Close Topic Options

Female Circumcision...Tradition or Mutilation?

Female Circumcision or FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is a destructive, invasive procedure that is usually performed on girls before puberty. Part or all of the clitoris is surgically removed. This leaves them with reduced or no sexual feeling. Orgasms are sometimes impossible to experience later in life. Many health problems result from the surgery.
FGM originated in Africa. It was, and remains, a cultural, not a religious practice.
Among individuals and groups opposed to the mutilation, it is seen as a method of reducing the sexual response of women in order to make them less likely to becom sexually active before marriage or to seek an extra-marital affair after marriage.
To some who promote the operation, it is seen as a cultural requirement that has health benefits and makes women more physically beautiful. These views are not shared by the rest of the world.
The operation is FORCED on approximately 6,000 girls per day, worldwide -- about one every 15 seconds. Since FGM is practiced when the girls are young, they are unable to give their informed consent.

What are your thoughs about this?

Mutilation CircumcisionTradition Female

This sounds terrible.  To do this to a woman is just awful.  (I know that it is probably looked at in a similar way with circumcision with infant boys as well.)  I never could understand how some cultures do the things they do.  But I also know that some cultures do things for some particular reason too.  There is one country (that I read about in a magazine one time) that when a woman  'becomes of age' the girl's mother and other elder women pull of the girl's hair out by the handfuls.  If she doesn't cry during the 'coming of age' ritual, she will make a fine wife that will be able to handle bearing children.  But I really fail to see the point in female circumcision, it seems like it would only be doing more harm than good.

Female Circumcision...Tradition or Mutilation? Reviews Consumer & Travel Family Culture

Yes! I remember watching the same show about the women pulling the hair of a girl...it was terrible for me! but I know it's a cultural thing, what impressed me the most was the sound the girl was doing (crying) when they were doing that. It was very hard to understand the concept of culture on that but again, we live in the other side of the world.

Mutilation CircumcisionTradition Female

I went to the below site and read all about FGM.  This site had a lot of information on the different types, why and how it is done.  There is one particularly gruesome type called infibulation, also known as pharaonic circumcision.  I am not going to detail any of this here, but I recommend everyone read the information at this site if you are interested in this topic for discussion.

https://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm#a1

This site actually has the story of one woman's experience as a girl of 10 having this procedure done.  Most of the victims (or patients) have this done without any pain relief and they are not new born infants when it is done.

I personally think it is horrible.  I can't imagine going through this procedure.  Many of the communities that practice this claim it is for hygiene purposes much like circumcision.  Yet, it causes may medical problems rather than prevent any.

I am so grateful to have been born in a society where this is not practiced!

Mutilation CircumcisionTradition Female

I'm sorry..but this is a load of crap. Those who "Promote" these operations are just another sect who prefer to treat women as things rather than people.

Of all traditions,I think that is one of the worse. This is especially true because of the REASONING behind it. Why should this or ANY operation be performed for the sole purpose of ensuring that a woman does not receive s-xual pleasure? This is unjust. Men are not forced into any sort of proceedure that will limit their pleasure.
Is it that in these cultures..men don't experience s-xual pleasure?...I don't THINK SO.

These traditions make it seem as if women are more likely to commit adultry than men..so that they must be stopped before..heaven forbid..they enjoy s-xual intercourse. Why is it that women must pay the price for the things that both men and women do?

I understand many other traditions..the flattening of the foreheads.. The large piercing of lips etc...these are, in some tribes..a form of beauty. It is the same way that in Western society..children wear braces in their mouth as a result of their parents wishes...we all go through a certain amount of pain for the sake of beauty. But this desire of beauty does not take away from our other desires.

Female Circumcision...Tradition or Mutilation?

While I agree that this is an horrific procedure to do to anyone, I do think it does have something to do with culture. It is a sadly mistaken culture, but it is, in fact, done traditionally and other women participate in doing it to the person having it done.

I think when the practice first came about, it was probably at a time in history when s-xual pleasure was deemed to be only for the man. Married women only had sex in order to have children. In fact, in many cultures men routinely went outside of the marital relationship or had many wives so that they could have all the pleasure they wanted, but women really didn't have sex for that purpose (at least that is my understanding).

If you had this done to your daughter it probably ensured that she wouldn't become a prostitute. It may have been a way to keep her morality in check. Right up until maybe the past decade or two, if a women got pregnant and she wasn't married she was tramp, but the guy was just being a guy. It was her job to say no. This seems to me to just be an extension of that belief. It just has outlasted civilized people's views of women's roles in a s-xual relationship.

Female Circumcision...Tradition Mutilation

Four arrested after alleged genital mutilation

Four people have been charged over the alleged genital mutilation of two young girls in Australia. Ref. Source 1

Female Circumcision...Tradition Mutilation Culture Family Travel & Consumer Reviews

Absolutely disgusting. Why isn't this tradition with the males, no it always has to be the female that pays the price. Whomever sanctions this sort of thing should be strung up and have it done to them.