Recent discussion of male circumcision here has provoked the kind of debate female circumcision never does (the stunning wrongness of amputating bits of women’s sex-organs is seldom met by suggestions it might be more hygenic.)
Seeing the ease with which a one-sided debate can organize opinion the Raélian’s, famous for holding the scientifically illiterate press hostage over a cloning story with as much plausibility as ‘Paris Hilton Patents Time Machine’, have decided to try again. Clitoraid, like Clonaid before it, is a front set up by the Raélians which, instead of pretending to clone humans, claims to be an attempt to prevent female circumcision in Africa.
Rather than waste time supporting some of the established efforts to raise awareness of the issue the Raélians Clitoraid has goes to the heart of the issue by making it easy to donate directly to singer/auto-journalist/saviour of humanity Raél Claude Vorilhon. He plans to build a ‘Pleasure Hospital’ where clitorises are surgically reconstructed by a Raélian OBGYN. Right now he’s only managed to build a website but if you PayPal him in Vegas, he’s promised to do it and as he only needs $70,000 so why not have a little faith? It’s not like they’re a bunch of crazy UFO worshipers with a Swastika in their logo.
Fuck.
I suspect your money would stand a better chance of making it to Africa if you rolled it into a tube and tried to convince Angelina Jolie it was a tampon.
(via Metafilter)
Rael is loaded, and it’s amazing how many wealthy people support his act. It (Clitoraid) doesn’t surprise me, neither does their claim to reconstruct a clit. He’s like like Anthony Robbins in the Dark Side. The Raelians always have a little section in the Mind,Body, Spirit festival every year here, and people still walk up to their stall to ask questions. The first (and last) time I attended this festival of (cough) Bullshit, I was with a male friend who made it his mission to harangue the dude behind the stall, telling him he was an alien and all. The Raelian stall keeper didn’t know what the hell to say.
Anaastasia - The amazing thing is ‘Googling’ clitoral reconstruction turns out to be viable. In a woman there appear to be enough of the clitoris hidden that can be reveled and a ‘real’ clit rebuilt. I assumed it was bogus because I was thinking about trying to do the same for a guy.
But will it have the same response? I’ve read about reconstruction, bringing it outward, which is about excess skin removal, but the nerve endings aren’t fiddled with. Now I’m curious…but as for Rael’s sales jibe, he’s riddled with fallacies though.
Anasasia - Rael’s mental, no doubt. I’m sure a reconstructed clit isn’t as good as new but it appears to be a lot better than trying to do the same thing on a man. I’m thinking it’s a bit like swapping a toe for a thumb. Functional but by no means perfect.