For males, circumcision is a messy but comparatively trivial operation, whereas for females, clitoridectomy is not only painful beyond belief, but is the equivalent of total castration. All of the women whom I know personally, who have undergone pharaonic circumcision and have been infibulated, say they have never recovered from it - physically or mentally - and of course, they are absolutely incapable of experiencing any sexual pleasure. On the contrary, sex is very painful for them.
Pharaonic circumcision and infibulation is regarded as the only one hundred percent effective way to safeguard a girl's virginity. Indeed, it is so effective that, for intercourse to take place after marriage, the husband or matron has to defibulate the bride with a knife to pry her open.
The ghastly screams and shrieks which have terrified so many foreign tourists at night in the vicinity of "Honeymoon" hotels in Port Sudan are emitted by brides being defibulated. A Sudanese journalist commented, "For us they seem perfectly normal, we all know that the first nights of marriage are agony."
But just what is pharaonic circumcision? I have seen it being done when I was staying as a guest in the home of wealthy Arab friends. A great feast had been prepared to which all female relatives and friends had been invited, and since I was regarded as a guest of honor, I not only had to attend, but was given a ringside seat. The miserable little victim - a beautiful child, incidentally - was grabbed by four women, who threw her upon a sort of pallet on the ground and pinioned her arms and legs. Then the gedda, or specialist, or matron, or whatever you want to call her, kneeled between the little girl's thighs and began the operation by slicing off the clitoris. All of the women present began making the most prodigious din (by ullulations), which they kept up during the whole operation in a futile effort to drown the howls and shrieks of agony of the patient. As soon as the clitoris had been excised, the matron scooped (roughly speaking) it out, then began to pull and tug to extract its roots. Blood gushed left, right and center. This was only an hors d'oeuvre - the next step consisted in shearing off the edges of the inner lips, then carving off the rim of the outer lips, from which the gedda removed a gory ribbon of flesh about 2 centimeters in width. Where the clitoris had once been was a gaping hole from which blood poured. I will spare you a few other details which I would rather not enlarge upon. Finally, the matron stitched up the raw and bleeding flesh, after which she carefully inserted a tiny hollow tube into the lower portion of the vagina, to allow for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. This, so I was subsequently informed, was to remain in place until the scar had formed. The 'operation' had lasted all of twenty minutes. Finally, the patient was bound up with cords from the hips to the knees to prevent her from making any movements which might cause the stitches to burst. For fifteen days, all girls who have been infibulated have to remain motionless, supine, and trussed up like fowls.
According to Dr, El Sayed Mirghani El Sayed, the very first African doctor to write a thesis on female circumcision, in Africa alone "fifty million or more female children are circumcised every year". In Somalia, all girls between the ages of seven and ten are forced to submit to this barbarous operation, for religious and social reasons. Most Egyptian girls, including those who attend universities, have been infibulated.
Unfortunately, no one knows how many of the little victims who have been circumcised, die - either immediately due to shock, or a little later due to the infections resulting from this prehistoric butchery. Sometimes, the patients bleed to death; hemorrages which often last for forty-eight hours are frequent occurrences, but generally they succumb to tetanus or gangrene. Whenever a death resulting from circumcision occurs, as Dr. J.G. Taoko reported, it is bruited about that the 'evil eye' was to blame, or else it is rumored that the victim herself was to blame because she had had sexual relations before the ceremony and was 'punished' for her 'crime'.
It is hardly necessary to describe what happens to all women who have been infibulated when they are on the point of giving birth. The vagina, a mass of scar tissue, is far too narrow to permit the baby to emerge. So what happens? They simply slash her open. Then, of course, later she has to be infibulated all over again. Any husband can force his wife to undergo infibulation ad nauseum. One of my unfortunate friends has been infibulated five times.
