science

Kunyaza

Kunyaza is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kunyaza rather than just read about it. In short: Kunyaza is the Rwanda-Rundi name given to a sexual practice found in the Great Lakes region of East Africa which is meant to facilitate female orgasm and female ejaculation during intercourse. Terminology The Rwanda-Rundi word kunyaza is derived from the verb kunyaàra, meaning "to urinate" but also signifying female ejaculation achieved by the practice.

Key takeaways

Kunyaza belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kunyaza to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kunyaza from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kunyaza is the Rwanda-Rundi name given to a sexual practice found in the Great Lakes region of East Africa which is meant to facilitate female orgasm and female ejaculation during intercourse.

Terminology The Rwanda-Rundi word kunyaza is derived from the verb kunyaàra, meaning "to urinate" but also signifying female ejaculation achieved by the practice. It is known with various names in different regions, the regular Ugandan term being kakyabali (often transliterated kachabali in anglicised spelling) or "Western Jazz" in slang, due to its prevalence in western regions such as Ankole. In that the term is now being used in English-language sources in Europe and North America, it can be considered an English word of African origin.

Geographic extent Kunyaza is present particularly in Rwanda, Burundi, western Uganda, western Tanzania, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and some parts of Kenya. A 2008 survey with Rwandan male respondents suggested that female European visitors to the country are being introduced to the practice by local men. During the 2010s, the practice saw spread through social media to Kenya.

History Kunyaza is usually considered a traditional practice in Rwanda. Folk tradition suggests that it dates back to the Third Dynasty rule: as the story has it, the queen chose one of her guards to have sex with, but he suffered performance anxiety and failed to penetrate her. Instead, his penis rubbing against her labia and clitoris gave her satisfaction.

Technique Publicised by Dr. Nsekuye Bizimana as a secure means to achieve female orgasm, often in the form of ejaculation, kunyaza involves a non-penetrative and a penetrative phase in progression:

The male partner first stimulates the labia minora of the female partner by tapping and also rubbing with his penis and then, at a certain level of arousal, proceeds to stimulate the internal surfaces of the labia minora and the vulval vestibule, including the urinary meatus in the same manner, followed by stimulation of the clitoris, vulval vestibule, labia minora and the vaginal opening. Removal of the female partner's pubic hair is advised for more comfortable manipulation of the penis. The male partner penetrates the vagina with alternating shallow thrusts (gucuga) at the vaginal opening with deep thrusts (gucumita) pushing against the cervix while maintaining exaggerated circular movements between vagina walls in a "screwing" fashion during penetration, often facilitating the movement by holding the penis between the middle and the index finger. Nevertheless, other researchers emphasise that the version introduced by Dr. Bizimana diverts from the traditional kunyaza in fully omitting the labia elongation technique of gukuna, which is in fact seen as integral to kunyaza.

Significance As kunyaza involves some commitment of time, and, on the part of the man, restraint, it is posited as a relationship signifier. "A man only kunyazas a woman that he really cares for, whereas it would be odd to kunyaza a sex worker." Kunyaza is "the easiest and most effective technique to achieve female ejaculation," according to American sexual health educator, Angelica Lindsey-Ali, also known as The Village Auntie. Rwandan sexologist Vestine Dusabe said that 90% of women experience female ejaculation from kunyaza. Kunyaza is a recommended heterosexual practice for women to achieve sexual pleasure without penetration, according to international female magazine Cosmopolitan.

In books and media A formulated version of kunyaza was introduced to the Western public in books Weiblicher Orgasmus und weibliche Ejakulation dank afrikanischer Liebeskunst (2005) and Le secret de l’amour à l’africaine (2008) by traditional medicine specialist Nsekuye Bizimana, a Rwandan based in Germany. A Chinese translation of Le secret de l’amour à l’africaine was published in Hong Kong in 2010. Kunyaza and other Rwandan sexual practices were featured in the TV5 Québec Canada documentary Le Sexe autour du monde: Rwanda aired in January 2011. The instructional DVD Kunyaza - Afrikanische Liebeskunst by erotic film director Pierre Roshan was released by German IntimateFilm in 2011. The practice (under the Ugandan name kachabali) was a topic in the SBS One documentary The Sunny Side of Sex: Uganda aired in December 2012. ProSieben news magazine Unter fremden Decken aired the episode Sex in Ruanda that focused on kunyaza in November 2013. In 2016, the documentary Sacred Water by Belgian filmmaker Olivier Jourdain, which has kunyaza as the subject matter, premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The documentary was released on DocsOnline in 2017. Kunyaza: The Secret to Female Pleasure (2018), by British Nigerian Habeeb Akande, is the first book published on the subject in English. In May 2020, the BBC World Service broadcast "The Orgasm Gap", an episode of The Documentary Podcast as part of its Life Changes season. The two female reporters, named only as Lily and Kay, explore the omission of sexual pleasure from sex education in the UK, and travel to Rwanda to find out about Kunyaza, as a practise which focusses on female sexual pleasure, leading the woman to orgasm, and to "squirt", what is referred to as "sacred water". There they interviewed the sexologist Vestine Dusabe, but were concerned to discover that labia elongation was an associated cultural practice.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kunyaza

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kunyaza claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kunyaza before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kunyaza ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kunyaza

In research: Kunyaza appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kunyaza in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kunyaza is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Culture of Burundi, Culture of Rwanda, Orgasm, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kunyaza outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kunyaza in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kunyaza means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kunyaza out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kunyaza in simple terms?

Kunyaza is the Rwanda-Rundi name given to a sexual practice found in the Great Lakes region of East Africa which is meant to facilitate female orgasm and female ejaculation during intercourse. Terminology The Rwanda-Rundi word kunyaza is derived from the verb kunyaàra, meaning "to urinate" but also…

Why does Kunyaza matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kunyaza?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kunyaza.