On masculinity, and cougar culture.
Written By: Olumuyiwa Aderemi
I remember taking an evening stroll while at my uncle’s place in Chevyview Estate, one of those gated enclaves located in Lekki, Lagos. I was familiarizing myself with the neighborhood’s quiet arteries when I noticed a couple walking arm in arm. My first thought was: “That babe go soon chop breakfast”, loosely meaning that she’s about to get her heart broken. Something felt off.
But then I paid closer attention. The woman moved with a confidence that felt earned, not performed; her gait steady, her presence radiating a kind of self-possession I rarely see in most young women. Meanwhile, the man beside her had all the markers of most Gen Z males: locs, faded tee over shorts, a face that studied nonchalance we’ve perfected. More striking was her face, visibly older than his, the kind of maturity that can’t be hidden by good skincare or dim lighting.
If this was 2018, I would have dismissed this observation entirely simply because I had been culturally conditioned to believe men were always in positions of power; and women were designed, by nature and providence, to be subordinate to them. As such, the male gender, particularly in Nigeria, felt entitled, particularly to having relationships with younger girls/women. But since 2019, when I started university, I became more exposed to the broad spectrum of inter-relationships and intra-relationships which exist and have existed between Gen Zs, and learnt not to put anything past anyone. Because of this, I wondered, what if this spectrum is wide enough to encompass a romantic relationship between these two individuals that piqued my curiosity?
In Nigeria, as everywhere else, relationships between older men and younger women aren’t remotely new. Social media brims daily with tales of “sexcapades” between married men and younger women, some detailed by the men themselves, others by the women, a few of whom have built entire platforms teaching other young women why older men make better partners. Ask these older men why they pursue such arrangements and certain truths emerge: an unwillingness to relinquish the sexual potency they’ve been conditioned to believe defines manhood across a lifetime. Ask the younger women and you’ll hear about financial stability, life experience, emotional maturity, qualities they claim their male peers lack, often with cutting ridicule.
But what if young Nigerian men, exhausted by these gendered power dynamics, are now claiming the sexual and emotional agency long denied them by engaging in consensual relationships with older women? To better understand this shift, I spoke with three young Nigerian men, *Ken, *Abdullahi, and *Yami, who have navigated these relationships firsthand. Their stories reveal not just personal experiences, but a quiet rebellion against the scripts of masculinity they inherited.
In a conservative, patriarchal society like Nigeria where masculinity has been granted blanket sexual license while women’s desires, especially those of older women, remain heavily policed, this phenomenon threatens to upend something fundamental. The simplest explanation would be revenge: young men hearing a lot of sermons about the overall importance of money in relationships, which can be well summarised using the opener of Adekunle Gold’s “Coco Money,” where he sings “Attention, attention/If you’re not spending money, go, go, go, go,” and engaging in relationships with older women as a way to finally turn the tables.
But Ken’s experience suggests something far more complex. “We first met years ago in school,” he tells me. “I always admired how she carried herself, but it was nothing serious back then. She was nineteen years older than me, but the connection didn’t feel strange. She listened in ways people my age didn’t. She made me feel seen and respected, like my thoughts mattered.” His voice carries not bitterness, but longing for what was.
For other young men I spoke with, the connection didn’t announce itself as something magical. It emerged from mutual physical attraction and a curiosity about what it meant to be with someone older. Yami told me he met *Bisi “when I was trying to open a bank account. She was the one assigned to me, so I had a reason to have her number. Over time we could see each other’s status and reply to whatever the other person posted, just laughing. We never used the words ‘I love you’ or ‘I like you’ but there was an understanding. She knew I was younger.”
