"The first and only time I had sex it did not go well."

January 21, 2016 10:45 PM

Mariya Karimjee writes powerfully about her experience with female genital mutilation.

Female genital mutilation previously on MetaFilter.

More by Mariya Karimjee.

posted by salvia (21 comments total)

I couldn't make it all the way through the article. Heartbreaking, horrifying, and way too common a circumstance.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:14 AM on January 22, 2016

Thanks for reposting this. I read the article when it was featured in the previously (oddly) deleted post, and even though the story itself is horrifically sad, the writing is beautiful and haunting.
posted by anarch at 12:14 AM on January 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Thanks for introducing me to a great writer.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:19 AM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Powerful indeed. Wow, thank you.
posted by smoke at 1:10 AM on January 22, 2016

Wow. Words fail me.
posted by dg at 2:41 AM on January 22, 2016

Karimjee is a really good writer, in this piece and in her other work linked below the fold, exactly the kind of writing I hope to find in posts here. I wonder if she is working on a book-length version of this, because there is more than enough to this story to support a much longer treatment.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:22 AM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

She is a powerful writer. It's a heartbreaking piece to read and left me wondering about her life going forward - will read more of her stuff.
posted by leslies at 5:44 AM on January 22, 2016

Thank you again for reposting this. I was shocked that it was deleted, annoyed that the voice of a woman who actually experienced this was less critical to hear than the sensibilities of an imagined offended reader.

Anyway I don't even know what to say. This is the first time for me that I thought of FGM less as an abstract horror and more as a thing that has happened to individual women. The conflict with her own mother resonates with me and I'm sure others. Oh what a world filled with horror we live in.
posted by goneill at 6:48 AM on January 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

I cannot thank you enough for sharing this, salvia. Not sure what else to say right now. Perhaps later.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:23 AM on January 22, 2016

Damn. That's some writing.
posted by allthinky at 7:51 AM on January 22, 2016

This was amazing. Hard to read, but I think it is important to read to the end, to reach the conclusions she does. I would like to hear from her in ten years, and see how they play out.
posted by epanalepsis at 9:32 AM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Thanks for sharing.
posted by maryr at 9:53 AM on January 22, 2016

meet the FGM survivors fighting against the 'organized crime against gender'
posted by and they trembled before her fury at 10:22 AM on January 22, 2016

Wow. Haunting and powerful. And quite a stark contrast to the very next article up, about two lesbians happily having babies together. Talk a bout a range of women's options in the world.

Thank you for sharing, salvia. I pray that this woman will find the love she deserves.
posted by widdershins at 10:42 AM on January 22, 2016

I definitely sobbed through a good chunk of this. Thank you for posting it.
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:20 PM on January 22, 2016

My mother blamed herself enough that she let me hate her for years without ever clarifying what had happened. She shouldered this blame silently, never once believing that she was worthy of my forgiveness.

Good gods, this made me want to both cry and punch people. And rage against patriarchy -- its manufactured cultural reliance on controlling women's bodies is like a poisonous gas, contaminating all kinds of relationships in all directions.
posted by desuetude at 7:06 PM on January 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thank you for sharing her experience here, I am really glad, and sad, to read it. It hits home.
posted by NorthernAutumn at 7:56 PM on January 22, 2016

Thank you for (re)posting this salvia. One of the most powerful pieces of writing I have read for some time.

desuetude - I found that paragraph particularly haunting as well. I had never really stopped to think about the kind of multi-generational trauma involved in genital mutilation. Her poor mother.
posted by arha at 12:35 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Her blog is remarkable - working my way through it.
posted by leslies at 10:52 AM on January 23, 2016

I definitely sobbed through a good chunk of this.

Me too. I cried through at least half. It was only on a repeat read that, to me, the story became not just about horror and sorrow but also very much about strength, healing, and finding power. It's such a testament to the love between her and her mother that they kept returning to seek connection even across that chasm of pain, anger, and guilt. Meanwhile, her understanding of the situation deepened, such that her anger began less to divide them and more to unite them and her grandmother. What a journey. And the fact that she's now traveling and doing important work, to me, forms a sort of postscript about her coming even more into her own power (though I'm sure there's still more healing underway too). I find it impressive and really wish her the best.
posted by salvia at 2:00 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

This.

Wow.

I can't even start to understand the layers of perspective being covered here, but thanks to her writing I might be able to learn. Thank you for this post.
posted by ChrisR at 10:26 PM on January 25, 2016