 Hi everyone, welcome back to our podcast from the Kamasutra to 2020, where we look at your questions, your concerns, even your worries around all things to do with sex and sexuality. So today, it is my huge pleasure and privilege to present our most amazing speaker, Masuma Ranalvi. Masuma is not only is she a very, very dear friend, but she's this amazing woman who does incredible work in India. She's the founder of an organization called We Speak Out, which is basically active in trying to eliminate FGM, female genital mutilation from India. And as somebody who, before I got to know Masuma and before we talked about this, I didn't even know that it existed in India. And once I heard about everything that you had to say, Masuma, it's just been something that I feel so strongly about almost as strongly as you do about it. So thank you so much for joining us. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much, Masuma. And it's such a pleasure to be here with you and talking to you. Masuma, I am going to be putting a lot of maybe some uncomfortable questions to you. And I hope that'll be okay. Anvita, Dr. Anvita Madan Behel, who is our psychosexual therapist and is normally on the podcast, couldn't be with you today due to personal reasons, but she's also sent a bunch of questions. And I want to say that this whole thing started because a bunch of girls over the last few months have been writing into us and saying, if I don't have a clitoris, can I still have orgasms? And it got me thinking about much deeper issues that go around it. There's just, it's a huge big surrounding issue. It's not just as simple as that, is it? So can I ask you to start by telling us how you began this work? So let me start with my personal story. I grew up in the city of Mumbai. And as you know, Mumbai is one of India's most vibrant, modern cities. I was part of a very, very warm, loving family. My grandmother used to stay in the village of Maharashtra, and she used to come to meet us during the summer vacation. Once my grandmother had come home and she told me, let's take you for an outing. Now my grandmother was an extrovert. And it was always fun going with her because she would take me out with wine, candies and chocolates. And it was a pleasure going out with grandmother. So I got dressed, my mother put on my best dress and I went out with my grandmother. I was taken to this area called Hindi Bazaar in Mumbai. And she took me into a dark decorative building. I was feeling very uneasy as to where are we heading for. I was looking for an outing. And we enter into this building, get into the first floor. It's already dingy. And she knocks at a door. It's opened by an old lady. We enter into the house. Now in our community, my community, which is the Bhora community, we have a traditional sitting on the ground. So we keep shoes out. There are carpets and rugs on the floor. We enter in and she takes us into the inner room and we sit down on the floor. Instantly, within seconds, my grandmother asks me to lie down. And I have no idea what's happening to me. And she says, it's going to be very quick. Just lie down. And I'm resisting lying down. But she kind of pushes me down. She actually puts my shoulders down. And this lady who's on the other side, she holds my leg. So I'm being pinned down by these two old ladies. This lady on the other hand, she removes my panty. And that's when I started sobbing in a started crying. It was too small. I was seven years old. And I didn't have it in me to be shout. And this lady, she takes some instrument. I don't know what it is. It's a knife or a blade. And she cuts a part of my genitals. It's a sharp pain. And I am so traumatized by it. It's very quick. She puts a black powder there. And she puts my panty. And then they say you could go home. If everything is a blur. After that, I just remember getting home and sobbing. And I've told my mother and I'm like, why did you send me with my grandmother? And my mother tells me it's okay. She tells me to hush. Nothing, don't worry. It's all going to be fine. And there was pain. There was an enormous amount of pain. For days, for days I used to bleed while being. It was really, really painful. And this was something which there was no explanation given to me. Nobody talked to me about it. And I was told to keep quiet. And through my life, it's from seven till now, I was told that you cannot talk about it. This is something which just happens. It's part of our life, part of our culture, part of our community. And the trauma of that day was kind of depressed. I was not allowed to speak about it. And I kind of shut myself away. I realized what actually happened to me because nobody ever told me what happened to me. I was never given any explanation for it. Much later when I was in my 30s, I read about this practice of female genital mutilation, which happens in Africa. And while reading the account of female genital mutilation, my mind is like going, but isn't this what exactly happened to me? And that's when I started to give a name to what had happened to me. And I realized that yes, this is exactly what happened to me. And this is exactly what happens in my community. The sad story is that this happens even today. And young girls in my community are subject to this practice in this precisely this kind of a secretive manner, where there is obviously there's no question of consent for a seven year old child. And you the procedure is performed most of the times in places like the way I went to in most barbaric kind of conditions. In some instances, it