The practice you have described above is common among sections of the African community in the UK, and is an example of cultural practices that were brought over from Africa.

Sitting on a smoking pot is common in countries such as Mali, Nigeria, Liberia, Gambia and Gabon. In East Africa it is common among the Somali, Sudanese and Ugandans.

Among the Ugandans it is mainly practised by people from the western region, where the pot is known as orukomya or misho ana, meaning ‘four eyed’ because the pot has four holes that look like eyes. The orukoya is one of the items that are given to the bride-to-be during the traditional ‘introduction’ ceremony.

The content of the pot varies from community to community. In Somalia and Sudan it is mostly a mix of different herbs, or herbs and incense. In other communities, it is a mix of honey and herbs. In Central Uganda, where the practice is spreading among young women, they add akafuga nkande, an herb previously used on its own to bathe the female sexual organ in order to increase sexual pleasure.

In order fully to understand the significance of the smoking pot, one needs to understand the gender imbalance between African men and women, a situation that forces some women to look for ways of pleasing their male partner. They believe they will increase their sexual attractiveness by using beauty products such as bead belts (obutiti) and scented body creams.

Like many traditional sexual rituals, the smoking pot comes with health risks. Some of these risks are similar to the ones associated with other sexual practices such as dry sex, ‘Western Jazz’ (akakyabali) or ‘wet sex’, or inserting herbs, saw dust, or sand into the vagina in order to create friction. These practices are in most cases unhygienic and can cause bruises which increase the risk of a sexually transmitted infection being passed on.

Many African women would not,on their own, want to sit on a smoking pot, but hey do it out of fear of violence or rejection by the male partner. This is something a couple can talk about so they can decide whether sex cannot be equally enjoyable without having to go through the ritual.

Uncle Charles

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Thanks for sharing this. -_-

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