LONDON: FGC law should outlaw "designer vaginas" - MPs

The Guardian
March 14, 2015

Outlaw 'designer vagina' surgery, say MPs

Home affairs committee says FGM Act should be expanded to cover cosmetic procedures that have no medical purpose, though government says this is already covered in law
by Alexandra Topping
Genital surgery to create so-called “designer vaginas” should be outlawed under legislation designed to prevent female genital mutilation, according to a group of MPs.

A report from the home affairs select committee has called the laws governing female genital cosmetic surgery ambiguous and said the 2003 FGM law must be changed so it covers the procedures, which have no medical purpose.

“We cannot tell communities in Sierra Leone and Somalia to stop a practice which is freely permitted on Harley Street,” said Keith Vaz, the chairman of the select committee.
[Strictly speaking, cosmetic surgery is already outlawed in England under the  Female Genital Mutilation Act, 2003: (2)But no offence is committed by an approved person who performs—
  (a)a surgical operation on a girl which is necessary for her physical or mental health.. - because it is a stretch to say that a "designer vagina"  is "necessary for her ... mental health"] The government has previously stated that the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 does not contain any exemption for cosmetic surgery, and it had no plans to amend the act. But “evidence demonstrates that the police, midwives and campaigners would all like to see greater clarity on this point,” stated the report.

The select committee also risked creating a diplomatic spat with the Royal Colleges – which represent medical professionals – accusing their members of not doing enough “to encourage their members to report cases of FGM”.

The report notes that in Heartlands hospital in Birmingham, 1,500 cases of FGM were recorded over the past five years, with doctors seeing six patients who have undergone the procedure each week. “There seems to be a chasm between the amount of reported cases and the lack of prosecutions,” it says. “Someone, somewhere is not doing their job effectively.”

The first ever FGM case was brought to trial this year, but in February the NHS doctor Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, was acquitted in less than 30 minutes amid claims that the Crown Prosecution Service had brought the case because of political pressure.

Given the failure of the prosecution, there may be an “even greater reluctance” to report, the study said, but it urged the Royal College of GPs to give training to every doctor about FGM: “Doctors are on the front line. Their professional organisations must do more to encourage their members to report cases of FGM. Without their active reporting of these cases, the full extent of FGM will remain hidden.”

Decrying the prevalence of FGM in the UK and the lack of prosecutions, the report accused the Crown Prosecution Service, police and health professionals of playing pass the parcel.

“The DPP informed the committee that she could only prosecute on the basis of evidence, the police said that they could only investigate on the basis of referral, and the health professionals told us that they could not refer cases because their members were not fully trained and aware of the procedure,” it states. “While agencies play pass the parcel of responsibility, young girls are being mutilated every hour of every day. This is deplorable.”

The select committee welcomed the government’s decision to make reporting FGM mandatory, but said it remained unclear what would happen in the event that a professional should fail to make a report. It called on the government to set out the sanctions that would apply and establish an advisory panel of FGM campaigners, to be consulted before any major policy decisions are taken.

Equality Now, a campaign group, said the focus should not be on prosecution, but prevention.

“Mandatory reporting should go hand-in-hand with mandatory training of those professionals who have a child safeguarding obligation,” said Mary Wandia, the FGM programme manager at Equality Now. “Such training is urgently needed and is the next step. It should come before holding those people to account.”

CHICAGO: Female "circumcision" promoted to enable orgasm

Pacific Standard
February 24, 2014

Female Circumcision as Sexual Therapy: The Past and Future of Plastic Surgery?

by Sarah B. Rodriguez
Is a hooded clitoris to blame for many women’s failure to reach orgasm with their sexual partners? Whether it is or not, the procedure is becoming more popular among both women and physicians.

In Chicago, a physician with offices on Michigan Avenue offers clitoral unhooding today for $1,000 (plus operating room fees). His intention? To more easily enable a woman to reach orgasm. Clitoral unhooding falls under the larger category of female genital cosmetic surgeries (FGCS), surgeries that are reportedly becoming more popular among women and physicians. Some physicians, even those who don’t perform FGCS, see them as part of the future of plastic surgery.

The assumption is that these surgeries don’t have much of a past. In fact, there is a long history of surgeries on female genitals—especially on the clitoris—as “sexual enhancement” for women, designed to help them achieve their “proper role” as sexual partners. Over a century ago, another Chicago physician also removed clitoral hoods of women, also as therapy to enable them easier orgasms. The use of female circumcision since the late 1800s to treat a woman’s lack of orgasm reveals a medical understanding of the function of the clitoris as sexual­—an understanding held decades prior to the physiological evidence supplied by William Masters and Virginia Johnson.

Understanding the sexual nature of the clitoris and its importance to female sexual pleasure, some physicians have, for well over a century, diagnosed a condition of the clitoris as the physiological cause for a woman’s failure to have an orgasm with her husband. These physicians thus treated the lack of an orgasm in the marital bed as a sexual disorder treatable through surgery.

In the U.S., the first documented use of female circumcision as a sexual enhancement therapy appeared at a time when the espousal of female orgasm during marital sex was increasingly seen as an important component for a healthy marriage.

By removing the clitoral foreskin, some physicians (as well as non-physicians) thought the clitoris would be more exposed to the penis during penetrative intercourse, and would thus receive direct stimulation from the penis. Physicians performed—and some women or their spouses sought out—female circumcision in order to maintain (or conform to) the sexual behavior deemed culturally appropriate for white, U.S.-born, middle- to upper-class women: orgasm with their husbands.

In the United States, the first documented use of female circumcision as a sexual enhancement therapy occurred in the late 19th century, appearing at a time when the espousal of female orgasm during marital sex was increasingly seen as an important component for a healthy marriage. Physicians performed female circumcision to help married women who wanted—or whose husbands wanted their wives to have—orgasms during martial sex.

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