Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below 
S
Spartacus
Guest
When Sia Amma speaks about her circumcision, sitting in her Ellis street apartment, her words describe the joyful sound of African drumming and singing, but her ebony face caressed by the soft afternoon light exhibits the painful childhood memory of an unanesthetized surgery.
Amma was subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) at the age of 9 in an African village at the border between Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. “I didn’t know what was going to be taken from me,” Amma calmly explained. Not until she came to the United States to study at City College 14 years ago, did Amma realize what the surgical act had been about.
FGM is practiced on an estimated 6,000 girls and women daily worldwide, and consists in the excision of the clitoris — often without any anesthetics or sterile instruments. Like male circumcision, it is a controversial and sensitive issue, particularly when it comes to the pain caused by the absence of analgesia.
For Amma, now 35, the dichotomy of suffering and celebration is a redundant issue in female circumcision. “It’s very contradicting: every man wants to know he is doing a good job pleasuring a woman,” when actually in many cultures clitoris excision is meant to decrease female sexual drive and pleasure.
Amma herself fought family pressure to save her own daughter, now 19 years old, from being circumcised back in her village in Africa. But the social pressure is such that even her daughter “felt alienated” because all her friends were circumcised.
In fact, the cultural reasons behind FGM are numerous and vary for each country. From mystical beliefs due to a lack of health education, to the sociological necessity of “fitting in” and finding a husband, this practice has numerous roots, as well as many health consequences.
Amma explains that circumcised women are afraid of consulting doctors here in the United States by fear of their reaction — shock. She even receives anonymous e-mails asking for referrals to doctors who would help heal circumcision-related illnesses, such as infections, or would simply be familiar with the procedure to talk.
Although she educates people about FGM, Amma doesn't like to elaborate on the trauma associated with the act itself. “I try not to condemn. I go with compassion and an open mind,” Amma said.
Instead, Amma has decided to perpetuate the African traditional celebration of femininity she remembers — without the clitorectomy — by designating the first day of spring, March 20, “International Clitoris Day,” a date at which women from all nationalities may get together to talk about their sexuality. “I figured, why not have the clitoris blossom in spring?” she said laughing.
For the past two years, on that day, Amma has performed in Berkeley then in San Francisco the educational comedy “In Search of My Clitoris,” which she wrote. “People are afraid of women’s sexuality, so I think that if we can talk about it and if we can celebrate it, then it no longer has the power to scare us.”
Interacting with her audience during the show, Amma realized that the lack of mother-daughter discussion about sexual issues was not just an African problem. This led her to ask the question: what did your mother say to you?
“And a lot of people, their mother said nothing!” exclaimed Amma in her light and charming African accent.
Or worse than nothing. As Amma recalls, a German mother once told her daughter: “Don’t stick your hand down there, you could really hurt yourself: the thing down there has teeth, it’s going to cut you!”
Amma acknowledges that her own dialogue with her mother about sexuality was very poor. “I don’t want to hear about my mother’s sex life,” she said. “But I want at least to have a sense of her sexuality, so that I don’t have to feel so ashamed and guilty.”
The product of her discussions with women from all cultures is a new show, “What Mama said about down there,” currently playing at the Buriel Clay Theater in the African American Art and Cultural Complex.
Amma said that the mothers in her community back in Africa are very pro-active in perpetuating the rite, by fear of their daughter being ineligible for marriage. “So it has to stop with the mothers” Amma explained, adding, “That’s why for me, whether it’s here, whether it’s in Africa, it’s important that mothers and daughters start talking.”
Amma was subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) at the age of 9 in an African village at the border between Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. “I didn’t know what was going to be taken from me,” Amma calmly explained. Not until she came to the United States to study at City College 14 years ago, did Amma realize what the surgical act had been about.
FGM is practiced on an estimated 6,000 girls and women daily worldwide, and consists in the excision of the clitoris — often without any anesthetics or sterile instruments. Like male circumcision, it is a controversial and sensitive issue, particularly when it comes to the pain caused by the absence of analgesia.
For Amma, now 35, the dichotomy of suffering and celebration is a redundant issue in female circumcision. “It’s very contradicting: every man wants to know he is doing a good job pleasuring a woman,” when actually in many cultures clitoris excision is meant to decrease female sexual drive and pleasure.
Amma herself fought family pressure to save her own daughter, now 19 years old, from being circumcised back in her village in Africa. But the social pressure is such that even her daughter “felt alienated” because all her friends were circumcised.
In fact, the cultural reasons behind FGM are numerous and vary for each country. From mystical beliefs due to a lack of health education, to the sociological necessity of “fitting in” and finding a husband, this practice has numerous roots, as well as many health consequences.
Amma explains that circumcised women are afraid of consulting doctors here in the United States by fear of their reaction — shock. She even receives anonymous e-mails asking for referrals to doctors who would help heal circumcision-related illnesses, such as infections, or would simply be familiar with the procedure to talk.
Although she educates people about FGM, Amma doesn't like to elaborate on the trauma associated with the act itself. “I try not to condemn. I go with compassion and an open mind,” Amma said.
Instead, Amma has decided to perpetuate the African traditional celebration of femininity she remembers — without the clitorectomy — by designating the first day of spring, March 20, “International Clitoris Day,” a date at which women from all nationalities may get together to talk about their sexuality. “I figured, why not have the clitoris blossom in spring?” she said laughing.
For the past two years, on that day, Amma has performed in Berkeley then in San Francisco the educational comedy “In Search of My Clitoris,” which she wrote. “People are afraid of women’s sexuality, so I think that if we can talk about it and if we can celebrate it, then it no longer has the power to scare us.”
Interacting with her audience during the show, Amma realized that the lack of mother-daughter discussion about sexual issues was not just an African problem. This led her to ask the question: what did your mother say to you?
“And a lot of people, their mother said nothing!” exclaimed Amma in her light and charming African accent.
Or worse than nothing. As Amma recalls, a German mother once told her daughter: “Don’t stick your hand down there, you could really hurt yourself: the thing down there has teeth, it’s going to cut you!”
Amma acknowledges that her own dialogue with her mother about sexuality was very poor. “I don’t want to hear about my mother’s sex life,” she said. “But I want at least to have a sense of her sexuality, so that I don’t have to feel so ashamed and guilty.”
The product of her discussions with women from all cultures is a new show, “What Mama said about down there,” currently playing at the Buriel Clay Theater in the African American Art and Cultural Complex.
Amma said that the mothers in her community back in Africa are very pro-active in perpetuating the rite, by fear of their daughter being ineligible for marriage. “So it has to stop with the mothers” Amma explained, adding, “That’s why for me, whether it’s here, whether it’s in Africa, it’s important that mothers and daughters start talking.”
