1989/08/01 by Hanny Lightfoot‐Klein · 3 citations
Medicine · Social Sciences · #Genital Health and Disease #Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues #Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/00224498909551521
openalex publication_date 1989/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In a study conducted over a 5‐year period, the author interviewed over 300 Sudanese women and 100 Sudanese men on the sexual experience of circumcised and infibulated women. Sudanese circumcision involves excision of the clitoris, the labia minora and the inner layers of the labia majora, and fusion or infibulation of the bilateral wound. The findings of this study indicate that sexual desire, pleasure, and orgasm are experienced by the majority of women who have been subjected to this extreme sexual mutilation, in spite of their also being culturally bound to hide these experiences. These findings also seriously question the importance of the clitoris as an organ that must be stimulated in order to produce female orgasm, as is often maintained in Western sexological literature.