Comments

1
does it make them less crazy?
2
Charles,
I understand your point. However, I believe the real reason is "cultural" vs. "religious". Having lived in Africa and hearing of the procedure, my understanding was girls whether animist, Muslim or even Christian had FGM performed on them. It is fairly certain that more females raised in rural Africa vs. urban Africa got the procedure done. That said, like you I don't want the procedure performed for ANY reason. It is indeed mutilation. That study in Egypt cited is good to know.
3
we can't make them change in Africa, but we sure as fuck don't have to let it happen in Murka.

4
It's about the same as the ratio of circumcised men who would have their own infant sons mutilated the same way they were.
5
@4: please stop with the male circumcision = FGC equivalence argument. we're talking about removing the clitoris itself, not the hood.
6
@6, I'm not equating the two but they are similar. Both are genital mutilation done on infants without their consent for non-medical reasons. Both have risks including diminished nerve sensitivity. (Also, FGC does sometimes include cutting of the clitoral hood, but that's beside the point.)

My comment remains relevant.
7
@5,
Nobody should be cutting body parts off of non-consenting children, male or female, unless it's a medical necessity.
8
@6,

Of course you are. You're one of those people who can never hear about a horrible travesty happening to someone else without whining how unfair YOUR life is.
9
#5 for what it's worth, the foreskin = clitoral hood comparison is also getting tiresome.
10
@8, "whining about how unfair my life is?" I never made any mention of my life. Did you assume that I'd been circumcised?

The point of the original post is about why people who've had it done to themselves choose to do it to their children, and why some do not.
11
so, aurophobia, you've got me curious... are you a circumcised man who wishes he wasn't?
12
http://www.tostan.org/

Education is definitely the key. This organization has done wonders for ending FGC. I encourage those who can and are so inclined to donate to them.
13
@12, thanks for the link!

@11, no, I am not. I'm an uncircumcised woman who's grateful to be intact. I wish I could say the same for my partner. His circumcision was botched.
14
So, er, does listening to women about their perceptions of their own lives only count when they're not African?
15
Since when are people referring to cutting off a woman's clitoris as anything other than "genital mutilation?"

And religious/health reasons for male circumcision aside (and did any of you debating the issue actually get afar enough to read those?), how the hell did something this horrific get started?
16
i just ate a baguette longer than my arm
17
@15 why are you so incensed at the FGC/genital mutilation terminology yet so dismissive of male circumcision/genital mutilation? are both not done for "religious"/"helath" purposes?
is it all not "genital mutilation"?
Hood/clitoris, head/foreskin- no one should be cutting any part of baby's junk off, but it does seem odd that so many (usually white) Americans cry "sexist baby torture!" at African FGM while defending (or not caring about, or actively participating in) American MGM.
Charles, care to weigh in on this aspect?

@16 good for you! they said you couldn't do it but I was with you the whole time! just you and me buddy!
18
I give thanks every day that my parents didn't fall for that circumcision shit when I was born. My dick is awesome.
19
@7

Correct. It seems really fucking simple to me.
20
@7, @19 Banzai! I wish I could take mine back.
21
Female genital mutilation is NOT the same as male circumcision. Saying it over and over doesn't make it magically true.

Bajillions of guys who have been circumcised have no complaints and a bunch do.

You guys really don't know how to form an argument.

FWIW, no one (male or female) has EVER said he wished my dick still had its skin I was originally born with.

22
@21 They are not (of course) the same, but they are both human rights abuses (whether the victim has given retrospective acquiescence or not). At 1.2 million circumcisions/year in the US, even a small percentage can be quite "a bunch", and "no complaints" is a pretty low satisfaction rating.

In May, the AAP flirted with allowing just a "ritual" nick" of girls (in their words "much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting") and all hell broke loose, so they reverted to their 1999 policy "that its members decline to perform any medically unnecessary procedure that alters the genitalia of female infants, girls, and adolescents." All that policy needs is the deletion of "female" and the substitution of "children" for girls.
23
&@21: They may not have said it, just because they were too polite and there's nothing you can do about it. Doesn't mean they didn't wish it. There's been no good scientific study, but informal polls (still better than one-off anecdotes) suggest that a much higher proportion of intact guys are glad of it than circumcised guys.

@15: The 2010 AAP policy and people working in the field prefer the less judgemental term "female genital cutting". And yes, I have read many studies supporting male genital cutting and they're exaggerated or bogus. Bear in mind that cutting ANY body part off eliminates all disease in that part.
24
Shut the fuck up Charles.

This has NOTHING to do with the moral decision to do this to a child, no matter what the country. Its easy to transcend societies walls when baby parts are on the line.

Also we are talking about FC in merica.
ALSO Dear Science is one of the worst science columns around as it never takes the time to explain these ridiculous things it implies.
25
Millions of women are happily circumcised, and a few complain. An uncircumcised woman can get vulvar cancer, and the smell of an uncircumcised woman is, well, atrocious. There's no proof that circumcision harms most women. Sure, there are a few botched jobs, but if it were really harmful it wouldn't be done. Millions of parents aren't mutilating their daughters. I'm happily circumcised, and I'll make sure my daughters are too. It's a parental right to cut your children, male or female.
26
@25, No, it's not a "parental right" to cut your children. It's a Human Right to have an intact body, male or female. If you want to have your OWN genitals cut, that's your choice. But to have parts of someone ELSE cut off, without consent, with little to no anethesia, that's a humna rights violation.

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