Exploring sexual customs: Girls and the politics of elongating the inner labia

Issues of sexuality remain taboo in many African communities, with girlhood sexuality being a highly policed domain. This creates a lot of challenges for girls as they negotiate the spaces between being a girl-child and a sexual being. This paper explores the gendered politics of elongating the inner labia among Basotho girls and the socially constructed notions of proper girlhood. I draw from a study which explored the memories of adolescent sexual experiences of Basotho women teachers through focus group discussions. The findings present girls' stories of being sexual beings and trying to perform normalised girlhood, while at the same time performing alternate discourses of girlhood. They highlight the use of labial elongation for promoting male sexual pleasure at the expense of female pleasure. Based on the findings, I argue for non-conformity in relation to labial elongation to give girls a chance of shaping their sexual identities around pleasurable sexuality.