Female Circumcision (Clitoridectomy)

Like many of the posters here, I wish this was a bygone practice. It's just cruel to do this to a little child who has no idea what's happening to them.

I wish this were a bygone practice. How horrible that something so barbaric should be going on in this day and age. I've heard of cases of immigrants who have brought this practice with them to the western world. I hope these people are educated and brought to realize how horrible this is but since it's a tradition passed down from generation to generation it will probably take generations for us to put an end to it. In the mean time many women and children will suffer.

When I first read about this practice some years ago it made my legs close so tightly that it took time just to get them to move a little. Purity? Religious practice? The things that are done in the name of morality and god!

This is going on in Kenya among tribe chiefs of the Masai. They, however, think it equals purity. However, I imagine someone slicing off my clitoris would be excrutiatingly painful.

Yes, this is still going on in many parts of Africa, mainly the east like Sudan and Somalia. It has also been reported in America with these nationalities continuing to practice it here. This happens usually with African muslims who somehow thought that this is what Islam should be. Obviously there is nothing in the Koran that says anything even remotely simmilar to this and is perpetrated by males who want total control over their women even if it means they die a slow agonizing death from infection or blood loss. Girls as young as five are dying from this, yet places where this seems to be the most common are also some of the most dangerous and lawless countries which makes prohibiting the practice and enforcing it nearly impossible.

Here's hoping that this unbelievably barbaric practice will indeed be bygone in our lifetime.

Horrible! And Kamyliene is right;I have read about some cultures who still practice this. No doubt it's extremely painful, and it's cruel to take away from someone the capacity to experience intense pleasure.

A barbarity. Astonishing that there have been court cases in North America about its application.

Sadly, this is not a bygone practice; female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation, is a practice of sugically removing part or all of a female's clitoris before puberty. Removal is often done with pieces of glass, razor blades or scissors, without the use of anesthetics or antiseptics. The practice appears to have originated in Africa, where most cases are reported today, though some falsely attibute it to religious practice. Reasons for the operation are apparently to make a woman less likely to become sexually active before marriage or to seek an extra-marital affair after marriage. In other words, they want the woman to not feel the pleasure of sex, and thus not seek sex. Other reasons include beliefs such as An unmodified clitoris can lead to masturbation or lesbianism, and [female genital mutilation] prevents nervousness from developing in girls and women. Women who have undergone this surgery often experience swelling and infections, and live with painful u... Read more