I have photocopies of all of the following materials. Where some bibliographical information is listed as unknown, I received the photocopies and references from an anonymous donor to this website, who did not supply the full information. Any help in getting the missing information would be much appreciated.http://www.geocities.com/hoodectomy/Print.htm

1. Kellison, Cathrine. “Circumcision for Women.” Playgirl 1.5 (October, 1973). 76, 124-125.

Kellison had her own hood removed, and claims to know several women who had the surgery. According to Kellison’s article, all enjoyed substantial erotic benefits as a result of the surgery. After briefly describing why she decided to have the surgery, Kellison explains how it is done, reassures her readers about how minor a procedure it was (and how little discomfort it caused her in the healing process), and concludes with some comments on how she and the other women she knows who got their hoods removed now feel about their results. Kellison’s own reaction is this (all of the following quotes are from p. 125):

“There were no stars, bells, or strains of angelic chorus in the background. I saw no fireworks, heard no organ music, and was still aware that I was where I was. But the orgasm as I had known it had suddenly been elevated to a new position of glory and lofty power.”

She adds that reaching orgasm was also much easier afterwards:

“Something had happened with the usual tension, that responsibility of reaching an orgasm: the strain had been taken away. It just happened easier.”

Kellison recalls one of her friends whose hood was removed agreeing:

“There’s no more ‘Oh thank God I did it!!’ now. It’s warm and so much easier.”

Another friend (Susan) adds:

“It’s far more sensuous, more than anything I’ve ever experienced, really…somehow, my orgasm [after the surgery] reminds me of honey now, slow and very sensuous.”

2. Kellison, Cathrine. “$100 Surgery for a Million-Dollar Sex Life.” Playgirl 2.12 (May, 1975). 52-55.

The second article substantially repeats in abbreviated form what was published in the first article.

3. Schultz, Terri. “Female Circumcision: Operation Orgasm.” Viva (UK), 1975, 53-54. 104-105.

Schultz reports several cases of women who claim that hood removal surgery dramatically improved their sex lives. One woman (Doris) “found that within three weeks [after the surgery] she was having deep, sensual, overwhelming orgasms,” whereas prior to the operation, “The rare orgasm she did have (at least she thought it was orgasm) was insipid and flat” (53). In describing her first experience of sex after the surgery, Doris said “she had so much sensation the first time she reached orgasm that she started to scream and cry. Her husband thought he was hurting her and tried to pull out, but she grabbed his buttocks and kept him in and had a fantastic orgasm” (54). Doris certainly reports being pleased with her results: “I get incredible feelings of exultation and ecstasy that were never there before”(54). Even women who were orgasmic prior to having their hoods removed report being pleased by the results of having their hoods removed. One such woman, “a twenty-nine-year-old Los Angeles writer,” says that reaching orgasm “was just easier, smoother—the pressure was gone” (104). Schultz reports the opinions of several physicians and surgeons who are opposed to the surgery (though of these, only one is reported as having significant experience with patients who have undergone the procedure, and this one, Dr. Donald Sloan, the Head of the Sexual Therapy Clinic, Metropolitan Hospital, New York, concedes that “all [of the women he has talked with who had their hoods removed] say they would do it again” [104]). Schultz also notes that some women who have the surgery “are extremely sensitive after circumcision, and one woman reported she was stimulated just by walking down the street” (105), but goes on to note that “the initial sensitivity passes before long” (105). One “New York-based stewardess” reports that after having her hood removed, “At first I was very aware of my clitoris […] and my orgasms came very fast at first. But now they’ve settled down,” though she acknowledges that “They are still more intense than before” (105).

4. Anonymous. Letter to the Adviser, Forum (UK) 31.3, 1997, 83-4.

Two women write to the “Adviser” asking whether it would be better for them to get clitoral piercings or have their hoods removed. They report that “an older girl who comes from South Africa” said that she had her clitoral hood removed “when she was 17, and confessed that having her clit exposed made her more sensitive and horny.”

5. Leeuwarden, C. R. “Female Circumcision” in “Letters” section of Body Art (UK) 5 (1986 or 1987 [?]).

The author of this letter removed his wife’s hood (at her request), and reports “we are very satisfied with the result.” He promises to supply before and after pictures for a later number of the magazine. (See below.)

6. Leeuwarden, C. R. “Female Circumcision: 3” in “Letters” section of Body Art (UK) 21 (1987 or 1988 [?]), 44.

This time, one before and two after pictures of his wife’s hood removal are supplied (and printed). Leeuwarden states, “The permanent exposure of the clitoris causes a tremendous increase of sexual feelings” (44) and says of himself and his wife “We are both very happy with the circumcision of my wife and didn’t regret it for a single minute” (44). The pictures Leeuwarden supplies show very plainly how his wife’s clitoral glans was completely covered before the surgery and is clearly exposed afterwards.

7. A. and E. R. “Female Circumcision,” in “Letters” section of Body Art (UK) 19 (1987 or 1988 [?]), (page unknown).

The author (later, in issue number 21—see above, called “Angela”) reports that she and her partner are both circumcised,” and even after twenty years or so have no regrets.”

8. Edna. Letter in Acorn (UK), dated Sept. 7, 1988.

Edna reports, “Although I always, or nearly always enjoyed sex, I never climaxed until after I received a female circumcision.” Edna states that one of her girlfriends had been circumcised and how that had improved sex for her. The idea appealed to Edna, and so she made an appointment with her girlfriend’s doctor. “I let him circumcise me, and wow what a difference it made. The sensations after that were so strong that I came again and again during sex.”

