HazyRigby

Oh, of course you CAN. Do you think the comparison is invalid? Then make your argument. But one can compare the two. Wouldn't you agree that both procedures involve slicing off a part of an unwilling person's genitals? Then they are rather similar, aren't they?


You know, it just burns my bottom when anyone gets all hot under the collar about FGM but doesn't care about routine male circumcision. We perform it in a hospital, don't we? We use a scalpel instead of a rock, don't we? We leave more skin, right? Almost all of our children survive, don't they?

I find it funny--hilarious, even--that I never plan to have children and I don't particularly enjoy being around them, but I can't stand the thought of circumcising a child. Why would one choose to strap one's newborn onto a circumstraint for an unnecessary medical procedure? Why have an innocent piece of skin taken off? Why not remove an infant girl's breast tissue or cervix to prevent future diseases?

I feel very sorry for the men in this country that pieces of their genitals are regarded as unwanted and disposable. I want to cry when I think about my husband as an infant undergoing that horrible procedure. I hate the fact that we continue doing it to our boys. How can any person have any fundamental rights if we, at birth, do not even have the right to our own sexual organs?

premjan

I think you are being excessively sentimental regarding the male circumcision issue. it doesn't harm boys in any way and it may have one or two benefits.

HazyRigby

You know, when I think about the people who say things akin to "it's not less sensitive," I think about my clit. (It's strange, I know, but follow me here). My clit has a hood on it that's very much like a foreskin. My clit, when covered by this foreskin, is very moist and well-protected and sensitive. Just rubbing the skin around on it feels delightful. But when I pull back the hood for a period of time, say, to mastubate, my clitoris dries out fairly quickly. If the stimulation is ongoing, it becomes much less sensitive.

Then I think about the glans of a man's penis. It's much like a clitoris. It's covered by its own sheath. But if that sheath is removed, the glans is exposed. What do you think happens to the pleasure that those nerve endings are capable of giving after twenty or thirty years of rubbing against underwear? What resemblance does a circumcised penis--dry and hard and stiff, with little or no extra skin for stimulation--bear to my clit, the external organ that I would least like to have someone tamper with?

It doesn't seem very much like it at all.


And I challenge all women who agree that routine male circumcision is a good thing to go have their clitoral hoods removed.

premjan

men don't have as much fun as women to begin with.

HazyRigby

Yes, and some people are excessively sentimental about not wanting you to pull their fingernails out. It's strange but true.

It hurts. It removes a part of a boy's body that he did not ask to have removed. If you're going to make such a grand, sweeping statement, I suggest you back it up with some evidence. Got a few scientific studies to prove that babies feel no pain? That a foreskin provides no pleasure? Go ahead.

And there might be "benefits" to removing my cervix, but brother, you'd better believe that I'd be pissed off if someone did it without my consent.

HazyRigby

I would agree with that statement. But that's only because of that whole "multiple orgasms" thing.

premjan

male circumcision does not interfere with procreative ability for the most part (it may make the likelihood of insemination greater). female circumcision also does not interfere with procreation for the most part. The rationale is to inject some morality at a point where people cannot ignore it: their genitals.

premjan

totally not the same thing. though I admit male circumcision is just a little bit of social tyranny that got carried around perhaps for too long. there's that scripture about zipporah cutting her son's foreskin and exclaiming that she had made him into a "bloody bridegroom". was she venting her angst at hymenal bleeding that she experienced as a bride?

Adora

Okay, you can compare the two, but you can't compare them to a point where you say they are close to equal. Similar, in the fact they remove something of the genitals. Not similar to the degree of removal. As I said. To even begin to start getting hot under the collar about male circumcision you'd have to start actually chopping off parts of the shaft of the penis.

And, as premjam mentioned, there is also intent. Female circumcision is a very warped form of misogyny and cultural misunderstanding and fear of female sexuality. Male circumcision, these days, is a declining fad.

There are no documented scientific benefits from circumcision however. I'd like to know where premjam is getting their information about "benefits" and "insemination" from.

HazyRigby

But isn't that akin to saying, "I shouldn't get angry; he only chopped off my nipples. He left the rest of my boobs"?

And there are many different types of FGM. To refer to all FGM as the most radical type is misleading. To be honest, I'd get just as angry about a girl who had her clitoral hood removed as I would for one who was scraped clean. To me, there aren't any "degrees" when it comes to sexual assault, and that's what I think this is.

Isn't a desire to control masturbation just as warped? What difference does it make why you hurt someone, if the outcome is the same?