Clitoraid’s head surgeon restores clitoris for 4 victims of female genital mutilation - Clitoraid.org Restoring a Sense of Pleasure and Dignity
Gary pointed out that in the United States alone, 300,000 women currently suffer from FGM effects, according to the World Health Organization.
On Nov. 28, the United Nations passed a resolution that condemns all cultural and religious arguments in favor of FGM because the act constitutes a gross violates of children rights,” Gary said. “But how can the U.N. ban Female Genital Mutilation and not denounce Male Genital Mutilation as well? Is it exempting certain religions from respecting the fundamental right of baby boys?
Joseph4GI: FORCED MALE CIRCUMCISION: NPO Clitoraid Denounces Germany, Appeals to UN
Clitoraid is a private non-profit organization, which aims to assist FGM victims who want to undo their mutilations. The group issued a press release denouncing Germany’s action to legalize male circumcision of children. Germany is allowing male genital cutting, although Germany and most of the rest of the world does not condone female gential cutting.
This is quite impressive and encouraging — Clitoraid, the medical charity organization devoted to providing reconstruction surgery to victims of FGM in Africa, is standing up for the genital integrity of boys in Germany.
To me this is remarkable given the challenges that this relatively small organization must be facing in opening up their local hospital, and fighting a pervasive cultural tradition. Criticizing male circumcision is still highly controversial, especially in Europe and North America, where a large portion of Clitoraid’s financial backers is likely to be based.
At the same time, it’s my perspective that fighting all forms of non-consensual, non-therapeutic genital modification across all sexes and cultures can strengthen each individual effort. For example, one common counter-argument faced by Western anti-FGM activists, is that male circumcision still is widely accepted in their countries of origin. This is also not the first that anti-FGM activists have spoken out strongly against male circumcision.
Wow, that’s pretty impressive, and interesting! You could have potentially walked into a hornet’s nest by challenging your professor, but it looks like they were pretty knowledgeable on the issue, and acknowledged your point.
fuckyeahsexeducation submitted:
I watched this documentary on the oppression of women throughout the world and of course they brought of FGM specifically is Somalia. One of the reporters from the U.S. even said something to the effect of “you shouldn’t be able to cut off a part of someone’s genitals because of cultural reasons.” and never once did they bring up circumcision. I did the research and penile circumcision is just as popular in Somalia as FGM and penile mutilation is also really common. They believe that circumcising will make sperm move slower so that means that someone can’t impregnate someone else’s wife. They even cut so that semen comes out of the base of the penis instead of the head to insure that a person isn’t able to impregnate someone easily. I mean at the very least they could have brought this up as further proof that women are treated like property because they’ll go so far to make sure that they stay belonging to one man. I couldn’t find any information on how the penile circumcisions/mutilation was performed or the death rate but it would have been interesting to be able to compare. The FGM method most used there was completely removing all external genitalia and sewing up everything so there was only a tiny hole which is the most extreme and lethal version that causes infection, menstruation issues, and death during child birth but it would have been nice to at least mention the health risks of penile circumcision as well. I know that the documentary was supposed to focus on (cis) women, and we definitely need to address the oppression of anyone viewed as women including trans people (which were also absent from the documentary despite the fact that many of the countries they visited have a significant trans* community) but following you has definitely made me think about penile circumcision and it’s effect on society both regarding how we view sexuality and also gender politics. So thank you so much for making me think more.
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You’re welcome, thank you too for sharing so many of my posts with your followers!
That’s really interesting, I didn’t know about the belief that it makes sperm move slower. Definitely one of the more ludicrous circumcision myths I’ve heard. I’d love to know the death rate, too.
I’ve done a bit of reading on FGM in Sudan, and it seems that the Horn of Africa region has it the worst in terms of severity. It’s also almost universally true that any culture that practices FGM also practices MGM
A victim of female genital mutilation (and a medical professional, no less) speaking out against male genital mutilation.
If male circumcision in America is really “nothing” compared to female genital mutilation and it’s supposedly so horrific to draw comparisons between them - then why do I see FGM survivor after FGM survivor speaking out against it and comparing the two? Of all people, they’d be the ones I would trust to know about it…
^^This. One hundred million times this.
