The Genital Mutilation Thread

[blush]

Originally Posted by Nat

My intention in starting this thread was to discuss any/all genital mutilation whether common and accepted here in the US or not, whether it happens to boys or girls or intersex kids. (So it's not a red herring to discuss male circumcision in this thread).

I have known men who were very glad they were uncircumcised and I have known men who felt violated that they had been circumcised. I have also known circumcised guys that were fine with the fact they were circumcised and guys who wished they were circumcised.

I don't think male circumcision is on par with female circumcision but I do feel that altering the genitals of babies is a violation. That's my own feeling and it's strongly held.

I agree, Nat. And I would rather that this thread turned into a resource for information about genital mutilation instead of a debate about which is worse.

[blush]

Originally Posted by HowSoonIsNow

Blush,

If you are not setting up a hierarchy or even equating the two, then why would you question the level of horror that people have in regards to FGM over circumcision? Your question is phrased with the insinuation that there should be an equal amount of horror expressed towards circumcision as to FGM. It makes perfect sense to me that people would naturally be more horrified at FGM than circumcision.

You're right. Perhaps my phrasing was too strong. My intention was to open the conversation up, not shut it down. I also want to learn more about both issues.

[Semantics]

Originally Posted by Toughy

my posts from a different thread:

Human beings of any culture have every right and should vehemently stop the practice of mutilating girl's genitalia. Actually we have an OBLIGATION to stop this.

We also have an OBLIGATION to stop the sexual exploitation of children.....especially girls. The media in Western culture bears the greatest responsibility and obligation to do this.

and

I focus on girls and women for a reason. Yes, I am against snipping off part of a boy/man penis.......for any reason. I don't think that practice of Judaism (and taken up others), rises to the horrific consequences of mutilating a girl's clitoris and entrance to the vagina.

It is a red herring to bring up snipping off the foreskin and leaving the penis a functional pleasurable sexual organ. It does not relate in any way, shape or form, nor has any connection with rendering a girl/women unable to experience sexual pleasure.

edited to add: and that mutilation continues her role as the vessel for the next generation, while ending her ability to have any pleasure from the act of procreation.

I agree.

I hate it when people bring up principles like cultural relativism to explain why we shouldn't interfere with these practices.

All humans have basic, inalienable rights that should be protected. People shouldn’t be tortured and have their health put at risk, their genitals mutilated.

[Mister Bent]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Funny, that. And here I always thought that practicing safer sex and not sharing needles was the generally accepted way of decreasing the risk of HIV infection.

And as far as bacterial infections underneath the scrotum (foreskin) go, I would think that a far kinder way to combat that would be EDUCATING the caregivers of male children (and adults, in cases where they need assistance with that sort of thing) on proper cleaning and drying procedures. That strikes me as a whole lot more responsible than just lopping it off.

I agree that most of the medical problems associated with intact foreskins could be eradicated through better education. Neither parents nor "health" educators in our schools have been properly educated in instructing uncircumcised boys. Cutting off the foreskin simply allows better access to the penis in order to keep it clean, which I think we all know is no guarantee it will, in fact, be kept clean. Removal of the foreskin does decrease sexual pleasure, and there have been studies into the affects of inflicting severe pain on infants, so there are emotional/psychological ramifications worthy of inquiry, as well.

Originally Posted by Heart

Regarding genital mutilation as it relates to circumcision of boys and girls:

Why is it when something that is detrimental to women and girls is raised, there is always this, "yeah, but it happens to boys/men too!" kind of response? While the intentions may be fair-minded, the upshot is to minimize what happens to women and girls and refocus on injustices to men and boys. Unconscious as it may be, I think its a kind of denial of the horrific realities the patriarchy visits on women and girls.

From the other thread, and here, I personally didn't get the impression that the comment was made from a "yeah, but it happens to boys/men, too" perspective, but rather that there are forms of genital mutilation that take place right here in our own backyard, without having to take the issue globally (which is not to say that we shouldn't).

Similarly, I don't understand why we can't have conversations about what happens to our male children without it becoming a conversation about the patriarchy and male favoritism. Why can't both conversations occur concurrently?

Nor do I think anyone, anywhere here, has equated male circumcision with the horrific practice of female circumcision and to continue to try to berate those who would like to discuss male circumcision on those grounds feels like a kind of backlash effort at shutting down that conversation. I'd like to read/hear what members here think regarding both subjects, particularly as the parent of male child.

