Labia Elongation

Labia Elongation

Labia elongation is practiced amongst a number of the groups of people in Uganda as well as in other parts of the African continent.

Twimukye Macline Mushaka, Bakiga, Uganda, on labia elongation and how she would not encourage her daughter in Glasgow to do this:

“And then, part of the culture where I come from, the women of my generation had a practice that they called…it’s the opposite of female genital mutilation. I’m sure you’ve heard of female genital mutilation, but, this one, is the extension of the labia. And, they claim, it’s supposed to make the sex more enjoyable. I think for the man. That’s how I look at it…rather than for the woman. And, in terms of how that is done, you know, the man would stimulate the extended labia, and then that whole process is meant to be enjoyed. And there is evidence, who said, women who have been interviewed, and they think that it is more enjoyable than simply not doing it… For me, from an activism point of view… I’ve looked at that process. While I subjected myself to that process, because it was culturally acceptable and I was expected to do it… I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to let my children go through that. Because I didn’t see from a biological point of view… was altering nature, what should be. So, I made that conscious decision. But, if my daughter was to marry a Bakiga man today, unless that Bakiga man is an educated man, not a…not every woman should have those extended labias, then, she would not fit in because she would be from them. But, also, I think the practice is dying down, through women becoming more empowered and being able to decide… make a conscious decision that they don’t want to conform to what culture expects from them. My generation of the fifty’s women, you know, women who are fifty and above. We were still trying to fit into what was culturally acceptable. But today’s women don’t, and I count myself as one of today’s women as well, even though I’m from that generation.”

Twimukye Macline Mushaka, Bakiga, Uganda, on labia elongation and how she would not encourage her daughter in Glasgow to do this:

“The girls are supposed to do it before their menstruation period. Because it is believed that, that’s another myth, I would believe, that after the menstruation period that it wouldn’t work. But I think the reason that it is done, and it would be subject to research and everything, is that by the time the girls become, reached the puberty stage, they were being prepared for marriage. So, if you hadn’t done it by that time, you were not going to have the time to do it, because you were being prepared to go and marry. So, I think the practice was encouraged for girls from the age of 8, not even younger. Because it was enforced. Girls were educated about the practice, normally by their paternal aunties. To say, in marriage you need to be like this and that’s how, as a woman, you should be presented. And, therefore, you needed to conform to that, so that your husband would find you like that… And that was the same practice as promotion of virginity before marriage, because, for instance, long before, you know…. if a girl go to marry and they found that she was not a virgin, they would return her back to her family. But those kinds of practices have now died down. My mum used to tell us she was a happy thirty-year-old virgin when she got married. And today (laughs), I don’t think there will be many thirty-year-old virgins. It would be like….huh?!... You can see the culture changes with time, obviously…and what is important…that we, you know, talk about oral history…is about some of those things that may not necessarily have any empirical evidence or research done on them…not to disappear completely, as if they never happened. Yeah, do like, the extension of the labia, or genital elongation is the word that used in literature. I think it’s a practice that must…should not necessarily be enforced. It was…the good thing was, you were not forced to do it. So, someone would not come and pull them for you. You would be taught how to do it yourself. And because you knew that you were preparing yourself to be a woman, a wife, a mother, you had, you know, you had to make sure you do it…and it had a particular measurement, you know. You had to make sure that you put it and it was as long as your middle finger, you know, you had to pull it and it’s as long as that. But, you know, um…I’ve spoken to women who say that they’ve found sex, for example, painful if the guy doesn’t know that they’re there and simply goes with part of the skin inside. That can be really painful. And so, for guys that are sensitive, that care to explore their wife’s body, know that they first have to open it up, so that they then have proper process of that part of the job. Without wanting to appear like an elderly aunt on the record (laughs).