When a good friend of mine who is not Jewish found out that her first child was going to be a boy, I asked her if she intended to have him circumcised.
“Yup,” she answered, smiling.
“Do you know how unnecessary and painful the operation is?”
Same smile, same answer, “Yup.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because I will not have my son looking like a freak! I’ve been with guys who weren’t circumcised, and they were, well, disgusting.” She shook her head and wrinkled her nose at the memory. “They told me stories about what it was like to be different in the locker room. I just don’t want my son to have to go through that.”
“What if the knife slips?”
Back to the original smile, “It won’t. It almost never does.”
I asked her if she’d ever actually seen a circumcision. She said no, and so I asked if she planned to be present when her son was cut. Given how strongly she felt, I suggested, it seemed to be only right that she should be, if only so she could answer any questions her son might have when he got older. She closed her eyes and raised her palms between us to ward off the image I’d just conjured, “I, I, I couldn’t. There’s no way I’d be able to let them do it.”
“But then why have it done at all?”
“Look, my son will be circumcised!” Her tone made it clear the conversation was over. “He will have a normal penis and a normal sex life, and I will thank you in the future to mind your own business.”
///
I remember how shocked I was–I was a college freshman–when my friend Pierre turned around in the locker room after a basketball game and displayed an organ hanging between his legs that looked more to me like an elephant’s trunk than a man’s sexual apparatus. I’d never seen an uncircumcised penis before. Well, no, strictly speaking, that’s not true. I know now that at least some of the men in the heterosexual pornography I’d watched were uncircumcised, but since I only ever saw those penises when they were erect, the skin the women on the screen would occasionally pull up and down over the glans of those organs appeared to me in my ignorance to be skin no different than what I had left over after my circumcision (which was almost non-existent); I just assumed that, for whatever reason, those men had more of it. So I guess the accurate thing to say is that I’d never seen an uncircumcised penis that was not erect, and my first response to seeing Pierre’s was that it looked feminine, effeminate. Or maybe emasculated is a more precise term. Either way, what I felt was a mixture of pity and disgust.
I went back to my room and thought hard about my reaction. Pierre was a good friend and it troubled me that I should be repulsed by his body. It took a while, but I finally realized that what made Pierre’s penis seem so alien to me was not merely the covering his foreskin provided; it was that his foreskin made it impossible for me to picture Pierre’s penis erect. Not that I thought he didn’t have erections; I knew he had a girlfriend with whom he was having sex. Rather, I couldn’t imagine what Pierre’s erect penis looked like, couldn’t fathom the mechanism by which the foreskin moved out of the way, making it possible for him to enter a woman’s vagina and experience the pleasures of sex, including orgasm and ejaculation, that depend upon an exposed glans. It was this inability to envision Pierre penetrating a woman or ejaculating that made his penis seem to me somehow less than masculine than mine–because, of course, I assumed that my penis, cut as it was, was the way a penis was supposed to be.
Ironically, in cultures that practice circumcision as an adolescent rite of passage, removing the foreskin is often equated with removing the last vestige of maternal, meaning feminine, influence. Not to have it removed, even to flinch while it is being removed—signifying fear and the inability to withstand pain—is to reveal oneself as clinging to the feminine, unwilling to separate from one’s mother, and therefore unworthy of manhood. Since we in the United States circumcise our boys as infants–and I am talking here about routine medical circumcisions, not the Jewish ritual of brit milah, which needs to be discussed in a different context–questions of fear and the inability to withstand pain are irrelevant, but I think that the image of a covered glans as less than masculine is nonetheless very present in our cultural imagination. Or, to put it more precisely, I think that the routine medical circumcision of infant boys makes their bodies congruent with our culture’s ideal of masculinity as clean, hard, always ready for action, and always, implicitly if not explicitly, on the offensive.
To start, circumcision quite literally turns a boy’s penis inside out, making what is essentially an internal part of his body, the glans, an external one, and since the exposed glans is what first enters a woman during vaginal intercourse, it is hard not to read the circumcised penis as a penis always prepared, if not completely ready at any given moment in time, to penetrate–representing in the flesh the patriarchal heterosexual norm that values a man’s “getting it in her” over almost every other aspect of sex. Moreover, the cleaner and dryer penis that circumcision creates has neither the odor nor the taste associated with the lubricating discharges of both its uncircumcised counterpart and women’s genitalia. Just like the adolescent rite-of-passage circumcisions that I mentioned above, in other words, the routine medical circumcision performed on boys here in the US removes from an infant’s penis that which makes it similar to a vagina–except that, because we circumcise our boys when they are infants, a cut penis will feel to those boys as they grow up as if it were the penis with which they were born, providing the illusion of a biological proof that patriarchy’s gender dichotomies–embodied in the dry, clean and therefore “civilized” penis versus the wet, messy and therefore “savage” vagina–are indeed “natural,” inhering in male and female bodies and not constructed through the processes of cultural production.
Once these boys understand that they were circumcised, of course, the cat–so to speak–ought to be out of the bag, but the idea that a circumcised penis is the normal, natural and therefore healthy penis, is given the weight of medical authority not only through doctor’s promoting the procedure’s ostensible health benefits (which I will discuss in more detail elsewhere), but also through the medical images that shape our understanding of what our bodies ought to look like. In many of those images, at least here in the United States, the foreskin is either entirely absent or, if it is present, not labeled. Here are two online examples:
- Shands HealthCare is a private, not-for-profit organization affiliated with the University of Florida. The A.D.A.M. Multimedia Health Encyclopedia on its website includes this image of the male reproductive system in which the glans is exposed and in which the foreskin is not even labeled. (To my eye, it’s ambiguous whether the bunched skin at the base of the glans is supposed to be the foreskin or not.)
