Experiences from Fieldwork in Casamance, Southern Senegal
The men don’t know how to come to a decision. They used to say that a girl must be circumcised in order to approach the mosque, to be able to pray. But now they say circumcision is archaic and that uncircumcised women are more pleasurable, more ‘tasty’. Men are only thinking of masumam (‘taste’)/ It’s the only reason that they are against excision and, really, that is nothing/—a Jola female circumciser
One especially vivid memory from my fieldwork is how the women I interviewed got tired of my questions concerning circumcision. “It is done so that the girl can pray and be initiated. That’s all! Surely, it hurts, but then it heals up and is forgotten”, the women constantly repeated, unable to understand why on earth I was so interested in this simple act of cutting. In the end, I became truly embarrassed, as I could not help asking myself the same question: Why would I wish to talk about their genitals or lost genitals all the time? There are so many harmful practices and alarming situations in the world, situations that cause people suffering, why does just this one worry us so and get headline attention in our newspapers? The situation described above captures the conflict between the general points of view concerning female circumcision among Westerners and those people practising female circumcision. In the West, the practice arouses intense emotions and it is
Arnfred Page 80 Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:38 PM