When I asked Abdullahi about his first experience with an older woman, he recalled meeting her “when I was 21 and she was 25, and it was purely physical. We met on a bus and as we both came down, I told her I’d like to know her and asked for her number, which she gave me. Then we started talking and texting and I found out she was in a relationship, which I didn’t mind.” As I listened to them describe these beginnings, I realized something: this wasn’t about rebellion or consciously challenging norms. These young men had cultivated a kind of generational desire that was unhurried and undemanding, that added new layers to intimacy. And the fact that these older women consented, initiated, and agreed to the terms of engagement signaled something equally or even more significant about how women wanted to re-orientate their approach to love and relationships
Beyond the stereotypes and cultural anxieties surrounding age-gap relationships between older women and younger men, I discovered a more complex terrain of power, pleasure, and unexpected dependencies. In exploring how these relationships actually functioned, several patterns emerged, some predictable, others surprisingly tender and unrushed. The age difference shaped these connections in fundamental ways, influencing everything from emotional intimacy to communication styles. Ken described his relationship with his teacher as one that “made me feel a bit out of my depth. She had this calm, experienced energy, while I was still figuring myself out. But she never made me feel small. She guided me, and in some ways, she made me more confident emotionally, and even sexually.” Listening to Ken, I understood that while generational gaps might create friction around values, lifestyle choices, and societal expectations, the opportunity to be emotionally vulnerable and dependent in a culturally conservative country like Nigeria isn’t necessarily bound by age; it’s bound by genuine affection and the willingness to see each other clearly.
What I also discovered through these conversations is that power in these relationships rarely flows in one direction. While financial dynamics often favour older women, who may typically earn more and cover larger expenses, this doesn’t automatically translate to control. Some of the young men I spoke with described feeling burdened by this imbalance, while others navigated it pragmatically. But what struck me most was how social power operates differently here. There’s no performative masculinity required, no need to “front” or maintain appearances, a stark contrast to relationships between older men and younger women, where age hierarchies are constantly reinforced. As Yami told me, “It didn’t make me feel more or less powerful ’cause I’ll say she was pretty chill about the whole thing, but a couple of times, I felt out of my depth. She never made it feel like a big deal though. But to me, it still was ’cause she was basically done with school and had a car and there was really no stressing over looking for a babe in my class.”
Perhaps the most striking pattern I observed was the emotional inversion. Contrary to the “sugar mummy” stereotype that dominates public imagination, many of these older women maintain deliberate emotional distance, approaching these arrangements as temporary rather than commitments. Abdullahi’s experience illuminated this clearly: “I never really felt out of my depth. There was no actual relationship so no pressure, no attachments. I didn’t have to call everyday, respond a certain way; it was talking, relating with one another. The relationship was simply very straightforward. There was this one time that she wanted to come to my side and her husband asked her where she was going and she was like she was going to see a friend and she called me and asked me to talk to her husband and I was like ‘we work together’.”
What becomes clear through these narratives is that the age gap functions less as a marker of dominance than as a mirror reflecting what young men seek but cannot find with women their age: control without performance, care without obligation, escape without judgment. For some, these relationships create sanctuary, an emotional foothold offering peace without the performative weight of patriarchal expectations. For others, they represent experiments in balance, intimacy that can exist alongside secrecy and unconventional hierarchies.
Where Nigerian society denies young men the space to inhabit desire without surveillance or shame, these entanglements, fleeting or otherwise, offer something radical: freedom. They sacrifice age conventions, social expectations, and rigid gender scripts on the altar of intimacy and affection, giving these young men rare opportunities to unpack weighty romantic questions without the usual constraints. In a culture that polices both male and female sexuality while pretending only to regulate the latter, these relationships become quiet rebellions, spaces where different rules apply, where vulnerability doesn’t diminish manhood, and where pleasure doesn’t require permission.
This phenomenon also confronts a double standard so skillfully woven into Nigeria’s cultural fabric that it often goes unnoticed. Older women who build sexual relationships with younger men exist in the tension between ridicule and rebellion are seen as deviants who are violating the unspoken rule that female desire must remain private, controlled, invisible. But the dynamic is more complex than it appears. The young men who intentionally seek out older women, whether as fantasy or genuine connection, are also quietly rebelling against societal expectations. They too challenge the moral codes that have long defined Nigerian sexuality in rigid, gendered terms, though they often suffer equal or greater stigmatization.
