Desperate for a story.
The Sunday Times today is running one of its periodic ‘investigations’. This is why they are behind a paywall apparently. The subject is the emotive one (to the feministas -some of whom may well be male) of female genital mutilation.
Quite why we should be more hysterical about female genital circumcision than male genital circumcision escapes me, but we are. One is a religious practice, one a cultural practice. Both are carried out by practitioners on behalf of parents in the belief that ‘it will be better for the child in the future’. One is accorded respect, one derision. One carried out on male children, one on female. Pick your own dividing line between the two if you must, I can’t.
I was intrigued by the statement that ‘as many as 100,000 women have undergone female genital mutilations with medics in the UK offering to carry out the illegal procedure on girls as young as 10‘. (I’ll give you a link to its sub-reporting in The Telegraph since the Times is behind a paywall).
Since the Sunday Times was offering covertly filmed evidence of ‘a doctor, dentist and alternative medicine practitioner’ who was offering to carry out this operation for them, that sentence was particularly relevant. It gave the impression that there was a network of such practitioners who had carried out that number of female circumcisions in Britain. Yet according to the Forward charity, whose speciality this is, there are a mere 100,000 women in Britain who have either had this operation carried out – long before they came to Britain, or in Britain – or are ‘at risk‘ – i.e. they belong to the Somalian or Sudanese community who are the prime exponents of this dark art. That is a substantial difference. The figures aren’t broken down any more than that; they could comprise two women who have been circumcised and 99,998 female members of a community that approves of this practice, for all we know.
The Metropolitan Police, who cover London, an area where the Sunday Times tells us that ’6,000 girls in London are at risk of this ‘potentially fatal’ operation (all operations are potentially fatal!) say they have received 166 phone calls from people who ‘believe that they may be at risk’ – quite how that evidence gets extrapolated into ’6,000 at risk’ defeats me.
The fact that The Sunday Times could find medical practitioners from that community ‘who were prepared to’ carry out this operation doesn’t impress me either – I’ll wager that there are people in every expatriate community who are ‘prepared to’ commit all sorts of crimes under the law in their new abode which are accepted practice ‘back home’. Competition Carp for Polish Christmas dinners and alcohol for thirsty British construction workers in Saudi Arabia come to mind. Not quite on the same level of severity I’ll grant you but the principle is the same.
Forward, the charity who have helped with this story, received half a million quid last year. A fair chunk of it from the Home Office, Local Councils, and NHS Trusts. Money formally the property of taxpayers. I really don’t understand why.
I can understand the argument that female circumcision is to be deplored, and is rightly a criminal offence in Britain. Personally I think all operations on children at the behest of their parents wishes should be illegal. Regardless of whether they wish them to be fatter, thinner, taller, shorter, circumcised or not circumcised. Let them make their own mind up when they are older.
What I don’t understand is how money from the taxpayer is going to stop this happening. Forward can print 50 million leaflets saying ‘we don’t do this sort of thing in Britain’ and it will no more stop the beliefs and wishes of parents from the Sudan or Somalia from thinking it the right thing to do than 50 million leaflets in Mecca saying ‘we don’t drink alcohol’. Nor will it stop those who believe they have a God given right to carry out such operations.
If the Police are advised that such a illegal circumcision has been carried out, they should investigate and prosecute, as with any grievous bodily harm offence. In the meantime, we should shut up and cut out the constant guilt inducing charity mugging.
I had never watched daytime television until I was marooned on the sofa for several months last year – heavy objects had to be removed from round me, for I swear one more advertisement for ‘girls as young as 12 are forced into marriage’ – in which country? Is marriage legal at that age in that country? If it is, what the Hell has it got to do with us? Followed by an appeal for £2 a week or £3 a month or whatever figure the latest focus group had said they were likely to get out of viewers – and a boot would have gone through the TV.
We are being assailed on all sides by a requirement of guilt, guilt for being British, guilt for being white, guilt for ‘not understanding’, guilt for ‘not doing something’ – like giving money to yet another charity for things which really have nothing to do with us.
Just consider for a moment, a fictitious charity set up in China, collecting money for British girls ‘forced to lie dead drunk in the gutter every Friday night’ – how many leaflets would they have to print, how many ‘out-reach workers’ would they have to employ, how many grant forms to fill out, how many conferences to hold, how many academic papers to write, before they convinced even one British girl to stop doing it on the grounds that ‘we don’t do that in China’?
People are different. The British have some pretty disgusting habits of their own.
