Another purpose, and the reason for the variant where the vagina is sewed almost entirely shut, is to preserve virginity. If the woman is left with a hole just barely big enough to pee out of then she becomes extremely hard to rape, so a bride so mutilated is guaranteed virgin. Which is also the reason for doing this to a baby. Basically, it makes her own flesh into a chastity belt.
When she marries she is cut open to accommodate her husband’s penis. When she is ready to give birth she must be cut further open because the scar tissue isn’t flexible. Then she is sewn up, leaving just enough for her husband to enter when she heals up enough to have sex again. And she’s cut again for the next baby…
Here’s the problem: when nearly all the women in a culture have FGM then no one knows what normal, unaltered female genitals look like. Much like women in a culture (the US, for example, not that long ago) where nearly all the men are circumcised don’t know what an uncut penis looks like, accept the altered penis as “normal”, and may even find an unaltered penis unattractive (or ugly, or disgusting, or whatever), in a society where FGM is nearly universal the mutilation is seen as the norm and even beautiful and the unaltered anatomy is not.
This is hard to wrap your head around the first time you hear it, hence my analogy with male circumcision.
Also keep in mind some of these cultures view unaltered women as inherently sinful, as whores, and such women are available for rape or face stoning. They are inherently bad women, they can’t marry, and they have no protection So… leave your daughter intact and risk her being raped or stoned to death, or slice off a bit of flesh so she can marry and have male protection?
The notion that a woman is supposed to enjoy sex is not a universal sentiment. Look up dry sex, which is clearly for male pleasure and not a woman’s. The guy can have “a good time” whether or not the woman is enjoying herself.
I’ve been thinking about a short story by Robin Hobb published in Asimov’s a few years back. I see that it is no longer on the official site, but is captured in the Wayback Machine.
Funny- I joined this board because I was lurking and reading a thread talking about how shocking the thread title was, but it had been changed, and I neeed to know what the original title was! Full cycle, I guess.
Thanks muchly. We had just moved to Indonesia when the OJ case erupted, and since it was still the pre-internet era we were mostly shielded from the news.
sure you took it seriously, you little dickens - and if the thread was about whacking a newborn boy’s penis off for some cultural bullshit reason, you’d be all about making jokes about that
I’m not going to try to justify circumcision, but I do think there’s still a difference between that and FGM. It’s one thing to believe you’re doing something for the sake of the child’s hygiene. It’s another to believe you’re doing it for the child’s moral purity, particularly when that morality judgment doesn’t apply equally to both sexes.
*Federal law defines “sexual act” as touching of the genitalia with the intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade 18 USC § 2246. Nagarwala’s removal of clitoral skin from seven-year-old minor females is a sexual activity that violates both federal and state law. (FN 1)
FN 1: One purpose of FGM is to curb sexuality of girls and women by making sex painful. As a result there is probable cause to believe that the intent is to abuse, humiliate, harass, or degrade. Therefore FGM qualifies as a “sexual act” for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.*
In some locations headway against the custom was made when people were convinced that an uncut woman was more likely to produce healthier children and more of them, and the women and children were less likely to die in childbirth.
And the law, 18 USC 116 refers to “whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18”. Any form of genital excision of a female minor that is not required for a medical reason is prohibited. There are cultures where “female circumcision” is considered acceptable with “only” a “trimming” of the clitoral hood or labia. The laws preclude that sort of wiggle room to avoid arguments on how much to cut is “not so bad” vs. too much – if she’s a minor, it’s absolutely no cutting at all.
It looks like there is some outrage in the Muslim community about this.
ISTR with Chinese footbinding, women who were not mutilated in this way were considered the lowest of the low and had to become prostitutes. Is this similar with FGM?