9. Anonymous. “Dominant Delight,” in “Personal Best” section of Forum (UK), December 1992, 125.

The author reports a relationship with a woman whose hood had been removed. “She explained that she had always had a prominent and protruding clitoral hood which, she said, stuck out far beyond her outer labia, and was often in the way because it prevented any body contact. Eventually, she had had it removed. It hadn’t been painful, but it had been quite a long time before she came to accept it. However, she finally came to like it after finding that sex was much better. She was able to control her climax better, she could press closely to her partner in direct contact and when she looked in the mirror, the bared glans was so much preferable to the protruding skin of her former hood” (125). The author seems to agree with the woman’s judgment of the aesthetics of hoodlessness: “She had absolutely no hood, no vestige, nothing to come between my amazed stare and her totally exposed clitoris. I found in mind-blowing”(125).

10. David Haldane. “Clitoral Circumcision.” Forum (UK), 1990 (?), 41-43, 49.

Haldane considers the pros and cons of hood removal in this article. One of the women he interviews, Linda Marx, had difficulty reaching orgasm prior to the surgery. Her doctor recommended that she get her hood removed, however, and after some initial skepticism, she agreed to have the surgery. “I was amazed by the result. It’s been two months now since the operation and I’m still climaxing nearly every time my boyfriend and I have sex” (41). Another woman, Constance Knowles, got her hood removed in 1972. “Before the operation I was lucky to experience even one orgasm during intercourse. Now, I often experience several and the intensity is greatly increased” 43). Haldane also interviewed Catherine Kellison (see [1] and [2], above), now sixteen years after her own well-publicized hood removal in 1974. Kellison’s enthusiasm for the procedure is not as evident in this interview as it was in her own published accounts, but even so many years later, she says, “It was definitely more sensitive. […] When I found someone who cared enough about me to be sensitive to my reaction when the clitoris was touched, then it was fabulous. With the man who knew how to handle it delicately, and to manipulate it playfully and to have fun with it, it was much better” (49). Haldane also provides reports by physicians who perform the surgery (provided in Medical Studies section).

11. Gordon, Keith. Reply to “Skinned Alive,” in “Penpower” section of Knave (UK), vol. 14(?) (date and page unknown).

Gordon was involved in the administration of a specialist clinic for genital cosmetic surgery. He reports that in this capacity, “A number of enquiries came from couples who both considered being circumcised to match, and from females who had decided independently to have their foreskins removed. We also had letters from ladies saying how much they were impressed with the difference after the operation. One wrote, ‘I think I am getting even more pleasure from my circumcision than my husband is from his.’”

12. Dr. William A. R. Thompson, “Female Circumcision: Airing the Doctor’s Dilemma.” The Daily Telegraph, May 4, 1983, 15.

The story tells about a London gynecologist who was asked by a Nigerian woman to “circumcise” her daughter. Because “female circumcision” is so widely used to refer to one of the several versions of FGM—and because all such surgeries are illegal in Great Britain—the doctor refused the woman’s request. The woman is reported to have been “puzzled and upset” by his “stern and abrupt” refusal to perform the surgery. The story goes on:

“It was only when he conducted a gynaecological operation on her [the mother] for a condition of which she had been complaining that he realized how circumcision carried out at the age of thirteen had made this ‘smiling, nubile, satisfied wife’ a ‘very happy woman,’ and why she wanted it for her daughter. The operation had been carried out under a local anaesthetic, and all that had been removed were the labia minora and the hood of the clitoris. The clitoris itself had not been excised. The effect, it is recorded, was that ‘any possible obstruction to the woman’s (and her husband’s) pleasure had been removed.’ The London gynaecologist, not unjustifiably, comments, ‘Perhaps there than one way of doing this controversial operation.’”

13. Krista Foss, “New Hot Cosmetic Surgery for Women,” Toronto Globe and Mail (10 November, 1998).

The text of this article is given here. Scroll to almost the bottom of the page.

Foss reports on a Toronto surgeon named Dr. Robert H. Stubbs, who performs various kinds of sexual enhancement surgery. Most of the article is about labiaplasty, but it is clear that Dr. Stubbs also performs clitoridotomy. Dr. Stubbs is reported as saying, "Some women report to me they have had an orgasm for the first time after I have unhooded the clitoris.”

There is a website for Dr. Stubbs’s practice.

On the Web page, Dr. Stubbs shows some examples of his surgeries:

Before and after pictures of a “clitoral unhooding” (which seems also to have included a labiaplasty).

Before and after pictures of a “genital enhancement” (which seems to have included both a labiaplasty and at least a partial removal of the clitoral hood.

14. “I Had Cosmetic Surgery on My Genitals,” Marie Claire magazine (February, 2000). The article mainly discusses labiaplasty (trimming the labia minora), but another form of surgery mentioned in this article is “clitoroplasty,” which is defined there as “The hood of the clitoris is removed for heightened sensitivity.”

The text of this article is given here.

15. “The New Sex Surgeries,” Cosmopolitan magazine, November, 1998, p.146-150. Labiaplasty, but not clitoral hood removal, is mentioned in this article.

The text of this article is given here.

In the articles listed in 3 and 4, Dr. Gary J. Alter, M.D. is mentioned. Dr. Alter is one of the surgeons who will perform clitoral hood removal. For contact information about Dr. Alter or other surgeons who perform this surgery, go here.
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