Religious Sexuality essays

Religious Sexuality essays This paper reviews the practice of female circumcision and its number of cultural reasons why it occurs, most importantly how does this religious ritual affect womens sexuality, and how female bodies are controlled by a male-dominated social order and the health impacts surrounding the psychology of female sexuality and the functioning of female sex organs. "When girls of my age were looking after the lambs, they would talk among themselves about their circumcision experiences. Every time the other girls talked about their infibulated genitals, I would feel ashamed I was not yet circumcised. Whenever I touched infibulated girls, they would tell me not to touch them since I was [still] "unclean."... One day I could not stand it anymore. I took a razor blade and went to an isolated place. I tied my clitoris with a thread, and while pulling at the thread with one hand I tried to cut part of my clitoris. When I felt the pain and saw the blood coming from the cut I stopped.... I was seven years old." (Abusharaf, 1998). The above account describes an overwhelming urge to conform to socially constructed symbols. Social labels in countries where circumcision is practiced are strong enough to cause a seven- year old to mutilate her-self. Where it is practiced, female circumcision is strongly promoted and closely safeguarded; it is regarded as an essential coming-of-age ritual that symbolizes virginity, cleanliness, fertility, and enhances the beauty of a woman's body. These are all symbols girls are taught to associate with circumcision at a very young age. Through interviews of various women found in articles, I hope to show how female circumcision is said to be symbolic as a rite of passage to womanhood, and in other cases a destruction of womens well being. The examples will reinforce the positive meanings associated with circumcision- purity, fertility, and womanhood. On the other hand showing how the consequences of not u...