations many men learn to avoid long before they learn how to have them.

Matters on sex, fertility, erectile difficulties, sexual infections, contraception, and even hormones are rarely talked about with a young growing male. Even something as ordinary as personal hygiene can become difficult to discuss when a man has been taught that admitting he has questions is a sign of weakness.

I asked myself: what exactly is men's sexual and reproductive health, and why should it concern women?

That was one of the thoughts I kept returning to during the MSI Nigeria Chat Series, where the question at the centre of the conversation was simple but uncomfortable: Is men's sexual and reproductive health a women's issue?

Without much thought, within myself I answered, “No. Of course not.” I was thinking about it from a biological standpoint. After all, how could men's sexual and reproductive health be a women's issue?

But as the conversation unfolded, I realised the question deserved more than a yes or no. It was really asking me to look beyond the obvious.

Why have we made it so difficult for men to talk about their own health?

Hosted by Chibuike Utaka and Lillian Ogazi of MSI Nigeria, the conversation brought together Eketi Ette (Founder, Kedima Consulting), Dr. Maureen Uche Umeakuewulu (Chief Medical Director, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu Teaching Hospital), Dr. Kingsley Odogwu (Director Clinical Services, MSI Nigeria) and Elizabeth Adewale (Certified Sex Educator) to discuss if Men's Sexual and Reproductive Health is a Woman's Issue

We taught men to perform, but did we teach them to understand? And the next question will be: understand what exactly?

For many boys, some of their earliest lessons about sex do not begin with health. They begin with jokes. With peer pressure. With stories from older friends. With exaggerated ideas about how many women a man should have or how sexually experienced a ‘real man’ should be.

Performance has slowly become a measure of masculinity. But sexual health is much bigger than performance. Men's sexual health is connected to their physical, emotional and social well-being. Hormonal balance, mental health, hygiene, reproductive health and broader physical conditions all form part of the picture.

So the distinction matters.

A man can be sexually active and still know very little about his sexual health. He can know how to pursue sex but not know when he should get tested and why. He can worry about his libido without understanding how stress, anxiety, or depression may be affecting him. He can be concerned about fertility but feel too embarrassed to ask a doctor about it. And he can experience a sexual-health problem and decide to ignore it because admitting that something is wrong feels worse than living with the problem.

Maybe that is one of the conversations men were never taught to have.

The Silence Is Not Always Accidental

A man's silence around sexual health does not happen in isolation. In my view, it has constantly been shaped by the expectations surrounding masculinity.

In many African societies, there is a version of manhood that tells men they must always be confident, sexually capable, physically strong and emotionally unshaken. In that version of masculinity, saying “I don't know” can feel embarrassing. Saying “something is wrong with me” can feel even worse.

So a man experiencing erectile difficulties may avoid speaking to a doctor. A man worried about infertility may remain silent. A man with questions about contraception may leave the conversation entirely to his partner. Another may turn to social media because asking someone in real life feels too uncomfortable.

We don't always feel comfortable having those tough conversations anymore because, indeed, they can be uncomfortable. And this is where the conversation becomes bigger than an individual's behaviour. When men cannot speak openly about their health, silence creates space for misinformation.

When Social Media Becomes the Classroom

Things that should be taught between fathers and sons at home are sometimes ignored. Fathers may not be willing to have those conversations, leaving young men to find answers elsewhere.

Come to think of it, I never had that conversation with my father either. I had to be my own guide.

Nowadays, social media has changed how people seek information, especially men. A young man who is uncomfortable walking into a clinic can search for an answer on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or Google within seconds. That accessibility can be useful, but accessibility does not automatically mean accuracy or proper professional guidance.

When formal sexual-health education is inadequate, the internet becomes a classroom. Unfortunately, it is a classroom where almost everyone can present themselves as the teacher. A man looking for information about testosterone, fertility, sexual performance, or erectile difficulties may encounter medical advice, personal experiences, myths, and dangerous shortcuts in the same search.

This is why I found Elizabeth Adewale's contribution particularly important. She highlighted the role of male role models and content creators in making these conversations easier for men to engage with. If men are already online looking for answers, credible information has to meet them there so they don't get the wrong information.

Perhaps men do not always need another lecture.

Sometimes, they need to see another man say, “I had this question too.”

That kind of representation can make a difficult conversation feel less embarrassing.

Reproductive Health Cannot Be a One-Person Responsibility

Another part of this conversation challenged something that has become almost normal in our society: treating reproductive health as though it belongs primarily to women. 

And perhaps there is a reason this happened. Women experience pregnancy, childbirth, and many of the immediate consequences of reproductive decisions. So it makes sense that reproductive healthcare has historically placed significant attention on women.

But that attention should not mean men disappear from the conversation.

For years, women have often been expected to know about contraception and seek reproductive healthcare. And when a couple struggles to conceive, the woman is sometimes the first and sometimes the only person investigated.

Nobody stops to ask: What about the man? Because reproduction does not happen through one person. So why should responsibility for reproductive health only fall on women?

