The Horrors of Female Genital Mutilation (Female Castration)

Many people know of male castration, either through religious practices, pedophile prevention or some act of violence in the news. Most people don't know of female castration though, and the history of it used as a preventative tool in Middle Eastern and African countries.

Please take note that the following can be disturbing to some readers, discretion is advised!

Female castration is widely ignored by the popular media because most people do not want to know such things but it is widely used in 3rd world countries as a sex preventative.

I’ve been rallying against female genital cutting since high school but it seems that the publicity just isn’t really going anywhere fast. Publicity entitles that people know about it…thusly people don’t know. Well here’s my chance once again to speak out against it.

Just the thought of this subject makes me cringe, to add insult to injury this is done at an extremely early age! The average age is from 6-12 years old.

The social-behavioral characteristics of female sexual castration in Egypt with respect to age, place, agent and form of genital mutilations are summarized in Table 2. The majority of female genital mutilations occur between 6-11 years of age: 81.2%; 4.5% occur under 6 years of age; and 14.3% occur after age of 11 years. Virtually all genital mutilations occur before the age of menstruation, i.e., it is a pre-menstrual or pre-fertility ritual.

Not only does it take place in Egypt...

28 African countries and parts of the Middle East and Asia still today take part in female genital cutting or female castration.

The act itself is horrible beyond compare.

a girl of about 4 to 12 yrs old is strapped or held onto a table. With a knife (and I’m sure we still realize were in the back woods of a country like Ethiopia) they remove all external genetalia – for those who know their anatomy, the labia (the outer folds, inner folds….everything. No anesthesia besides probably – maybe – a little liquor. The girls are sometimes stitched up so they leave only a small opening to urinate and menstrate out of. Then they’re set on their merry little way. The stitches are only removed later by the husband prior to intercourse, which for the now older female, is extremely painful, because there is no protection and only damaged nerves. With this ritual comes high risks for hemorrhaging, infections, and long term difficulties with not only intercourse but childbirth as well. Yet, the males, and some older females, still see this as an important part of cultural history and calued rite of passage.

I, for one, am appalled that any culture thinks this is the best way to preserve a young girl's virginity until marriage. Not only do these girls have to experience this horrendous act but they must live with the consequences the rest of their lives.

It was found that 7.7 times as many normal women experienced sexual excitement to stimulation of the clitoris/clitoral area than did the genitally mutilated women. Masturbation (involving labia as well as clitoral areas) was the method of choice for sexual satisfaction that was 2.2 times more frequent in normal women than in the genitally mutilated women. Manual stimulation of the clitoris/clitoral area resulted in the experience of orgasm in 50% of the normal women and in 25% of the genitally mutilated women.

There are two notable findings from this preliminary survey. The first is that only 50% of normal (non-mutilated) women experienced orgasm with manual stimulation of the clitoris; and as much as 25% of the genitally mutilated women were able to experience orgasm in response to stimulation of the clitoral area. The extent to which orgasmic potential in the mutilated women is related to the nature and degree of genital mutilation is a subject for future research.

Let me also add this last thing before I end this thread. The girls who receive this are never informed, or mislead on the procedure.

The majority of children (77.4%) subjected to genital mutilations were never informed as to what they were being subjected to, let alone given the opportunity to give informed consent. The women reported that they were deceived, assaulted, chased an violently immobilized to be forced to have their genitals mutilated. The remaining percentage of women (22.6%) reported that they were deceived, misinformed, and misled as to the imminent danger of physical violence and genital mutilation. Their "consent" was not "informed" in any legal sense of the word.

The following personal comments were recorded from the women who were interviewed:

"I was terrified to say No."

"I dare not say NO"

"I wasn't fully comprehending what was happening to me. I wanted someone very much to explain what was being done to me in vain."

"I was shocked and never was I able to comprehend until it was over."

"Please don't make me remember what happened, I am trying to forget."

"I cried and screamed for help and no one helped."

"I cried like mad, shouting `You all cheated me.'" (Then the respondent wept silently with a choking voice.)

"They told me: `You must be purified like the rest of your sisters, you are no exception.'"

"They attacked me by surprise."

"I saw the Daya holding a razor, then she hurt me."

"I couldn't believe my mother was with them; they all attacked me one early morning while I was still sleeping."

Thank you for reading this thread. I hope this disgusts you as much as it does me. I believe that castration should only be used in extreme circumstances of sexual abusers and that this act should be outlawed and never practiced anywhere. Not only is it detrimental to the health of the person but also a traumatic experience with physiological consequences. I adhere to the saying Knowledge is Power and that Knowing is half the battle. Please conduct your own investigations on the subject, as there is much more information on the web.

Progressive.org
Source

Some tribes make the young girls jump over huge bonfires as well. There have been a number of TV progs made over the years about this. But in these days of PC nobody says anything as it is cultural!!!!


Egypt forbids female circumcision
By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC Arab Affairs Analyst

Suzanne Mubarak (file image)
Suzanne Mubarak campaigned to ban the practice
Egypt has announced that it is imposing a complete ban on female circumcision, also known as genital mutilation.

The announcement follows a public outcry after a young girl died during the operation.

A ban was introduced nearly 10 ye More..ars ago but the practice continued to be allowed in exceptional circumstances.

www.liveleak.com... for rest.


[edit on 10-4-2009 by johnb]

Ugh.....

Disturbing, wrong, immoral.

Sex is science, and it needs to be taught that way.... It also needs to be explained how it should be portrayed, to kids 11-12.

Dismembering anyone's ability to experience sexual joy is completely wrong.

great OP.
more light shone on this barbaric practice, the better.

have you heard of Waris Dirie?
she was forced into an arranged marriage to a 61-year old man at the age of 13.
she is a former model who was a victim of this ritual and is trying to have the procedure banned through her foundation.
she and her cousin, Iman, are outspoken advocates against FGM.

www.waris-dirie-foundation.com...

reply to post by Revolution-2012


Completely agree with you my friend.
This practice is just wrong!

Can I just add....

This is far more of an African practice than an Arab or Muslim one. This practice is not native to Islam at all, rather to the shamanistic and traditional tribal beliefs of various Sub-Saharan African tribes.

In Islam only males must be circumcised, which stems from the common tradition in all Abrahamic religions (Juadiam, Christianity, Islam).

Right now, it's limited to Egypt and Saudi Arabia (both countries with large immigrant African populations), in terms of proven, recorded and documented cases of this happening. There's nothing regarding female genital circumcision or mutilation in the Quran whatsoever.
You can read here about the rulings of Islamic clerics on this issue, who consider it banned.

To say anything more is just unfounded speculation.

This practice came to be adopted by certain Muslims via contact with African tribes like the Dogon and Bambara from Eithopia, Kenya, Mali and Somalia throughout history when Arab traders commonly wandered all the way up and down Africa.

It's about foreign to most Muslims around the world as it is to you or me.
And indeed, the majority of people practising female circumcision are not Muslims.

[edit on 14/4/09 by The Godfather of Conspira]

This is really sick, i cant believe how in 21st century we still have such things in the world... Disgusting.

This is disgusting and a violation. Other crimes against women include forced prostitution, spousal battery, declaration of women as unclean in some traditions, having sex with a spouse through a hole in a bed sheet, forcibly shaving women's heads, using women as sex objects.

All very disgusting.