Many people ask me how and why I got to the place that I am at right now – running Bodysex workshops and doing private Orgasm coaching for women. Some suggest that it’s hedonistic, or that it’s anti-men – while others say that there are more important things to focus energy on. I believe that there is no better place than inside myself to find the gifts that I can bring to the world. The best way that I have found to access these gifts -as well as my inner power, my pleasure, my strengths and myself – is through my own touch.
There are so many stories that led me here, and today I will share one about- and in honour of – all of the girls who have had their right to sexual pleasure taken from them.
I went to Kenya at the age of 19, in the hopes of living and learning from other cultures. Through several twists of fate I was invited to live with the Maasai tribe, in southern Kenya, and learn from the women in the village.
Particularly interested in their mothering practices, I immediately noticed that the children seemed happy, secure, confident and capable. I marvelled at the fact that they rarely cried, babies were always in someone’s arms, they breast fed for years, and no one slept alone. I began to see a correlation between these things – the mothering practices and the child’s feeling of rightness. This way of parenting provided a secure foundation for children to grow from. The intimacy with their mother and other female caregivers, was firmly established early on, so that the children felt right and therefore acted right.
As I got to know the women better I heard them talking about a cultural practice called female circumcision. At puberty, using no anaesthetic, they would remove a girls clitoris and inner labia. As I sat in my tent thinking about this, it dawned on me that what they were removing was a woman’s right to pleasure. The clitoris is the only organ in the body that has no other purpose except for pleasure. So by removing it they are essentially removing a woman’s power.
Living so far from home, and amongst a completely different culture, I felt it wrong to judge this practice. Who was I to say what was right or wrong for someone else? Also it sounded like the ceremony was done by the women and that the women themselves wanted it. I decided to remain open minded but initiated several discussions with Maasai men and women on the topic.
One of the reasons for circumcising women I was told, was hygiene. This I just could not understand. How could a clitoris be considered dirty? Most of the people however knew of no reason at all except that a girl couldn’t be a woman, and therefore get married, until she is circumcised.
The day came where I was invited to the circumcision of a sweet, shy girl named Mary. Circumcision ceremonies signify a rite of passage in Maasai culture and I knew that it was a privilege to be invited. With mixed feelings I agreed to go.
In Maasai homes, there is one main room for the beds and kitchen fire, and then a smaller room for the sheep and goats. When a girl is circumcised it is done in the smaller room, and I struggled to find space in there amongst the many women and young girls. A portion of the mud and stick roof had been removed to let light in and Mary sat, under this opening, on a sheep skin spread out on the floor. She was newly shaved with not a visible hair remaining on her head or body – not even eyebrows. She wore a beaded sheepskin, that hung down the centre of her body covering her vulva, and I could see her budding breasts on either side of the skin. Her face held a look that was a mix of determination and fear and I felt a deep sadness at the reality of what was about to happen. Mary was just becoming a woman.
Women took places on either side of her – ready to hold her legs open – while another sat behind to hold her arms back and cover her eyes. One of these women was her mother and I wondered if this was a day that she had dreaded since Mary was born – or if it was a fact of life that she just accepted. Women and children surrounded this scene watching and waiting- some with hands ready to cover their eyes – until an old grandma came in with a razor and knelt between Mary’s legs. Pouring some sort of liquid on Mary’s vulva, as a way of blessing her, the other women took hold of her limbs and covered her eyes. Then the grandma began to cut.
She began by first removing Mary’s clitoris, cutting off all that was exposed, and then removing her inner lips that were beginning to grow as she was entering womanhood. I saw Mary struggle and scream trying to break free, but the women held tight. Some women around me were looking away, or biting the cloth that hung around their faces, while the little girls watched intendedly. I wondered how they felt knowing that they would be in Mary’s place someday?
Mary managed to struggle enough that the hands came off of her eyes for a brief moment, and the look on her face is one that I will remember forever. I saw fear, pain, torture and panic as she searched the room for an escape. Bursting into tears I was told to leave so that I wouldn’t upset any one else.
Walking back to my tent I felt horrible shame for being a part of something so horrific. Crying and crying I replayed the brutal images in my mind. There was no way that I could accept this as a cultural practice. Mary was a human being and what I had witnessed was wrong any way that I looked at it.
Later that day I went back to Mary’s village to see how she was doing. She was sitting on a bed of soft and beautifully smelling leaves that her mother had made her, looking proud and almost happy. Relieved that it was over I wondered? I shivered imagining how painful it would be to urinate with an open wound on her vulva and then thought how traumatizing it would be to open those legs for her husband when she got married.
Mary smiled at me as I gave her a gift and we held hands while watching the other women prepare food for the party that follows a circumcision. I knew in that moment that there was nothing that I could have done to stop her circumcision, or that I could do for her now to make it better. Yet something inside of me was profoundly changed as I shamefully realized that even with my clitoris intact, I wasn’t embracing my own sexual pleasure or power.
I am just beginning to understand the affect that this experience and the subsequent circumcisions of my nieces and other girls, that I watched grow up, has had on me. I feel a constant aching and painful sadness at the loss of pleasure, creativity, and power in their lives.
