By Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi

Years ago, a close friend of mine, (let me call her Rose) from Uganda and based in Switzerland, told me about an encounter with another African woman who had walked into the resource center for black women that she was running at the time. This lady, let us call her Michelle, had come to seek support from the center because it was run by black women for black women, so she felt safe. Michelle looked elegant and composed. Then she stated her case, and by the time she was done, Rose felt like vomiting. Michelle was married to a Swiss man, and they got on well. However, her husband could only get aroused for sex if there was faeces on the bed. Michelle loved her husband and wanted to satisfy all his needs and urges. The problem was that she had to keep buying bed sheets. Her mission at the black women’s center was to ask if they knew where she could find good quality but affordable sheets to buy in large quantities. Rose was shocked beyond belief. She kept trying to gently probe Michelle about whether she needed help leaving her husband, the center could help with that, especially if her stay in the country had not been formalised. Michelle insisted that she had no immigration issues, she was a Swiss citizen, and she loved her husband. She just needed a sustainable supply of bed sheets.

If you need a new addition to your already impressive English vocabulary, here is another word for you. Coprophilia – sexual arousal from faeces. Michelle’s husband was a Coprophile. There is also a bonus word, Urophilia – sexual pleasure from urine. P. Diddy was allegedly a Urophile, who liked ‘Golden Showers’.

Approximately ten years ago, I read an article online, written by an American social researcher. I can’t remember the exact title, but it was about the future of Sex. His main argument was that we are approaching times when ‘regular sex’ would no longer be the norm. Heterosexual individuals and couples are getting bored with simply doing things the ‘old fashioned way.’ Going forward, sex would be spiced up with indulgencies ranging from the benign to the bizarre and dangerous. Examples include Role Play (partners acting out fantasies dressed as characters, for example Nurse versus Doctor), Voyeurism (spying on others), Swinging (partner swapping), Multiple Encounters (threesomes and orgies), Cuckolding (where a man, watches others have sex with his partner) BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism), Bestiality (Sex with animals) Coprophilia and Urophilia. This is not a comprehensive list, there is more. When I was following the P. Diddy sexual abuse and trafficking trial in 2025, a lot of the revelations about
his regular ‘Freak-Offs’ confirmed some of the things the article I read was describing.

What consenting adults choose to do with their bodies, time and resources is entirely their own business. The problem is when sex, whether ‘straightforward’ or ‘complicated’ becomes a weapon of abuse, exploitation and control, with no genuine consent.

The infamous Jeffrey Epstein files have just been released. Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender and trafficker, who used his enormous wealth to draw powerful figures into his orbit for financial gain, political clout and connections, using children and young girls as bait and rewards. He was awaiting trial when he allegedly committed suicide on August 10th , 2019. Allegedly. Jeffrey Epstein hosted parties at his properties around the United States and on his private Island in the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. He had Presidents, Royalty, CEOs, Celebrities, Faith leaders, Academics, Professionals from around the world as his guests. He would record the activities of his guests or take their photographs in compromising situations. All this information was hidden away, till it fell into the hands of law enforcement. So yes, Allegedly. The rich and powerful always have a sense of entitlement. When innocent children, underage girls and unsuspecting women are involved, lines are crossed, laws are broken and
accountability needs to be demanded. For over thirty years, a man and his co-travelers were allowed to carry out their nefarious acts unchallenged.

Let us set aside exchanges in the Epstein Files about the possibility of the murder of children and what sounded like acts of cannibalism. We can assume that those parts of the correspondence were misunderstood or meant something else altogether. Also, for now, I am waiting for more information to be revealed about the deeply disturbing references to the bodies of Nigerian and Jamaican women, as being ideally suited to reproduction. Yes, there were exchanges between Jeffrey Epstein and a Scientist about what would have ended up in African women being used as guinea pigs, as if what has been done to us over the centuries has not been bad enough. The racist pathologization of the bodies and psyches of black/African women will be the subject of another essay.