- Visible Productions, a Colorado-based multimedia communications company, which boasts, according to its website, the “world’s most extensive library of 3D digital models [of the human body]” based on data from the Visible Human Project. Do a keyword search on “penis” and you get nine results, none of which show an intact penis. Searches on “foreskin” and “prepuce” return no results.
In Five Bodies, John O’Neill writes that the “operation of political and economic power does not aim simply to control passive bodies or to restrain the body politic, but to produce docile bodies” (italics in original), bodies which accept the truths of power as self-evident and not in need of examination, motivating the people inhabiting those bodies to govern themselves in congruence with those truths. Routine infant male circumcision is a perfect example. By performing the operation on infants whose gender identities have not yet formed, medicine recreates as physically embodied medical facts a set of male dominant cultural beliefs about masculinity—always ready for sex, dry, clean, civilized—and then teaches us that these are the benchmarks against which we need to measure men’s genital and sexual health. To argue this, however, is not to argue that circumcision causes male dominant sexual behavior in men; nor is it to predict that cultures which medically circumcise will be inherently more male dominant than those which don’t. Rather, it is to suggest that those cultures which do medically circumcise infant boys have chosen that procedure as one of the ways they give men bodies in which patriarchal masculinity and male dominant behavior feel natural.
Clearly, then, ending the routine circumcision of infant boys will not bring patriarchy to its knees, but pulling at the threads by which the procedure is woven into our cultural fabric as necessary, or at least desirable, does reveal some of the more insidious ways in which patriarchy itself is woven into men’s bodies as the natural state of things; and once that weave is revealed as precisely not natural, we can start to imagine not just a different kind of pattern, but even a different way to use the loom on which the fabric is woven. Think objectively for a moment. Leave aside, if you can, the medical justifications and rationalizations, the mythical content and historical imperatives we are taught to impose on the practice of medical circumcision, and think simply in terms of actual events. A boy is born. Sometime between his entrance into the world and his first two weeks of life, he is taken away from his mother, strapped down with full physical restraint in a room full of strangers, and his foreskin, a sensitive, functional and still developing part of his body is pulled away from the head of his penis and amputated–sometimes with and sometimes without anesthesia. He has given no consent, has no awareness of the medical and/or cultural considerations that motivate the procedure, and he has little or no recourse, once the surgery has been performed, to change what has been done to him. There is no way to predict what effect his circumcision will have on him, but that is not the question we ought to be asking ourselves. Rather, we ought to be asking why we as a culture so despise the body with which he was born that we need so radically and so painfully to alter it, and then we need to be asking if that is the kind of society we really want to be.
Works Cited
O’Neill, John. Five Bodies: The Human Shape of Modern Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1985 (The link takes you to the revised edition.)
Cross-posted on It’s All Connected.
“Clearly, then, ending the routine circumcision of infant boys will not bring patriarchy to its knees…”
Judging from the rest of the world, no.
Ending circumcision as a matter of kindness to infants and because of respect for autonomy would probably be a strong push in the right direction.
I agree with you completely. Parents who commit this atrocity against their helpless infants want to believe that their child’s body belongs to them as a matter of course. These are the same kinds of parents who later on police their children’s sexuality, refuse them any personal space, and attempt to live their children’s lives instead of their own.
It’s really scary how the woman you quote at the beginning justifies her desire to mutilate her son on the basis of her own sexual experiences. There are many people who fail to see a difference between their child and their sexual partners. I can only imagine the horrors that await this poor boy later on in life.
Wow. I hope that person is a former good friend.
If she were honest, she’d probably have told you that being circumcised was an important part of Jewish tradition; that the baby’s father absolutely would not tolerate refusal to have it done; that millenia of Jewish men have been circumcised and the whole population is not suffering penis trauma; etc. I’m not saying that these arguments are persuasive, but they are honest.
Frankly, I think she was lying about how she’s been with lots of uncircumcised guys (hm, those would be Gentiles you were sleeping with?) who regaled her of stories of how they were mocked in the locker room.
Mythago:
Maybe you misread? The friend I wrote about was not Jewish. Or are you referring to something else that I am missing.
So she is okay with altering her son for the sake of his future sex partners? That sounds a bit like, well I’m not going to open that door.
I can understand wanting to spare your child pain and torment but to choose to physically alter them in order for them to conform and “be spared” said torment? I have to say that on one hand I’m glad I’m not the father of this child because if she is that adamant about having it (and I am very adamant about not having it done unless there is an actual medical necessity) done there would be serious problems. On the other hand its a shame that this child’s forskin is possibly being left in the hands of a person who wants it removed so badly but would not be able to handle watching it done.
The son doesn’t need to be altered to be accepted by society’s attitudes about foreskin. Society needs to be altered to be accepting of different people’s choices, looks, thoughts, feelings, etc….
You do know that they generally use a plastibell instead of a knife, right?
I don’t agree with circumcision either, but it’s important to have your facts straight.
Richard – you are right. I totally misread and ellipsed the ‘not’.
I still find it very hard to believe that she slept with a large number of uncircumcised men who sobbed about how tormented they’d been by other boys. Frankly, and I assume this was not your intent, she comes across like somebody with huge fucking issues.
“. Parents who commit this atrocity against their helpless infants want to believe that their child’s body belongs to them as a matter of course. These are the same kinds of parents who later on police their children’s sexuality, refuse them any personal space, and attempt to live their children’s lives instead of their own.”
