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genital mutilation
Genital mutilation is a practice on women (usually infants) also known - incorrectly - as "female circumcision". It is usually done to children or infants, against their will.
Some people consider also a mutilation the circumcision, or prepuce amputation, foreskin amputation, in this case in males, which is much more widespread than female genital mutilation. The difference lies on the degree in which each practice implies sexual pleasure reduction, which might be complete in female genital mutilation, to very little or none, in circumcision.
Prepuce amputation consists of cutting off the ridged band, and a variable degree of the remaining part of the prepuce. The ridged band is situated at the distal end of the prepuce. The ridged band has a high concentration of meissners corpuscles (a type of neural receptor in the skin), which might cause some sexual sensation. In cases of prepuce amputation, the absence of the ridged band might reduce or change the sexual sensitivity.
Female genital mutilation, also called clitoris amputation or female circumcision, involves cutting off most of the clitoris, and it may also involve sewing up most of the length of the vagina (excluding a small hole for urination).
In some cases of women that have sustained clitoral amputation, they are still able to achieve clitoral orgasm, because there is still a stump of sexually sensitive tissue leftover.
History
Female genital mutilation and male circumcision originated in north-eastern Sub-Saharan Africa, in the area around southern Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. From there, it spread far. Male circumcision in particular became very popular.
Early on, the practice of male circumcision spread north up the Nile, into Egypt. From Egypt, the practice spread to the Hebrews, who incorporated it into their religion. The Hebrew religion spread south along the west coast of Arabia, culminating in the founding of Islam, which retained the circumcision of Judaism. The Muslim Arabian armies then spread the practice of circumcision far and wide. The people of the Philippines did not adopt Islam, but they adopted male circumcision from them when Islam became popular in the area.
The practice of male circumcision is also widespread in the United States. In the United States, circumcision is an imitation of the Jewish practice rather than the Muslim practice.
Advocacy for male circumcision
It has been discovered that male circumcision might reduce the HIV transmission rate by up to 60 percent, leading to advocacy campaigns for the practice in Africa. See http://www.thebody.com/content/art48907.html and http://www.malecircumcision.org/
