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From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Clitor(id)ectomy  (Re: Law and Christianity (sort of))
Message-ID: <1269@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 13:49:22 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.1269
Posted: Fri Mar  8 13:49:22 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 07:49:25 EST
References: <156@osiris.UUCP> <205@rtech.ARPA> <1067@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills
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Keywords: moved from net.books and net.christian

> > >                                        ...the clitorectomy, the removal
> > > of a girl's clitoris to greatly reduce her future pleasure in sex (don't
> > > want them to ahve any fun. now do we ?). This is still practiced in many
> > > African and Near Eastern cultures...
> > 
> > Does anyone know what reasons (excuses) such societies state for their
> > practice of clitorectomy?
> 
> I have heard two excuses.  The first is that it reduces the probability
> of adultery...

I wish I had some references to back my recollection up, but I seem to
recall reading about at least one area in Africa where the practice is
common where the folk belief is almost exactly the opposite: clitoridectomy
is held to   e n h a n c e   a woman's sexual pleasure, and adolescent
girls are expected to go through a period of intense and promiscuous sexual
activity immediately after going through the rites of passage that included
clitoridectomy.  Very hard to believe, I know, but that's a claim I've read.

>              ...The second is not so much a justification as a defense;
> "This is our culture.  It's none of your business."  Of course, the
> same can be said for burning heretics or executing political prisoners.

Another way of putting it, and the argument most often followed by Western
apologists for the practice, is that such an extremely arduous initiation
rite is a powerful social glue that holds a tribal or other group together.
These people view clitoridectomy as merely the female equivalent of the male
initiation rite of adult circumcision, and usually the two are practiced
together and are surrounded with similar rites and folklore.  Both are
acknowledged by their practitioners to be painful experiences but not to
harm later sex life.

As far as I know the debate is still raging between those who reject
clitoridectomy as barabarous under any circumstances and those who bow to
the natives' (and even the native women's) own beliefs on the matter.  Since
I neither have a clitoris nor a deep acquaintance with African tribal
culture, I tend to plead ignorance on the subject.

(All of the above, by the way, applies only to a particular variety of
clitoridectomy as practiced in parts of Africa; I've never heard anyone try
to justify it where it occurs as an offshoot of purdah.)

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
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--- riddle@ut-sally.UUCP, riddle@ut-sally.ARPA, riddle%zotz@ut-sally