Anybody know how many people are employed in the Charitable sector? Feeding stories to the newspapers that we pay £2 for?
Grr!
Ex-Sunday Times Reader.
-
1
April 22, 2012 at 14:57 -
Agreed – I detest being forced to think charitably, and being forced to give to certain charities above others. It is bullshit.
I give to charities that benefit my kind of people…….Help 4 Heroes, RNLI, a few others……..alternatively I practice random acts of kindness to people I see in the street who need assistance in cash and/or food.
It’s up to me, where and when and who…..and I am damn certain that the resources are not going to the pockets of some corrupt tin pot official, to pay the salary of some vapid, characterless, insincere ‘charity worker’ and/or some organisation that is aligned to the ‘progressive’ left-wing Common Purpose cause.
Give generously……….give discerningly……….give to individuals.
-
2
April 22, 2012 at 16:08 -
3
April 23, 2012 at 08:10 -
The only difference between the charities that advertise on telly, [you know the ones that invite you to “adopt” a bear (polar or otherwise), panda, donkey, mangy dog, child in fly-blown third world shithole and you’ll receive a personal letter of thanks], and Bernie Madoff is that the charities don’t pretend that there is a return on your investment.
-
-
4
April 22, 2012 at 15:07 -
The Wikipedia page on Circumcision sums it up best. “This article is about male circumcision. For female circumcision, see Female genital mutilation.”
It’s medically unnecessary, it’s discussing, and the way the law treats male and female cases differently is evidence of how female biased and male hating our society is.
-
6
April 22, 2012 at 15:52 -
Agreed the whole charity hypocrisy band wagon is mainly a cheat set-up of destructive practices with high salaries for the perpetrators.
When I look at Africa, for instance.
They made a disaster happen and now they fund and engage in what they say is disaster relief but in fact is often disaster enhancement.
Disgusting.However.
Male circumcision I have been informed can help prevent some diseases and medical conditions caused by the enclosing piece of skin, the foreskin.
But that cutting bits off the female labia serves no purpose whatsoever other than to feed some untrue beliefs.-
7
April 22, 2012 at 16:19 -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision
Why are there no outbreaks of disease in countries that don’t carry out routine male genital mutilation then? I’m sure the countries that do it to females make up some guff about medical benifits.
This site has a lot of good info on the issue – http://mgmbill.org/
-
8
April 23, 2012 at 11:08 -
Warning! The cmn-word attracts a persons whose particular sexual interest in that operation. (They aren’t interested in females at all). Not all interest is purely medical or scholarly. One particular creep – still extant – has for years specialized in getting worried parents to ‘talk about it’ to him.
Do be careful on this subject, particularly if strangers offer to start conversations and start asking for your personal experiences or offering to show you pictures.
As you were.
-
-
-
9
April 22, 2012 at 15:57 -
“Quite why we should be more hysterical about female genital circumcision than male genital circumcision escapes me, but we are.”
Well, there’s the obvious difference between trimming your nails, and cutting your hand off…
-
10
April 22, 2012 at 16:09 -
11
April 22, 2012 at 16:29 -
If you research it, you’ll discover that female genital mutilation is an umbrella term for many daft practices, many of which are roughly equivalent to the one done to boys.
Male genital mutilation desensitizes the end of the penis. In addition, the foreskin has a pleasurable mechanical function during sexual intercourse and masturbation. These points are moot, however, as the bit being removed is, itself, one of the most of sensitive areas of the body.
There are /some/ contentious arguments in favour of carrying it out as a last resort in countries that are absolutely infested with HIV, but even those are disputed.
Perhaps, you could draw up a list of FGM practices that you think should be allowed on British soil because they don’t cause too much harm? According to articles in the Guardian, there is quite a lot of demand from muslims who want to carry out FGM. Where do you think the line should be drawn in terms of a compromise?
-
12
April 22, 2012 at 16:40 -
Neither should be allowed to be performed on a child in the UK. If an adult wishes to be sexually mutilated then it is up to them to pay to have it done. (Not on the NHS please!) Both are nasty dark-age ritual tribal practices originating from the semitic areas of the middle East.
-
16
April 22, 2012 at 20:01 -
“Where do you think the line should be drawn in terms of a compromise?”
It should be drawn round the throat of anyone indulging in this practice. So the executioner knows where to place the rope.
No compromise with this. None.
-
17
April 23, 2012 at 18:24 -
Brilliant as ever, JuliaM.