While there’s no doubt that there’s overlap between these two groups of parents–and the mindsets aren’t unrelated–I think it’s intellectually sloppy to condense them into one. There will certainly be parents who have their infants circumcised because of their assumptions about medicine and cleanliness and sexual being and whatever else who have otherwise benign child-rearing philosophies. Part of the reason to do consciousness raising about the ethical complexities of circumcision is so that those parents have information available to really consider the decision to circumcise, rather than allowing it to be done as a matter of course.
Notice what it was that convinced your friend to circumcise her son: uncircumcised men told her personally how being uncircumcised had negatively effected them. I bet she has never had a friend explain to her personally how circumcision (or lack thereof) has negatively impacted him, and perhaps having someone do so might have changed her mind. The downsides to circumcision are abstract to her, but the upsides are very real.
In other words, she needs to understand that her good friend Richard is unhappy that his parents circumcised him, that he is angry at his parents for doing so, and that the reason he is talking to her about it is because he doesn’t want her boy to be violated in the same way that Richard’s parents violated him.
Joe – taking Richard’s post straightforwardly, that’s not what convinced her to circumcise her son. She found uncircumcised penises disgusting and abnormal, and wants her son to have a ‘normal sex life’ – which rather strongly hints that her sexual experiences with uncircumcised men were extremely negative. Teasing from other boys in the locker room has nothing to do with a ‘normal sex life’.
My armchair guess was that she was with at least one uncircumcised man who didn’t understand basic hygiene – a problem not dependent on circumcision, but still – and is projecting her own disgust onto her son.
Fiddle,
Yes I do know that they mostly use a plastibell, but “knife” was what I said in the conversation and so that’s the way I wrote it.
Plastibell circumcisions are just as brutal as ones with a knife. The glans is still pried from the head of the penis, to which it is adhered during childhood, and then torn off, leaving the head a raw open wound.
Here is more info on the plastibel, including pictures, for everyone who thinks that it is somehow “more humane”. Fiddle, please get YOUR facts straight before telling someone else to.
http://www.cirp.org/library/procedure/plastibell/
mythago wrote:
I disagree. To me, she sounds like the vast majority of heterosexual women I’ve talked to about circumcision, if a bit more articulate.
When a couple I know is pregnant with a male, and I know them well enough to discuss personal matters, I usually float the idea that circumcision deprives a child of a healthy body part. Most couples are planning to circumcise, and most expectant mothers have had a “this door is closed, leaving my son intact is not an option” attitude.
I realize I’m drawing from a limited sample, but I think Richard’s friend’s views are very very common.
Lesbian mom here. I don’t much experience with penises, but I do have an uncircumcised . My thoughts have always been…”It’s his body, his choice.” If he wants to look like his friends, he can have a circumcision when he’s old enough to make that decision.” Autonomy for all!
Agreed. Most of the women with whom I’ve had this conversation have either never slept with a man who was intact, or had only done it once or twice, and found it strange. They then go on to say that they would prefer to have their sons circumcised because uncut penises are gross and wrong.
The first man with whom I slept was uncut; he’s what I learned on, so to speak. So to me, circumcised penises are what seems strange.
As for whether parents who circumcise their children also project negative attitudes about sex, I’m going to have to disagree. I’m sure some of them do. But most parents who circumcise their children more likely do it because it is expected and they haven’t heard any reason not to, or the only exposure they’ve had to the issue is people who mention male circumcision in reference to female genital mutilation which seems brutal in comparison. Furthermore, there are always the hordes of men who respond to circumcision issues with, “well, I like my sex life just fine, and if I were more sensitive, then I wouldn’t be able to pump away for so long, which is the entire point of sex, right?”
I’m glad most of the other posts see the harm of circumcision. Keep talking about this to American women– the tide is changing as more parents recognize that there is no medical reason to circumise their helpless babies and that it is traumatic and a violation of the baby’s basic human rights.
I am an American woman, and yes, I’ve only had circumcised partners and husband. Yet, when we found out I was pregnant with a boy, we both knew after research and watching the video of a “procedure” that we couldn’t circumcise our son. Now, we have two intact sons and I talk to pregnant women all the time about how harmful circumcision is. About half change their minds and refuse to circumcise. This will become the norm soon enough. Believe me, once they see even a picture of the baby strapped down to that table with only his tiny penis exposed, they are horrified. Check out the Intact America website for more intelligent info. to share with friends and family.
@Clarissa:
“I agree with you completely. Parents who commit this atrocity against their helpless infants want to believe that their child’s body belongs to them as a matter of course. These are the same kinds of parents who later on police their children’s sexuality, refuse them any personal space, and attempt to live their children’s lives instead of their own.”
I have to really disagree with that. As a circumcised male who is royally pissed at what was done to me, and who feels extremely violated and helpless because it, and who is extremely anti-circumcision… I still cannot find in my parents any of the things you describe above.
I am indeed angry at my parents for circumcising me, and I absolutely believe that I am fully justified in that anger. But they didn’t do it to control me or harm me. And I don’t think it’s helpful to demonize parents that do this horrible thing to their children.
Most parents who do it do so because our culture has created a context where it’s simply not seen as a big deal, where the foreskin is seen as just a “useless vestigial flap of skin”, and where circumcision is seen as preventative of all kinds of inevitable/likely problems down the road. Most parents circumcise children with a similar mindset as they vaccinate them. I think most parents who circumcise their kids genuinely think they are doing what is best for their children in a way that does not infringe upon their children’s rights. They are wrong, of course.
I think to truly tackle this problem, we have to be honest about the kinds of people that are committing this violation: they are pretty much just like us. Not all of them. But I think most of them.
I can’t help to think that one should send the link Caroline Warren posted to prospecting parents who plan to circumcise their son – and disguise it as an “click here to see the cutest kittens” link.
