Warning: Graphic!
When I read Ayan Hirsi Ali’s personal account of her own “genital mutilation” (circumcision my “butt”), I literally had to cross my legs just thinking about it....
The procedure is often done by some village schmo who uses jagged glass; infections are most common. When he cuts off the clitoris, he then stitches up the girl so that the opening is very, very small; just large enough to allow the passage of urine and menstrual blood.
In one passage, Ayan discusses how some Muslim women are in a bathroom and a girl who has not had the genital mutilation is peeing and one can hear the loud stream. They make nasty remarks out loud to each other such as, “Listen to her, she pees like a horse.” They try to turn what is normal into something perverse.
It is, without a doubt, one of the most diabolical procedures I have ever read about and is still practiced widely in some parts of the Muslim (African and Middle East) world. The women are scarred, often to the point of debilitation. Sex is painful and there is often no sexual pleasure or very minimal; though not always (amazingly).
I have deep passion about this subject and when I am through with my university studies, I plan to work towards having this practice abolished.