However, may I suggest the sort of compromise that General Napier proposed regarding the Indian practise of suttee:“This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”
-
-
18
April 25, 2012 at 03:57 -
Dear Mr Reed, Can you quote any statistically meaningful studies comparing men’s sexual pleasure before and after circumcision? Such studies might, for instance, be conducted in Japan, where circumcision is, I understand, becoming quite fashionable in adulthood.
-
-
19
April 22, 2012 at 23:09 -
Male foreskins don’t grow back, Julia.
In 2010, the American Academy of Pediatrics proposed to allow a token, ritual nick to girls’ genitals “much less extensive than neonatal male genital cutting”, but the outrage made them back down within a month. Why the double standard?
-
20
April 23, 2012 at 05:52 -
Hmmm, well, let’s see. There’s a guy lives down your road who’d like to burgle your house.
Now, house burglary is immoral and illegal, but we’re going to allow him a token, ritual burglary of your house, so long as he only takes goods to the value of £5.
That OK with you?
-
-
-
22
April 22, 2012 at 16:22 -
Living and working in some of the countries where female genital mutilation – please don’t call it circumcision – is carried out gives something of an overview on the subject which may not be obvious to those who don’t know anything about it apart from what they read or hear in the media. The practice is often carried out by the child’s grandmother, usually in the family home, with a minimum of anaesthetic or sterile surroundings. The aim is to cut off the tip of the clitoris, thereby preventing those who survive to enjoy any form of sexual pleasure. Once that is done, the labial lips are sewn up, leaving a small gap for urinary functions. Again this is to make the entrance to the vagina smaller, thus giving more pleasure to the man who has sex with the female while preventing the female any pleasure at all. This sewing up also causes great pain and distress to women in childbirth and results is many children dying from the trauma of the birth or from injuries received in trying to exit an artificially reduced vagina. There are a number of reasons for this but the main one is that in their version of the Koran, any woman who enjoys sexual congress is nothing more than a harlot and is without honour, despite the fact that the clitoris has only one function – to provide sexual pleasure. Apart from the fact that these actions play mainly on the sexual fantasies of inadequate males it also calls into question that their God, Allah, is not omnipotent. If he were perfect and made man and woman in a way which is perfect, then the clitoris would not be necessary and would not exist. This means that Islamic man is trying to make perfect a creature created, imperfectly, by their Islamic God. However, to suggest such a thing tends to make one a target of some religious zealot. On the other hand, no one I spoke to on the subject could give a satisfactory alternative answer. Medically, if more than the tip is cut off, the child will bleed to death, usually in great agony. Even during successful ‘operations’ the sound of a very young child screaming in agony is not one to be appreciated by anyone other than a sadist or a religious zealot so sure in their belief that they will mutilate a child in the name of their God. What sort of God, if there is one, would allow this to happen? A mysoginist God, perhaps? Or it could very well be the radical interpretation of the Koran by uneducated, single-issue, Imams or Mullahs who follow a mysoginistic religion.
I am male and ashamed and disgusted my gender would perpetrate such abominations in the name of religion.-
23
April 22, 2012 at 16:43 -
But as you said yourself, it’s often the grandmother that performs the operation on the child, so I’m not sure that mysogeny comes into it. Whether it’s male or female circumcision, mutilation, call it what you will, it’s just plain unnecessary, and that’s all there is to it. Why it has become conventional in some societies is a matter for them, but in Britain the female version is rightly illegal, and the male version arguably should be as well, unless either version is performed for necessary and unavoidale medical reasons.
-
24
April 22, 2012 at 17:13 -
The Mysoginy comes in because it is a male (Imam or Mullah) who tells the men in the mosque and at teachings that this must be done – women don’t have a lot of say in Islam. The mysoginy comes in because it is a mutilation aimed at the benefit of the inadequate male in obtaining a higher degreee of sexual pleasure. The mysoginy comes in because male circumcision (for health reasons in Middle East and East African countries) is carried out as part of a religious ritual by someone trained (as opposed to medically qualified) to do it. The grandmother does what her husband or son tells her to do – after all she had it done her her Grandmother and her mother probably mutilated her daughters (I think you’ll understand what I’m getting at).
-
25
April 22, 2012 at 23:08 -
It’s rather hard to see how a male, adequate or otherwise, is going to achieve more pleasure by penetrating a woman who probably isn’t enjoying the experience. Sex is most pleasurable when both participants are enjoying themselves. Also, the idea that men tell women to do something and the women meekly consent seems a little detached from human interaction as I know it.
No, no – this is an unnecessary tribal practice, and why it is perpetuated is utterly beyond me.
