Almost all of Hanny Lightfoot-Klein's work is about female circumcision,
especially infibulation, where the clitoris, labia minora, and most of the
labia majora are cut off and then the raw edges of the labia majora are sewn
together across the midline, leaving only a tiny hole for menstrual blood
and urine.  Millions of women are subject to this every year in Africa,
parts of the Middle East, and southeast Asia.  Many of them die, or are left
sterile and in constant pain.  At marriage, the scar must be cut open again
for intercourse to happen, and then cut more with childbirth, after which
the women is sewn up "nice and tight" again for her husband's sexual
pleasure.  Although many Islamic countries will justify this mutilation by
claiming is has religious origins, there is nothing in the Koran about
infibulation, or even clitoridectomy.  In many places, it doesn't have a
religious justification, but every girl has it done in childhood, and
respectable men won't marry women who are not infibulated.  It is
"tradition" and even though women understand that it causes many deaths,
infertility, life-long pain, etc., they don't know how to "escape" from the
traditional ritual, or they don't want to.  Some women view female
circumcision and infibulation as a joyous occasion, marking their daughters
eligibility for marriage.  Others don't want their daughters to suffer as
they did, but the price they pay of not circumcising in their culture is
that their daughters will be considered whores -- wanton sexual nyphomaniacs
that any man can consider available at any time -- and will be
unmarriageable.  Until the cycle is stopped, circumcision will continue.
Clitoridectomies and infibulation are much more severe sexual mutilations
than male circumcision.  Clitoridectomy is the equivalent of removing the
head of the penis, while traditional male circumcision removes only the
foreskin.  Infibulation would be like cutting off half the penis and
mutilating the scrotum.

In the U.S., male circumcision became widespread when it was thought to
confer health advantages to males and their sexual partners.  Once that was
shown not to be supported by medical research, circumcision continued
because of "tradition" and people not wanting their sons to be the only one
who was "different."  Now that most insurance companies no longer pay for
it, male circumcision is definitely waning in the U.S., with 1/3 of all
newborn boys in California not being circumcized in the 1990s.






Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Specialist in infant feeding and growth of children
Texas A&M University
e-mail to [log in to unmask]
(409) 845-5256
(409) 778-4513