Talk:Clitoridectomy

Body modification

Some women choose to have this done surgically as a body modification. 69.246.130.89 (talk) 18:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"a treatment for female masturbation"?

so is girls masturbating like a disease —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.186.163.170 (talk) 16:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Not in civilized parts of the world. This treatment is usually performed in countries which are, for all intents and purposes, theocracies. sxebill (talk) 22:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Like the USA, wich promoted the practice well into the 60s for example? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.150.17.80 (talk) 13:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:Student editing

Days ago, I reverted CriticalAlways, who is with Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014). I reverted for obvious reasons (well, obvious to very experienced Wikipedia editors); those reverts are seen here and here. CriticalAlways's team apparently still has not gotten the point, judging by Cfb2130 (talk · contribs)'s huge edit here; that edit has a variety of problems, problems that could have been resolved had these students posted to this talk page and proposed their edits, like they are supposed to do. The person directing these students (or the same student with a different username) to edit this article is not doing an appropriate job. Either that, or these students are not following the correct protocol noted at the WP:Student editing page. Flyer22 (talk) 01:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a problem. I don't know how students can be expected to fit in with Wikipedia's procedures because naturally they want to put all the good stuff in the article they are working on (they probably have to do that to get any marks), yet much of the new material is WP:UNDUE, or should be in another article, or perhaps another website. Johnuniq (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Problematic student classes can be reported at the WP:Education noticeboard, but one might or might not get assistance when posting there about a matter. That this particular class has not attempted to comment at this talk page is a problem. Ian (Wiki Ed), who leaves feedback for WP:Student editors, has taken to cleaning up some aspects of Cfb2130's edits, as seen here and here. The following are problems that Cfb2130's edits include:

1.MOS:HEAD problems (taken care of by Ian (Wiki Ed), and me here and here).

2.What look to be WP:Copyright violations or at least overquoting, definitely overquoting.

3.Inconsistent use of quotation marks (Wikipedia does not prefer the curlies).

4.WP:Editorializing (such as stating, "in fact").

5. Some information (some material in the "Redirecting female sexual behavior" section) that would be better suited in the Clitoris article (that is not an invitation if significant cleanup after the editor adding that material there will follow; furthermore, that article already significantly addresses the "clitoris/clitoral orgasm vs. the vagina/vaginal orgasm" aspect).

6. Information that is already well-covered in the Female genital mutilation article; that stated, since the Clitoridectomy article is specifically about clitoridectomies, it should be the primary article for information on clitoridectomies unless we are going to let the Female genital mutilation article be the main article for that (especially since female genital mutilation is mostly about mutilation to the clitoris).

7. References that should be placed right beside the statements (no space in between them).

All of that is cleanup that the WP:Students should be guided to fix; it should not generally be up to the more experienced Wikipedia editors to fix these matters. I don't mind assisting WP:Student editing that is guided well. The best, or only, well-guided class I have encountered so far is this one that worked on the Adolescence article. Granted, that article needs a lot of trimming and tidying up because of all the past WP:Student editing that has gone on there. Flyer22 (talk) 21:54, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Removed

This needs to be sourced, attributed, and possibly quoted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's a citation for this removed section regarding clitoridectomy in the USA...

Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment

Sarah B. Rodriguez

Series: Rochester Studies in Medical History

Copyright Date: 2014

Edition: NED - New edition

Published by: Boydell & Brewer, University of Rochester Press

Pages: 290

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt6wp8c1

Search for reviews of this book

Rodriguez, Sarah B. “Women, Masturbation, and Clitoral Surgery, 1862–1945.” Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2014, pp. 13–30. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt6wp8c1.5. Accessed 19 July 2023.

Rodriguez, Sarah B. “Children, Masturbation, and Clitoral Surgery since 1890.” Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2014, pp. 31–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt6wp8c1.6. Accessed 19 July 2023.

CHICAGO --- Clitoridectomy and female circumcision, practices often labeled as female genital mutilations, are not just controversial cultural rites performed in foreign countries.

A new book from a Northwestern Medicine® medical historian reports that American physicians treated women and girls for masturbation by removing the clitoris from the mid-19th century through the mid-20th century. And physicians continue to perform female circumcision (removal of the clitoral hood) to enable women to reach orgasm, although the procedure is controversial and can result in lasting problems such as painful intercourse for some women.

In her new book “Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment” (University of Rochester Press, 2014), Sarah Rodriguez, a lecturer in medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, examines this largely unexplored history of clitoral surgeries and how they reflect medical and cultural views of ‘appropriate’ female sexuality through the last century and a half.

“The medical view was to change the female body to treat a girl or woman’s ‘faulty’ sexual behavior, such as masturbation or difficulty having an orgasm, rather than questioning the narrowness of what counted as culturally appropriate behavior,” said Rodriguez, who also is a lecturer in global health studies at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “This practice is still alive and well in the United States as part of the trend in female cosmetic genital surgery.”

In her book, Rodriguez explores how these procedures were meant to normalize girls and women into a particular heterosexual ideal with the underlying goal of directing their sexual behavior to married, heterosexual and vaginal intercourse. 99.69.18.152 (talk) 17:43, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Female circumcision and clitoridectomy in the United States are practices that have been widely conducted as methods to direct female sexual behavior within the act of "normalized" heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Often female sexual behavior is linked to the sexual organ of the clitoris. Thus, attention to understanding the structure and function of the clitoris has contributed to the overall socially constructed role that women play as sexual partners with their male counterparts.

