They are very pretty and well-priced, I've been tempted to purchase these volumes from time to time. However, almost all of them are abridged, and they aren't in the habit of telling the reader that very directly. Especially if they title the book after a chapter of a longer work. I find this quite a bit shady.

I also love the disclaimers, like this one from Kierkegaard's _Fear and Trembling_: "Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed before allowing them to read this classic work." Don't get too many ideas, kids, or let those philosophers disturb your well-received wisdom! Hah.

Sister, reducing the phenomena to "only one reason" is not very fair, is it? Men may indeed prefer the practice to continue for reasons of fidelity and aesthetics. However, your comment is also oppressive to these women, because you leave out all of the reasons they themselves value and perpetuate genital cutting. Also, little work has been done on post-FGC sexual response. That which has been is mixed. Some women in fact report equal or greater arousal, some of it attached to the values of purity, smoothness and closedness of the body this procedure in many contexts is all about (for the women), as well as physical pleasure in tightness and closure. Note that it is generally women, at least in many contexts, who undertake and demand the procedure.

I think this is a terribly complex issue that demands understanding of all of the perspectives involved. Especially because, as others have noted, we in "the West" have a long history of meddling with the affairs of others in order to style ourselves enlightened protectors of reason and civilization. See Janice Boddy's recent book on early English colonial regulation of FGC for instance. The idea that this is about sexual control of women and barbaric, etc., fits very nicely with our imperialist geopolitical situation vis-a-vis the Middle East and Africa. Shouldn't we be more concerned with all of the issues about gender and women's embodiment in our own countries and cultures before we start pointing a myopic and self-serving finger of blame at others?