In fact I would encourage everyone to click that link, even if it makes you extremely uncomfortable – perhaps then you’ll try to a bit harder to convince someone to not do it to their child the next time you have the chance.
And no, even if it’s a giant can of worms, religion gets no free pass on this. Make your covenant with G*d or follow the Sunnah when you’re old enough to decide for yourself.
Clarissa:
There are plenty of parents of intact sons who also police their children’s sexuality, refuse them any personal space and attempt to live their children’s lives instead of their own. Not least outside the USA, the world is depressingly full of them.
Thena, I am hopeful that your comment, however true it is, was not meant as a defense for parents who circumcise their sons, but it sure can be read as such. Perhaps you’d like to clarify that?
When the arguments against circumcision get scaled up to this ideological level, they start to fall apart.
1) Are the non-circumcising societies of Latin America, Africa, and Asia – to say nothing of uncircumcised Christian Europe – any less patriarchal?
2) If circumcising is in fact so sexually damaging – how does its practice jibe with male-indulgent patriarchy? Doesn’t it instead indicate ambivalence?
3) As we said in earlier posts in this series, there is a continuum of physical outcomes. The tightly circumcised penis is a very recent product of modern technology, antedating the American adoption of circumcision.
Most circumcised men in the world retain “female” folds of sensitive (and scent-producing) skin, and many have partial glans coverage.
Conversely, many intact men have foreskins that naturally cover only part of the glans.
As you yourself admit – it is sometimes hard to distinguish the two.
So one has to ignore rather large swathes of actual human practice and experience to make this theory fit.
Ben David,
Responding adequately to your post, I think, would require an actual argument, rather than the bullet point response I am going to give, but I don’t have time for more than this, as I am traveling tomorrow and will have limited internet access for the week. Still, I do want to offer some response:
1. You wrote:
And yet to suggest that medical circumcision does not have a deeply rooted ideological structure of some sort here in the United States is to elide how deeply woven it is into our culture; more, to suggest that the ideological structure is not about inscribing a particular vision of male genital and sexual health–and, therefore, of masculinity–is to ignore, it seems to me the very nature of the procedure, no matter how much foreskin is removed.
2. In quoting the “scaled up” ideological position you ascribe to me, i.e., that medical circumcision is one way a culture “gives men bodies in which patriarchal masculinity and male dominant behavior feel natural,” you asked
Your question conveniently ignores the text that precedes your quote:
3. You also wrote:
This question is a good one, especially in light of medical circumcision’s roots in masturbation prevention. (I am leaving aside the whole question of brit milah and what Jewish thinkers have had to say about that, since I think it’s not fair to put brit milah and medical circumcision on the same table, so to speak, without an awful lot of contextualization that I don’t have time for right now, and that I am not even sure would work.) There are, though, a number of possible responses that occur to me, some of which answer your question with further questions:
a. Define ambivalence and what you think circumcision expresses ambivalence about, precisely?
b. I did not argue that circumcision is necessarily sexually damaging, in the sense that it prevents a man from having sex and enjoying a fully satisfying sex life; my argument has to do with what it means that the medical profession has been, and in many ways still is, more or less indifferent to the function of the nerves, etc. that circumcision removes.
c. Medical circumcision, as it is now practiced, is explicitly about an ostensible cleanliness and prevention; it is also sometimes (and please note that “sometimes” and don’t point out to me that this point contradicts the one above) touted as a way to deal with premature ejaculation–or, more generally, of allowing men to have intercourse for longer, which is hardly an expression of ambivalence about male sexuality.
d. A reduction of sensation does not necessarily correspond to an injunction that men should be moderate in their sexuality; it can also suggest a focus on what men do during sex rather than what men feel–which would be in perfect keeping with patriarchal male heterosexuality.
My point in making this list is not to suggest that each of the points I made above are right and accurate. Rather, I want to point out that that argument that medical circumcision expresses ambivalence about male sexuality needs to be unpacked quite a bit before we can understand what it actually means.
4. Finally, you wrote:
I am not trying to make a universalizing argument about male circumcision, and I have tried to be quite explicit about that. At the same time, though, it does seem to me that it doesn’t matter how much foreskin is left over after a boy has been cut; what matters is the meaning the culture in question assigns both to the act of cutting itself and the condition in which the boy’s penis is left after the cutting has been done. No matter how much skin is left over, in other words, if a culture understands its version of circumcision to remove the feminine from a boy’s body, then the feminine has been removed, and calling the remaining folds “feminine” is both wrong and presumptuous–which I intend not as accusation against you or a characterization of what you wrote. Were I trying to make a universalizing argument, your point about “feminine folds” would have been, I think, spot on.
Anyway, I hope what I have written at least makes sense. As I said, I will be away for a week or so, but if you have responded, I will try to answer you when I get back. Finally, I am wondering if you’d share some of your source material for what you have been saying about variation in circumcision practices. I’d be interested to see it.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to describe the un-circumcised as “intact”. Even if you feel that a body part has been amputated, there are unpleasant ramifications to thinking of those who are circumcised as less than.
As someone who’s circumcised, I don’t experience ‘intact’ as having this implication.
Others may, of course.
—Myca
This widespread acceptance is no longer the case in Canada. A majority of men of my parents’ age (60s) are circumcised, but not those of my generation (30s) or younger; the practice is dying out here.
What made the difference? Medical associations spoke out against routine circumcision, and most of the provinces dropped it from their medical coverage, so now parents have to PAY to have it done. Lobbying for the de-listing of circumcision from insurance coverage is one of the most important steps that can be taken in the fight against the practice, as most people are not going to have a medical procedure performed if they are required to pay for it themselves.
