posted 09 October 2003 11:21 AM            

What I want to know is what can be done to help a victim of FGM to enjoy a happy sexual life.

This is a serious topic, so please treat it as such.

posted 10 October 2003 05:05 AM            

The other issue is the psychologic one, if someone went through FGM, she may be so sressed because of it, that even the thought of sex frightens her. The man should make sure that the woman loves him, feels loved and secure in their relationship, etc. then I guess they can have a good and satisfying love life.

posted 10 October 2003 11:32 AM            

There has been some efforts aiming towards the abolishment of the practice. For example, Egypt has recently launched a giant programme aiming at the abolishment of FGM in 70 Egyptian villages. The government has also signed most of the international agreements that ban FGM. Yet, it is a quite rooted practice in Egypt, where the overall prevalence rate is 92 %. There is a desperate need for Sex Education among youth in Egypt. Also, the fact that it has been falsely promoted on religious ground , reinforce and maintain its persistence despite of all exerted efforts! so religious leaders should be also addressed.

As for the sexual consequences of FGM, I would like also to mention one important point. We really could not decisively say that women undergone FGM lack sexual pleasure. Imagine by saying that, we are labelling almost 92% of the Egyptian women as sexually dysfunctional !!!!!

In the theory world, Clitoris which is the organ mainly affected by the practice (in most cases it is partly or totally removed) is the external sexual organ that helps women to reach orgasm. However, it was never scientifically proven that women with FGM enjoy sex less that women with no FGM. Most of the available evidence is anecdoted , and is based on few case studies or history recording. The reason why it is so difficult to study and document the effect of FGM on women’s sexuality is that are many confounding factors and it is so difficult to control them in a study. In other words, how many uncircumcised women have not reached orgasm in a sexual relation? I am sure that the answer is may women and several times. The other question is how many circumcised women have reached orgasm and how many times? The answer is also many women and many times. Enjoying sexual life is more than having a clitoris or not, it is how you understand your sexuality, how your express and practice it, with whom, how, when, and many factors, much more effective than the presence of the absence of the clitoris. So I guess, Egyptian circumcised women should be educated sexually in that way and if they are not enjoying their sexual life, then it is about time to stop questioning themselves and their ability to perform as circumcised women, but rather try to re-evaluate their relationships and may be try to communicate these frustrations to their partners.

Ps Next year I will start a interesting study on how women ( circumcised and not circumcised ) perceive their sexuality. I will share the results when finished

posted 16 October 2003 01:47 PM            

I was reading about the statistics and I am wondering how do they gather this information. Do they do random polling of cross sections of a community? Rely on information from doctors?

posted 17 October 2003 07:47 AM            

some numers also come from maternity hospitals in egypt.