Islam’s Hatred of the Clitoris

FrontPage Magazine ^ | Jamie Glazov

[VinnyTex]

Islam’s Hatred of the Clitoris

FrontPageMagazine.com | October 19, 2001

Editor’s Note: The following article contains graphic descriptions of female genital mutilation, which some sensitive readers may wish to avoid.

IF YOU HATE WOMEN, and you hate their sexuality, and you are terrified that you cannot control it, the most effective thing you can do is to mutilate female sexual pleasure. This can be done by a sexual lobotomy, which will destroy an essential and sacred part of a woman’s natural makeup. In achieving this feat on all women, you will become able to ruthlessly dominate them.

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That’s what female circumcision is all about.

It’s about obliterating the clitoris, or the entire outer vagina. It is the barbarity that exists where misogyny festers most: in the Muslim and African world.

The Muslims are the principal religious group that practice female circumcision. In Egypt, for instance, 97 percent of women are circumcised. Their clitorises are amputated. In countries like Sudan, meanwhile, the women-haters are not so kind: all the women’s external genital organs are completely removed. In a savagery called infibulation, the clitoris, the two major outer lips (labia majora) and the two minor inner lips (labia minora) are amputated.

Nawal El Saadawi has documented these horrifying realities in The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World. She demonstrates how the violence of female circumcision is performed on girls anywhere from the ages of one month to puberty. Usually, it is done around the age of seven or eight. Anesthetics are never used. The child is pinned down by several women, while one of them attacks.

After infibulation, the small outer opening of the vagina is the only portion left intact. A tiny piece of wood or reed is inserted to allow urine and menstrual blood to seep out. Extra narrowing of the opening is carried out with stitches, which remain until marriage. The victim’s legs are often bound together from hip to ankle and she is immobile for about a month or two.

This violence has to occur because, in much of the Islamic world, the female’s genital area is considered dirty and unacceptable. For example, in Egypt the uncircumcised girl is called nigsa (unclean). Thus, it has to be made "clean."

Many of the victims lose their lives during this torture – which is often inflicted with broken glass. Many other victims are afflicted with acute and chronic infections for the rest of their lives.

With serious and disabling lifelong consequences, the mutilation robs women of their equilibrium. It deprives them from enjoying the fullness of their sexuality and the completeness of their lives. In terms of sexual pleasure, for instance, we know that approximately 75 percent of women cannot achieve orgasm without clitoral stimulation. In other words, the possibility of orgasm has been obliterated for tens of millions of women in the Muslim world. So what does it mean if the psychic, mental and physical health of women cannot be complete if they do not experience sexual pleasure?

The terror of the circumcision itself tracks its traumatized victims down like a nightmare. Most, if not all, of these poor women end up suffering from serious sexual and/or mental distortions. The mutilation of their sexual being becomes the epicenter where sex and violence meet constantly in their lives – with them as victims.

Wedding night is often quite eventful. In some parts of the Arab and African world, the husband assaults the wife after the wedding. In Somalia, for instance, the groom beats the bride with a leather whip. After this romantic apex, he cuts the sealed vagina with a sharp scalpel or razor in order to have intercourse. He then has prolonged repeated intercourse with her for a week – to prevent the scarring from closing the vaginal opening again. During this time the wife must lie still and not move. Meanwhile, the husband takes the bloody sharp object, which represents the virginity of his wife, and makes rounds around the community – showing it off for approval. Scholars such as Raphael Patai and Vincent Crapanzano have documented these phenomena.

After this honeymoon period, the woman is now, for the first time in her life, actually recognized as a person – because she has become the extension of her husband. Her status might even improve if she has a child (a boy). She will be humiliated and shamed, however, if she has a non-child (a girl).

And if a little innocent girl enters this world, it will only be a short time before her genitals share the same fate as that of her mother’s. When the torturers and soul-destroyers begin to slice, who will hear her cries?

Jamie Glazov holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies. He is the author of 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist.. His father, Yuri Glazov, was a Soviet dissident during the Brezhnev era, who signed the Letter of Twelve, denouncing Soviet human rights abuses. His mother, Marina Glazov, also participated in the dissident movement in the Soviet Union, actively typing and circulating Samizdat - the underground political literature. To avoid imprisonment, Yuri Glazov took his family out of the USSR in 1972 and settled in Canada in 1975, when Jamie was 9. Today Jamie battles socialism from his high-tech warroom in Toronto. He writes the Dr. Progressive advice column for angst-ridden leftists at EnterStageRight.com. E-mail him at jglazov@home.com.

[AmishDude]

Never met a circumcised male who could not have an orgasm.