-
26
April 22, 2012 at 23:56 -
Engineer,
As mentioned above, the Koran mentions that women who enjoy sexual congress are no more than harlots and are without honour. No Islamic man wants to be married to a woman who could be termed a harlot as any dishonour would fall on him and his family. There are several religions around the world in which women play a much more subservient role. Catholocism, for instance, where only men can be priests and women have the supporting role of nuns. There is much uproar and disagreement in the Church of England about the introduction of women priests. Under Islam, women are not only subservient, they are chattels, and have a lower place in the family than the grooms mother and grandmother. In the mosques, the men and women pray separately so that other men may not look upon a women and feel aroused – in such a case it is the woman’s fault that this will happen. Women are made to wear the burqua and have their faces covered, leaving only their eyes visible. This is so that men may not look upon another man’s wife and feel aroused – again, such a response is the fault of the woman. In some Islamic societies, men can have several wives and the Imam tells them that they must procreate and raise more Islamic ‘warriors’. Women don’t have much of say in this. The fact that a woman may not enjoy the sexual experience doesn’t really enter the equation. She is there to bear children. Although the Koran gives men and women equal rights, it also gives men the right to beat their wives and still demand they be available for sexual purposes – “as a field ready to be tilled”. This is not a rant against Islam, although it may seem so. I have many friends who are Muslims and, in the main, are not what I would call a radical. As fundamentalists in any religion, there are those who are unable to see another’s point of view or accept the other person has an acceptable point. It is these redicals who give any form of religion a bad name. Unfortunately, some take the word of an alleged God too literally.
Hugh Intactive,
I will admit that I have not worked or visited Indonesia or Malaysia so will have to bow to your knowledge in that respect. However, the question of why anyone would wish to remove an organ which their God decided would be part of a whole body still remains unanswered. To remove something from a person just because a priest says so defies belief. In an Islamic world, women don’t have a very good time so why not let them get their rocks off once in a while? As far as tribal circumcision is concerned in Eastern Cape, Medicin Sans Frontiere has tried to run a huge programme to either stop this or at least use modern medical techniques. They have failed. It seems that it is still very difficult to try and use reason against ignorance – even if that ignorance forms part of a culture. -
27
April 23, 2012 at 08:58 -
The demands of other cultures and religions is a matter for them. What is normal practice in Britain, however, is a matter for us, and chopping off bits of the human body that should be there either plain daft or plain wrong, unless there is unavoidable medical reason to do so. And that’s all there is to it, really.
-
-
-
-
28
April 22, 2012 at 23:17 -
You have described the worst of female genital cutting. In Malaysia and Indonesia, it is carried out surgically and seems to be much more minor – and comparable. See this loving mother’s blog: http://aandes.blogspot.co.nz/2010/04/circumcision.html
Meanwhile, scores of boys die every year from tribal circumcision in one province of South Africa (Eastern Cape – the only place that keeps count, it seems) alone, and many more lose their penises. When you compare apples with apples, tribal with tribal, surgical with surgical, they’re not so different.
-
29
April 23, 2012 at 05:55 -
Strange, I see the words ‘ See this loving mother’s blog..’ and can’t quite process them with someone who’d submit their daughter to such a procedure…
-
30
April 24, 2012 at 01:51 -
Read her text. She obviously loves her daughter, yet feels religiously obliged to submit her daughter to the same procedure she was submitted to.
Judging by the photo of the part removed, “such a procedure” seems very comparable with what first world parents are quite comfortable submitting their sons to.
(A day ago, JuliaM was comparing FGC with cutting a hand off and MGC with trimming a fingernail. )
-
-
-
31
April 25, 2012 at 11:29 -
Hang on people, most of you are unknowingly REALLY misinformed /taking this out of context, there is no comparison between male and female circumcission.
Please read Penseivats’ excellent and well informed posts and understand that he knows what he is talking about regarding the cultural reasons behind femal genital mutilation.
-
-
32
April 22, 2012 at 16:25 -
Sorry, the last sentence should read, “……….abominations, least of all in the name of religion.”
