Other Practices of FGC

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Female genital cutting (FGC) is prohibited in many western countries, however some forms of FGC were and still are performed for "medical reasons" in some non African countries. From the late 19th century until the 1950s, clitorecdomies, removal of the clitoris and infibulation's, were practiced in Western countries to control female sexuality, prevent female masturbation and help improve hygiene. These procedures were advocated in the United States by medical groups like the Orificial Surgery Society until 1925. Doctors advocating or performing these procedures claimed that girls of all ages would otherwise engage in more masturbation and be "polluted" by the activity, which was referred to as "self-abuse".^[1]

C.F. McDonald wrote in a 1958 paper titled "Circumcision of the Female"^[2] "If the male needs circumcision for cleanliness and hygiene, why not the female? I have operated on perhaps 40 patients who needed this attention." The author describes symptoms as "irritation, scratching, irritability, masturbation, frequency and urgency," and in adults, smegmaliths causing "dyspareunia and frigidity." The author then reported that a two-year old was no longer masturbating so frequently after the procedure. Of adult women, the author stated that "for the first time in their lives, sex ambition became normally satisfied." Justification of the procedure on hygienic grounds, or to reduce masturbation, has since declined. The view that masturbation is a cause of mental and physical illness has dissipated since the mid-20th century.^[3]

Neurectomy, the severing of the pubic nerve to permanently numb the genitals and approximate the effect of a clitoridectomy, was performed on institutionalized girls and women around the turn of the 20th century in America and Australia, and electrical cauterization of the clitoris was reported to have been occasionally performed on mental patients in the USA to stop them from masturbating as recently as 1950.

The kind of things that sometimes happened to girls and women were documented in Alex Comfort's book, The Anxiety Makers, Panther Edition, London, 1968:

About 1858, Dr Isaac Baker Brown, later president of the Medical Society of London, introduced the operation of clitoridectomy for the consequences of what he coyly calls 'peripheral excitement'. These, in his view, included epilepsy, hysteria and the convulsive disorders generally (page 109). In 1866 Brown published a series of 48 of such cases. This caused what Comfort called an 'almighty row'. Dr Baker Brown was ejected from the Obstetrical Society. Comfort says (page 111) that 'clitoridectomy fortunately disappeared from England'. However, it was taken up in the United States:

In 1894, we find Dr. Eyer of the St. John's Hospital, Ohio, dealing with nervousness and masturbation in a little girl by cauterizing the clitoris; this failing, a surgeon was called in to bury it with silver wire sutures - which the child tore and resumed the habit. The entire organ was then excised, with the crura. Six weeks after the operation the patient is reported as saying, 'You know there is nothing there now, so I could do nothing.'

– (Comfort, ibid, page 111)

Comfort says that this concern about masturbation 'did not really die out completely until the 1940s with the statistical studies of Kinsey' (Comfort, ibid, page 119)

Clitorecdomy in its less invasive form, removal of the prepuce alone, also called a hoodectomy, is frequently performed in the United States, and it is elective surgery undertaken by mature consenting adults. In contrast to earlier thinking, some modern doctors^[4] and other advocators^[5] believe that hoodectomy helps to increase and improve sexual sensitivity and sexual pleasure. One claim is that a large clitoral hood may make stimulation of the clitoris difficult. Websites promoting the practice like Circlist, BMEzine, and the Clitoral Hood Removal Information Page on Geocities contain testimonials and citations of medical studies, which support this claim (for example, 87.5% of women in Rathmann's et al (1959) study saw an improvement in sexual pleasure following a hoodectomy^[6] with 75% in a study by Knowles et al).

[edit] References

1. ^ Paige, Karen Ericksen (May 1978). "The Ritual of Circumcision". Human Nature: 40-48. 
2. ^ McDonald, C.F., M.D (September, 1958). "Circumcision of the Female". GP 18 (3): 98-99. 
3. ^ Afraidtoask.com. History of Masturbation. Retrieved on October 28, 2006.
4. ^ Ezzell, Carol (October 31, 2000). "Anatomy and Sexual Dysfunction". 
5. ^ Clitoral Circumcision. Tantra * Kama Sutra * Tantric Sex & Tantric philosophy (Wednesday, June 30, 2004 1:22:12 AM).]
6. ^ Rathmann, W.G. (September, 1959). "Female Circumcision: Indications and a New Technique" 20 (3): 115-120.