This is awful…
“The controversial tradition at the heart of African culture has now reached the shores of Europe. Today, over 500 British girls are estimated to have undergone the procedure of female genital cutting.
Many young girls would get excited at the prospect of going on holiday but Jamelia knew that the plane she boarded was taking her to be ‘circumcised’. Jamelia was cut in an empty mansion by an old woman, strangers held her down and a clean razor was only used when more money exchanged hands. “I remember the blood everywhere”, Jamelia says, “one of the maids actually saw her pick up the bit of flesh they cut out.” Miriam’s womb was accidentally sealed when she was cut and now she cannot have children. “It will stay with me until the day I die.” Now, the NHS confirms that cutters are flown over to the UK to cut girls in batches - a cheap alternative. The UK has more girls at risk of bring cut than any other European country and as yet no-one has been prosecuted for the crime.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/01/big-issue-female-genital-mu…
Produced By Guardian Films
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures”
This was hard to watch. Apparently, England is becoming a relative epicenter for FGM due to the significant immigration from countries where it’s prevalent. Young girls are cut during the summer months to accomodate a healing period. They are either taken abroad for this, or, as the report suggests is becoming more common, ritual circumcisers are being brought in to the country temporarily.
How can something that is done to children in insular communities be effectively policed? The video mentions that nobody has ever been arrested so far, whereas in France at least one circumciser has been convicted. It’s hard to imagine a complete solution, but it seems like proactive outreach and awareness campaigns are needed.
Sudanese couples tend to bond quite strongly, by and large, in spite of the trauma the woman undergoes. Most women give the appearance of being very proud of their husbands. They often express great satisfaction with their marriages and their lives. Nonetheless, when they are asked whether they would have preferred to have been men, rather than women, they say without any exception that if only Allah had willed it, they would very much have preferred to have been created men.
About 15 percent of those who undergo genital mutilation, mainly women in the Horn of Africa, suffer the most dangerous and extreme version, infibulation. Isnino Shuriye, who was also at the Nairobi meeting, performed infibulations among the Somali community in northern Kenya. She would cut off the clitoris and all the labia of 7-year-old girls. She would sew up the girls to be totally smooth, with a pencil eraser-sized opening for menses and urine. Each girl’s legs were bound together for weeks so scars could form. Ms. Shuriye used no anesthetic.
Tina Rosenburg
For those who think male circumcision is comparable to female “circumcision.”
(via spaceyunicorns)
I’ve written about this countless times before, and anyone who’s interested can search through the FGM tag on my site. The problem with this kind of logic is that it focuses on the worst examples of what we classify as FGM. It also ignores the less-than-ideal conditions in which male circumcision is performed both internationally and in the United States. This creates a contrived dichotomy that is both gendered and ethnocentric.
Yes, FGM tends be more damaging on average, but there are very common forms of FGM that are similarly damaging and traumatic — and in some cases less so — than male circumcision. The biggest issue with non-therapeutic genital alteration of children isn’t whether it’s done here or there, to males or females, or how much vs. how little is removed, but the fact that it’s still being allowed to happen.
Circumcised people who refer to it as “genital mutilation” are appropriating the experiences of those who’ve suffered FGM.
Yes, suffered. Circumcision is not the same, at all. FGM is not something gone through willingly, and not always something they go through as infants! Sometimes it’s done when they’re older. And that’s really all I know about it so I’m gonna shut up.
Get anecdotal evidence, speak to people who’ve had FGM done to them. Do every bit of research and in the meantime stop spreading misinformation.
Firstly, I’m not sure that this idea of “appropriation” makes sense even in a cursory way, given that many victims of FGM do not consider themselves mutilated, and often object to the term. Rather than us doing the appropriating, perhaps it is you who is doing the speaking over — speaking over the voices of those who feel genuinely mutilated by a genital excision that they did NOT go through willingly. And speaking over the voices of those who’ve done a lot more research on FGM than you have, as well as those who were subjected to it themselves.
You should also consider that, while you’re sitting here complaining about the way people discuss circumcision, there are infants getting parts of their genitals removed at a hospital near you — and if you pay taxes or health insurance premiums, it’s probably being paid for with your money. You should consider that, every year there are thousands of infants who get their bloody, freshly cut dicks sucked, and the politicians elected to represent you are doing nary a thing to stop it, but apparently the bigger problem in your view is that people who are calling this genital mutilation.