First of all, it’s not a “feeling” that a body part has been amputated. It’s a fact. Unless you mean “amputated” in the technical sense–which I believe only applies to limbs, digits, etc.–but I don’t think that’s what you meant. In any case, a body part has been purposefully removed/excised/cut off/whatever. That’s a fact. Not a feeling.
Second, I don’t think it’s a good idea to describe such people as “un-circumcised” either. It creates an image in one’s mind that one is supposed to get circumcised. Like, it’s weird to say that a limb is “un-amputated”. It puts you in a strange state of mind regarding said limb.
As a victim of circumcision myself, I’m willing to stop using the word “intact” when a better alternative presents itself. So far I haven’t run across one. So in the mean time I’ll keep using “intact”.
EDIT:
Just to put things in perspective about why “intact” is at least a better alternative than “un-circumcised”, I’ve modified your paragraph to illustrate how weird that kind of language should seem to everyone, but doesn’t because of cultural context. Imagine if we were, indeed, talking about someone who had a limb amputated:
So while I agree that “intact” is not ideal, as even the modified paragraph makes clear, I think “un-circumcised” is worse, especially in a cultural context where circumcision is already seen as the norm. Again, I am genuinely open to alternatives. But “un-circumcised” is not a good one.
(And for the love of god, I’m not making a comparison between circumcision and limb amputation. The latter is clearly far, far more severe. I’m just using it to illustrate the language issues involved.)
Absolutely, the anecdote leading this article was exactly my attitude until I met my current (uncut) partner and realized that uncut men were not the disgusting, mutated-looking caricatures I had thought them to be. US culture disappears them.
Also, good luck trying to find sex education or tips on your first time with an uncut man. The Good Vibrations book had virtually nothing on it, though it has helpful tips for Nazi fantasies (thank God!). Actually in the dozens and dozens of books I’ve read I’ve never found ANY info for how to have intercourse with an uncut guy. UNREAL.
If you’re interested, “The Guide to Getting It On” assumes that the guy still has his foreskin. It’s actually one of the books that first turned me on (no pun intended) to the fact that I was missing something that could be fun to play with.
But also, the problem of the erasure of foreskins goes beyond just sex manuals, unfortunately. In the USA most medical texts assume that men are circumcised, and only reference foreskins with respect to circumcision. So most of the medical community in the USA are foreskin-uneducated as well. Which is even more unreal to me.
Actually in the dozens and dozens of books I’ve read I’ve never found ANY info for how to have intercourse with an uncut guy. UNREAL.
I suggest using Amazon to pick up a UK based sex book – if anything they assume the other way round, and treat circumcision as the rare case.
Cessen,
Unless you mean “amputated” in the technical sense–which I believe only applies to limbs, digits, etc
Actually, I did mean this, which is why I described it as a feeling. I perhaps should have said if you interpret it as an amptutation, I wasn’t trying to suggest the foreskin has not been removed.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to describe the un-amputated as “intact”. Even if you feel that a body part has been removed, there are unpleasant ramifications to thinking of those who are amputatees as less than.
For me, your switch illustrates the point I making, so what if someone is described as ‘unamputated’? That is a fact also and should only be upsetting if you feel being an amputee has some kind of taint.
The bolded part says it succintly, there is a problem with defining someone who’s had an amputation in terms of what isn’t there as opposed to what is.
There might or might not be a medical reason for doing something, but doing it just because you don’t want someone to “look like a freak” is a red flag for me, as is refusal to watch the actual deed, yet subject an unconsenting human being to it. That woman sounds like someone I’d not trust with a garden, let alone a child. If there is something that bothers her about this or that natural phenomenon, she can just look the other way.
Parents who think they can do any damn thing they want to their kids, just because the kid’s body came out of theirs, or because they are feeding the kid, really tick me off. I am disgusted at how much medical technology is being used to standardize people rather than actualy help them function better/be more comfortable.
Feeling uncomfortable by calling someone unamputated – or uncircumcised – is not because one thinks the amputated or the circumcised is tainted or less in any way. But using the prefix un- implies a non-defaultness which isn’t true. Most boys are born with a foreskin and having one is default by nature. English is my second language so I might be wrong, but un- as a prefix at least for me have an negative connotation. It’s not easy to come up with positive (everyday) word starting with the prefix un-. There are plenty negative though: unnatural, unnerving, unforgiving, unseemingly, unnecessary, unwanted etc.
That is for me the main reason why I don’t think uncircumcised is a good word for people who hasn’t been circumcised. On the other hand I think being called a freak and disgusting is far worse.
The bolded parts relate extremely well with how we treat autistic children. Many purportedly supporting organizations for parents of autistic children brandish the specter of their children being freaks, institutionalized, useless, and even sinking the economy, in order to have said children taken into therapy aimed atmaking autistic children appear “normal” (no stimming, having eye contact, having social skills that discriminate against others (as necessary good or bad) as opposed to being neutral about everyone regardless of actions).
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy is even seen by some as ‘medically necessary’ for autistic children. As opposed to therapy meant to educate those children adapted to them and making them learn the things useful to them (counting, reading, speaking etc). Coercion and the use of aversive methods seems so widespread, like they want anyone who appears autistic off the face of the Earth.
The tangent with regards to circumcision are the bolded parts. They are seen as undesirable unless ‘treated’. The same as circumcised children, who are acceptable only after being cut.
Goes a long way toward showing the main reason why most American parents circumcise their children routinely: Because they don’t want their boys to feel embarrassed. That’s a very good reason, whether or not you agree with the decision, and it doesn’t make them monsters or control-freaks or patriarchal…just concerned parents. I have no doubt whatever that I would have caught all kinds of hell from other kids if I had not been circumcised. If you want to leave the decision up to your boys, that’s your right. But demonizing parents who typically make that decision for a perfectly good reason makes little sense.
