# Does Female Circumcision prevent F orgasm? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 7, 2002, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415 "2002-09-07T08:29:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![flapcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@flapcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flapcats)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/1 "2002-09-07T08:29:57Z")
The BBC mentioned female circumcision in an article this week and I realise I know nothing about it. Only one question though: Would a circumcised female be able to have orgasms? ---
**Author:** ![effac3d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@effac3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/effac3d)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/2 "2002-09-07T10:42:21Z")
What type of female circumcision are you talking about? If we’re only talking removal of the clitoral hood then yes she would retain most of her feeling.(note i’m not defending any type of genital alterration on infants or children!) But extreme forms like clitorectomy and infibulation would leave a woman incapable of sexual pleasure. I don’t have a cite here,but i remember a article by an anthropologist that interviewed women who were victims of clitorectomy,and they claimed they had orgasms. ---
**Author:** ![Bromley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Bromley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bromley)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/3 "2002-09-07T11:03:40Z")
You’re not to do that to me again. A most unpleasant subject. Anyway, here’s the person to answer your questions - [Hanny Lightfoot-Klein](http://www.fgmnetwork.org/Lightfoot-klein/). The short of it appears to be yes. From the summary of the second article: > [@](#): > > The findings of this study indicate that sexual desire, pleasure, and orgasm are experienced by the majority of women who have been subjected to this extreme sexual mutilation, in spite of their also being culturally hound to hide these experiences. These findings also seriously question the importance of the clitoris as an organ that must be stimulated in order to produce female orgasm, as is often maintained in Western sexological literature. ---
**Author:** ![Checkerboard\_Strangler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Checkerboard\_Strangler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Checkerboard_Strangler)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/4 "2002-09-07T11:25:17Z")
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein’s essay appears to be the biggest load of claptrap I’ve ever read. Sorry, I find it impossible to understand how such a mutilation would leave a woman’s sexual abilities intact, as the clitoris is analagous to the penis in the male. To argue that a woman without a clitoris can enjoy sexual stimuation would be like stating that a man without a penis can enjoy an erection. This procedure is performed because Sudanese men feel threatened by the female genitalia… Cheers, JeffH ---
**Author:** ![Babar714](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Babar714](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babar714)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/5 "2002-09-07T11:34:48Z")
Welcome aboard, Checkerboard. I don’t think there is any doubt here that this practice is totally evil. Culture vs. Human Rights… in this instance, I hope Human Rights shits down the throat of Culture. ---
**Author:** ![Bromley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Bromley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bromley)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/6 "2002-09-07T11:51:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Checkerboard Strangler \* > **To argue that a woman without a clitoris can enjoy sexual stimuation would be like stating that a man without a penis can enjoy an erection.** No, it would be more like stating that a man without a penis can enjoy an _orgasm_. You’re dismissing her work (which I just found out about, so I’m no supporter of hers) based on what is an unsupported opinion (which may be correct) that clitoral stimulation is essential for female orgasm. Couldn’t a man without a penis still enjoy anal sex? Where’s Ask the Gay Guy when you need him 🙂 . ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/7 "2002-09-07T11:52:13Z")
In the book _The Female Circumcision Controversey_ Ellen Gruenbaum, who lived and worked in regions where this practice continues, spoke with several women who had had the more extreme forms of FGM and claimed to have orgasms. If they do exist, however they are most certainly a minority. She also mentions as how this operation is NOT a clean, careful surgery as we in the west are accustomed to thinking of such things but rather a crude scraping and cutting of tissue, with no anesthesia, and typically with a screaming, crying, struggling child held down by one or several adults. Thus, results vary considerably. It is quite possible that the clitoris is not always cleanly cut away, but remnants of it may remain that can give sexual sensations and pleasure, which would account for those few women who have had this done to them who also claim to have orgasms. Which still doesn’t excuse the continued practice. ---
**Author:** ![DVous\_Means](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@DVous\_Means](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DVous_Means)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/8 "2002-09-07T14:20:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Checkerboard Strangler \* > \*\*… as the clitoris is analagous to the penis in the male. > > \*\* About two years ago, I heard an interview on a science/heaalth program on Australia’s Radio National, with an Australian female urologist/surgeon. She had been doing a great deal of research into the anatomy of female genitalia, and the clitoris in particular. From memory, she was motivated in part by the paucity of detailed information available on the precise innervaton and function of the clitoris. After a great deal of research involving many interviews, experiments and a lot of cadaver dissection, she found that the clitoris as we know it is only the tip of a much bigger organ that consists mainly of sensory pathways throughout the pubic area. Her findings were presumably published in the medical literature of the day, and were supposed to be incorporated into future anatomical textbooks, although I haven’t seen any evidence of that yet. I don’t have a cite on this right now. Give me some time and I will endeavour to track down a link. ---
**Author:** ![effac3d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@effac3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/effac3d)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/9 "2002-09-07T14:42:18Z")
I have heard of clitorectomies being performed in the US by surgeons as late as the fifties. The women that this was done to should be able to answer the question,has anyone ever interviewed them? ---
**Author:** ![DVous\_Means](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@DVous\_Means](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DVous_Means)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/10 "2002-09-07T15:23:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DVous Means \* > \*\* > I don’t have a cite on this right now. Give me some time and I will endeavour to track down a link. \*\* Here is the promised link: [http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/scripts98/9825/clitoris.html](http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/scripts98/9825/clitoris.html) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/11 "2002-09-07T17:55:11Z")
Well, there’s always the G-spot? ---
**Author:** ![Bromley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Bromley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bromley)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2002, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-female-circumcision-prevent-f-orgasm/127415/12 "2002-09-07T20:30:09Z")
Actually, from the link **DVous** posted, it seems like that might be part and parcel of the clitoris. Sort of like an iceberg. For those of you who’ve wondered, look at the [New Scientist](http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992495) article on it. The interesting thing is that it appears to be only 2-3 inches in (well, it suprised me) and is related to the male prostate, which ties in nicely with my penis-less orgasm question above.