Are you sure? I mean, that gives new meaning to the term "casual acquantance".

[AmishDude]

Make that . . . acquaintance.

[AmishDude]

or 'lotta bottom'?

Dated her once. Man, that was a bad era.

[AmishDude]

If you would like to order a Clitoris Power tshirt for your special loved one, just email me LOL

Fortunately, there is no loved one, but if there were some way to make my ex-girlfriend wear one, it would do my heart good.

[rockfish59]

have it's own zip code?

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Somewhere on this vast thread I think someone has posted a picture. Was it Iman?

[The Iron Duke]

Female genital mutilation predates Islam and is common throughout a wide chunk of Africa, spilling across the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf into some of the emirates.

Christian populations in Africa also practice female genital mutilation as do the animists. In other words, it is a cultural, not a religious practice, more common among the uneducated and rural populations.

I have been lobbying about the outrage of female genital mutilation for years now as bills get introduced in state legisltures to prohibit immigrants from these regions from doing this to their daughters.

Much of Glasov's information appears to be from Amnesty International, which has been very active on the issue. It is about the only issue I support them on.

By being highly selectively in how he cites his statistics and omitting information about governments in some Islamic countries that have tried to ban the practice, Glasov paints an accurate lie about this atrocity.

If you want a truer picture of this practice, go here:

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm

http://www.fgmnetwork.org/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_cirm.htm

[AmishDude]

. . . has its own orbiting satellites.

[disclaimer]

Furthermore, circumcision in the old testament was a symbolic cutting of the foreskin - now it's almost complete removal of the specialized skin.

[PJ-Comix] ???? What is a "symbolic cutting of the foreskin." Sorry it was circumcision then and it is circumcision now. No symbolism.

In the those days, just the very tip of the foreskin was cut off. Michelangelo's painting of Paul in the Sistine Chapel illustrates the minimal circumcision of the time. Nowadays clamps are used that pulls the specialized nerve saturated foreskin taunt and cuts the maximum possible off. I don’t expect you to comprehend this; after all you think foreskin is like fingernails.

Jesus did not promote the practice, hence the Catholic church does not require it to be performed.

[PJ-Comix] Jesus didn't mention it one way or another. If it was something so horrible I am sure he would have condemned the practice. And remember. He WAS circumcised.

It wasn’t so horrible then, that’s my point.

And finally, why on earth should this operation be performed without consent of the person under the knife?? Babies can’t vote, that’s why.

[PJ-Comix] So does this mean we can't slap babies on the face (or rear) to get them to breath? After all they haven't signed a consent form.

There’s a HUGE difference between causing irrevocable damage and slapping someone. You’re not very bright if you can’t see the difference.

If a man chooses to have a circumcision done later in life then they can stuff a wine soaked rag in his mouth or use modern anesthetics. His choice. Do you think baby boys don't feel pain??

[PJ-Comix] Not any pain that they can remember.

So, using your logic, I can stick a knife in you but it doesn’t matter since you may not remember the pain 20 years from now. Your arguments are foolish.

There is no medical reason to perform routine circumcision except that it's a money maker for the hospital/doctors.

[PJ-Comix] Funny. I have known several adults who have had circumcisions performed precisely for MEDICAL reasons. The only thing they were upset about is that their folks were too clueless to have them circumcized soon after birth.

Duh, there are times where circumcision may be indicated, but they are few. The key word that your missed is ’routine’. Read it again - you seem to be a bit slow. Funny, clueless describes you perfectly.

The practice is no longer recommended by the medical community, but only after pressure from men’s groups was applied in the form of lawsuits.

[PJ-Comix] Sounds like yet another pressure group trying to cash in via the legal system.

Your use of the words ”sounds like” makes it clear you do not know anything about this subject. Findings were that there is no medical reason to perform routine circumcisions, in fact there is substantial risk in the operation to be considered. This information was so mainstream that even the now liberal tilting Readers Digest reported this news.

Debating you is a waste of time.

[rdb3]

Gee, I dunno. . .

Yep, you said it.

[TheWriter]

Perhaps you need to read my response again before you sound ridiculous. Actually, your analogy about hacking off arms IS ridiculous.

My husband and I chose NOT to have our son circumcized. We left him AS GOD MADE HIM.

That being said, the reasons why individuals chose to circumcise are VALID and have a basis in health and cleanliness, NOT RELIGION. A neighbor of mine, after experiencing many years of recurrent bladder and kidney infections, chose circumcision at the ripe age of 44 years old. He hasn't had a problem since.

I'm sure a great time can be had by a man who's foreskin WON'T retract during an erection (sarcasm). FUSION CAN AND DOES OCCUR, whether you chose to acknowledge it or not. Surgery is required to correct it.

