History of Labia Stretching

Even though we may believe that focusing on our private parts is a topic of today as we are more advanced than ever, the idea of making ourselves seem sexually more appealing has been in our history since the beginning.

We have been very aware of the need to make ourselves seem more appealing and since the need to find a perfect partner is quite primal, our ancestors focused on finding ways to make sure that they found the right partner and were able to procreate.

Not a very well-known and explored aspect for the modern, labia stretching was quite a topic of curiosity for the earlier civilizations and even though this practice was discovered accidently, there were many explorations conducted to verify the exact aspects of it and many scientists took great interest in finding out exactly what this practice of labia stretching was.

Labia stretching or Gukuna Imishino, was a practice followed by the women of many African tribes to elongate their labia. The reason for this was to provide more sexual gratification to their partners and themselves during intercourse by increasing the area for friction. During the process, the girl who may have just entered puberty or may be as young as 10 years old, begins to gently pull out her labia outwards and away from the body. Continuous stretching increases the length of the labia and achieves the purpose.

In the earlier days, girls would go out in groups to practice labia elongation and if asked, they would say that they were going out to collect grass for brooms and hence this process was also called Guca Imyeyo. These girls were given herbs to help them hold the labia easily and to stretch them. Till date there are places where girls get together and pull at each other’s labia while catching up on the day as they elongate their labia. This has made them understand that this process is noting to be ashamed of and can have various benefits for them when they have a partner. 

Labia stretching was discovered in an era where the practice of anything other than the normal and known was considered strange and people would be very curious to know what this strange human difference was, and this is how labia stretching was first viewed by the world. At the time, in the 1800s, women were very modest and experimentation with one’s own body was a much unexplored world.

The records that came to light the first time regarding this practice were very vague and the fact that the earliest practicing cultures were Bushmen and Hottentots but were commonly referred to as Hottentots added to the vagueness of where this practice was being followed most and where it came from. The Hottentots became more popular and researched because they were more in contact with the European colonizers and the aspect we are talking about was found in the Khoids first. As soon as the colonizers started understanding more about these cultures, various writings about their living, culture, and other things started appearing.

A few accounts were correct, thought he writers seemed confused of what they were seeing. They would write things like seeing ‘finger shaped appendages that were always double and hanging down from their private parts’. Some people wrote that these were nothing but mere strips of cloth which they didn’t really need to cover their tiny private parts and as it is it was noted that the abdomen of these women hung down so as to pretty much cover their external genitals.

While the world was wondering about this different anatomical feature of the woman’s body, the Bushmen and Hottentots had begun to migrate to civilization because they were facing a scarcity of food and this is where they started letting the doctors examine them to understand their anatomy. Any of these women were also being brought in as slaves and such so it became easier to understand what the earlier observers were talking about. With the introduction of a woman from an African Tribe, the Hottentot Venus, the world was exposed to how a woman’s body was made to look different in another part of the world.

The Hottentot Venus was a woman with a very different shape to the body where the breasts were bigger than the average and came to be closer to the armpits, the buttocks of the woman were differently shaped and seemed to almost be horizontally protruding towards to top and slanting down inwards towards the bottom. However, the most curious part of this woman’s body were here genitals. Previously a topic of much controversy, the Hottentote Venus helped the world come to know about labia stretching and how it was a much advanced practice for this ancient tribe and seemed to be going on for generations.

The labia minora of this woman seemed to be quite elongated and would hang down giving the viewer a feeling of her wearing a cloth to cover the genitals. For long it was speculated whether what seemed like a cloth was actually the elongated labia minora of the woman and after much time spent and quite a lot of research, it was found that it indeed was the elongated labia of the woman that provided the illusion of a cloth. The exact reason for this change in the woman’s body was not very well known then however, today it has been understood that these changes were meant to make the women seem more appealing and make the act of intercourse more pleasurable for both the partners. It was surprising though that certain tribes in Africa were the only ones that seemed to be practicing it however, since its complete understanding, labia stretching has been adopted all over the world with women from various races wanting to offer more intimacy and adventure to their partners.

A deeper look into the discovery of this ancient art will help us completely understand the humble beginnings of this extremely erotic and much adopted method that the women today want to adopt.