About female circumcision

Wow. I have no words.

I was eyeing the neurology forum, above this one, and my eye caught this. I am a Muslim, and often, unfortunately, in the West, female circumcission is falsely linked to Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam, but is a cultural practice mainly in some parts of Africa. I quote Wikipedia below for reference: (PS i know wikipedia is not the best source, you can find more sources on yr own, i passed med school thro wikipedia though, and so did many of you, yup - you know yourselves

"A Greek papyrus from 163 B.C. mentions both boys and girls in Egypt undergoing circumcision and it is widely accepted to have originated in Egypt and the Nile valley at the time of the Pharaohs. Evidence from mummies has shown both Type I and Type III FGC present.[37] Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research, the highest religious authority in Egypt, issued a statement saying FGM/C has no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions and that it is harmful and should not be practiced."[38] Coptic Pope Shenouda, the leader of Egypt's minority Christian community, said that neither the Qur'an nor the Bible demand or mention female circumcision.[citation needed]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_circumcision

Doc4patient said:

Hello everyone

I have a Q
My previous knowledge is that it's dangerous, however i have recently read that cutting the hood is ok, without any complications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clitoris_outer_anatomy.gif

Please share your opinion and experience (i know it's illegal in some countries but i want to know from medical point of view).

Thanks alot

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Ummm... Why do you want to know this? You mention a medical point of view, but this is very vague. I would be very surprised if anyone would share their "experience" with this practice unless it is in treating the victims.

It seems like the OP is probably from a culture in which FGC is accepted and wants to know if there is a way to continue their cultural tradition in a way that's not harmful to the women. They mention cutting of only the clitoral hood as a possible way to safely satisfy their cultural norms.

This is a serious issue, I think, and maybe deserves a little more thought of the medical community than it gets. I live in a community that has a large African population that practices FGC and I've wondered if it wouldn't be better for physicians to carry out some sort of clitoral hood operation to prevent a cultural authority from doing greater damage.

At the very least, it's worth considering why physicians are willing to perform male circumcisions purely to satisfy cultural traditions but are not willing to consider some limited form of female circumcision to satisfy different cultural traditions. It may be more consistent to either perform both or refuse both, particularly when the operation the OP is mentioning is a direct analog to the male procedure (in that the clitoral hood is the developmental analog of the foreskin).

I am a family medicine intern, but I have seen FGM in outpt clinic. We serve a population of Somalian refugees, some of which have undergone FGM in their former country. Its not a clean pretty job but instead it is literal mutilation. Scars everywhere, horrible jagged cuts.. Its like someone went in just hacking away around the "general area." This is nothing like a male ciricumsion, this is done without any respect for women as actually living beings.

Complications are what you'd expect. Infections, effects on the pts mental health and body image, sexual dysfunction...

I saw it twice on my 2 week stint on L&D. One lady had type 3 and a really small vaginal opening and she did not want us to do anything with it, didn't want it repaired and she was having a vaginal delivery. An episiotomy had to be cut and of course there were still lacerations.

I too wonder what other options there are.

Enkidu said:

It seems like the OP is probably from a culture in which FGC is accepted and wants to know if there is a way to continue their cultural tradition in a way that's not harmful to the women. They mention cutting of only the clitoral hood as a possible way to safely satisfy their cultural norms.

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The cultural norm is for a woman NOT to experience sexual satisfication.

That is why it is done. To keep a woman controlled, like an animal. If it is cut off and closed up you can't use it for personal satisfaction.
Removing the hood serves 0 purpose because a woman can still masturbate and engage in sexual intercouse without hindrance.

Curious to know who in this thread has a clitoris? Y'all are aware of how it works right? I could not imagine having my clitoris exposed 24/7. It's too sensitive! I would be in a state of arousal or discomfort all day.

Laboratorian said:

Curious to know who in this thread has a clitoris? Y'all are aware of how it works right? I could not imagine having my clitoris exposed 24/7. It's too sensitive!

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Since you probably don't have a penis, but I do, I can say the same thing, replacing the word "clitoris" with "glans". Yet somehow, circumcised men manage to get by. Different studies have shown different effects of circumcision, with some showing the glans becoming more sensitive after circumcision and some showing it becoming less, and some showing no change at all. All I can imagine is that if I were to get circumcised, it would be very uncomfortable at first because the glans is very sensitive, but eventually I'd get used to it some how.

I'm quite strongly anti-circumcision on minors, but Enkidu raises a good point. If child circumcision were outlawed, it probably wouldn't stop circumcisions from occurring, they'd just happen outside of hospitals by non-professionals. I'd rather have the circumcision done by a medical professional, although I think it'd be best if it didn't happen at all. HOOP isn't going to be happy when they find out I'm saying this.

Oh also:

Laboratorian said:

The cultural norm is for a woman NOT to experience sexual satisfication.

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Traditions evolve over time, and while the original impetus for FGM was to eliminate or at least severely decrease female sexual pleasure, it's possible that some people currently practicing FGM are doing so purely as a traditional practice, and not directly for the purpose of eliminating female sexual satisfaction. Often, traditions become self-serving, and the original reason behind them becomes less important than simply honoring the practices of the past. If that is the case, it may be possible to still honor this tradition by removing only the clitoral hood and leaving the clitoris in tact. While this is still worse than leaving the poor young girl's genitalia alone completely, it's also better than simply hacking the whole thing off, and would, in my mind at least, be a sign of progress. The fact that this is even being brought up suggests to me that this evolution is happening, because there's really no other reason anyone would consider cutting the hood as an alternative to female circumcision unless it was to honor the past while also trying to reduce the harm done.

Traditions evolve over time, and while the original impetus for FGM was to eliminate or at least severely decrease female sexual pleasure, it's possible that some people currently practicing FGM are doing so purely as a traditional practice, and not directly for the purpose of eliminating female sexual satisfaction. Often, traditions become self-serving, and the original reason behind them becomes less important than simply honoring the practices of the past. If that is the case, it may be possible to still honor this tradition by removing only the clitoral hood and leaving the clitoris in tact. While this is still worse than leaving the poor young girl's genitalia alone completely, it's also better than simply hacking the whole thing off, and would, in my mind at least, be a sign of progress.

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Also to clear this up: the tradition is certain African tribal religions. Again, it has nothing to do with Islam and it was not practiced among muslims during the Prophet Muhammads life. Instead, certain african tribes which practiced FGM before Islam, continued to practice it after they mass converted to Islam.

styphon said:

Also to clear this up: the tradition is certain African tribal religions. Again, it has nothing to do with Islam and it was not practiced among muslims during the Prophet Muhammads life. Instead, certain african tribes which practiced FGM before Islam, continued to practice it after they mass converted to Islam.

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Sure. Both male and female circumcision are derived from africa. It's thought that the Jewish tradition is derived from the egyptian tradition which was the first type recorded.

Incidentally, there is no culture that practices FGC that does not also practice male circumcision, and the male circumcision practiced in Africa also has significant morbidity and mortality (although obviously not as much as FGC).

The point is not to blame any particular tradition for inflicting the worthless and dangerous tradition of male or female circumcision on us, but given that people cling to the tradition and will do it regardless, how can we minimize the damage? I think that looking for culturally acceptable ways to satisfy the tradition in a way that does as little damage as possible is a good way to minimize the harm done to girls.