happens in a medicalized format that also doesn't make it right. But what happened to me really was something that had troubled me throughout my life. And it almost took me 40 years to confront it within myself first, and then to find the courage to speak openly out about it. And because I was enveloped and I was born and brought up in such a culture of silence that I did not have the courage really to do it. I became a very outspoken person as I grew up as an adult. But I never had the courage to face what had happened to me as a child. And it was in 2015 that I did speak out. I wrote about my experience. I spoke about my experience. And that was the most pathetic moment in my life when I did that. And actually doing that and publicly talking about it happened that I connected with a lot of women because a lot of women connected with me. And it is a time where we all kind of together, we've talked about something like this which we had never spoken about. And we decided to start this movement. We called ourselves the organization which we built which we speak out. And today we are actively working to see that we eliminate this practice from our lives from our country and from the world. Oh my God. I don't even know how, I don't even know how to deal with listening to that story. I'm always in tears. I don't know how you lived through that. And like you said, you know, age seven, people, you know, in the world you hear people calling it female circumcision. It's nothing like female circumcision. This is in the most barbaric conditions like you said in unhygienic conditions. There's nothing stopping the bleeding as Anvita was saying from one of her, one of her clients, one of her patients who's come to her that these are, you can have phantom pains from the removal of the clitoris for the rest of your life. Absolutely, absolutely. And as I started working on this subject, I of course spoke to a lot of women who had gone through this practice. And we've also done a lot of research. There are almost 40 to 50% of the women who've gone through this practice suffer from the psychological trauma of this. And there is fear, there is anxiety, there is low self-esteem. You know, I've spoken to women who say they don't trust people and who have difficulty in taking sexual partners, who feel unable to have sexual pleasure. A lot of women I've spoken to say they have no sex drive, you know. And so things like this are in abundance. And this is part of the life of women who are subject to this. And you know, in the world today, there are 200 million who have been subject to this practice. So you can imagine what we are subjecting our girls and our women. And deliberately just because so that they should not feel pleasure because if they feel pleasure, it's likely that they'll go off and be promiscuous or go off and be with somebody else. I mean, is there a reasoning behind it? So see, none of, well, we're not given a reason typically as to why this happens to us. But in later life also, nobody has an explanation? Yeah. So when we started talking to a lot of women, typically, you know, women like my grandmother, my grandmother was not there when I realized all of this had happened to me and understood a lot of this. My grandmother was really was she was not alive for me to talk to her about it. But I did speak to a lot of grandmothers and I spoke to a lot of women who have, you know, gone through this and done this to their children, grandchildren. And a lot of them expressed this concern that you don't need to do this to girls. And one of the reasons, biggest reasons to say is, you know, so that your child, your girl does not go astray. Now, you know, the premium, which our culture puts on the is that in the honor of girls. So the whole fear that that either she would go astray, she would be to promise with in her marriage, or she will have extra marital affairs, or she will have a pre marital affair. So basically, how do you control and contain a girl? Now, if you see female gentle mutilation, the whole focus of female gentle mutilation practice, in whichever form it is, there are multiple forms of the practice in which you have ever formed it is in the attack is on the clitoris. The practice surrounds itself around the clitoris. Now, what is the clitoris? The clitoris is the one part of the female anatomy, which is for sexual pleasure. That is the one part of our body, which is meant for sexual pleasure. And this entire practice is centered around this. It's centered around cutting it centered around removing it centered around, you know, putting a focus on this part as an evil part. It's a part which is a bad part, it's something which is removed. So a lot of girls, I've spoken to this event, they would when they went through this practice, the kind of explanations they were given that you know, there's a worm in your body, which has to be removed. There's something bad in your body, there's something evil, there's a devil in your body, which has to be removed. So those are the kind of explanations which are given to children when this practice has to be performed. So the whole association of the clitoris, which is the center of sexual pleasure in a woman's body, is that this is something bad, is this is something wrong, and this has to be done away with. And which is why if you see, since a child you've been told that this is bad, and this is wrong, and this is dirty, the attitude towards sexual pleasure itself is very negative then. You have a very negative connotation and you have a connotation of shame, which is so