American woman in CA here – when I was pregnant 5 yrs ago, husband & I thought thru the circumcision issue and decided not to do it, if we had a boy. Here in CA, that decision is not unusual, so it isn’t as though ‘uncut’ boys will be unusual here. Tho’ as it turned out, we had a daughter, so of course we did not have to deal with this issue after all.
As for concerned parents, well maybe they forgot what it is like to be a kid. Kids are rather cruel, they will mock each other over anything and nothing at all – your name, hair, nose, clothes, weight – anything at all. So, circumcising sons is hardly going to save them from rude classmates who want to have a joke at their expense. (This, I recall all to well).
That’s just my personal experience.
“demonizing parents who typically make that decision for a perfectly good reason makes little sense”
Do you apply that logic when parents ask doctors to cut down or cut off their daughters’ clitorises as well? Or is embarrassment not actually always a good reason, but only a good reason in this instance?
Lots of things have embarrassed me, and yet don’t seem to be worth mutilation for me not to have been embarrassed by them. I was shamed as a child for my large vocabulary. I don’t think the solution would have been brain surgery.
On the other hand, maybe I’m reading your argument incorrectly. If you’re trying to say that the reasons are perfectly logical and cromulent reasons, and there’s nothing wrong with them, then I think you are mistaken in dangerous ways. If, on the other hand, you’re just trying to say that the reasons are *not demonic* and that saying parents who opt to circumcise boys (or, conversely, mutilate their female children) are monsters with no respect for their children is not only untrue, but vastly unproductive–then I agree completely.
I’m baffled by why American society seems so accepting of people, including children, exposing their naked bodies to members of the same sex in the first place. As someone from a non-Jewish/-Christian/-secular community, I find the argument that “others will see it and tease him” bizarre. I’m an unmarried 30-something female, and since I was out of diapers, have never found myself in a situation where I would consider exposing my naked body to another girl/woman; in fact, like many others, I would outright refuse to participate in an activity (changerooms, saunas, medical acts, etc.) that required this. Instead of mutilating children’s genitals to ‘conform’, we really ought to be organizing social structures so that no child (or unwilling adult) is forced or pressured to be in such a degrading situation in the first place. The right to always be clothed in the presence of others is one of the most fundamental rights that we (should) have in a free society.
Miranda, I remember the cruelty of other kids, and I’m certain that it would have been worse if I hadn’t been circumcised. Thus I’m very glad that I was.
Mandolin, I wouldn’t demonize parents who authorized clitoris reduction surgery if their goal was to save a daughter from severe embarrassment. Social anxiety can be horribly debilitating. I’m not sure I would take that step, but I could certainly understand the reasoning and could find it perfectly logical. Likewise, circumcision to shield a son from harrassment or embarrassment is perfectly logical even if you, or I or any parent, make the opposite decision. No, I don’t see anything particularly “dangerous” about circumcision. Becoming an object of harrassment by school age boys? Now THAT can be dangerous, as my own experiences attest.
(EDIT: Ack! Sorry Mandolin! The text you quoted was quite similar to something I wrote above, so I mistook it at-a-glance as being aimed at me. My apologies. Still, I’ll leave my response anyhow. Again, sorry about that.)
First: the large majority of victims in the Cornell scandal are intersex children, and it makes me really angry that everyone keeps on erasing that by calling it female genital cutting/mutilation. Intersex genital cutting is a huge and horrible problem that few people take seriously, and it shouldn’t be erased like that.
Second: yes, I do apply that same logic to female/intersex genital cutting as well. It is not useful–or I think even meaningful–to demonize the parents that do this horrible thing to their children. Should they be held responsible? Yes. But I think it is actually dangerous to demonize parents (or people in general) who do things like this without first looking at context, because it erases the fact that you can severely harm people you care deeply about with actions that you think are positive.
If you read accounts from and interviews with people in FGC cultures, it becomes clear that most of them (including the women) do not see it as a harmful practice, and in fact see it as very positive and good. Most parents don’t knowingly harm their children, including in those cultures. And including in the Cornell case. And I think it’s ridiculous to think that we can properly address these problems (or seriously examine ourselves) if we don’t acknowledge this.
(Anyway, I fear derailing this discussion into talk about FGC or IGC. Both are extremely important issues, of course. But they are not the topic at hand.)
Third: I get the impression that you think I am not against circumcision? Please read my above comments. I am extremely, extremely anti-circumcision. And obviously that means I am also extremely, extremely anti-FGC and extremely, extremely anti-IGC. (With the exception in all cases of when it is done with enthusiastic and informed consent. But that’s not typical.)
B. Adu,
In that case I am unclear how I could “feel” like an arm, leg, hand, etc. was cut off when it was not. Why did you use the word amputation if you were using it in a clearly irrelevant technical sense? I think perhaps we are not communicating clearly.
I will say this: it is a fact that my genital integrity was compromised without my consent. And this is true of anyone circumcised as an infant. Whether I “feel” violated, however, is indeed subjective, and I do not intend to suggest that every man should feel this way. I do, however, intend to suggest that I am fully justified in feeling this way myself, and that a wrong was committed when I was circumcised without my consent.
Hi Cessen,
Understood that you were misreading me… let me answer a few points anyway… I don’t think we’re disagreeing on anything. I suspect we agree about all the important issues. But your post gets me thinking in certain directions that seem like they could be interesting, so…
“Intersex genital cutting is a huge and horrible problem that few people take seriously, and it shouldn’t be erased like that.”
I agree. I was actually pretty astonished when the scandal broke and everyone was like “OMGWTF?” and I was like “um, actually, ongoing tragedy that’s been going on for a very long time.”
