The Truth about Female Genital Mutilation [View All]

[ck4829]

Yesterday, we had some Troll screaming about how Muslims were the only group of people who practiced FGM.

FGM is a Cultural Thing, not a Religious Thing. It must be stopped, but blaming it on Islam doesn't help.

But, did you know that the West practiced FGM?

"Through the 1950s, some doctors continued to advocate clitoridotomy for hygienic reasons or to reduce masturbation. For example, C.F. McDonald wrote in a 1958 paper titled Circumcision of the Female, "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." In the U.S., the last documented clitoridotomy to reduce sexual activity occurred in 1958. The procedure was performed on a 5-year-old girl, reportedly to stop her from masturbating. 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."

...

"It is also common among African Christians in some countries, and believed to be justified on religious grounds. For example, in Ethiopia some "Coptic Christian priests refuse to baptize girls who have not undergone one of the FGM procedure."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting
http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/crfgm/10098.htm