strongly internalized with this, which is why there are women, I've spoken to who say that they just are not able to enjoy sex with their husbands. And psychology plays an extremely important role. It's not that you have pleasure and you experience sexual pleasure, orgasm, just with your body. The mind plays an absolutely critical role in sexual pleasure. Now if your mind is telling you something else, there is always going to be this disconnect between the physical act of sex and sexual pleasure and what the mind is telling. So this is how this whole practice is kind of imbibed, and is the reasoning for it to carry on is basically to curb and control girls and women. You know what, I'm almost frightened to say that yes, the pleasure all begins in the mind because they might do a lobotomy on us, then what will happen? They might get moved. Honestly, this is just, oh God, it's so distressing. And like I said, Masooma, till you told me about it, I always thought it was a practice in Africa. I didn't even know it existed in India. And you were just giving us some pretty horrific statistics of not just India, but Asia and Malaysia in particular. Yes, absolutely. Malaysia and Indonesia both. So in both these countries, which are largely Islamic countries, and you know, it's kind of literally formalized, legalized, you know, the practice. And what is even more horrific about this practice in these countries, it happens as an infant. So it's happened at the time you are born. So as a result of which a lot of these girls who grow up with being subjected have no memory of it also. And it's actually part of the pregnancy package. So along with your pregnancy when the child is born and if it's a girl child, you get the female circumcision done at that point in time itself. Yes, so that's what it is. And I think there is need for the world to kind of take note of this fact because there has been a worldwide focus on Africa and FGM being a cultural practice in Africa, which is true and which has to be dealt with and you have to kind of do away with it. But I think the world needs to focus on Asia also because a large number of women and girls in Asia, almost 89% of women in Indonesia itself are being subject to this. And we need to sit up and take note of this. Governments in these countries have to sit up and take note of this. I think you're so right. I think people do need to sit up and take note of this. And it needs to become a bigger voice. It needs to become a bigger issue that is being dealt with on an open forum, not with people trying to sort of fight to get their voice heard. So I'm just so happy that you are one of the voices that is being heard because I think that you're going to make a huge difference in the life of many, many women. Now, this particular podcast that we've run always is about understanding the questions and concerns of people around sexuality and trying to address those. So in terms of the questions that have come into us, like I said, girls who are saying, if I don't have a clitoris, can I still feel pleasure? Now, I know that we've said that the clitoris is the center of female pleasure. That's what we generally think of. But as women, we're lucky enough to have many other points. Tell me, what do you advise people that is there a way past this? Is there a life for pleasure beyond FGM? Definitely. There's absolutely life beyond. Great news. And there are ways to have sexual pleasure even beyond the clitoris. So of course, the clitoris is scientifically and anatomically the part of the body which does provide for sexual pleasure. But I think sexual pleasure can be experienced to other parts of the body as well. And, you know, there are so many other parts of the body which can experience aortic sensations. And just something which comes to my mind just act of holding our hands sensually itself can give you pleasure. Someone who has been through your years sensually can give you pleasure. And then there are other parts of the body also which can be around. And you can experience a lot of a lot of symptoms and you can experience pleasure through it. So, I mean, all is not lost. Definitely not lost. It's the way you think. And as I said, it's the mind which is the most important thing while having sexual pleasure. So you can experience sexual pleasure through various means. Having said that, in my community, the kind of the kind of practice of female genital mutation is where the clitoral foot is kind of cut. And the way in which it is done is there are no hard and fast things. So sometimes the cut may be minimal. Sometimes the cut may be too large. Also, you have to think of it as a seven-year-old child, a six-year-old child who's being subjected. The child is going to move. So sometimes in the movement, some other part can get cut and there could be damage. But you can always get it assessed. You can check it with a gynecologist and what is it that is damaged. There are reconstruction surgeries which are available for especially types of FGM, which is called intubulation. Where the entire external genitalia are cut. And then the vaginal opening is switched up, which is the most brutal form of FGM. But even in those kind of cases, there are doctors who specialize in doing reconstructive surgery of the clitoris and of the genital parts of women. So yes, there is the science part of it. There is medical part of it where there are attempts and ways in which women can be helped to do it. And as I said, there are other parts of the body which can be used. But the biggest thing to deal with for a