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160 INTERSEXUALITY
sewn together, in order to prevent sexual intercourse. The labia will heal together,
forming a smooth genital region broken only by a small hole through which urine
and menstrual fluid can pass. Typically performed along with clitoridectomy,
which refers to the removal of the clitoris, the practice is known as female genital
mutilation by its opponents. Infibulation as well as clitoridectomy are commonly
performed on young girls in many Arab, Muslim, and North African cultures.
While infibulation is only practiced in 15–20 percent of all women who undergo
clitoridectomies, in some countries such as Somalia and Sudan, the majority of all
women undergo infibulation.
Girls typically receive the procedure during their early childhood, and always
prior to the onset of puberty. By removing the clitoris, the women who traditionally
performed the surgeries ensure that their daughters can experience no sexual
pleasure and thus will be virgins upon marriage and will remain faithful to their
husbands after marriage. In addition, by sewing together the labia, infibulation
provides an even greater assurance that a girl will not attempt to have sexual intercourse,
since her genitals will be inspected prior to marriage.
The sewn-together labia will then by opened with a knife by the girl’s husband,
and sometimes her female in-laws, so that intercourse can take place. Once the
woman is ready to have her first child, the infibulation must be completely opened
with a knife, a process known as defibulation, in order to allow a child to pass
through the vaginal canal, but it will be sewn up once more after the birth.
As with clitoridectomies, this procedure is often carried out with unsanitary
tools in unhygienic conditions, and often leads to infection, blood loss, and even
infertility or death. Today, in some countries such as Somalia, infibulation is commonly
practiced in a hospital, sometimes with anesthesia. Even in this case, however,
intercourse is generally painful.
See also: Clitoridectomy; Female Genital Mutilation
Further Reading: Hicks, Esther Kremhilde. Infibulation: Status through Mutilation. Rotterdam:
Erasmus University, 1987; Shell-Duncan, Bettina, and Ylva Hernlund, eds. Female
“Circumcision” in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change. Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner,
2000.
INTERSEXUALITY
Intersexuality refers to an individual who is born with ambiguous genitalia. This
means that the genitals of the child do not clearly point to either male or female,
or the child possesses reproductive organs that either do not match the genitals
or the chromosomes. An older term for this condition is hermaphroditism, and
hermaphrodites were once displayed as a human oddity in freak shows. Today,
they are still considered to be a social and medical anomaly, and are generally
surgically “corrected” during infancy or childhood.
Because the development of the sex in the fetus is created by a number of factors,
including the chromosomes, the release of androgens and estrogens, the formation
of the gonads, the creation of the internal reproductive organs, and the formation
of the genitals, there are a number of stages in this process in which the gonads,