Adolescent girls are often bombarded with tips and tricks on how to please men in bed. Elderly women believe that a girl’s ticket to marriage is about attracting the right man with ample tools to get a marriage proposal and staying married. In some cultures, such bedroom antics are introduced to girls way before adolescence.
The common one is the pulling of the labia to extend them to varying lengths. This a part of a woman’s outer private part believed culturally to enhance sexual intercourse. Women are told that men love elongated ones as opposed to natural ones that have not been tampered with. It is for this reason parents, aunties, neighbours or female teachers go to lengths, explaining to girls about beginning the elongating exercise earlier in life, failing which their loves lives will be doomed. I know of one woman makes a living from selling powders that help with the process.
The other day I decided to engage a group of men, asking them about the importance or use of an elongated labia. To my surprise, many seemed ignorant. They were aware women need them, but could not say their relevance during the many encounters with women. Of course, some explained what the labia is for— useful for foreplay, attracting men and getting them in the mood. They are a must for certain cultures and no woman can grow up without them. Those without them are practically outcast.
While girls are kept busy with such information, who tells the men how to utilise the very ‘assets’ girls spend a good part of their lives ‘making-over’ their bodies on? Who tells boys how to please women and future wives? Who tells them how to make marriages work? Nobody.
Boys are left alone and never tipped on any lifeskills if you may call them that. I know a woman who says her husband has nothing to do with her elongated self. She is frustrated and now hates what she deems ‘disfigurement’. Another told me that despite her obligation, she still hasn’t found a suitor, wondering if her exercise was in vain. Yet another women, who married her sweetheart before tampering with the labia is under pressure from him to get them ASAP. She is confused and desperate for the exercise as matter of urgency. She wonders from where he may have gotten the idea all of a sudden when he initially cared less about how she looked.
Perhaps a research will help map the way forward. Do men really want their women different? Isa it just about societal demands—get girls to look a certain ay and convince boys they need the changes? And if the research declares a resounding yes, preparation of both parties can help so that everyone is on the same page.
If you are going to teach girls how to cook, clean, wash and be star performers in bed for r men, do likewise for boys, especially where their financial obligations are concerned. It’s futile to have men pleased in bed and also expected to be fended for. Tell the boys about their household chores obligations. It should all be balanced.