There is a hierarchy of horrors, and FGM far outweighs - from both physical and cultural perspectives - male foreskin removal. But circumcision is mutilation, and it is relevant to talk about it here.

[Toughy]

I would agree that 'altering' is an appropriate term for male circumcision. I do not see it as mutilation.

I find it wholly lacking enough emphasis when talking about female genitalia and intersexed genitalia. Mutilation is a much more accurate term in my mind.

As far as health benefits for males (and those they have sex with).........education about personal hygiene is a much better method. Schools cannot teach this properly because of restrictions placed on them by idiots from the fundamentalist and other religious communities. Remember abstinence only and don't touch your pee-pee cuz you will get warts and other bad things will happen...........

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Unndunn

First of all, we're not talking about the scrotum at all.

When I posted I had just gotten home from a 14 hour long graveyard shift, so you will have to forgive my mistype. I am not stupid, I know we were talking about foreskins. In fact, ---I--- was talking about foreskins but mistyped.

How about in the future you read and understand the entire message instead of using one mistyped word as your basis for dismissal? It's pretty clear that I was talking about foreskins - otherwise I would not have said anything about circumcisions.

Originally Posted by blush

Are the anaerobic bacteria present not destroyed to antibacterial soap? It seems less invasive to wash the foreskin than to cut it off.

