Written by Precious Nwosu
It’s 10:50 pm, and you should be asleep, but instead you are awake on TikTok watching Certified Sex Educator Elizabeth Adewale discussing sex and pleasure on the Glitch Africa Studios podcast.
Yesterday at exactly 1 pm during your lunch break while at work, you learnt on TikTok from a 23-year-old sex content creator how to identify sexual and relationship red flags through her experience and the generous comment section.
Over the past few years, you and other women have learned and are still learning about orgasms and the clitoris, masturbation, libido, sexual desire, foreplay, painful sex, contraception, consent, sexual compatibility, boundaries, pelvic health, body image, sexual pleasure and how to communicate what you want in bed on TikTok. I caught you, didn’t I?
News flash: this didn’t always happen.
In some pre-colonial African societies, sex was not necessarily something young people were left to discover on their own. There were specific, socially sanctioned spaces for passing knowledge from one generation to another. Initiation ceremonies and marriage rites could serve as schools of adulthood, where elders taught young people about relationships, the body, marriage and sexuality. In some communities, older women played a central role, while songs, dances and other rituals were used to pass down knowledge.
This is important because the sexual silence many of us associate with our parents and grandparents was not necessarily the story of every African society throughout history.
By the time my mother was growing up, sex had become something that was barely mentioned in her home. When I asked my mum what sex conversations felt like between parents and their children during her time, she looked at me as though I had sprouted an extra head. “Sex was seen as a taboo during my time, Precious. If menstruation was treated as a visible elephant that shouldn’t be addressed, how much sex? For them, you learn about it whilst married.” Fortunately, she didn’t follow that route with me.
In 2016, TikTok launched in China as Douyin, and by 2020, during the pandemic, its user numbers surged and it became widely known globally. From a dancing and fun app, TikTok grew into a marketplace of ideas and, eventually, an informal educational platform: from STEM classes and hand-work tutorials to unconventional ones. Specialists and “experts” in different fields began using the platform to talk about important subjects. Sex experts, creators, teachers, and enthusiasts weren’t exempt.
For some women with little or no prior sexual education, TikTok is giving them language for experiences they may not have known how to describe. It has also made conversations around pleasure, consent, and sexual health easier to access.
Not everyone is learning about sex from TikTok.
Before social media, there were books and novels. Mide and Damilola tell me that books and novels were among their first sources of sexual knowledge. Mide told me she has never gone to TikTok for sexual advice. “Before social media became as popular as it is today, I learnt about sex through erotic and romantic novels.” For her, books were the classroom. Mide also follows creators for reasons beyond sexual education. One creator (@olori coitus on TikTok), in particular, she tells me, is someone she watches not because she needs her for sexual advice, but because she admires her courage and authenticity.
Sometimes, then, the lesson is not a fact about sex. It is watching another woman speak openly about her body, her experiences and her choices, and realising that you can do the same.
For Augusta, TikTok was less about learning the basics of sex and more about discovering that she was not alone in her questions, experiences and insecurities. “I wouldn’t say I took my first lessons of sex and body image from TikTok. What I’d say is that it gave me a world full of other women with their unique experiences on these subjects, so shame completely flew away for me. TikTok gives information and an informed woman is a liberated woman.”
For women like Favour, TikTok has become a classroom, peeling back the layers and showing her the intricate side of sex beyond pregnancy and childbearing. “Before TikTok, I didn’t date anyone till my 200/300 level because I thought there was no way you could enjoy and explore sex without it leading to pregnancy. TikTok made me understand my menstrual cycle and know when my body isn’t fine.”
For Favour, growing up, sex was considered a leprosy, acknowledging it exists, but never talking about it. “I remember growing up and the sex talk used to be a taboo and people would look at you as a ‘bad child’ when you mentioned sex and that really affected me and the way I viewed sex and relationships. But having been on social media, I have a better understanding of sex and all, and so I’m extremely comfortable talking about sex, my body, or sexual health now.”
For Busayo, TikTok taught her that the vagina is self-cleaning and made her comfortable and knowledgeable about sex. For Damilola, TikTok challenged what she had been taught about virginity. “After listening to that from Elizabeth Adewale, the Certified Sex educator, I went to do my research and realised that there is no medical examination that can reliably establish whether someone has had vaginal intercourse, and the appearance of the hymen cannot prove ‘virginity’.”
TikTok’s sexual lessons also go beyond intimacy and pleasure; it educates on sexual health and well-being. Chinonso reveals, “I learnt that when a woman wants to go for tests, like a Pap smear and other tests to check her body, she has to know how and when to prepare for it. You don’t just go on a random day because each test works better according to the condition of your body at that period to get a correct result.”
And it is not difficult to understand why the internet has become a classroom.
In a 2025 study of 380 adolescents in public secondary schools in Ekiti State, only 36.8 per cent had what researchers classified as a good level of sexuality education, while just 27.1 per cent had ever discussed sex-related matters with a parent or guardian. More than half, 57.1 per cent, had discussed sex with an adult or counsellor at some point. The gaps were not merely about pleasure or knowing how to communicate desire. 34.7 per cent of the adolescents surveyed believed a woman could not become pregnant during her first sexual intercourse, while 45.0 per cent believed condoms were not effective against sexually transmitted infections.
In another study involving 1,057 adolescents in Ebonyi State, only 4.5 per cent had ever discussed sex-related matters with a parent. The researchers found that when these conversations did happen, they were often centred around puberty, abstinence, pregnancy and warnings about premarital sex. The findings point to significant gaps in how and how often young people receive sexual education, and social media has become one of the places where some young women seek information.
When we pick up gold, we have to be careful not to pick up stones disguised as gold.
What kind of sexual knowledge are we giving women when the algorithm is increasingly part of the classroom? Especially when the classroom has no teacher standing at the front to tell you which lesson is correct.
For Augusta, TikTok made her believe that all women go through agonising sex their first time. However, that misconception was ironically changed on TikTok. “Also funny because that was also where I unlearned and relearnt it all.”
So how do we decipher creators who are worth listening to?
Damilola tells me, “I don’t just take information off the internet without verification. I do my own in-depth research before digesting. Elizabeth Adewale is one of the sexual health content creators I follow and because she is certified with a master’s in public health, I trust her words. Her words are also backed up by data.”
Chinonso’s answer isn’t far-fetched. “Most times, I check their profile and the content they post to be sure they give real information.”
Augusta adamantly refuses to listen to anyone who isn’t certified. “As someone who has been acquainted with a few, one major similarity is their wealth of knowledge gained by years of education, teaching and overall experience in the field. If you’re not certified, I’m not listening to you.”
Favour concurs with all of them: “?Creators with a medical background or those who actively research and, of course, reference their sources.”
The Lesson Continues
It’s 10:50 p.m., and I’m on TikTok.
A video about taking an STD panel test as a sexually active person comes up. Nothing in the creator’s bio shows her qualifications but her videos demonstrate her enthusiasm for health and wellness.
Another video appears and the comments section does the educating, correcting and sharing experiences. A form of sisterhood.
Maybe that is the complicated part about learning about sex on TikTok. Women are not only looking for information. They are looking for language for experiences they were never taught how to name. They are looking for reassurance. They are looking for other women who have been where they are.
And TikTok is giving them all of it.
But how do we teach women how to differentiate between opinion and knowledge, between experts and enthusiasts, between clout chasers and qualified educators, and between medical facts and hearsay?
Perhaps that is the question we should be asking.
