Reconstruction clitoridienne, excision et circoncision. Variations autour d’un sexe féminin phallique

oleh: Corinne Fortier

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: L’Harmattan 2020-10-01

Deskripsi

Women who have been circumcised experience paradoxical injunctions between the representations of the female body in their country of origin and in the society where they live, which lead them to do clitoral reconstruction surgery. Considered «victims of genital mutilations», circumcised women are convinced that repairing their «sex» will repair their sexuality, especially in Euro-American countries where the clitoris is seen as the primary organ of feminine pleasure. Paradoxically, reconstructive clitoral surgery obeys to an organicist vision of sexuality which ignores the psycho-sexual dimension of desire, the same one that inspired female circumcision. But the motivation of «reconstruction» is less related to women’s sexual desire than men’s one, joining the goal of excision, but also the aim of hymenoplasty, nymphoplasty, vaginoplasty, or the so-called «husband’s point» surgery. Female circumcision reassures the man who may feel threatened in his virility by anything that evokes the phallus in the woman, just as male circumcision prepares the young man to overcome his castration anxiety and his incestuous relation to his mother. Sex difference is clearly reaffirmed by these rituals in order to ensure the reproduction of society.