-
33
April 22, 2012 at 19:40 -
Yes, Penseivat. The female “circumcision” as it is “religiously” practiced, is indeed a serious MUTILATION of the clitoris and a stitching of the labia, narrowing the vagina. It is causing great distress to girls/women during the “operation” itself, during intercourse and also causes health problems during menstruation, pregnancy and giving birth. The male circumcision is also founded in religion, but basically has its origins in health issues. What with the desert heat and poor sanitary circumstances 1,000’s of years ago? The penis WITH foreskin is prone to infections. For me the Torah & the Koran [in some ways the Old Testament] often read like health handbooks: Wash you hand and feet when you enter a house [clean feet from Larva migrans and other bastards in the desert sand – clean the hand that you use to eat with and the one that you used to wipe your bum with], have no intercourse when your wife is unclean [during her period], do not eat pigs [at that time often – and even today – poisoned with trichina worm and Aujeszki, for which reason we still tend to eat pork well-cooked]. As for the male circumcision: one of my husbands, non-Jew, had to have it done for medical reasons, when he was 21 and wished it would have been done when he was still a boy …
On the positive side: I sincerely appreciated no Ejaculatio praecox … -
34
April 22, 2012 at 20:18 -
Quite a few years ago, while still a boy, I found myself in hospital facing having my tonsils removed. In the next bed was a boy roughly the same age as me. He asked me what I was in for and I told him. He said, “You’re in for a great time. Lots and lots of ice cream to soothe the back of your throat. You are so lucky!” I asked him what he was in for and he replied that he had to have a circumcision. I said, “That’s an awful operation. I had it done when I was three months old and I couldn’t walk for a year!”
-
35
April 22, 2012 at 20:26 -
36
April 22, 2012 at 21:41 -
That brought back painful memories when I too was sold that ‘jelly & ice-cream’ myth prior to my tonsil-removal, aged 8, in the tender care of the relatively new NHS.
Once having awoken from the anaesthetic and pumped copius amounts of blood from the wounded area, I was eventually provided with a dish of food and a spoon. Jelly & ice-cream ? You must be joking.
It was a bowl of cornflakes with just enough milk to cover the base of the bowl ! Just what you need with a freshly ripped-up throat !
I never believed my parents for years afterwards – that blew away any hope they had I’d stick with Santa Claus and the Tooth-Fairy.(My circumcision later that same year, for medical reasons, was a delight in comparison – but still no jelly & ice-cream).
-
-
-
38
April 22, 2012 at 19:44 -
As a fully paid up member of the rounhead fraternity, I have to report that, as far as I can tell from long experience, I have had no trouble with enjoying either intercourse or masturbation.
My childhood circumcision was performed by a GP because of an irritating build up of smegma under the foreskin and a certain painfulness when I began to get erections. Whether these problems posed any long term threat to my health or not, I can’t say, but to compare this minor op which, even when performed ritually, is done for, (perceived), health benefits, with female genital mutilation is somewhat hyperbolic. As JuliaM so aptly put it, “the difference between trimming your nails, and cutting your hand off”.
-
39
April 22, 2012 at 20:16 -
True. She phrased it in, let me count … 11 words … the whole problem. And this PROBLEM should be forbidden in any country worldwide.
-
40
April 22, 2012 at 20:29 -
And I just saw this one:
JuliaM April 22, 2012 at 20:01
“Where do you think the line should be drawn in terms of a compromise?”
It should be drawn round the throat of anyone indulging in this practice. So the executioner knows where to place the rope.
No compromise with this. None.
-
-
41
April 22, 2012 at 23:23 -
“No trouble with enjoying”? Is that all? I think most intact men would count their sex lives very poor if they were suddenly reduced to “no trouble”. It is comments like this (references to “reaching orgasm” with nothing about the ecstatic journey) that incline me to believe the detriments of circumcision are very widespread indeed.
-
-
43
April 22, 2012 at 20:43 -
Anna,
ALL normal healthy children should be left the hell alone.
Parental beliefs are not a valid excuse.
NO child ever asked to be born.
And this applies to Intersexed children as well:
Do what the heck you want to when you are old enough to make up your own mind, but leave the children alone.
With respect to a comment made earlier. No the NHS is not OBLIGED to perform circumcision on healthy boys, nor would any reputable surgeon agree to. However they ARE obliged to perform sex change operations.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1196024/Sex-change-ops-NHS-trebled–procedure-right.html
Vomit inducing stuff. £10,000 a pop.
-
44
April 23, 2012 at 09:02 -
I’m mildly bemused by the part of the story that refers to a secret network of “doctors, dentists and alternative practicioners”. I can see where the doctors and alternative practicioners come into it, but dentists???? With the possible exception of Laurie Penny, how many women have teeth in their reproductive bits?
-
45
April 23, 2012 at 13:32 -
When a bomb goes off, the BBC and co fall over themselves to point out the British Passport / Nationality of the bombers. Yet when they want to mutilate children in a sexual manner suddenly it is culturally relative.