Gees...when I delivered my son, I guess I should have sued my OBGYN for performing an episiotomy on me (that's right, GENITAL MUTILATION), instead of letting me tear wide open and exposing me to infection, or having my son continue to experience "distress" inside me because I couldn't pass him due to his size.

I'm sorry you apparently can't see the difference between choosing medical procedures for health reasons, and purposely mutilating young girls to the point where their health is endangered, their ability to respond sexually is destroyed, and they are subjected to immense pain (during the procedure and then again during the "honeymoon") for NOT GOOD REASON.

[rockfish59]

'klingons'? lol!

[Nogbad]

It is practised by many ethnic groups, from the east to the west coast of Africa, in the southern parts of the Arabian peninsula and along the Persian Gulf, and increasingly amongst some immigrant populations in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States of America. It has also been reported to be practised by Daudi Bohra Muslims who live in India and amongst Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia.

OK. This would tend to contradict your assertion that the practice is widespread in many moslem countries outside Africa.

The communities you have listed either have immigrants from Africa or are close to Africa and are influenced by African customs.

The only exceptions are the Daudi Bohra Moslems of India, which is a very tiny shi'ite sect that originated in Yemen,
and Malaysia and Indonesia.

I do not know much about those two countries, but I doubt the practice is widespread there,
except amongst some almost aboriginal tribes.

[Nogbad]

You know that your wife may be considered by some other Muslims not to be a good Muslim at all.

(I believe otherwise, but I'm just asking you how she feels about this law and if she is judged for it.)

My wife is a Moslem in the same way I am a Christian.
She doesn't go to the mosque and I don't go to church.
Nonetheless, even if you are not a practicing Moslem, there is such a thing as Moslem culture.

Yes, Turkish society is very open, I know several Western men who live in Turkey and are married to Turkish women.
And they are accepted into the family. The Turks are wonderful people.
And very good loyal friends of the West.
Too bad they are getting tarred by all this irrational anti-Islam feeling swirling about.

[Libertarian_4_eva]

Sometimes they use glass to get the job done if rusty steel is not around.

[Aurelius]

Any one with some familiarity with cultural history of the 19th century would be familiar with the fact I quoted. To dismiss the quoting of an alleged fact which you happen not to be familiar with as "anti-Americanism" is to display less than the height of intelligence, to say the least.

[seams2me]

No, Look, I keep telling you guys, the 72 virgins are all old Catholic nuns, wearing chastity belts, holding machine guns. When will you learn to listen!

[seams2me]

Yes, I have watched my own son be circumcised by my own doctor, and I immediately took him back to the room to nurse. He slept through it, until they put his diaper back on. Then he remembered he was hungry, and SCREAMED.

[anapikoros]

It is pure hypocrisy to accept male genital mutilation because the Jews invented it, and then be outraged at any other form of tribal mutilation. If the Jews had invented female circumcision, everyone in America would be doing it, and no one would be complaining.

The Jews didn't "invent" male circumcision even though they have practiced it since biblical times. Male circumcision has been around for many thousands off years before there were any Jews. It was practiced in the Middle Eastern cultures from which the Jews evolved. For the Jews ,in its original form the cut was nowhere near as drastic as today where the whole foreskin is removed. Prior to Hellenic times it was not much more than a snip off the end and a ritual drawing of blood.

In Hellenic time the Jewish Priests introduced the custom of removing the whole foreskin so that those Jews who wished to pass themselves off as Greeks or adopt the Greek culture could not do so. The Greeks were very much into perfection of the body and considered circumcision a no-no. You couldn't go to the gymnasia where all were nude and you couldn't be one of the boys unless you hung around in the gym.

Male circumcision has its origin in such beliefs as fertility, giving to the gods part of oneself, tribal initian practices, blood rituals etc. Australian aboriginals have practiced male circumcision for over 40,000 years. It is strongly associated with other scarring rituals and some aboriginal tribes used to have rather sever forms of circumcision involving major scarring of the shaft by deep cutting of the flesh.

Male circumcision only became popular in the English speaking world after WWI when the army circumcised many soldiers as a preventative for STD's. When the men came home their kids were circumcised to make them look like daddy. This "hygiene" rational took off after this but recently the trend is starting to go the other way. America always had a much higher rate than England and Europe generally.

[Conservative til I die]

I've never read something so unbelievably stupid or moronic. You should hang your head in shame. I can't believe you'd go so far in your defense of Muslim brutality as to compare lopping off about 3 square inches of purposeless skin in infance to dicing off 90% of a woman's necessary genital parts with a rusty blade. You're sick.