To calm a woman’s zeal
So we learn that FGM is practiced in Dagestan. Don’t worry about it though – it’s perfectly healthy.
Ismail Berdiev, the chairman of the North Caucasus Muslim Coordinating Center, told the radio station Govorit Moskva that female circumcision is a healthy, “purely Dagestani custom.”
“As far as I know,” Berdiev explained on air, “it’s done to calm a woman’s zeal somewhat. There’s absolutely no health problem here.”
Ah yes, to calm a woman’s zeal, so that she won’t enjoy sex any more, because if she enjoyed it…well that would be kind of gross, you have to admit. Who needs a woman to enjoy sex? What’s the point of that? It’s the man who’s supposed to enjoy it; all the woman is supposed to do is let him enjoy it. (By not talking for instance.) If she wants to enjoy it too she’ll be all “what about me?” when he just wants to focus on himself.
And there’s absolutely no health problem. She can still have a job and do all the domestic work, don’t worry about that.
Oh my gods, I just read these two related articles from the same site that your post links to.
https://meduza.io/en/news/2016/08/17/russian-muslim-official-doubles-down-on-support-for-female-circumcision-says-it-should-be-performed-on-all-women
https://meduza.io/en/news/2016/08/17/prominent-russian-orthodox-archpriest-says-backlash-to-mufti-s-support-for-female-circumcision-is-feminist-howling
So, God created women to bear children but man has to improve on his work by reducing her sexuality. Isn’t this an implicit criticism of God’s design of women’s bodies?
Spirit vs flesh seem to be a constant theme in the three monotheisms: Spirit is good (comes from God), Flesh is bad (comes from nature, animal-like). Spirit is also rational (that’s convenient), and Flesh is more driven by appetite, desire, lust. Men are more rational, women are more the other one…therefore….
Although it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it, because women are the tempters. It’s not that they are more lustful than men, but that they tempt men to “sins of the flesh.” The awaken in men their stronger lust. Women make men more lustful, and that has a “bad” effect on society, on the families, on the children.
And the denial…the North Caucasus Muslim Coordinating Center claiming that the practice is REALLY a ‘purely Dagestani custom.’ Then why do they have any opinion about it?
Since ‘moderate Muslims’ maintain that there is no Quranic support for the practice, and (apparently) no Hadith that prescribe it, how can it be defended simultaneously as ‘local color’ and divine command?
A comment by a nurse at a website covering this.
You just have to push it, don’t you, John. I let that comment through because it’s informative, but you could have omitted that last paragraph. You could have and should have. That’s a Trump-level overgeneralization, and it’s ugly. You also could and should have included a link.
You do realize there are Muslim men who don’t want to hurt their wives during sex, don’t you?
This seems to be the source – a comment on Jihadwatch:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/08/russia-muslim-leader-defends-fgm-after-its-discovered-in-dagestan#comment-1503263
Next time you quote something, John, source it properly, by which I don’t mean “at a website covering this.” Give the link and say “at Jihadwatch.” Don’t play games.
@ 7 Ophelia Benson
Thanks for the source. I got a chuckle out of some of the replies. “bob” says:
Um, bob, you realise that in the Bible, God makes a covenant with Abraham, and a condition of God’s part of the deal is that thenceforth all the men will cut off their foreskins?
Uh huh. Does this guy even realise he’s a mirror image of the people he’s condemning?
(I didn’t give a source for the “cut off their foreskins” thing because I assumed it is well known, but for the sake of completeness, it’s Genesis 17:9-14.)