Boy oh boy, it's a good thing you weren't tired and accidentally typed some other bodypart instead of foreskin!

~~~

The argument that most male children who get circumcised do so when they are really really young and won't remember it as adults is laughable. By that logic we should be able to do all sorts of horrible things to babies - hey, they won't remember it right? Game on!

[Martina]

Re male circumcision, i am in general against it, but many studies have shown that it drops the chance of getting HIV as much as half. It's one of the reasons that southern Africa has a higher infection rate than East and West Africa, which are more Muslim.

Re female circumcision, i see no excuse for it. No cultural excuse is acceptable. It is a human rights violation and ought to be pursued by international agencies as such.

i appreciate Nat's making the thread, in part not to derail another. And i totally agree with increasing awareness and getting support for agencies that help women, like the fistula clinics that Heart linked to.

But i am bothered by the fact that we seem to be aware of women from developing countries only through issues of gender violence. These issues are real. They are not rare. But they are not the whole lives of women from these nations.

One can live in a patriarchal culture and negotiate power for oneself. That has led to some women demanding power for their gender. i appreciate the work of people like Nicholas Kristof. i love his story. i have always followed him in the Times. It's huge what they are doing, and more needs to be done.

But we also need to hear the voices of women whose first concerns are not gender violence. Most women in developing countries live lives where they have a certain amount of self-determination. They have families who support them. They have jobs. They have children about whose education they make choices. Are they living in more sexist cultures? Yes. Do they perhaps have some pleasures and freedoms that we do not? Yes.

i am thinking of the women i saw depicted in the PBS Africa series this year that my students watched much of. There was a Nairobi single mom who owned her own hair salon. A woman living in remote Tanzania among another tribe because she fell in love. She visited her mom again in the city and made the decision for herself whether to keep living in rural poverty or return to the city and take advantage of her education. There was a family where the wife ran the farm/ranch back home while the husband lived near the lake and ran a fishing concern. They came together and coordinated their business concerns and made business decisions together. We saw a woman become the first female supervisor in a mine.


Global feminism is of course concerned with gender violence, but also with the struggle against corporations and governments who want to exploit third world laborers and despoil their environments. China's investment in Africa, in some of the poorest and most ecologically fragile places in the world, is a concern to feminists and other activists in the region.

Anyway, we ought to take the time to look into how women empower themselves as well as how they are disempowered. i think Kristof does that. i think reporting on international development efforts that focus on women does that. But somehow we still come away with this image of women of the developing world as victims.

We have this definition of personal autonomy that is western. We are totally bought into it. And we seem to believe that anybody who does not have the miriad of choices we do is oppressed. Well maybe. But some of them have a few things we do not have. Like the support of an extended family and a sense of community that stretches back generations. That is certainly less common everywhere these days. And it certainly is not the case in postcolonial subSaharan Africa where the most disruptive thing in most people's lives has been the fact that men have to be away from home for months at a time to work. Anyway, the concerns of women from developing nations are not always our concerns. Nor are they the concerns we might think they should have.

[SuperFemme]

I think as mothers we are pretty much forced/shamed into complying with doing the circumcision on our male babies in the hospital. It's not like the OB/GYN discusses it with you during pregnancy.

It's not like they even discuss it with you in the hospital. They wait until you are all worn out from giving birth and then they come in the room and shove a consent form in front of you and tell you to sign it. You are never encouraged not to circumcise or told that it is not medically necessary. Think about that. It's a cosmetic procedure being done on a little life that is hours old. Elective. One out of every 500 circumcisions results in a serious complication. About 4 out of 100 are either considered unsatisfactory or result in some sort of complication.

“Some children end up with adhesions and/or skin bridges which can impede hygiene and actually precipitate infections.” The most common complication is the removal of either too much or too little skin. This may not become apparent until years later. Many circumcised adults complain that too much skin was removed. This can result in painful erections and bowing or curvature of the penis. Other common results not always noticed until later include extensive scarring, skin tags, and bleeding of the circumcision scar.

Yet there is little to no consultation beforehand. So while I understand that male circumcision is nowhere near the same a FGM it is a serious issue and one that keeps getting swept under the rug.

[blackboot]

Well...I would agree that "altering" is certainly a much more palatable word than mutilation. I feel the non-consensual aspects of the decision of removing/changing parts of anyone's genitalia as an infant is my issue with this conversation. It seems to me that at the age of reason or adulthood, a human being should be entitled to make that choice. Not have it made for them.

[Martina]

i know some very Berkeley Muslims originally from Indonesia who waited till their son was able to make the decision. He decided he wanted to have it done. At 17, he and his family flew back to Indonesia for the ceremony. The procedure itself was done in a hospital.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Martina

i know some very Berkeley Muslims originally from Indonesia who waited till their son was able to make the decision. He decided he wanted to have it done. At 17, he and his family flew back to Indonesia for the ceremony. The procedure itself was done in a hospital.

And I think that's great. I would like to see all boys be given the right to choose for themselves regarding circumcision.

I mean, it's really NOT "just an extra flap of skin". It's not extra anything! If it was extra then it would be abnormal for boys to be born with a foreskin. It's not a tumor. It's not a skintag. It's not a fucking 6th toe. It's a natural occurring bodypart, and I think that the owner of said bodypart should get to decide for themself what to do with it.

I don't think that the human body is just born with random parts that are unseemly and without purpose. If the foreskin had no use it would have evolved out by now. The foreskin protects the penis. Unprotected penises chafe. Unprotected penises get desensitized to some degree. If I had a penis I would not want it to be unprotected.

[blush]

Originally Posted by Mister Bent;129221

[FONT="Arial"