I was under the impression, though, that the Dix Poppas surgeries, while practiced on children with so-called ambiguous genitalia (grr), primarily targeted girls who were unambiguously female apart from genital size. I got that impression from this thread, though it may be mistaken. (I am aware that ambiguous genitalia probably puts someone on the intersex spectrum, but I also think it’s self-evidently an issue that can be considered to effect female genitalia when the “ambiguous” genitalia is clearly female.) There are a few people in that thread arguing that embarrassment is a good reason to cut childrens’ genitals, although interestingly they back off when hammered with the information that “nerve-sparing” is ineffective. It would be interesting to know whether Michael would back off in that instance, or whether he continues to rate sexual function below potential social anxiety.
Within American culture, of course, male circumcision, female “circumcision,” and intersexed surgeries are all related. Male circumcision’s roots in the anti-masturbation craze, as documented here by RJN, were accompanied by attacks on female sexuality that included removal of the clitoris. Removing the clitoris was recommended as a cure for epilepsy, depression, neurasthenia, and so on, much as male circumcision was incorrectly medicalized.
Thankfully, removal of the unambiguous clitoris did not become a standardized American medical procedure the way that removal of the healthy foreskin did. However, the modification of “ambiguous” genitalia (and I believe PZ is incorrect when he stipulates in his post that there is no standard definition of ambiguous; I remember being told in anthropology of sex & sexuality that there were measurements used to classify what would be a normal infant’s clitoris, and a normal infant’s penis, with anything in between being considered problematic) shares a trait with ongoing male circumcision–it’s the medical maintenance of an artificial norm, wherein we have a cultural myth that “genitals look like this” and will use medical technology to force them to look like that even where they don’t. Penises are hard, clean, naked, and lacking in tissue that’s considered a visual analog to the labia. They are also large. Clitorises must be small. ALL penises must be larger than ALL clitorises. Genitals that violate these tenets will be surgically modified.
It *does not make sense to talk about FGS in the African, middle eastern, or otherwise non-western contexts within this conversation*. However, the American medical history of surgeries on the clitoris is intertwined with the medical history of American medical support for male circumcision. AND the cultural philosophies that provide for genital modification are the same cultural philosophies that underlie modifications of the intersexed.
That said, while there are points where these surgeries can be compared and considered, there are definitely places where they cannot be analogized. Removal of the external clitoris is worse than removal of the foreskin (provided that the latter does not result in a surgical accident). Surgeries on intersexed individuals are, by and large, more radical and worse for sexual functioning than removal of the normal, healthy foreskin. IF there were a law on the table providing for the protection of the genitals of intersexed individuals that DID NOT provide for protection of the normal, functioning male foreskin, I WOULD NOT oppose that law.
However, it’s instructive to me that the justification for surgery on ambiguous genitalia, for surgery on intersexed individuals, and for removal of the foreskin, are to avoid embarrassment. Of course the normalization of the surgeries themselves is what causes the potential embarrassment–according to the figures I had in college, 1% of births involve “ambiguous” genitalia, which is actually a large percentage of the population. If we didn’t insist on “fixing” them, then the condition would seem much more normal. And of course if we challenged the culturally accepted notions of what penises and clitorises are, then that would also lessen the “embarrassment” potential. This is even more obvious in the case of male circumcision, where the modification of penises has become normalized, so that unmodified penises become abnormal!
Yes, this is true. And it’s part of my point. If you want to lessen cultural attachment to a particular damaging practice, you have to figure out what the cultural attachment is. That’s a very complex discussion when you’re talking about non-western FGC, a subject I’ve written about a number of times on Alas. That’s not surprising since we’re talking about a variety of surgeries in a variety of cultures. (And it’s why I was completely frustrated by the recent conversation in the feminist blogosphere about the AAP’s recommendations on nicking, in which people completely failed to deal with the surgeries as different from each other, as culturally contingent, and as only being primarily about sexual control of females in some of the cultures).
Without bringing in incorrect comparisons between non-western FGC and genital surgeries as performed in the west, one thing that we can bring from that discussion to this one is that in order to lessen cultural attachment to surgeries here, we must understand the functions that the surgeries perform. That means we must NOT demonize parents who circumcize. We need to understand what they’re doing.
That doesn’t mean VALIDATING what they’re doing. But we need to understand it.
And if we’re being told that the reason we need to modify large clitorises, small penises, intact penises, and ambiguous clitorises/penises, among other things, is because of the potential for embarrassment–then that’s an enormous clue as to the preoccupations of the parents involved. They have decided that the “embarrassment” of being different from other children is more important than physical sexual functioning. This tells us that conformity and symbolism of genitalia are enormously important to us as a culture. That’s a starting point.
Mandolin,
Yes, indeed it seems we are in agreement. :-)
Of course, yes, I was oversimplifying in addressing FGC, and I appreciate your expanding on that topic. Of course there are many forms of it, and many different cultures, and as many different cultural motivations for it. One of the things that really bugs me about discussions of non-western FGC is that there seems to be such a strong racist component, like “OMG! Dark skinned people! What they’re doing is uncivilized and dirty and evil and backwards! And it’s all the same! And they’re all the same!” And discussion just stops there, without bothering to actually try to understand those varied cultures.
Exactly.
Absolutely. I’m totally with you there.
But I would also support the reverse: a law protecting against circumcision but saying nothing about IGC. We can keep pecking away to add more and more things to be protected, and passing up on one simply because it isn’t happening in the preferred order is counterproductive, IMO.
