Mark Babatunde: Ants in my pants ( 30 Days, 30 Voices)

by Mark Babatunde

”It wouldn’t matter how intense the itch, I only scratch my member in private”

Infrequently I get a nasty itch in the area around my jock, what’s my preferred way around it? I thoroughly scratch and rub against the area until I am rewarded with a sensation of mild pain and pleasure; Ah, relief! Typically, this is no different from scratching or rubbing any other area of my skin’s surface that feels irritated or inflamed. The sweet relief gotten from ‘’catering to’’ a real good itch is just priceless.

Nevertheless I won’t be caught dead scratching my privates in public, and by public I mean having anyone around who isn’t clinically bat blind. It wouldn’t matter how intense the itch, I only scratch my member in private; But that’s probably just another of the insecurities in my head playing out because I have seen a lot of normal folks scratch their down parts right out in public.

So what makes my jock itch? Even sometimes itch so bad I could swear I have been attacked by a colony of ants right inside my underpants. Like I stated earlier, it doesn’t happen all the time but when it does happen and I’m fortunate to have a room all to myself, I take my fingers down to the ‘area’ and ‘scratch-scratch’ until it starts to feel real good and then I stop, bring my fingers back up to my nose and ‘sniff-sniff’ and seriously wonder why it smells funny.

I can also swear (to a benign deity) that running my fingers across my nostrils afterwards is a completely involuntary action as I don’t quite follow through on my actions until I smell something funny. At this point, the itch stops being such a big deal and I bother instead about the smell. Why does it smell like spit left out to dry on a spot? Compulsively I start to go over my personal hygiene; I remember to bath once a day-twice when it’s really hot, I use an under pant a day- this is one is not so true especially when I’m on the road; So in the end, I may not be the filthiest guy out there.

So why does my jock smell? Who else has a smelly jock? I am asking because I don’t know and I don’t know because no one talks about smelly jocks. Two guys would talk and listen to just about everything except have the conversation about each other’s privates (you see straight men can be the biggest victims of their own homophobia). Well, I went along and did some research and I am told pheromones, sweat, and good bacteria (some bad ones too) and yes, good old dirt are responsible for the smell. All of which are as natural and normal as the colour of the human eyes.

Still I struggle to accept the fact that a normal jock has its peculiar smell. Hygiene plays a big part but it would smell for sure. Well I don’t mind that it smells, if only it smelt like a lavender grass field, my favourite bath soap or well just like the rest of my skin.

A few other things about my jock upset me. Like I get a little deflated each time I have to groom and rid myself of pubic hair. The whole damn business seems to my mind so backward and prosaic for the 21^stcentury. All that smart science flying around today should have taken menfolk past scooping their testicles in one hand, Gillette blade in another,legs spread apart as we repeatedly struggle to get the job done with minimal self-inflicted injury.

One very interesting theory holds that the military industrial complex has conspired to halt and reverse the rise of the metrosexual male. However true this may be, I have recently realised that I can at least have the jock conversation with myself and even conscript as many who have been stirred by the love for their jock to do likewise.

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Mark Babatunde is in his twenties, fair skinned, very thin and quite nervous. He likes to laugh out loud in his high pitched voice just to enrage his nice neighbours, after he heard one of them describe him as an “archetypal disgruntled element”. He tweets from @markbaba2nde

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija