Pleasure, orgasm, and sexual mutilations in different cultural settings

Considering all living species, humans are among the most social. In fact, from birth, we develop and live in a social context that inevitably shapes our thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. It is also largely accepted that social contexts affect attitudes toward sexuality; specifically, the way people live out their sexual lives is tightly linked to family messages and behaviors related to appropriate sexual scripts. One’s sexual identity partly depends on gender role, the set of culturally determined expectations that prescribe specific behaviors, traits, and ways of thinking for men and women. For such reasons, attempting to understand sexual behaviors without comprehending the influence of sociocultural factors would seem both misleading and futile. Such a perspective applies even more cogently to female genital mutilation (FGM), practices that are strictly related to the cultural contexts in which they occur. FGM is defined as “all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the female external genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for cultural or any other non-therapeutic reasons” [1]. Generally, the aim of FGM (sometimes broadly referred to as female circumcision) is to preserve female sexual “integrity,” specifically, to guarantee virginity and potential marriageability following religious and social precepts. Although FGM is often associated with psychological distress, this distress becomes even greater should the woman emigrate to a Westernized society.