Virginia Giuffre was one of the many victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell. Ghislaine was responsible for scouting and recruiting young girls for Jeffrey. When Virginia summoned the courage to speak up, her allegations involved being forced to ‘service’ the then Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the Duke of York, when she was a teenager under eighteen. Prince Andrew had a reputation for making poor personal choices, so this did not come as a surprise. He forcefully denied the allegations and granted a disastrous interview for the BBC in 2019, which ended up doing the opposite of what he had intended. He had to settle with Virginia, to the tune of 12 million pounds, claiming ‘no admission of guilt’.

Sadly, Virginia’s life continued to unravel due to the pressure. She committed suicide on April 25th , 2025. Allegedly. Before her death, Virginia had been working on her biography, ‘Nobody’s Girl’, which was published in October 2025. Her damning revelations inspired demands for more information on what the authorities had in their possession. When the Epstein files started trickling in, King Charles had to take drastic action against his younger brother. He has since been divested of his royal tile, his Dukedom, and unceremoniously evicted from his royal residence. Mr. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is one of many powerful men, who took advantage of vulnerable girls and children. What about the others?

The Epstein saga is not just about sleazy, pampered and protected men (and some women). You don’t have to be rich and famous to develop a craving for violent sexual abuse. Are these proclivities just about those in certain parts of the world? No. I have come across a case of a man with a ‘Cuckold fetish’. In 2020, a matter was brought to my attention by the Gender and Vulnerable Persons Unit I had set up in my office when I was First Lady of Ekiti State. There was this man who got off on watching his wife have sex with strange men. Yes, you read that correctly. He would encourage her to bring men home, and he would hide and watch. When he got bored with that, he took it upon himself to recruit participants for his wife and pay them. His wife recounted having to do it in a car with a strange man once. If his wife protested, he would threaten her with divorce. She eventually found her way to my office for help. When
we got the Police got involved, she refused (not surprisingly) to press charges. It was one of the most heartbreaking cases of abuse I have ever come across. The husband agreed to sign an undertaking to stop when he was threatened with exposure. I heard later that the woman eventually left, but I don’t know if she went back. I am sure there are many more like him around.

As I said earlier, consenting adults are free to do whatever they like, the key word being ‘Consent’. Yet it is a problematic word. An abused wife cannot ‘consent’ to rape. An underage girl cannot consent to sex. In Nigeria, we have strip clubs (available to various demographics) ‘private parties’, ‘swingers’, ‘threesome arrangements’, transactional relationships, and a full range of options for the sexually adventurous. We also have a drug addiction crisis. As we continue to see more poverty and lack of opportunities, especially for young women and girls, what does all this mean for their safety, informed choice, decent work, bodily integrity and even their lives?

While we continue to hear more about what the rich, powerful, and mighty have been up to, via the Epstein Files, let us think about our own ‘Files’. When we look in the mirror, what do we see? What is happening to the thousands of young girls who get sold and bought as ‘Money Wives’ in parts of Cross River State, in the name of culture and tradition, the ones who get trafficked to the Middle-East to work as maids and end up as slaves, the ones who struggle to get to Europe and end up in Libyan brothels. Let us not forget the many young girls who set out to visit boyfriends and end up gang-raped on camera by sick bastards or worse, murdered and mutilated. We also have the naïve young women who accept offers to ‘keep rich men company’ in the Middle East, thinking it is about ‘straightforward’ transactional sex, only to find themselves the main attraction at Coprophilia themed events – also known as Porta Potty
parties.

If you are in a position to step in to stop this cycle of entitlement, exploitation, and abuse, please do so. Let us keep a closer eye on our children and wards. Let us be our sister’s and brother’s keeper. Men like Jeffrey Epstein and women like Ghislaine Maxwell have thrived for years preying on the vulnerable, because they felt invincible and there was no accountability. This is a global phenomenon. We all have Jeffreys and Ghislaines in our midst, and they don’t have to be rich and famous. We should not normalise the abuse and exploitation of innocent children and poor young people. The present and future of sex should be about pleasure, safety, mutual respect, consent and dignity. This applies to Princes and Paupers alike.

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Leadership Coach, Policy Advocate and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com