Labia Minora Elongation

I heard of this when I was young.
One woman in my family asked another woman in my family why they did it. Because someone had asked her and she couldnt answer. And of course my mother asked me to look it up ( I couldn't becuase at the time I hadn't studied enough sexual health to know the anatomical terms), and when I tried googling general terms I got quite inappropriate results.
I have now studied enough sexual health to be able to call it 'labia minora elongation' and therefore be better able to google it and get relevant (although still slightly disturbing) results.
Upon successful google, "Oh Em Gee there is so much stuff". And not all of it African. Which I found really surprising.
Crazy.
I point you to this blog entry as my starting point, to introduce the main ideas I am commenting on.
A couple of things I would like to say
1. I don't think it counts as mutilation if it is voluntary. And in my understanding of how it is practiced in Zambia (might be differnet in other families and in other countries) it is voluntary. You are told to do it and your age mates do it, and you do it. Which is why adult women in my family were asking themselves the purpose to this, becuase the purpose wasn't clearly communicated to them. They weren't told they had to do it to marry well, or to live well, they were just informed to do it. It appeared to be more of a social practice, kind of done as a part of things young girls did together.
My thoughts on this are, upon reflection I have never seen a white vagina. I have seen many black vaginas. In a non sexual non judgemenetal way. Although we don't really talk abotu sexuality with adults I thought the openness with the older young women was quite amazing (in retrospect), They showed us what they thought was important.

2. I think this relationship with older young ladies should be encouraged and used to spread other messages as well. If this conversation could include conversations about STI's, about contraception. It would be amazing and not replicated anywhere else in the world. Where young ladies are shown how to use devices not on dummies but on physical individuals. it's interesting becuase (again in retrospect) there is a really wierd dichotomy between certain things being incredibly inappropriate and never discussed and openness with the body that I have never seen in western culture (again in a non sexual way). I keep repeating the non-sexuality of the situation, because I do feel that western culture is much more sexualised and openness with one's body is often more sexual, and this kind of tradition and openness is definitely unique to this kind of situation.

3. Issues about infection and coersian I cannot speak on, because when I was young I only did what everyone else was doing, I wasn't pressured into it, and I didn't if I didn't want to. And I had no sense of it's effect on my future (although I vaguely remember the threat of being punished if it wasn't long enough...vague memories, can't comment). Although,  I don't even remember knowing about sex at the time, so it felt really separate from sex.

4. However, my main point. I don't think we should discard all traditional practices for the sake of modernisation, I think we should modify them and make them appropriate for what we (as Africans) decide is important to us. I have no strong feelings towards Labia Minora elongation and i plan to find a husband who agrees with me, but I do have strong feelings towards the relationships and the openness in conversation that was apparent at that time and therefore I would hope to build upon them rather than destroy them entirely.

I feel that western women have extermely peculiar relationships with their bodies and I don't think that's a thing we should adopt, at all. I acknowledge there are spectrums in all populations but just having seen someone else's vagina in a non sexual way tells me something about myself. I don't sit at home thinking my body is weird, and if I didn't like it I am given a method to make it more appealing, if that's an option I wanted to take.
BUT again, focus on the potential these gatherings of young ladies can have towards sexual health education and dessemination of information. just imagine.