Toujours aussi intéressante, mais un peu ethnocentriste (pour ne pas dire raciste) quand elle semble attribuer l’excision aux seuls orientaux, les occidentaux n’étant, selon elle, coupables que de désintérêt pour le clitoris. Si je reprend l’historique fait par Helen O’Connell en 2005 (celle qui a fait la plus sérieuse étude du clitoris en 1998, et dont j’avais cité des extraits là, mais apparemment l’auteur.e de ce poste l’a retiré : ►https://seenthis.net/messages/542035) :
« Anatomy of the clitoris », O’Connell HE, Sanjeevan KV, Hutson JM. J. Urol. 174:1189-1195, 2005
▻http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022534701685720
C’était courant en France au 16ème siècle, et O’Connell de préciser « la Clitoridéctomie existe depuis des millénaires, et ça ne fait pas si longtemps qu’elle existait encore dans les pays occidentaux », et en particulier en Grande Bretagne au 19ème siècle
In the 16th century justification for clitoridectomy seems to
have been tied up in the confusion related to hermaphrodit-
ism and the imprecision created by the word nymphae rather
than clitoris. The major French surgical text of Dalechamps,
which was intended to “make broadly accessible the surgical
knowledge of medieval and, especially the ancient authori-
ties,” contained some noteworthy discussion about surgery on
the clitoris and the social implications of clitoral anatomy. 37
Following the chapter on hermaphrodites Dalechamps wrote
about nymphotomia. Nymphotomia was an operation to ex-
cise unusually large nymphae.
(...)
Clitoridectomy was an operation justified for millennia in
some parts of the world. Its practice has been reviewed in
recent years. 42 However, it is not long ago that it was used in
Western countries, not as a religious ritual, but rather as an
operation to treat a range of medical disorders, including
insanity, epilepsy, catalepsy and hysteria. 43 In a prizewin-
ning essay Sheehan reviewed the practice of clitoridectomy,
and the rise and fall of the prominent British obstetrician
who wrote the textbook advocating clitoridectomy for a myr-
iad of female maladies. 44 As Sheehan observed, “The 19th
Century medical profession wanted it both ways: the clitoris
was so unimportant to a normal woman as to not be missed
if removed, yet lurking in its tissue was the greatest threat to
female welfare ever known.” 44
At his trial Brown said, “I have come to the conclusion that
the operation of clitoridectomy was a justifiable operation—
not my operation, recollect, gentlemen but an operation . . .
that has been practiced from the time of Hippocrates and has
been mentioned by all writers since that period again and
again.” 44
Voir aussi :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/389255
#Odile_Buisson #Helen_O'Connell