Human Female Sexuality

Female circumcision

Female genital cutting (FGC) refers to a number of procedures performed for cultural, rather than medical, reasons on the female genitalia. Although occasionally practiced by some doctors in the United States until 1958, in recent years it is only common in parts of Africa and by minority groups in some countries of the Middle East. Less frequently, it occurs among some immigrant communities in parts of Asia and the Pacific, North and Latin America, and Europe. Opponents of these practices use the term female genital mutilation (FGM). The official term female circumcision is also in common usage, though advocates of male circumcision argue that this results in unwanted associations between the two practices, while genital integrity advocates might refer to all child genital cutting as mutilation.

Most Human rights organizations in the West, Africa, and Asia consider female genital cutting rituals a violation of women's human rights. Among these groups and governments, they are regarded as unacceptable and illegal forms of body modification and mutilation of those believed to be too young or otherwise unable to give informed consent.

Different forms

There are several distinct practices that are all generally referred to by this name. In particular, while female genital cutting is generally thought of in the West as involving the complete destruction of the female sexual organs in an effort to eliminate the female's sexual pleasure, in some forms female circumcision is claimed to be analogous to male circumcision, in that both procedures can involve the removal of the prepuce and the frenulum.

In other cases, the procedure has no tissue removal at all, but is simulated with a knife as part of a ceremony, or with a symbolic drop of blood released with a needle. Those that involve tissue removal are usually divided into three major types.