The letter on unsafe male circumcision by Dr. H. Gretahun (Africa Health, March 1997) brings into very clear focus the whole issue of genital mutilation. Circumcision, whether male or female, does not per se amount to genital mutilation unless performed unsafely. Female circumcision involves only reducing the rudimentary penis, the clitoris, in order to tuck it neatly and beautifully under the labia majora. When the operation involves slicing off the labia, it ceases to be circumcision. Any scar tissue formed, both in size and location, is never enough to interfere with childbirth, otherwise the Black race would have been extinct millennia ago. Orgasm is not impeded in any way or else the female population of the planet would have been 80% frigid. If an uncircumcised female exhibits greater excitability, it is to be expected; even the constant friction between the clitoris and the underpart sets off some amount of auto-arousal. African female anti-circumcision activists should stop to consider the real issues and recognize the ulterior motives of the Western world, where even males are not circumcised. They should worry more about AIDS, which the West created as a weapon against its Communist opponents using Africans as laboratory animals. Africans should be demanding compensation and free distribution of all available drugs and not condoms.