@Arkizzle
yes, a very good thing to point out: the woman in BME did leave most of her clitoris intact, and it is definitely "another set of circumstances". It is also interesting to note that not all FGM procedures entail removal of the clitoris. And of course, similar to the BME woman, some of the women that AMAM & like organizations wish to help go through FGM having given their full consent. Obviously many women and children haven't.

I really liked the contrast of the BME situation with those that AMAM's ads deal with, because there are innumerable situations that are not as black and white as we might assume, whether they take place within "non-western" cultures or not. AMAM definitely wants to do good work for those who need it, but their stark, one-dimensional ads might alienate some and seem culturally insensitive, as Vermilliona (#4) touched on earlier. Either way, the debate is good: this is not an easy topic and people need to examine all sides carefully.

A week and a half ago, BME's Modblog featured a woman's "consensual female circumcision" [NSFW], which garnered a lot of disturbingly enthusiastic responses from gentleman commenters (and a few women as well). A different set of circumstances, certainly; but very interesting for any debate of personal liberties, who we see as victims and why, what some of us deem "visually pleasing" and how similar these aesthetics are to what we might call brutal from any other culture...