The work of the magnonmakan begins three days before the wedding ceremonies. During that period, referred to as konoboli-so1, the nuptial advisors have the assign­ment to prepare the bride for the intense sexual activity that will take place in the following week. The main assumption being that the bride is a virgin who may re­sist […]

Similarly to bolokoli-kelaw, the mmagnonmakanw come from caste[107] [108] groups and are the designated gatekeepers of traditional practices and rites of initiation. For both, their roles are social obligations handed down through several generations, through training and personal coaching. From our discussions, we gathered that both practitioners still enjoy social approval for their activities, and […]

Those who favour the practice of excision/female genital mutilation often deny its harmful consequences or are stubborn enough to find a way around eventual problems. Indeed, many followers of these practices rationalize their positive at­titude by the fact that they have never experienced or seen any of the presumed inconveniences of female genital mutilation. Moreover, […]

at excision. Moreover, many justifications of excision are no longer used as valid rational explanations of these practices. The belief that the clitoris can harm the young girl, the childbearing woman or her male sexual partners, is among those disappearing rationalizations. Instead, conformity to traditional or Islamic teach­ing, clarification of individual sexual identity and control […]

Excision/female genital mutilation is still omnipresent, in urban as well as rural areas, as a regulator mechanism of female sexuality. It includes several types of cutting the female genitalia. A small sub-group of the population submit girls to the ‘sunna-circumcision’, which involves only the removal of the skin covering the clitoris. The clitoridectomy, called ‘excision’, […]

Chastity is the norm of premarital sexuality among most of the social groups in Mali. It is perceived as the result of a good family upbringing, which fostered obe­dience to ethical norms and strengthened individual value systems. Girls’ virginity is a source of respectability because it proves self-mastery, maturity and decency. That is why virgin […]

On the Practices of Magonmaka and Bolokoli-kela Assitan Diallo Introduction According to what is perceived as ‘tradition’ in Mali, open discussions about sex­ual issues are taboo and often perceived as a lack of virtues. Till recently, interests in sexuality and sexual behaviour among Malians have only been found among a handful of foreign writers. With […]

Sexuality is a social-political arena constantly reshaped through cultural, econom­ic, familial and political relations, all of which are conditioned through prevailing social organizations of gender, race and class relationships at given points in time. In Africa male and female sexualities have been patterned by cultural defini­tions of masculinity and femininity. Female sexuality is seen as […]

There is a perceptible link between women’s sexual helplessness in most develop­ing countries and lack of control over their sex lives and reproductive behaviours. For a long time, African countries have continued to record very high rates of fer­tility and currently there are soaring rates of HIV/AIDS infection. Demographic literature indicates that global efforts have […]

Two years ago I was assigning seminar tasks to a group of graduate students in Gender Studies. One of the articles on my agenda bore a provocative title Whose pussy is this? A feminist comment from Hooks’ book entitled Talking hack,—Think — ingfeminist, thinking black (1989). The article as I had anticipated stimulated a lot […]