I am a victim of Female Genital Mutilation. My mother and her mother underwent the procedure and I experienced it even before I could understand what was going on. I can’t remember how young I was, but the experience characterized my earliest memories. I remember that I cried for days. The pain was so unbearable, especially for a child, and I bled a lot. I don’t even know how I survived. But afterwards, I lived quite a normal life until my late teens when I became sexually active. I honestly didn’t understand what the whole fuzz about sex was about because I barely enjoyed it. At first, I thought it was because the men didn’t know how to pleasure me.
As I grew into my 20s, I bought dildos of different sizes. Those that vibrate and all that and I realised that the FGM I experienced in my childhood has destroyed me for life. I started doing more research and reading more about other girls who had undergone FGM and the implications on their sexual and intimate lives. My clitoris was cut off. The clitoris is one of the most pleasurable spots for a woman to enjoy sex and unfortunately I don’t have that anymore. It started a long journey of hatred and disgust towards my mother in the village. Why would she do this to me? Why would she rob me of a chance to enjoy sex to its fullest? I cried so much over this pain and hated my mother so much that I cut her off from my life and never went to visit her. I didn’t know when she passed on and I didn’t care so much about it.
Now, I am turning 30 soon. I have met a good man who knows my issue. We have had sex and he is the only man who has helped me experience a little pleasure in the act. His foreplay game is top-notch and I have decided to stick with him till the end. He informed me that he wanted to start preparing for our marriage and he wanted to go see my family. Both of my parents had passed on. But my uncles and aunties were still there to welcome us. I didn’t expect the kind of reception I experienced when I got to my village. They sacked me and my partner from my family house. They called me an outcast. They said I have turned my back on my family and I have become a disgrace to them. They called me names and told me that a child who abandons her mother even in her death bed is disowned by the whole family and I should never step foot in the village again.
I want to get married to this man, but his father says that he cannot marry a woman who has been disowned by her family. I have gone back to my village two more times to beg, but I have been sacked. I don’t know what to do. My partner is losing interest in me because of this whole issue with my family. Already, I can see how frustrated he gets when I don’t moan and show pleasure during sex. Sometimes I fake pleasure, but now he knows me so much that I can’t fake it anymore. Considering what my mum and my family did to me are they justified for treating me this way?
