Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on accounts from young urban women and men in Zimbabwe about the practice of labia elongation in relation to sexual norms to demonstrate the instability of "queerness" and argues this concept needs to be theorized imaginatively beyond the lenses of same sex expression.

Paper long abstract:

The hegemonic representation of Queer studies is that which frames this field as being synonymous with or limited to LGBTI studies or non-normative sexual orientation in general. African feminists such as Nyanzi (2014) propose the theorizing of queerness within and beyond LGBTI. Drawing on this invitation, this paper focuses on diverse accounts from young urban women and men in Zimbabwe about the practice of labia elongation. It examines the different and complex connections participants make between this gendered practice and issues of female (sexual) desire and pleasure, as well as notions of "completeness" and "incompleteness" (read as queer). While these issues to a large extent reflect sexual and gendered norms that are hetero-patriarchal in nature, they are nonetheless unstable. In particular, the paper demonstrates the subversion, contestations, and resistance of these norms, for example, by women who were framed as "incomplete" or "queer" for not undergoing labia elongation, and those who expressed concern over the framing of this practice exclusively around male sexual desire and pleasure. Further, the paper argues that norms need not be seen only as suppressive forces, but rather also as productive forces drawing from a Post-structuralist sense. It attempts to highlight how the notion of "queerness" or "abnormality" is not only contextual and unstable, but is in constant reconfiguration and thus needs to be theorized imaginatively beyond the lenses of same sex expression.