Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Sunday, December 2, 2012

BioEdge: The ultimate hot potato: female genital mutilation is not as bad as it seems

BioEdge: The ultimate hot potato: female genital mutilation is not as bad as it seems: "The authors’ aim is to "move the coverage of the topic from an over-heated, ideologically charged, and one-sided story about 'mutilation,' morbidity, and patriarchal oppression to a real, evidence-based policy debate governed by the standards of critical reason and fact checking."

The claims and counter-claims are too long to list. But the authors – about 15 of them, mostly from Western countries – make the following points about female genital mutilation (or “female genital surgery”, as they call it)"

Provocatively, the authors argue that women and girls who have undergone genital mutilation should not be stigmatized or taught to expect sexual dysfunction. This might cause “psychological mutilation", potentially compromising the development of a normal and healthy psychosexual life.