Dr. Kingsley Odogwu emphasised the importance of involving men in reproductive-health investigations and promoting couple-centred counselling. That is not about shifting responsibility from women to men. It is about recognising that responsibility was never supposed to belong to only one side.

The same applies to contraception.

A pregnancy is not created by one person, so decisions about preventing one should not become the burden of one person either. When men participate meaningfully in family planning, couples have more room for communication, shared decisions and healthier outcomes.

For me, this is where gender equality and sexual and reproductive health meet. Including men does not reduce the importance of women's health. It makes the conversation more complete.

This is also where I see the work of Shades of Us fitting into conversations like this. The stories we tell about gender can influence who society expects to carry certain responsibilities.

If women are always portrayed as the ones responsible for reproductive health, men can easily grow up seeing themselves as outsiders to a conversation they should also be part of. Perhaps changing that narrative starts with making reproductive health a conversation that includes everyone.

Responsibility Starts Before Intimacy

There is another conversation we do not have enough: what should people tell each other before becoming intimate?

Sexual history.

Testing.

Contraception.

Boundaries.

Health concerns.

Of course, these may not be the easiest conversations to have, but they are important ones. Yet we can be more comfortable asking someone what they are wearing than asking when they last tested for a sexually transmitted infection.

That contrast says something about us.

We have normalised sexual activity faster than we have normalised sexual responsibility.

That needs to change.

A Man's Health Does Not Exist in Isolation

One thing I appreciated about this conversation regarding men's sexual health was how it moved beyond the bedroom.

If you want to talk about a man's sexual and reproductive health, you need to include the factors that can affect it: work, lifestyle, mental health, and broader physical conditions. The conversation also touched on occupational realities such as long-distance driving and exposure to certain chemicals that can affect a man's fertility.

So anytime you ask a man whether he is sexually healthy, it should not simply imply that you are asking whether he can perform. We should be asking whether he is well.

That is a much bigger question.

It is also why Dr. Maureen Uche Umeakuewulu's call for more accessible male health screenings and stronger policy inclusion matters. It is easy to tell men to take responsibility for their health, but responsibility requires access. If screenings are too expensive, healthcare services are difficult to navigate, or men feel judged when they seek help, telling them to simply “go to the hospital” is not enough.

Awareness without access creates another kind of frustration.

The discussion around testosterone replacement therapy also offered an important warning. There is growing interest in testosterone, especially online, where low energy or low libido can quickly become associated with “low testosterone.” But symptoms should not automatically become diagnoses.

Dr. Kingsley Odogwu cautioned against unsupervised testosterone replacement therapy, explaining that external testosterone can suppress the body's natural production and should only be used when clinically indicated and properly supervised.

His warning reinforced another point from the conversation: when credible information is difficult to access, men can easily turn to dangerous shortcuts.

There should be another option: Ask. Get tested. Speak to a qualified professional.

We Need to Change What We Teach Boys About Being Men

Another deeper question for me was: What do we teach men instead?

If a boy grows up hearing that a real man must always be sexually confident, never vulnerable, never ask for help, and never admit weakness, why would we be surprised when that boy becomes a man who struggles to discuss his health? If his first lessons about sex come from peers instead of trusted adults, where does he learn responsibility? If his understanding of masculinity is built around sexual conquest, how does he learn that intimacy also requires communication, care and accountability?

These are not simply individual failures.

They are social lessons. And social lessons can be rewritten.

This is where storytelling becomes important because the stories we tell about society shape how boys eventually understand themselves as men. If we keep telling boys that strength means silence, we should not be surprised when men struggle to speak. If we keep presenting vulnerability as weakness, we make it harder for men to seek help.

But we can tell different stories.

Stories where asking for help is not weakness.

Stories where going for a health screening is normal.

Stories where caring about a partner's reproductive health does not make a man less of a man.

Stories where responsibility is part of masculinity.

Perhaps the most practical lesson I took from this conversation is that awareness alone is not enough. Men need safe spaces where they can ask questions without being laughed at. They need healthcare professionals who can speak without judgment. They need credible information online. They need fathers, brothers, friends, teachers and role models who are willing to have honest conversations. And they need relationships where talking about sexual health does not automatically become a source of shame.

At the end of the MSI Nigeria Chat Series, Chibuike Utaka also encouraged participants to be their brothers' and sisters' keepers, and to take the right steps towards better sexual and reproductive health.

That message stayed with me. Because perhaps the real success of a conversation like this is not how many people listened.

It is what happens after everyone logs off.

• Does a man finally book that health screening?

• Does a couple finally have the conversation they have been avoiding?

• Does a father talk to his son differently?

• Does a content creator decide to produce something that corrects misinformation?

• Does a healthcare provider create a space where men feel comfortable asking questions?

These are the changes that turn conversation into action.

I left understanding that perhaps the harder question was not whether men's health is a women's issue, but whether we have given men enough room to understand their own health in the first place.

Men's sexual and reproductive health is not a women's issue. It is not exclusively a men's issue either.

It is a human issue.

And perhaps the first step towards healthier men is giving many of us something we were never taught to have in the first place: a safe conversation.