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FON, DAHOMEY (2,2,3-,3,4,4;5,5) (BENIN)
Index → Africa→ Benin →Dahomey
“Formal sex instruction” may precede puberty
initiation (Stephens, 1971:p407)[1]. Herskovitz (1938)[2] describes genital doctoring. Homosexuality is seen as an
adolescent phase (ibid., p289)[3]. Dahomey adolescents enlarge their labia
pudenda (cf. Stanley, 1998:p41-3)[4]
and occasional mutual masturbation would occur (Carrier, 1980)[5]. In Dahomey (Kossodo, 1978:p113)[6], Fan mothers practice clitoral
masturbation, pull labia, stroke the anus and use water beams for then
minutes on the vulva. This continues until age four. The practice is said to
induce frigidity and cause childlessness[7]. Sexual education is given to the
girls in their period of seclusion, who later pass on their knowledge to the
boys (Herskovits, 1932)[8]. Coitus is not supposed to start
until the passage of 48 menstrual cycles. Boys have homosexual liaisons in
early adolescence when girls are unavailable. In Dahomey, “[…] the fact that
in early puberty groups of boys build and live in houses of their own,
electing their own leaders and carrying on much in the fashion of adults, is
[…] regarded by Dahomeans as educational. Especially important are the
recognized mechanism of sexual experimentation, while perhaps not less
significant is the withdrawal of nubile girls from contact with boys who
might cause them to become pregnant. This creates a situation which leads
either to further training of young men in sex through illicit relations with
older women, or to indulgence in homosexual experience, which is sanctioned
for this period” (Herskovits, 1943:p743-4)[9].
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin:
Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
Last
revised: Apr 2005
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