'FGM happened to me in white, midwest America'

[rug]

A Christian doctor removed my clitoris when I was three years old as a ‘cure’ for masturbation, writes Renee Bergstrom

Dr A Renee Bergstrom
Saturday 3 December 2016 08.50 EST

In 1947, when I was just three years old a doctor removed my clitoris. Female genital mutilation is mostly associated with African cultures, and non-Christian religions, but my FGM happened in white, midwest America. It took place in a church clinic that used a scalpel on girls who masturbated.

I remember the excruciating pain and feeling betrayed. I was told not to talk about it, but keeping the secret meant I was alone with my questions as I grew into puberty: what was missing? What would it be like to be “whole”?

At 15 I consulted a doctor regarding a tugging sensation from my scar tissue. Unknowingly, I went to the same clinic where the clitoridectomy was performed and the doctor shamed me with a booklet entitled The Sin of Self-Pleasuring.

My first child and I could have died – an almost universal impact of FGM is difficulty giving birth. I, like so many women around the world, did not know genital scar tissue does not stretch. I wanted to be fully awake to experience giving birth, but my obstetrician performed an extensive episiotomy under anaesthetic that took months to heal. He was compassionate and shocked to hear the origin of my scar.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/02/fgm-happened-to-me-in-white-midwest-america

[SidDithers]

1. " It took place in a church clinic"...

Sid

[vlyons]

2. thank-you for sharing your experience

[rug]

3. " . . . . when I was just three years old a doctor removed my clitoris."

Presumably a doctor licensed by the state and not ordained.

Would you like to discuss the state of misogyny in North America seventy years ago, Sid?



http://www.sarahbrodriguez.com/female-circumcision-clitoridectomy/

[rug]

7. Not if he thinks it's about church clinics.

I don't know of any church clinic that advocated clitoridectomies to "promote orgasms".

Do you?

[SidDithers]

8. Mysoginy driven by religion?...

Not much has really changed in 70 years, has it?

Or maybe I missed all the openly gay, or female, priests in the modern, enlightened Church.

Sid

[rug]

11. There are lots of things that drive Mysoginy (sic), Sid.

Just like there are lots of things that drive religious bigots.

Now, if you want to rant about religion, be my guest. But if you do, while you may end up feeling righteous, you will, again, be clouding what misogyny is all about.

[leftynyc]

4. Disgusting

This woman has 100% of my sympathy. There is a stain on every single culture that still allows this to happen to young girls.

[rug]

5. I have four daughters. I can't imagine what this does.

[whathehell]

9. Horrible

but in Western culture, quite rare. I understand this woman is angry, but trying to convince us that this was a cultural mainstay in 1940's America, something "America once accepted and then wanted to deny" will require more in the way of evidence, even anecdotal, than her single shocking story provides.