Another of the women Bowers has just operated on, Ayanna, 23, a marketing assistant from the Pacific northwest who fled the civil war in Somalia, is in a quandary after her clitoroplasty, for she is not in love with her current boyfriend.
"I told him I was coming for the surgery and the way he was talking I'm worried he's going to expect me to be an instant sex machine," she says.
Ayanna lied to her conservative mother that she was visiting friends in San Francisco, then sneaked off to Bowers's clinic with her best friend Emma for support. Emma's parents are from Ethiopia, but she was born in America and was never cut. The two exude such an all-American youthful mischief it's hard to believe Ayanna was once steeped in a very different tradition. They banter about boozy parties and dating. They order room service while giggling in their dressing gowns. Ayanna shows off the scrapes on her leg from a skateboarding escapade the previous week.
But then she is suddenly solemn.
"My friends and I will all be in a nightclub having a crazy time, but while they are getting guys' numbers, I hang back," she says. "Technically there's no reason why, just because I'm cut down there, I couldn't feel sexy when a guy is kissing me or touching my breasts. But my mind leaps to what that leads to next and then I shut down," she says.
She has high hopes of a fulfilling sex life now that she's had surgery, but still has years of negative mind games to overcome.