Legalize Foreskin: when people say that female genital mutilation is on the same level as male circumcision
-C
Genital mutilation in females is to prevent them from enjoying sex and having orgasms. Every circumcised guy I’ve been with so far has had no trouble with either enjoying sex or orgasms.
Circumcised males enjoy sex and orgasms (to the extent…
I looked into female circumcision vs. male circumcision and found this person is correct; they come from similar victorian ideas and in some cases, in male genitalia, to avoid the build up of bacteria beneath the foreskin (depending on culture and climate). In several cultures, female mutilation is more extreme than male mutilation for the purpose of making females unable to enjoy sex but ensuring males can still ejaculate sperm in order to reproduce. In these cultures, the procedure is generally to remove the clitoris from the female to cause chronic pain and nerve damage which does not allow her to become erect or her labia to swell with blood, thus physically and emotionally preventing her from enjoying sex. I still consider this more gruesome than male circumcision.
Male genital mutilation is frightening as well. Male genital mutilation is often a form of punishment in many of the same cultures that traditionally mutilate all females. Males endure terrifying “surgeries” (removal of the testicles, removal of penis all together, having the tip slashed making it impossible to urinate or ejaculate without pain) for punishment of theft, murder, occasionally rape, etc.I’m willing to hear the arguments for male and female circumcision being on the same level, but not female genital mutilation and male circumcision.
It’s certainly true that there are common forms of FGM more severe than male circumcision. It’s also true that some forms of FGM are comparable or less severe than male circumcision (Exhibit A). There’s considerable variety in terms of practices that are classified as Female genital mutilation, yet no-one is complaining that the less damaging forms are classified with the much more damaging ones. Nobody is making asinine, reaction-gif-based posts about relatively minimal excisions being classified under the same umbrella as the wholesale amputation and infibulation involved in Type III FGM.
The only reason why anybody ever makes this comparison is to point out the hypocrisy of condemning (both critically and legally) any form of non-consensual female genital alteration, while permitting and protecting the dramatic and invasive male analogue known as circumcision.
when people say that female genital mutilation is on the same level as male circumcision
-C
Genital mutilation in females is to prevent them from enjoying sex and having orgasms. Every circumcised guy I’ve been with so far has had no trouble with either enjoying sex or orgasms.
Circumcised males enjoy sex and orgasms (to the extent that that’s true) somewhat similarly to the way circumcised females enjoy sex and orgasm, even despite some of the most severe forms of FGM. Male circumcision removes a large quantity of specialized and highly innervated genital tissue, and causes marked decrease in touch sensitivity. The most likely reason why most circumcised males (and females) cannot complain about reduced sensation is because they have no awareness of what an genitally unaltered sexual experience feels like.
Male circumcision — or male genital mutilation, if you want to talk about it with the same seriousness as you afford to FGM — happens due to a complex variety of motivations. It represents an implicit usurpation of control over one’s genitals away from the owner. It was also frequently used as either a punishment or pre-emptive strike against adolescent masturbation in Victorian times.
Peak Radphlegm: ladymaxwell: flawlesstrueperfection: shameandcupcakes: It makes me so...
It makes me so so so angry when people compare FGM to circumcision.
Seriously, fuck off.
agree
circumcision is needless and barbaric but a procedure done in a hospital with the proper tools and anesthetics to a baby…
Bodily autonomy trumps everything else imo, so I’m not really in favour of circumcision, but the vast majority of circumcisions are performed on infant boys in sterile hospitals and are perfectly safe, while most FGM is performed on pubescent girls without anaesthetic and is tantamount to torture resulting in a lifetime of pain.
So I don’t think they are equivalent at all. Not for the vast majority of cases.
You’re ignoring the fact that, in a global context — which is how I’m assuming you’re looking at this since you’re talking about FGM, a large portion (if not the majority) of childhood male circumcisions happen outside of the clinical setting. They are performed with bamboo sticks and machettes in The Philippines, by village barbers in central asia, in mass stadium ceremonies in Turkey, and by shamans in Africa.
