The year was 2008 and I was having a great time at Nekede Federal Polytechnic, Owerri Imo State, Nigeria. I was one of the best in the Department of Public Administration with a first semester GPA of 3.52 and a second semester GPA of 3.50, all on a 4.00 scale. The secret was simple, attend conferences regularly, rest well, and read every day. It was clear that with more effort, I would graduate with distinction, which could lead to an automatic job teaching at the Polytechnic.

In my first semester of senior year, I met a student named Jane. Before that, my relationship with the students was platonic. My close friends were my reading partners. Jane and I’s relationship gradually turned sexual. Instead of going home to rest after the day’s lectures, I went directly to Jane’s hostel. I’ll be home late, too weak to read.

My late-night readings suffered, too, because I was busy making calls at midnight and sleeping the rest of the time. I spent most of my time discussing and visiting Jane. She got so bad that I couldn’t concentrate in class. I kept reminiscing about our entire sexual escapade as the lectures continued. Instead of reading for the proposed two hours, I’ll spend an hour and thirty minutes reminiscing about everything we did and just thirty minutes for the skeletal reading. Concentration, reading, retention and recall became a big problem.

I met my Waterloo when Jane told me she was pregnant. Immediately my focus shifted from academics to how to deal with the child. We did everything we could to get rid of the baby, from drinking hot drinks to different concoctions, all to no avail. She kept crying around me, forcing me to get money for an abortion.

I got confused and lost full control of my studies. I couldn’t sleep at night because different thoughts were running through my mind. Am I a murderer? What if she died in the abortion process? These and many more questions occupied my head. At one point, I started having nightmares. I kept seeing corpses. So, graduating with Distinction was the least of my preference scale.

However, we consulted an abortionist and used my school fees to pay for his service. Painfully, I had peace. Few weeks later, I wrote my first semester HND1 exams. The result was published a month later, and it became clear that it was impossible to graduate with distinction. My GPA was 3.27. I needed at least 3.71 to get to the top level. Everyone was disappointed, including my fellow readers.

I came back for my second semester determined to be the best no matter the result of my last semester. I forgot my past and never remembered my sexual relationship with Jane. One night, Jane invited me to go to her house to have sex; I refused to go. She kept pulling me in, but I held my ground. I have decided never to have sex with anyone. She got angry and stopped talking to me, but I concentrated on my studies. Jane begged and cried for my return, but I kept running. She started making all kinds of negative comments about me, despite that I stuck to it. I read twice a day, once immediately after the day’s lectures and once in the early hours of the morning.

After our second semester exam, I nervously walked back to my home in Port Harcourt. A few weeks later, my friend Chukwudike called me. He said, “George, our results are in; you’re a record breaker. Your GPA is 3.75, the Head of Department and most professors want to know who Anyaehie George is.” I later graduated as the second best in the department (distinction level).

Lesson

According to data from a Canadian community health survey, 43% of adolescents aged 15-19 reported having had sex at least once. A survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire indicated that 42% of Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 said they had viewed pornography online in the past year.

Pornography and premarital has become a serious problem today because sexual and pornographic materials are easily accessible. Sex vendors are everywhere in the neighborhood; we even have mobile or internet sex. Pornographic materials are just one click away. Actors in pornographic films are now recognized as celebrities, they are called “porn stars”.

Premarital sex and pornography are one of the cardinal causes of academic failure. I eat? A vital neurotransmitter in the brain is dopamine. It has many important functions; It fulfills functions such as voluntary movement, the experience of pleasure, motivation, reward, punishment and learning. Sex and porn both target the dopaminergic system to release large amounts of dopamine, resulting in experiencing a “high”, often leading to addiction. When released, dopamine strengthens and reinforces new connections being made in the brain while performing an activity. This, in turn, works to encourage the individual to repeat the activity again so that he can feel that pleasure once more. And when the person refuses to repeat the activity, depression, dissatisfaction and anger are generated.

As sexual or nudity images are displayed physically or on screen, arousal occurs and the dopaminergic system is activated just like drugs like cocaine would. The newly formed connections in the brain when having sex or viewing pornographic images are greatly enhanced by the massive amounts of dopamine that are released. Instead of going into short-term memory, where these images can be forgotten after the screen turns off, the dopamine boost ensures they move to long-term memory stores where they can get stuck in replay mode on the person’s mind. The troubling fact about this is that the more something is remembered, the more it solidifies in the brain. That’s why you can’t easily forget sexual escapades. You can narrate how the adventure began, how it progressed and how it ended.

What is alarming about this information is that the brain acts as a whole entity; its plasticity is global. Change in one area affects other regions. Viewings of sex and pornography can literally rewire overall neural wiring. When the brain is rewired to focus on sex or pornography, reading, understanding, and remembering become difficult because memory has long been occupied with sexual or pornographic images or scenes.

There is nothing as dangerous as “let me try it just once”, because dopamine will make you addicted. The addiction begins from an encounter or scene. It progresses from softcore pornography of reading text describing sexual feelings and soft graphic images to hardcore pornography of graphic images of people having sex and graduates to actual sex. Over time, the images become imprinted in the mind of the user, leading to addiction to sex and pornography.

Research has shown that students who have sex perform less well than those who don’t. Focusing on one area leads to loss of focus on another area. You cannot compare a married student with a single one; the bachelor will be more focused. That is why some schools do not admit married students. It is also important to note that many of the world’s greatest inventors refused to have sex or to marry. Among them are the Wright brothers, George Washington Carver, Nikola Tesla, Pablo de Tarso.