By learning to accept and explore my own body with the intent to build intimacy with myself and learn to be my own lover, I have found the power of myself, for myself. It didn’t come from anyone else and once I discovered it, it was impossible to ignore. I cannot imagine my life without this right and this pleasure and I truly hope that the practice of female genital mutilation stops completely. For those of us who have our clitoris intact I hope that we can find a way to embrace our pleasure – as our basic human birthright.
wow that is powerful ,,wow i so know why you are on your path ,,,and i thank you for sharing ,,,,,,,,and for following your hart ,,,,cant say how i am feeling ,,,, wow
Thanks so much for your comment Dayle. It was powerful to write and I’m glad that the words resonated with you. <3
I believe we are very similar when it comes to looking at the ways of others, in that we try to stay open-minded and we understand that each culture believes their ways are “right.” With that knowledge comes an acceptance of sorts, however there are times, such as this, when we know that a practice is merely ceremonial and has no other real purpose. Having the ability to contemplate these ideals, to dissect them, is a privilege of sorts. It absolutely was necessary in your journey and is partly why you are here now, doing what you are doing. Every experience teaches and you are amazing to understand to look for that lesson and use it somehow, to educate and teach others.
I’m not sure the exact reasoning one might comment that there are more important things to focus energy on, but I am sure that you are a beacon of light for many and it’s fairly obvious you are fulfilling a need. I think that is a very important way to focus energy, by helping others. You’re doing some great work and teaching with your whole heart. Pretty rare, my dear!
Thank you for sharing your story . I am profoundly moved by it in many ways. I could picture the whole experience as you described it and can not imagine actually being there. I’ve seen documentaries on female circumcision and aware it exists , but coming from someone you know, and someone who is strongly connected to this culture and way of life makes it more ‘real ‘somehow. I’m sure I would have been asked to leave the tent had I been in your place. Having travelled myself to very different cultures, there is a certain level of acceptance one should demonstrate even if it is a ritual or practice they consider important. But for female especially, and even male circumcision there is something very deep in me that believes it is wrong!! How can a culture beautiful in so many ways have been led to believe this was ok in the first place. I wonder how it started? I don’t remember hearing why? Was it an outsider that brought this idea to them? How does one try and change something like this besides educating, spreading the word until one day one or more of these women stand up and refuse because they know different, were educated on this practice? For issues like this and other important issues in the world where women’s power is taken from them in one form or another . I am grateful to have been born here being a woman ,and I’m grateful there are people like you Natasha ,planting healing seeds empowering other women.
Thanks so much for your comment Meshell. It is a very complex issue and from what I have read it sounds like it was introduced from outside the culture. The purpose would most likely be to keep women faithful yet in Maasai culture this isn’t an issue at all. Its also very interesting that the men have no idea that this takes the pleasure away for a woman or that a woman could have pleasure at all. It has been done for so long that the original reasons have been long forgotten. They also don’t know what a woman looks like before she is circumcised or after as sex is done in the dark with no foreplay or touching at all. I think that if they knew the difference they would see what they are missing. I am not sure what I can do to change or help this issue but I have tried to offer parents of daughters different things to keep them from having it done. Hasn’t helped so far. I also wonder if I could offer some sort of support for women here who have had it done? Something to think about. <3
Thank you for sharing this incredible experience. It had me cringing as I have never heard anyone’s recount of the actual act of genital mutilation.
I’m having a hard time equating the clitoris to power. I agree that my pleasure is my own and have directly experienced it as my power. I just don’t see my clitoris as directly relating to my power.
Like definitely, I enjoy the pleasure my clitoris brings me and feel sad to think that any woman would have that wonderful sensation taken away from them, but my power comes from finding my pleasure, not directly from my clitoris.
The way i look at it, those women who now have no more clitoris have not had their power taken away. They have had their clitorises removed.
The whole question of whether this practice is right or not is beside the point.
Finding their sexual pleasure may now be more difficult, but their pleasure is still available to them.
In a way, if they are able to get through to their pleasure without touch, the power they will hold will be even greater as it is not attached to an external stimulus.
I have the idea that to say that a woman has no access to power now that she has no clitoris is to take her power away.
I don’t think this is your intention, but this I what I’m hearing reading this.
Thank you so much for your comments Alisa. I appreciate your thoughts very much! I hear what you’re saying and I agree that even without our clitoris we have access to power in other ways. However since our clitoris is the only organ in our body which sole purpose is for pleasure, I believe that the reason it is removed is to decrease or eliminate a woman’s ability to experience pleasure. This keeps her faithful (or is an attempt at that) and subservient as it lessens her right to autonomy. In my opinion it is a deliberate act of oppression to remove it. Oppression = lack of power. I also agree with you that pleasure can be experienced in other ways but the symbolism in cutting off the organ of pleasure is difficult to ignore. I also feel that your comment about how “if they can learn pleasure without touch the power will be greater because there is no external stimuli” is a comment that speaks to the privilege of having that choice because you have an intact clitoris. It reminds me of people who have plenty of food counselling the famished to bear the pangs of hunger. It’s easy to say when we have the very thing that they don’t. Still I agree that they do still have access to power in other ways and our clitoris isn’t our only source of power, however I don’t see how removing it can be seen another way. Thanks again for your comments. 🙂