From: brent@syacus.acus.oz.au (Brent Davies)
Subject: Re: Fundamentalists and the clitoris
Organization: Australian Centre for Unisys Software, Melbourne
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 01:56:18 GMT

mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik) writes:

>Of a harsh but not (IMO) out-of-line description of attitudes
>among members of the religious right in the United States toward
>female sexuality. sunderl@obvius.stl.dec.com (Mike Sunderland) writes:

> >What a load of dingo's kidneys!!!!
> >If you weren't so bloody defensive you might be able to have enough
> >sense to see how silly it is to make such gross generalisations. I
> >don't know much about the 'religious right' because I don't live in
> >the good ol' USofA, but I do know a lot of people who would share the
> >views that you label "Abstenance based". I have never met anyone who
> >would come even close to the kind of stupidity you quote above. Shit!
> >Of course God created sexual pleasure for both women and men.

>Well, don't tell _us_, tell _them_.  You're right-- you don't seem
>to know much about the religious right in the good ol' USofA.

>An Australian friend of mine recently described a prime time
>television show he'd just seen, involving frank discussions of an
>assortment of sexual (and cultural) issues involving sexuality, sex
>organs, and-- in particular-- "female circumcision."  I found it
>hard to believe that it wasn't made up to tease me.

Here's the description. Have a read, Mike. If you think this kind of
thing would *ever* be aired in the States, *you're* the one spouting the
load of dingoes' kidneys. You have absolutely NO idea how ugly, vicious,
and fascist many in the American Right can be--*or* how much power they wield,
sadly. And no LGB person who has never lived in a society under these
people's hateful influence can ever really understand what it's like.

************************

Apropos of nothing, I was watching my favourite series last week-"G.P."
(about a suburban Sydney medical clinic)--just thought you might be interested
in a sample of Aussie T.V. A middle-eastern woman comes in to the clinic;
she wants a clitoridectomy for her daughter. Tess (one of the doctors)
is quite disturbed. "Do I do it," she says to a peer, "or allow the family
to mutilate her with razor blades?" 

Meanwhile, Steve (another doctor) is running a sex-education class at the
local high school. A student raises his hand. "Is the clitoris a female
penis?" he asks. The bell rings. Outside, the student is chatting with
a couple of girl classmates. "Yes, actually, in a way," says one girl.
"A female sex organ containing erectile tissue, so roughly the equivalent.
Steve explained that last week."

On another visit to the practice, the middle-eastern woman (who is pregnant
and being cared for by Tess) collapses. Julie, the receptionist, is asked
by Tess to assist in the emergency exam. We see the distaste on Julie's face
as she assists. Later, she says to Tess privately, "I knew she'd been
'circumcised', but that woman's been *mutilated*!"  Tess explains, "usually
it only involved severing the tip of the clitoris, but sometimes, in the 
Old World, these operations were done by the women in kitchens and actually
involved stitching up the labia, leaving only a small hole for urine. That's
why this woman can never have a natural birth."

Later, the M-E woman confirms that this is how it happened to her. "That's
whay I want *you* to circumcise my daughter," she says to Tess. Tess, in
great distress, discusses the matter with her husband that night, and is
overheard by Zoe, their 14-year-old daughter. Later, when one of Zoe's
friends visit, Zoe is deep in one of her mother's medical texts, reading
up on the subject. "Betcha don't know what a clitoridectomy is," she says
to her friend. "It's where they cut off the tip of the clitoris."

"Ooh, OUCH!" says the friend.

Zoe gets ready to go out with friend. She comes downstairs looking like
a million bucks. Her father splutters, "You can't go out like *that*!"
"Why not?" says Zoe. "Well--can't you at least take a coat for protection?"
says Dad. "Oh, I *have* my protection," says Zoe, smiling, and points to her 
earrings. From each ear is dangling a condom in its packet.

After she returns later that night, her father apologises for overreacting.
"It's just," he says, "that sex should only be *part* of a relationship
between a man and a woman--"

"--Or between a man and a man," interrupts Zoe, "or between a woman and a 
woman--"

"--Yes," says her father; "it's just that I worry sometimes that you might
get hurt if you go blundering into things too quickly." They make up, and
kiss goodnight.

Zoe decides to lobby against clitoridectomies. She prints up a pamphlet at
school to hand out to students; it describes how to have an orgasm, how to
give someone a blow job... and what clitoridectomies are, and why they should
be banned. Well, in short order, the students figure out that their middle-
eastern classmate is the subject in question. Word gets about town. Tess is
furious with Zoe for causing a break of doctor-patient confidentiality.
The M-E mother is furious with TEss for the same reason. The practice begins
to lose patients because of Zoe's explicit pamphlet. William--the head doctor-
is forced to do some fancy dancing for the media.

In the end, the M-E girl is taken from the school by her female relatives
to be sent for good back to the old country. Outside the school are Zoe,
Tess, and the M-E mother. The mother walks up to Zoe. "You have been so
selfish," she says to Zoe, crying. "My daughter will be butchered now, and
I will never see her again, or meet my grandchildren ever. Look what you have
accomplished with all your self-righteousness. Is this what you wanted?"
Roll credits.

Airing time: 8:00 p.m. Wednesday nite. Spins you out, eh? 

--Brent

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