Unit 7
Gender and Sexuality: Body Modification and Genital Cutting

Body modification is a traditional practice that occurs throughout the cultural world. Tattooing and piercing are common and accepted methods of modifying the human body. The social construction of what constitutes a beautiful and attractive male or female form varies from culture to culture. For example, every day, surgeons in Western societies perform breast augmentations, liposuction treatments, and botox injections to help their female patients achieve the Western cultural standard of beauty. It is for these reasons that genital cutting is performed on women who live in other cultural and religious groups.

As this unit points out, female genital cutting (FGC) is a cultural tradition that continues to be practiced in parts of north and central Africa as well as in some Middle Eastern and Asian cultures (Sundby 2003). FGC has been practiced in these and other areas throughout the world for over 2000 years. What is rarely mentioned, however, is that female genital cutting and female castration (oophorectomy or the removal of ovaries) was also practiced in parts of North America up until the 1930s and 1940s. Genital cutting was often prescribed in Victorian England as a treatment to prevent masturbation and for alleviating other psychological disorders (Hopkins cited in Little 2003:30). Medical establishments in both Europe and North America have used FGC to treat clitoral enlargement, redundancy, hysteria, lesbianism, and erotomania (Nour cited in Little 2003:30). Complications resulting from FGC include hemorrhage, infection, urinary retention, sepsis, shock, and death (Little 2003).

Supporters of FCG offer many cultural reasons for continuing with this practice. Some believe that the procedure makes women purer, more trustworthy, and more righteous. FGC is also a rite of passage into the social, familial, sexual, and reproductive roles of many cultures. Some Animists, Christians, and Muslims want its practice continued for religious reasons. Recent migrations of central African women to Western countries have brought this issue to the attention of the international community. Doctors are faced with the medical complications of FGC, and point to the complexity of choices that women in cultures that do practice FGC face. (Brother 2002; Moniage 2002)

Objectives

When you have completed the study activities for Unit 7, you should be able to

1. describe the cultural practices related to genital cutting.
2. evaluate the reasons given for performing male circumcisions.
3. evaluate the reasons given for performing female circumcision.
4. distinguish between the terms female genital circumcision, female genital cutting, and female mutilation.
5. list the similarities and differences among various cultural strategies for body modifications and the diversity of approaches to the human body.