person who's gone through FGM is to be able to kind of deal with the trauma, which is kind of depressed and depressed at the back of our psyche. And you have to deal with it professionally. You have to deal with it consciously. And you have to look at sex not as a negative thing, not as a shameful thing, not that something bad or something evil, but it's something which is for you, which is good for you. And you deserve it. It's your right. And you're going to find it no matter what. I think that that's really good advice. I mean, I'm just, like I said, I just literally have tears at the back of my eyes through this entire conversation. But that makes sense, of course, that pleasure comes from the mind. We can find other parts of the body, but the strongest, the biggest impediment to our pleasure is also the trauma that's associated with it. So the brain is already saying, no, no, no, this is a bad thing because this caused so much trauma and grief and angst in me. And I think that a lot of people don't realize how important therapy is. Some people also may not necessarily be able to afford it. Tell me, are there groups, other groups like yours, in your group, is it sort of spread across in there? Are there people that they can get in touch with in your organization for help? How does that work? So actually talking of therapy, the biggest therapy which worked for us when we started talking about this, that itself was therapeutic. We formed a WhatsApp group and we speak out initially with a WhatsApp group where women like me came in. And for the first time in our life, we were talking about our sexual part. We were talking about our sex life. We were talking about our sexual and believing that itself is liberating because we as women never talk about all of this. We never thought to do it. We never think it's possible to do and it's just not part of our being. So when we started doing this, so women of all ages, literally from 18 to 18, sitting in one group talking about their life experiences and that itself was therapeutic. But within our group also there are psychologists, psychotherapists, there are counselors who have helped a lot of people. We have members from across India, as well as across the world. And we have psychotherapists who is a founding member of the organization. She writes a lot about it. She talks to people and she practices psychotherapy. But you know having intimate conversations with each other, just women to women and talking about our bodies and our sexual lives is the first step. And believe me, that is itself therapeutic. I agree with you. I just think having a group of women who are sympathetic and ready to listen and who understand is amazing. But also having a group that's been through the same thing, that empathy there will be just unbelievably supportive and it will be fantastic. So Anbita had actually asked another question, which she was talking about one of her clients again. And she said, what happens in the case of people who've gone through FGM, what is their relationship with self-pleasure? Are they able to come to some kind of an understanding with masturbation? Is it something that they do turn to, can turn to? Is it something that you think frightens them? So you know I think to answer this question, let me tell you a little bit more about the Now the clitoris is a gland and actually what is visible in the anatomy of the body is a tip of the clitoris. So the clitoris, the way it is described is it's like a pocket flower and what is visible above is a tip of it. The bulk of it is under the vaginal wall, it's kind of hidden and the tip of the clitoris has almost 8,000 nerve endings. So it's an extremely ultra-sensitive part of our body. Is it actually double the number of nerve endings than a penis? It's 8,000 nerve endings. Now the clitoris also has a clitoral cord and the clitoral cord serves as a function of protecting the clitoris. It's like an eyelid which serves as a function of protecting the eye. Similarly, clitoral cord. Now the practice in India which I was subjected to and people in my community are subjected to is the clitoral cord is removed. Now what happens is when you remove the clitoral cord, you're exposing this very, very sensitive part of 8,000 nerve endings. And so a lot of women and girls experience a lot of pain even when there's a brushing of the clitoris. So when you're talking of self-pleasure, it's a painful process and that is something which is kind of taken away from you. And I think if you see the origins of the FGM also, they do not want you to start experiencing self-pleasure because self doing something like masturbating, the female version of it. So to prevent that this procedure is kind of performed to not allow you to lose. And now because your clitoral clitoris is exposed, you cannot dare touch it. If you touch it, you will be exposing yourself. So much pain, it's unbelievable. So it's kind of, it's the punishment which is given. And that's the idea. It's a lifelong punishment. So I mean it's something which we have to do a little bit and there is no other way for us. We have to abolish, eliminate, end this practice. I agree. I think that this needs to be removed. The fact that as mothers, they're doing it to their own daughters, how can you even think like that? Yeah, but you know, when mothers do it, they do it out of a sense of duty. They do it out of a sense of religious obligation or religious dictar that you have to do it. And mothers do it out of a sense of belief that if I don't do it to my child, tomorrow if my child's daughter