If I go to Saudi Arabia I cannot drink whisky, I am Scottish this is what we do. Yet I would abstain as the law of a land determines my practices. My wife would cover up, I would not expect them to use public funds to build a Church or talk to my children in Gaelic.
We dilute and destroy our own rules, justice and moral code by pandering to the whims of backward dessert people from North Africa & Arabia and their presumption that only their cultural heritage is important.
If you come to The UK, be who you are but follow the law. Accept the rules & culture or leave.
-
46
April 23, 2012 at 14:42 -
I would put a slight correction to your statement. They aren’t backward desert people, just a different culture. The desert people will look at us and think of us as having a “backward culture” because we do things like not executing, pandering to minorities.
However, you are correct that whatever your cultural background, when you enter a country and aim to stay longer than a holiday, then you integrate and adopt and learn that country’s laws and culture. Doesn’t stop you adding to it if the society is amenable to your input, eg. curries. I works both ways. Any British person who goes to Spain or France and sets up in a British ghetto is doing exactly the same thing as Asian immigrants do here who don’t integrate. Not much difference between the Costa Del Sol and Bradford on those terms.
-
47
April 23, 2012 at 14:47 -
Ahh! A Euro for every time I’ve seen something sitting in a cafe, dressed from head to foot in Marks and Spencer’s, having ordered ‘a milky coffee please’, and then sounding off to its friends about how they left England because of all the immigrants dressed in strange clothes, not bothering to learn English, eating and drinking funny foods…..
I’d be a wealthy woman by now.-
48
April 23, 2012 at 15:16 -
When the Ex-pat Brits start exploding on busy public transport, calling for the death of the Spanish/French culture and claiming hundreds of millions in benefits while contributing nothing, then I will concede they are equal comparisons.
Yes, we retain our Britishness and like to live together but as far as I recall we do not turn up minus our passport claiming asylum and hospitality from the host state while plotting it’s destruction.
-
49
April 23, 2012 at 16:31
-
-
-
50
April 24, 2012 at 01:39 -
“It is not called the ‘Partial Declaration of Human Rights’. It is not the ‘Sometimes Declaration of Human Rights’. It is the Universal Declaration, guaranteeing all human beings their basic human rights – without exception.”
Ban Ki-moon, U.N. Secretary General, December 2010
-
-
-
52
April 23, 2012 at 15:07 -
Is any child mutilation legal? Does the law relating to assault make an exception, or is it just not enforced against rabbis? Adults, do as you please with your own bodies, but the bodies of your children do not belong to you. Unless a doctor approves a procedure for medical reasons, and the procedure is performed by a licensed surgeon, it ought to be considered assault on a minor.
-
53
April 24, 2012 at 12:45 -
I agree that male circumcision is a human rights issue when it is carried out on a child against his will. This is a violation of rights. However, the reasoning behind male and female circumcision is different. Female circumcision is conducted in order to control a woman’s sexuality. It is to ensure virginity, and marriageability. It is to control a woman’s sexual desire. Many believe that if FGC is not practiced, then women will become prostitutes. This takes the rights issue one step further. In Somalia, 90% of women are infibulated. This involves the full removal of female genitalia and the sewing up so that only a small hole remains. In some cases, they have to redo the practice several time until they get it right (ie size of the hole etc). They also have to be defibulated (cut back open) before marriage (sometimes this step is skipped and the man is expected to ‘break’ the woman open via penetration) and has severe and lasting consequences which follow a woman through the rest of her life. Even in countries like Senegal where women are not sewn, the full removal is commonly practiced (at the very least, removal of the clitoris). The health consequences are extreme, not only because this is often practiced in unhygienic conditions (which is often the case of male circumcision as well in Senegal and other parts of Africa.. and can also lead to infection!), but also because women can get cysts, difficulty with urination and menstruation, a greater risk of fistula (and incontinence), a greater risk of complications during child birth, and the list goes on. In addition, a woman’s pleasure during intercourse is greatly controlled and significantly reduced. Again, I agree that both male and female circumcision are human rights issues, but they are practiced for different reasons. In order for change to happen, in order for both practices to be stopped, they need to be approached in different ways.
-
54
April 24, 2012 at 17:25 -
Apologies for making light of a terrible subject, but
Why didn’t the male politician get circumcised.
Because there was no end to that prick.
On the positive side: I sincerely appreciated no Ejaculatio praecox … 
{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }