Female Genital Mutilation

WARNING: This post deals with very disturbing topics and the descriptions are graphic.

There are practices that often occur in Africa and India and I'm sure many other countries, and these practices have fallen under the title Female Genital Mutilation. There are four main procedures that occur, which I will talk about later. First, I believe that "dry sex" should also be called FGM. Many people think that dry sex is simply grinding against each other without actually having intercourse, but what dry sex really is, is women being forced to use herbal aphrodisiacs, household detergents and antiseptics to wipe out the vagina, or to place leaves in the vagina to minimize the amount of vaginal secretions. The point is to keep the female dry and tight to increase the male's pleasure during sex. This is often extremely painful for women and leaves the vagina swollen or peeling. How would you like to clean your vagina with antiseptics? Pretty horrific, if you ask me. Dry sex has also been found to have some connection with increasing the risk of HIV. I don't know how the increase would occur, but it does. Perhaps because of the tearing that occurs to the female; HIV being transferred though blood and all.
Now, back to those four main types of FGM. 1. This consists of slicing off only the clitoris. 2. The clitoris is amputated, and the labia minora are partially or totally removed. 3. The complete removal of the clitoris and labia minora, as well as the inner surface of the labia majora. The edges of the labia majora are brought together so that they will heal together; this leaves a small hood which covers the urethra and most of the vagina. This is called infibulation. If the hole left under the hood is not big enough for intercourse when the woman is married, the husband, or a close female relative of the husband, may cut the hood open. In places like Africa, this is sometimes done with any old knife that's lying around, if not a shard of glass. 4. Scraping of the skin around the vaginal opening and cuts from the vagina to the area in front of the anus (perineum). This is supposed to open the vagina for obstructed labour. This is also known as a "salt cut". It is done when a female experiences an "itching vulva, absence of menstruation, infertilty, obstructed labour, anaemia, malaria, and any condition that presents the symptoms of headache, oedema, fainting, or painful intercourse." All of these practices are highly dangerous and the level of suffering that these women go through is appalling and should just never occur. The simple and horrible fact of the matter is that these things occur because women are not in control of their own sexuality or bodies, and it has been left to men to make the decisions.
There are many things wrong in this life, but when I first came across this information it literally hurt me to read it. I was basically in tears and had to walk away from it numerous times before getting through it. I could never wish for something like this to happen to anyone, and I wonder how there are people who are so inhumane that they would actually be the one's to push this kind of abuse onto a female. No one deserves this kind of derision and suffering. To every person who has, would or will condone, promote or partake in such procedures, I hope you find misery and misfortune. And to all of the women who've endured such horrendous experiences, I'm sorry.