runs away and marries outside of the community or has multiple affairs, I am to blame that I didn't do it. So mothers do it. I mean, I'm saying this because I'm a mother today and I know mothers per se do not come from a space of wanting to harm their child. So, you know, that is a given, but they come from the space that, you know, they've been told that this is a good thing. They've been told that this has to be done. And which is why, you know, an organization like mine plays an important role in explaining to mothers that no, you are doing something which is going to be harmful. You're doing something which in the long run, your child will have to be advised for it. And you're kind of doing something which is going to probably affect her whole life. So, there is a need to kind of explain, make them understand, create an awareness, you know, about all of these things. And that's the work I do. I hope that God gives you tremendous strength to continuing this work and to be able to do even 10 times more than you're doing at the moment, Masooma, because I think it's very, very important. And I just, yeah, so in answer to Anvita's question, self-pleasure isn't necessarily an option because of certain other issues which will lead to more pain than pleasure. I guess we come right back to the question that started this entire conversation between us, this podcast between us, that if your clitoris has been removed, if you don't have a clitoris, and I guess it also works with a lot of other young girls who keep writing into us who haven't had FGM done to them, so their clitoris is intact, but they don't know where it is, they don't know what to do with it. So, this is for all young girls out there, that there is always a way of feeling pleasure, of experiencing pleasure through other parts of the female body, like Masooma said earlier, having somebody nibble on your ear can be very sexy for some people. Having somebody nibble on your neck can be really sexy for other people, the back is very sensitive and so on, so there's all sorts of options. You don't only have to focus on the clitoris either if you don't have a clitoris anymore, or if you don't know where it is. There are other ways of doing it, and before you can do any of that, it's all up there in the mind. We need to remove the trauma, the blockages, the taboos that have been fed in over there, and then only can we move forward. Masooma, as we bring this program to an end, is there any kind of advice that you'd like to leave our listeners with? I would like to say that sex education is really dismal in our country. Talking about sex is taboo. You do not really understand what sexual pleasure is all about. I did not know the word clitoris till I was in my 13th. I never learned about clitoris. In fact, forget me and forget me knowing about clitoris in our medical books. Clitoris was never ever talked about. It was only in 1998, and as recent as 1998, that the first study of clitoris really took place. Clitoris has been ignored from centuries, and it being the source of female sexual pleasure has never really been important in the world. The study of clitoris started, and the female anatomy started, and understanding the whole concept of a woman's pleasure. The point is that sex education is dismal, and we really never learn about it through our whole life. My advice to young people and old people, everybody alike, is we need to learn about these things. Self-learn, understand, talk to people, read, inform ourselves as to what is sexual pleasure. If this is our birthright, you do not need to be ashamed about it. Go out there, find yourself, your partner, whoever you're lover, and experience sexual pleasure. I think that's the bottom line as far as I'm concerned. There is no taboo, there is nothing dirty about it, there is nothing evil about it, and it is not against a religious experience sexual pleasure. I think that's great advice, and I really hope everybody out there listens. I have to say on a personal note that whenever I do a reel or a video or whatever you get, I get let's say 95% of the people saying how wonderful it is, and thank you for this, and then there's 5% of viciousness, but I always have somebody or the other writing in and saying, how, by talking about pleasure, I am leading young people down the wrong path, and I will be punished in heaven for, you know, like, okay, stop. Nobody ever said that understanding about pleasure, understanding about your body was a bad thing, an evil thing, a dirty thing, except for a handful of people who, unfortunately, have managed to control the entire world with that wonderful idea, and they're still controlling us, and I think we need to move on. Masoom, I can't thank you enough for being with us, really. I just think that with the work that you're doing is amazing, and I really, really hope that this particular podcast reaches out to a lot of people, and that you get a lot more visibility and power to you. Thank you so much, and for everybody out there, if you enjoyed listening to the video, if you found it useful, please do like, comment, subscribe. If you need to get in touch with me, I am, as always, on info.cma.anand at gmail.com, send your questions in to me, and if you need to get in touch with Masoomah, you can actually get in touch with her at speakoutonfgm, which is all one word, it'll be in the description anyway, so don't worry if you haven't quoted, but that is speakoutonfgm.com. Stay safe, look after yourselves, be strong in your minds, and we will see you over here very soon again. Bye-bye.