In Uganda, most Bantu tribes majorly the Baganda have a lot of things as attached to their norms that are practiced by girls and women in a bid to offer their sexual partners the best during the ‘game of throws’ and the top being Labia elongation.
As other tribeslike Sabiny in Uganda and Kenya cut and mutilate their girls’ genital parts by cutting out their clitoris, the Baganda strive to elongate both the labia majora and minora. They are also called ‘lips’ in layman’s language (and it what we shall be using).
This process of elongating parts of the vagina is literally translated as pulling in a practice called ‘Okukyalira Ensiko’ literally meaning ‘Visiting the Bush’.
Back in the days, it was actually in the bush where pre-teenage young girls were taken to have their lips elongated by their paternal aunties (Ssengas) thus the name of the practice. However, now days many do it any where in privacy.
According to researchers, these lips enjoy a perverse deference in central parts of Uganda. Among the Bahima clan of the Banyankole tribe in Western Uganda, the elongation was chiefly to raise barricades for rapists but in other societies especially Buganda, it is purely to optimize sexual pleasure.
Till now, this is still a role of these Ssengas that are also responsible for preparing their brother’s daughters for marriage especially in issues concerning sexual satisfaction to their partners, parenting and the role of a lady in the family. These days, the practice has been taken over by mature women that offer these services at a fee.
How it is done?
The Ssengas reportedly use three fingers to pull each of the lips downwards for several weeks or teach these women on how to do it.
The process is aided by traditional herbs that serve as catalysts such as ‘entengotengo’,. Some use bare fingers though the victims claim they tend to be painful. The main focus of labia elongation is majorly on the Labia minora (Inside lips) and they are pulled to up to 1 inch to 3 or 4 regarding what one wants. Currently 1 – 2 inches are advised by the Ssengas due to reasons that will be detailed in our other articles.
Once the lips attain their required length, neither too long nor too short, women are advised to revisit the Sssengas for maintenance of the shapes, warmth and fascination. Hygiene is also highly recommended.
Source of Pleasure
When the wrestle between the sheets comes, the larger elongated lips are believed to make sex more pleasurable to both the man and the woman. This is because, when they are elongated well, the clitoris that well known as the most sensitive part of the woman becomes more exposed.
This makes handy during oral sex and a popular sexual practice known as Kachabali, the favorite practice among the Baganda, Rwanda and Ankore women.
Other Advantages of Labia Elongation
Longer lips are also known to keep the genital parts moist and warm compared to short ones.
The also help in case of forced sex since they can act as a block to the entrance of the woman’s inner genitalia.
Whereas FGM kills sexual feelings, labia elongations enhance those very feelings. Some Ssengas can now report that they have had even European women as customers.
Mean while, In support of the practice is the notable Ugandan human rights activist and lawyer, Dr Sylvia Tamale, who in her paper, Eroticism, Sensuality and Women’s Secrets among the Baganda: A Critical Analysis, defends the practice.
“Lumping Okukyalira ensiko together with FGM procedures that pose health hazards to women completely disregards the ways in which this practice, encoded within the Ssenga institution, has enhanced sexual pleasure for women, and expanded their perceptions of themselves as active sexual beings.
Far from suffering feelings of ‘incompleteness, anxiety and depression’ that the WHO associates with this practice, most of those interviewed in this study spoke positively of this cultural practice. This ‘lived experience’ of Baganda women contradicts the negative blanket characterization of the cultural practice of labia elongation offered by the WHO,” she writes.