Regions of the World Where Labia Stretching is Practiced

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Another very important reason to make the vaginas tighter by the use of products or by labia elongation is that if they are not, then they may feel watery (not very tight) and that could lead to unsatisfactory relationships as the man feel no friction and cannot enjoy the act. The woman can be blamed for not being well prepared or having been with another man recently and in some cultures, she could also be treated with disrespect and ridiculed.

Every woman knows that sometimes her vagina smells great and at other times it doesn’t. It seems that these ancient tribes had a solution to that as well they state that using the products to make the vagina as dry as required also helps them to get rid of the discharge that may smell sometimes and may not be desirable to the partner. They also state that these practices help the women whose vagina gets torn during childbirth by making them as tight as they used to be by inserting them to provide the man with the feeling of the required friction.

These products are considered to be women’s secrets and the men rarely know about them, they are provided to the woman by her female relatives or the traditional doctors who may know how to prepare them. Many women from Tete or ones with Zimbabwean or Mozambican cultures are known to know how to prepare these products accurately. These products, called mankwala can also be prepared by the woman if she has learned how to make them. They are used in different ways based on the preference of the woman; they could be placed inside the vagina, placed in the vaginal orifice using a fingertip, or even placed in the panties. The ingredients of these mankwalas are mostly roots, leaves, and dried tree barks that have been reduced to powder.

There is also a mention of vaginal eggs which are made with natural substances. These vaginal eggs are made with the same tree bark, leaves, and roots and combined with an egg so as to create a little ball. These eggs are used to create the effect of a tight vagina since they cannot be penetrated.

Today these preparations have begun to show a variety of ingredients and could range from using Colgate to Vicks to even stones and alum. In the tribes that follow these practices strongly, many women who are sexually active, use these products but may stop during the period of gestation. They may also stop using these products when they enter menopause however that is a choice they make; some women still continue with these practices as they feel better compared to feeling their loose vaginas which also helps them feel sexually stronger.

Labia elongation, in tandem, is considered to be a very favored practice in many of these tribes. The positive effects of labia elongation have been many and there are almost no negative effects that have been noticed. The only challenge that the women have faced is that the labia can get longer than required and that sometimes the use of products can cause lesions on the walls of the labia. This is why it is very essential to understand how to go about elongating the labia to avoid such occurrences.

Labia stretching is also seen to be practiced in regions of Bagisu, Bugiri, Busia, Famu, Ssebei, Kalengins, and Pokot tribes. It is also practiced in other countries like Burundi, Congo, Benin, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.

There are also some accounts of how labia stretching is carried out in Uganda. Here, the process of labia stretching is called Okukyalira ensiko. The process begins for young womne in the Wakiso area. The goal for the women is to get their labia as long as one and a half inches to three inches. The practice is referred to as Okusika (stretching out) and the person who helps her do this is referred to as an ssenga who is actually the woman’s paternal aunt. The ssenga doesn’t just help the female to the passage of womanhood by helping her learn how to elongate the labia, she is also the person responsible for teaching the young woman about other womanly duties, values, and behavior. As soon as the female begins her life as an adult, the ssenga starts to prepare her for marriage and happy married life. This doesn’t just include the aspects of making the man sexually happy but also how to cook food, how to maintain a house etc. It seems that the aspect of labia elongation is just one of the many things that go into preparing the young woman for a happily married life where she learns all the ways to be a good wife.

However, erotic techniques make up a huge part of the stretch period where the female learns to elongate her labia as a part of becoming a woman. The females are told that elongated labia would give them added pleasure and that their men may reject them if their labia were not of the desired length. This begins weeks of the female trys to elongate her labia as directed by her ssenga. As times changed, it became difficult for the parents to always send their daughters to their paternal aunts and today, the aunts, neighbors, or even some commercial ssengas play the original role to help the young women prepare themselves and carry out this important task of elongating their labia successfully. Even in this culture, the practice is not made obvious in front of the men, it is always conducted amongst the women and the younger females may even help each other but never is a man involved, not unless the female is married and the man may want to carry out the act with her.

In Baganda, the women also employ the use of herbs to make the labia soft and these can be found around the villages of ntengotengo, ssere, bidens pilosa, namirambe and many more. It is not just the traditional herbs many firms in Uganda have also started manufacturing crèmes to help the process of labia stretching.