>One could argue, as Freud did, that
circumcision is symbolic castration by the father. Pretty much
nonsense.
Freud-the-anthropologist's-nemesis also said this (from Sexuality and the
Psychology of Love) - an obscure citation but one which appears in genital
mutilation discourse quite often:
"elimination of clitoral stimulation is a necessary precondition for the
development of femininity."
From ethnography, I'd say that the few studies which include the voices of
women and men for whom FGC is a reality have shown a wide variety of
responses, rationales, and motivations, even within the same populations.
E
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