Anon blog source

Citoridectomies signify the medicalization of gender, as well as sex. Intersex individuals are made to seem like they have a "medical problem that needs fixing, but only a small number of intersex children have medical problems."

Anxiety about ambiguity of genitalia exists based on the fear of confusing the clitoris with a penis, which disrupts the rigid gender binaries that have been set in place by various societal institutions. In reality, there exists a range of natural variations in size and shape of genitalia.

Old sources, non-MEDRS

Uncited, or cited to a 2002 primary source questionnaire:

“Clitoridectomy is a technique long eschewed owing to poor cosmetic outcomes and significant damage to sexual sensation and function. Indeed, more than a decade ago, a European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology survey called it “appalling” that “clitoridectomy is still reported by 13%” of 125 European centers caring for DSD [intersex] patients, and expressed the “hope that this practice will be banned completely in the near future.”

Western feminists believe that the reasons put forth to do clitoridectomy or circumcision are not legitimate because “women are merely confronting what men find attractive”. Also, Clitoridectomy is done to deny women sexual pleasure and satisfaction.

UNDUE

A couple of VERY old sources (in fact, almost everything cited in the article is extremely old) give WP:UNDUE weight to the opinions of a few authors, at the same time that the actual medical content, based on WP:MEDRS sources is undeveloped. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Copyvio check

I do not have access to the sources, and have not completed a copyvio check (I did remove a lot of overquoting). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:18, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up the article, SandyGeorgia. I would have commented on your cleanup earlier today, but I had other matters to attend to. How did you come across this article? Knowing that you are currently back to editing medical articles, and that you, like me, are not very positive about WP:Student editing, I was tempted to ping you to this talk page via WP:Echo in my second post above. At that time, I hadn't looked carefully at the sourcing; otherwise, I would have listed some of the sourcing as a problem as well. Per WP:MEDRS, old sources for historical material is generally okay, but usually not for current medical issues. Flyer22 (talk) 07:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Something else that had slipped my mind was WP:MEDMOS, but you fixed up the article in that regard as well. Flyer22 (talk) 07:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Flyer22, this is tagged above by the student as a Barnard course page. I was looking through that course page, which STILL hasn't been filled in (Education Program:Barnard College/Women and Health (Fall 2014)), after ongoing problems from that course discussed at WP:ENI. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for replying, SandyGeorgia. I'm not sure what you mean by "tagged above," though. Flyer22 (talk) 21:58, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

You're right-- it's not tagged <sigh>. You mentioned the course above. Which means, anyway, I still found it because I was chasing down other problems in that course ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate you tagging it. Flyer22 (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Sources

References

Lack of historical discussion of clitoridectomy.

This type of mutilation apparently has a very long history (It was mentioned and apparently approved of by Mohammed, the founder of Islam.) and that aspect of the procedure should be discussed to give perspective. Some people think it was practiced in ancient Egypt, though I know of no sources which could be cited. Also, the practice is rather obviously a way for men in the societies in which it is practiced, to show women who's boss, and because of that the place of clitoridectomy in establishing social hierarchies, should be mentioned. Women often do the severing, but they do it because men want it done. ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.120.170.250 (talk) 21:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

History sections usually do not require WP:MEDRS-compliant sources

Bfpage, regarding this and this, history sections usually do not require WP:MEDRS-compliant sources...which is made explicitly clear in the WP:MEDDATE section of the WP:MEDRS guideline. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:11, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

...except that the reference is one case study. Historical or not, a single case study is not notable. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  01:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Bfpage, WP:MEDDATE states, "These instructions are appropriate for actively researched areas with many primary sources and several reviews and may need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made or where few reviews are published." In some cases, including for Wikipedia medical articles, we cite case studies. The Clitoromegaly article is an example of that, for reasons noted on that talk page. There is barely any literature on clitoromegaly. And when it comes to clitoridectomy, research is lacking in this area ss well. That stated, I'm not suggesting that you re-add the aforementioned removed material. I just wanted to be clear with you, like I have been before, that history sections usually do not require WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:58, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Section "Redirecting female sexual behavior"

Though the content is interesting, including the subtitle "Redirecting female sexual behavior" under the main title "Medical Uses" implies that the medical use of a cloridectomy is to redirect female sexual behavior. The content contained under this subheading does not mention or support the idea that the surgery will redirect sexual behavior. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  01:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

misinterpreted source

This phrase in the article:

"WHO estimates that clitordectomies have been performed on 200 million girls and women that are currently alive."

Is linked to this source:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/

However, the figure of 200 million given by the source seems to refer to all forms of FGM, not only clitoridectomy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.83.179.39 (talk) 15:54, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Recent removal of two sections

Bozzio, I do not fully understand your deletion of text with this edit. The aesthetic factor is an aspect of clitoridectomy, and the "Redirecting female sexual behavior" section was sourced to "Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States," which is clearly about clitoridectomy. Both sections needed work, but I don't agree with the full deletion. The content should be fixed up and moved to the "Society and culture" section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:41, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I restored most of it, tweaked it and moved it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Other tweaks followed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:29, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Clitoridectomy and Mayer-Rokitansky-Kustner disorder?

Are there any proofs of clitoridectomy being practised for ppl with MRKH? --HalfOfDwarf (talk) 15:43, 4 January 2019 (UTC)