When Ken’s brother discovered his relationship, the reaction was swift and harsh. “He was angry,” Ken told me. “He said she had ‘shadow abused’ me, that it wasn’t right for someone her age to be involved with me. I understood his point, but I was enjoying it. I didn’t see myself as a victim; I saw it as two people who connected unexpectedly.”
The secrecy, Ken explained, wasn’t born of shame. “It’s not like we showed off our relationship. Not because I was ashamed, but because people wouldn’t understand. In Nigeria, being with a much older woman is often seen as a joke or a scandal. I didn’t want her to be disrespected.”
There is something profoundly human in Ken’s admission, that intimacy can strip away the armor masculinity demands. His brother’s confusion reveals what Ken was only beginning to understand: a new kind of emotional awareness, one that contradicted everything he’d been taught about dominance defining manhood. As I listened to these men, I realized their secrecy was less about fear and more about survival; a way to preserve their private choices from becoming subject for public scrutiny. Nigeria’s cultural vocabulary leaves little room for nuance, yet it’s precisely these nuances that give their stories meaning. When I spoke with Yami about whether anyone discovered his relationship, he was matter-of-fact: “Family never found out although like just 2 of my friends did but they sort of like laughed it off. You know how young guys are, calling me ‘bad guy’ and all that. Very very few people saw us together and I never saw the need to hide it cause generally I’m a keep-my-stuff-to-myself kind of guy.”
Abdullahi’s experience reflects another side to this conversation. “No one found out about anything,” he told me. “We didn’t have any mutual connections so there was no finding out of anything and I never felt the need to explain myself. However, if anyone asked me I would have told but apart from that I don’t think anything happened that would have forced me to present it differently or say anything that wasn’t true.”
His words revealed what I’d begun to suspect: that silence in these relationships can function as both shield and statement. It isn’t born of shame but of refusal, a quiet insistence that one’s personal choices need not be offered up for public opinion..
These quiet evasions reveal the kind of morality governing intimacy among male and females in Nigeria. Yet these affairs I’ve documented prove a glimpse of freedom where desire, theirs and their partners’, can exist free of any form of shame. Though contemporary Nigerian society may view this as transgression, I see audacity: the pursuit of pleasure and understanding that defeats the illusion of traditional cages , returning our culture to what it should be; Free yet guiding, defined yet dynamic, most importantly, progressive.
Each young man I spoke with seemed to be locating language for a transformation he hadn’t anticipated from his relationship with someone older, not just in how he viewed her, but in how he understood intimacy, himself, and the invisible architecture of masculinity he’d been taught never to question. “Looking back, that relationship taught me a lot about intimacy and vulnerability,” Ken recalls. “It showed me that love doesn’t always follow logic or age. But it also reminded me that timing and boundaries matter. She taught me how to listen, how to communicate, and how to handle emotions without fear.” His tone carried no regret, only the acknowledgment of an education in emotional fluency, something young Nigerian men are rarely granted space to practice.
Abdullahi’s lesson landed differently, but with equal weight. “Understanding and consideration comes from both parties in a relationship,” he told me. “It’s something you have to constantly try and learn.” Listening to him, I realized he was describing emotional maturity not as something inherited, but as something negotiated, often through encounters that defy the social order. His relationship, however it ended, had compelled him to trade posturing for patience, dominance for reciprocity.
Yami, meanwhile, chuckled at his younger self, the boy who thought being with an older woman made him a “bad guy.” “Basically, don’t overthink stuff,” he said. “Everything just boils down to your mindset. Back then, it felt like a big deal, but now I’m like, what was I actually thinking? If someone likes you, you’ll know. There’s no need to second guess anything.”
Sitting with their stories, I began to see what these young men suggested, perhaps without fully articulating it, that the most radical thing a young man can do in a patriarchal culture like Nigeria’s is to allow himself to be seen. To desire and be desired. Maybe this is what makes these relationships endure and grow, rapidly, but quietly, across Nigeria. They whisper; Intimacy requires something patriarchy cannot provide: mutuality, surrender and the courage to not always be in control.
