Re: Female mutulation

> blue cross blue shield covered clitoridectomies until 1977.

That's amazing! But was that on cultural grounds or on medical grounds? I believe that in some Middle-Eastern and North-African ethnic groups the clitoris tends to be very large and its size can be considered a medical problem because it can interfere with normal intercourse.


> i heard this week from a woman whose mother refused
> to have her son circumcised, so they circumcised HER
> instead. this was 1975.

Do you have any more details on that one? Obviously if she had a son it couldn't have been a case of her clitoris causing problems.

Speaking personally, I would never want my clitoris tampered with by the medical professsion -- it would take away a source of great pleasure and to me a larger clitoris simply means greater capacity for pleasure. And if that's the way for a woman, then how much more it must be for a man and how much more dreadful to remove the source of so much pleasure.

I think many women fail to appreciate just what's involved. How many women have actually peeled right back the prepuce of their own clitoris? Most of the women (not that that's very many, because it's not the sort of thing one usually talks about with other women) haven't even known that you *can* peel it back.