Blog
On Lip Plates
Written by Tati
Researching and cataloguing tribes for the Singing Wells Map we’re developing has me coming across a lot of unfamiliar customs. At the moment, I’m taking a sort of internet based, whistle-stop tour of East African tribal culture; I’m finding out about all sorts of fantastic traditions, but every now and again I come across things I’m not comfortable with. And not because I’m a Western white chick, but because I’m a person. And not immune to pain.
So I never really thought about lip-plates, but I suppose I assumed they weren’t something that permanently changed anyone’s face or anything. Turns out I was wrong. It’s not uncommon for tribes to culturally enforce this practice of women cutting a hole under their lip, plugging it and gradually stretching it. Much like with an ear plug, except often a few teeth have to be removed. This happens in western culture as well, but that’s more a hardcore-piercing-fan thing. I thought I was kind of hardcore for doing my ears myself, although I am blatantly not.
Thing is, while I wouldn’t want to have a lip plate myself, I don’t want to condemn the practice entirely because – lets face it – I don’t understand tribal culture. I’ve got a bit of don’t-talk-about-what-you-don’t-know-about going on here. I came across a forum where the majority of comments fell into the following categories:
|
‘what! that picture is really scary! do you mean this is really going on in Africa? hmmm! Africa needs to wake up. this is just too uncivilised, too barbaric’
|
|
‘you are right! I don’t see anything wrong with this. the lip plates are just part of what they consider to be right. in other words, the lip plates are just part of their tradition and they do this because they honor their tradition and customs’
|
|
‘It is time people begin to think outside their culture for once. your culture isn’t the only culture in the world. your culture is just one in billions so if u find any culture very different from yours, don’t ever refer to that culture as barbaric.’
|
Forum posts aren’t always the best thought out arguments in the world.
I’m slightly uncomfortable with the fact that lip plates are generally put in between the ages of 15 and 18, which is pretty young. I’m also really uncomfortable with the fact that this only happens to women, as I am with anything exclusively reserved for women that isn’t biological, like childbirth or periods. I’m distressed by this:
|
‘they do this because they think this is beautiful, and the bigger the better. They must continue the tradition because the male side will think that if they don’t stretch their lips and stuff, they are bad and they don’t want them. African women do this for themselves – to get a life with a partner. It’s like how the women in modern societies look as beautiful as possible so they can have a partner.’
|
“…women do this for themselves – to get a life with a partner”. I am mad about look-hot-or-die-alone situations happening all over the world.
But ultimately, if this is a practice done consensually, I can’t condemn it (and I wouldn’t want to). My definition of ‘consensual’, though, would be something done, or not done, regardless of social pressure. I don’t know if such a thing exists.
Something I condemn wholeheartedly would be female ‘circumcision’, which, sadly, is also pretty common.