From the other thread, and here, I personally didn't get the impression that the comment was made from a "yeah, but it happens to boys/men, too" perspective, but rather that there are forms of genital mutilation that take place right here in our own backyard, without having to take the issue globally (which is not to say that we shouldn't).

Similarly, I don't understand why we can't have conversations about what happens to our male children without it becoming a conversation about the patriarchy and male favoritism. Why can't both conversations occur concurrently?

Nor do I think anyone, anywhere here, has equated male circumcision with the horrific practice of female circumcision and to continue to try to berate those who would like to discuss male circumcision on those grounds feels like a kind of backlash effort at shutting down that conversation. I'd like to read/hear what members here think regarding both subjects, particularly as the parent of male child.

There is a hierarchy of horrors, and FGM far outweighs - from both physical and cultural perspectives - male foreskin removal. But circumcision is mutilation, and it is relevant to talk about it here.
[/FONT]

Yep. Exactly. Thank you. This is the point I was trying to get across.

[Toughy]

One of the reasons I have been given for snipping off the foreskin:

I let the doctors do it because they told me....when I (the father) am naked around my son, his penis should look like mine. If his is different he will think something is wrong with his penis............

I am truly serious about this.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by Toughy

One of the reasons I have been given for snipping off the foreskin:

I let the doctors do it because they told me....when I (the father) am naked around my son, his penis should look like mine. If his is different he will think something is wrong with his penis............

I am truly serious about this.

[Heart]

Originally Posted by blush

No one is equating the two.

Oh, but they are.

Blush - you directed this question to me:
"How is cutting off the foreskin NOT mutilation? It alters the penis permanently. It does not leave it in the natural state. The female version is much more globally damaging to females. I'm not arguing with you that that is true. Are we defining mutilation differently?"

I mentioned in a previous post that my own son is circumcised. So, according to your definition I have mutilated my son. Yes, we most definitely have different definitions of the word "mutilate."

Mr. Bent said this:
"There is a hierarchy of horrors, and FGM far outweighs - from both physical and cultural perspectives - male foreskin removal. But circumcision is mutilation, and it is relevant to talk about it here."

I think referring to male circumcision as mutilation does in fact minimize the horror of female circumcision. That is why I am comparing the two and hammering at this point. They are not the same thing, but in referring to both of them as mutilation, they are being equated.

Circumcision of both males and females is altering, but only that of females is mutilation.

Heart

[Heart]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

I think as mothers we are pretty much forced/shamed into complying with doing the circumcision on our male babies in the hospital. It's not like the OB/GYN discusses it with you during pregnancy.

I agree. This was basically my experience. It was never raised or discussed in terms of health pros or cons by anyone prior to my giving birth. Once it was discussed I was in the immediate aftermath of labor (I did not know ahead of time that I was having a boy). I signed the papers. It seemed like the "normal" thing to do. I remember being told it was "healthier," I remember my mother saying, "all Jewish boys are circumcised," and my husband, who was not Jewish, was also circumcised and he wanted our son to be as well. (Yes, he did want the baby to "look like him," I distinctly remember that part of the conversation").

What bothers me the most when I think back on it was that I was not present when it was done. Because I was not religious, I did not have a Bris at home. It was done in the hospital while I was still in recovery. I hate that I wasn't there with my baby and that he went through that alone.

Heart

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by Heart

I agree. This was basically my experience. It was never raised or discussed in terms of health pros or cons by anyone prior to my giving birth. Once it was discussed I was in the immediate aftermath of labor (I did not know ahead of time that I was having a boy). I signed the papers. It seemed like the "normal" thing to do. I remember being told it was "healthier," I remember my mother saying, "all Jewish boys are circumcised," and my husband, who was not Jewish, was also circumcised and he wanted our son to be as well. (Yes, he did want the baby to "look like him," I distinctly remember that part of the conversation").

What bothers me the most when I think back on it was that I was not present when it was done. Because I was not religious, I did not have a Bris at home. It was done in the hospital while I was still in recovery. I hate that I wasn't there with my baby and that he went through that alone.

Heart

YES!

There is cultural significance in my community regarding the procedure and I too let my son be carted off to another room to have it done in a cold and clinical setting.

I feel like I let him down in more than one way. I also feel that having a mother make that kind of decision after labor and delivery is irresponsible and disrespectful to the mother. IMO it takes away a degree of choice.

[Jett]

I think the distinction as far as one being "mutilation" and the other not has a lot to do with the intent and results. Mutilation is defined as something that damages form or function of the human body to the detriment of the person experiencing it.

Although circumcision sometimes can result in botched surgery, it's done often with beneficial results in mind and usually ends up that way. Whereas FGM is not a "therapeutic" procedure, more aptly disfiguring and can result in permanent loss of ability to derive any sexual pleasure for life.

Both are questionable and worthy of discussion, but just in the context of "mutilation" FGM certainly strikes me at a core level as a more barbaric harmful practice in the long term.

Metro

[blush]

Originally Posted by Heart

Oh, but they are.

Blush - you directed this question to me:
"How is cutting off the foreskin NOT mutilation? It alters the penis permanently. It does not leave it in the natural state. The female version is much more globally damaging to females. I'm not arguing with you that that is true. Are we defining mutilation differently?"

I mentioned in a previous post that my own son is circumcised. So, according to your definition I have mutilated my son. Yes, we most definitely have different definitions of the word "mutilate."

Mr. Bent said this:
"There is a hierarchy of horrors, and FGM far outweighs - from both physical and cultural perspectives - male foreskin removal. But circumcision is mutilation, and it is relevant to talk about it here."

I think referring to male circumcision as mutilation does in fact minimize the horror of female circumcision. That is why I am comparing the two and hammering at this point. They are not the same thing, but in referring to both of them as mutilation, they are being equated.

Circumcision of both males and females is altering, but only that of females is mutilation.

Heart

Heart, I'm not going to debate your decision to circumcise your son. It is too personal, and I do respect you and your viewpoints. I'm a mother too. We have differing viewpoints on this, can we agree to disagree?

[Nat]