Psychosexual impact of female circumcision

ABSTRACT

A total of 250 women, who were randomly selected from females attending Maternal and Childhood Centers in Ismailia was gynecologically examined to determine their circumcision status and interviewed by items from the sexual behavior assessment activity. Results showed that 80% of the sample were circumcised. The circumcised women complained of dysmenorrhea [80.5% P <0.001] reported vaginal dryness during intercourse [48.5% P <0.05], lack of sexual desire [45%, P <0.01], less initiative in sex [11%, P <0.05], less pleased by sex [49%, P <0.01], being less orgastic [39%, P <0.01] and with less frequency of orgasm [2.5, P <0.05], having difficulty to reach orgasm [60.5%, P <0.05] than uncircumcised women. However, other psychosexual problems such as loss of interest in foreplay [51.5%] and dyspareunia [46%] did not reach statistical significance: