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From: cs111olg@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.med,net.women
Subject: Re: The worst (historical) surgical procedure
Message-ID: <8991@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 15-Feb-86 05:22:16 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.8991
Posted: Sat Feb 15 05:22:16 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 03:32:48 EST
References: <2218@aecom.UUCP> <658@brl-smoke.ARPA> <433@ubvax.UUCP> <515@sdcc12.UUCP>
Reply-To: cs111olg@ucla-cs.UUCP (Oleg Kiselev (the student incarnation))
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Organization: The Land Of Mental Midgets
Lines: 39
Xref: watmath net.med:3363 net.women:9076

In article <515@sdcc12.UUCP> wa371@sdcc12.UUCP (Bernd Riechelmann) writes:
>> >they sew together the labia major, leaving only a tiny hole
>> >sort of a surgical chasitity belt.
>> Actually, I've heard that this is a part of the female circumcision procedure
>> done in certain countries in Africa.
>But can we really afford to throw stones?  In our own enlightned
>culture we surgically tighten up vaginas as a matter of routine.
>(Not to mention surgical breast enlargement/reduction.)  I can imagine
>that those tribes might find such procedures of our's quite barbaric!
>

OK, let's see... YOu are equating "tighten[ing] up vaginas as a matter of
routine" to clitoridectomy and infibulation...

So called "tightening" is (according to my girlfriend) essentialy a myth,
a wise crack doctors make sometimes...

And then there are clitoridectomy and infibulation, performed without any
anestesia, often with unsterilized knives or (in some reports) with a piece
of broken glass. Infections caused by unsanitary procedures frequently cause
infertility, massive physical damage and death. The eye-witness accounts of
these bloody and sadistic rituals are as gruesome as any blood-and-gore horror
flick you'll see at the movies. Common result of these "surgical" procedures
is that sexual intercourse becomes rather painful for the woman. Midddle-Eastern
custom of sewing up labia (infibulation) and leaving a small hole to let urine
and menstrual blood pass through (by initially sticking a few splinters between
the stitches) has resulted in a raser peculiar custom. A newly wed woman is
"opened" by her husband with a dagger and then has to endure many hours of sex
in the first  few days of the marriage, to assure that the lips of the labia do
not grow shut togetehr again.... After the woman conceives, she is re-"sewn",
then opened up again in the late parts of the pregnancy and re-"sewn" again
after she gives birth. Needless to say, these women  could hardly have enjoyed
sex - with raw wound being continually violated.

Is it any wonder that Middle-East is reputed to be the region where anal sex was
discovered?
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"Suspect is gulty until found to be an idiot"
                                        Oleg Kiselev (student again)