At first, I was surprised to learn that the local understanding of excision did not include the idea of sexual control. As Skramstad (1990:3) contends, it may be valid to argue on an analytical level that the practice is intended to control female sexuality, but the question is whether such an argument is relevant towards understanding the actual social significance of the practice. Among the Jola, sexual control is not mentioned as a reason for women to be excised, neither did people think that circumcised women could more easily control their sexual behaviour than uncircumcised (cf. Skramstad 1990). To my understanding, people are little concerned with women’s chastity; and since chastity is not a cultural problem, neither is virginity. Even though parents prefer their daughters to be virgin at marriage this is not always the case and it does not cause a scandal. Before Christiani — sation and Islamisation, Jola teenagers were allowed to engage in sexual relations, but a child born to an unmarried mother was usually killed at birth, and abortion was severely punished. The taboo was on pre-marital reproduction but not sexual relations (Thomas 1959). I would say that people do not spend a lot of time worrying about women’s sexual behaviour, neither is women’s sexual pleasure conceived of as a problem. This does not mean, however, that women and men’s sexual pleasure are equally valued, nor that women are free from sexual control.
Those women I heard expressing doubts about excision did not specify why. Some just said they had heard that ‘it is not good’. Although they do not have unified ideas about the circumcision, men critical to the practice usually have many arguments: excision is not a Jola custom, is not recommended by Islam, and is detrimental to women’s health, sexuality, and fertility. Young men particularly dwelled on the subject of sexuality and said they would prefer to marry an uncircumcised woman, assuming that these women take more pleasure in sex, and are more ‘tasty’. The way they discussed the subject reveals a certain reification of sexual enjoyment. They did not speak of sexuality in relational terms, and did not consider their own behaviour in relation to women, but focused on the absence or presence of a clitoris. Many of these young men seem to be constructing a dream image of uncircumcised women, a fantasy of how sex with non-excised women would be. From talking to women, I got the impression that their sexual response, or lack of it, had more to do with men’s sexual behaviour than with the
Arnfred Page 88 Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:38 PM