| An interesting 'fact' you probably didn't know about female circumcision is this: getting circumcised helps girls not fall off bikes. It's true! According to Dr. El Tahir Abdel Rahim, anyway. Dr. Rahim is a trained psychiatrist in Sudan.
As mentioned above, there are three major types of circumcision. There are also intermediate layers. In Sudan, there are two main types:
- pharaonic, which is actually infibulation, i.e. clitoridectomy and removal of the labia minora and the inner layers of the labia majora.
- sunna. In Sudan, this refers to excision or the traditional meaning of sunna. Mostly it means removal of part or all of the clitoris.
I quote from a book entitled Prisoners Of Ritual by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, which deals with female circumcision in Africa. She interviewed Dr. Rahim:
"When a girl grew up knowing that a vital part of her body had been removed, puberty
was not a happy experience. When a girl first menstruated, she experienced much physical
and psychic pain...
"When a marriage commenced, he said, sexual contact was associated with much pain and anxiety...
"Circumcision was a 'criminal act', he went on to say. That was why his own daughters
would be sunnaed. He would allow only half the clitoris to be taken - the part
that protruded. He felt that a large clitoris causes a lot of trouble. Girls fell
from their bicycles because of sexual overstimulation if their clitorises were not cut.
He told me they were 'constantly being brought into the hospital having fallen off in
a sexual swoon'."
Well that's it! My girlfriend's going nowhere near my bike anymore. That's just plain dangerous.
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