12.30-13.30 (Brussels Time)
Francesca Mininel will present her research on women’s use of aphrodisiacs, vaginal tightening and drying products, and so-called “domination” substances in Togo and Ghana. Initially focused on harmful intravaginal practices classified by the WHO as type IV FGM and associated with an increased risk of STIs and HIV, this research gradually expanded in the field to include all products aimed at enhancing desire, maintaining a partner’s fidelity, or influencing their behavior. It is based on interviews conducted with young Togolese women, ethnographic observations in several urban markets, and extensive documentation of objects circulating locally, regionally, or originating from Asian trade. These products, sold by traditional healers or through discreet female networks mainly run by Kotokoli and Hausa traders, take multiple forms and are used through ingestion, application, or insertion. They are used to tighten or dry the vagina in order to increase male pleasure, compete among co-wives, simulate virginity, conform to hygiene norms that associate vaginal secretions with impurity, and exert control over a partner. Their packaging and modes of circulation reveal an imaginary combining “spiritual” references (Vodou, Muslim, Christian), promises of “modern” success, and globalized female figures.
A complementary perspective will be provided by Bakary Cissé, a Burkinabè physician and a privileged witness of these practices. Interviewed as part of the research, he reports that these practices also generate significant male concern: many young men fear being “bewitched” or manipulated by these products, which are perceived as capable of altering their will or emotionally “binding” them. This situated perspective highlights that these substances, far from being solely female tools of seduction or marital negotiation, also belong to a field of tensions in which fears, imaginaries of power, and male vulnerabilities circulate.
Francesca Mininel is a researcher in socio-anthropology at the Institut Paoli-Calmettes (Marseille Cancer Center), a member of the SESSTIM laboratory (Economic and Social Sciences of Health & Medical Information Processing – Aix-Marseille University – IRD – Inserm), and a member of the Institute of Public Health Sciences (ISSPAM – Aix-Marseille University). She completed her PhD in anthropology within the framework of HIV prevention in Togo, focusing on the initiation into sexuality of young Togolese girls, supervised by IRD (TransVIHMI – Translational Research on HIV and Emerging and Endemic Infectious Diseases) and Aix-Marseille University (IDEMEC – Institute of European, Mediterranean and Comparative Ethnology). Part of her first postdoctoral research at LPED was dedicated to the study of the transnational circulation of vaginal products in West Africa.
Bakary Cissé is a physician and PhD candidate in public health within the SESSTIM laboratory (Aix-Marseille University – Inserm – IRD). His work focuses on health literacy and hepatitis B prevention in France and Burkina Faso, at the intersection of epidemiology, data analysis, and health systems research. Trained in medicine, biostatistics, and international health, he previously worked at the Centre Muraz (Burkina Faso). His approach aims to better understand inequalities in prevention and to contribute to public health practices adapted to local contexts.