Regarding whether the Cornell victims are intersex or not, it depends on definition of course. But IMO “female with ambiguous genitalia” sounds a lot like trying to enforce a gender binary. “Female except…” “Female but…”
As far as I understand, intersex doesn’t mean exactly 50/50 ambiguous in every respect.
But regardless, the Cornell scandal is at least importantly related to intersex genital cutting, and that too is being erased most places I see it covered. And that still makes me frustrated and angry.
Of course. We are in agreement here.
However, from personal experience, the small vestige of foreskin tissue that I have left on my shaft is notably more sensitive and pleasurable than my glans. So, at least with respect to myself, I do suspect that if one thing had to be cut off, my foreskin was the most pleasure-reducing.
But conversations with intact men make me seriously wonder if there is simply a lot more variation between men in terms of pleasure centers than we like to acknowledge as a culture. Such conversations have varied a good deal (granted it’s anecdotal and a very small sample size).
Mandolin, For some parents circumcision may be partly about mere conformity. But ultimately for many in the US the issue is a lot more pointed, ehem…the likelihood of harrassment and bullying and shame. These parents are well intentioned. I (and my parents) had not the slightest inclination toward social conformity, but I did not embrace the attention of bullies either. Good luck with changing the bullying culture of boys; nobody should blame parents for trying to shield their boys from it to some degree. Make non-circumcision the norm and then go ahead and praise parents for conforming to the new social reality. But until that time, critics of the practice should at least recognize that parents may have a perfectly good reason for continuing to do this.
I don’t “rate sexual function below potential social anxiety.” I say parents may think they are choosing the lesser to two unwelcome things, which in the abstract is logical and acceptable. I say that even though I very probably would not authorize any such surgery because of the complexity of the issues, the ambiguity, and the obscurity of any potentialsocial stigma. The circumstances of clitoral alteration are so varied, and parents so poorly informed about procedures and outcomes, however, that it’s very difficult to generalize about why they’re authorizing what they are, and whether it’s logically justifiable. Do I have to add that parental decisions can be logical and yet still inadvisable or unwelcome?
“intact” is problematic in large part because the way it’s usually used in reference to male genitals: those of domestic animals that haven’t been neutered/castrated.
I don’t think I need to point out the implications of using it in this context…
“But IMO “female with ambiguous genitalia” sounds a lot like trying to enforce a gender binary. “Female except…” “Female but…”
As far as I understand, intersex doesn’t mean exactly 50/50 ambiguous in every respect.”
How do I put this? I’m not trying to make that argument. I’m not trying to enforce a binary so much as suggest an overlap. I don’t think intersexed issues can be clearly separated from feminist issues; they overlap; they’re often the same. Does that make any sense?
It’s a side point, but I felt like it was kind of important to clarify… probably not good to focus on, though.
Yes, me too, and I’m sorry for contributing to that erasure–especially since it’s been frustrating me too.
Right on Vidya, I would have given anything to not have to undress in front of other kids.
I heard about it too. A clitoris is below 1 cm, a penis is above 2.5 cm (or 0.4 inch and 1.0 inch). In-between is considered problematic by doctors to determine sex. This is birth length.
Don’t agree with it at all though.
I was harassed despite circumcision being a non-issue here. EVERYTHING is subject to making you be harassed. Being too good, too bad, too rich, too poor, too colorful, too bland, too joyful, too depressive, too thin, too fat, having glasses, braces, too tall, too short, too weird (in interests for example, or behavior).
ANY difference is good enough for the bully. If there ain’t one they’ll MAKE one. You’ll be accused of being gay by association even if you didn’t do anything feminine. Maybe your sister does dancing and your parents forced you to see a year-end show of hers? That’s plenty enough for some.
and also…I really wish they did something about the weird and apparently “normal” thing of having non-separated communal shower rooms. There should be closed cubicles, with lockable doors, where you can undress (to being naked) and shower, without being seen. You can dress and undress from other states of undress without fear of being seen naked normally (ie putting on PE clothes), but even then I think lockable cubicles should exist.
Dressing rooms in stores are rarely communal (even then we can’t try panties or underwear before buying, so no one should see genitals). Why should locker rooms be?
I never was forced to shower in any event (including PE) that was organized by say, a day camp, a school. I’ve never been in a gym, but I doubt they REQUIRE showers either (it’s not like I’d go to a gym that was so far from home that taking the shower at home would be bad). Never been in scouts or summer camp, but I know I would have requested some modicum of privacy to undress and shower if I ever did. I don’t want to show my genitals to everyone, whatever their sex. My boyfriend sees them and my mom when she changed my diapers, and I like it that way. Maybe a surgeon and nurses would see them if I get surgery, but that’s special I’d say. It’s ironic in that I’m somewhat of an exhibitionist kink-wise. I just want the right to choose when and how to expose myself to consenting adults.
If they took for granted that children have a right to privacy, maybe the harassment thing would go away. It’s not like anyone pulled my pants down to see the state of my genitals. So the argument about “what will other boys think?” is totally moot.
Vidya,
I don’t want to sound dismissive of what seem to be important beliefs, and I agree that no one should be forced to be naked in the presence of others.
On the other hand, it seems to me that some of the language you’ve used is not inconsistent with a culture that cultivates a sense of shame and fear about nudity.
For example:
This doesn’t sound far from the nudity=sexuality and sexuality=bad memes that various cultures perpetuate. Generally, all other things being equal, I’d argue that a person who is comfortable being naked in front of others is healthier than a person who is afraid of being naked in front of others, but there are lots of disclaimers to that statement. (Ability to understand a culture, developmental issues, and mental health issues might all mitigate that statement, for instance.)
Perhaps it’s possible to raise a child to believe that they should never be naked in front of a group of other humans without raising them to internalize the idea that there is something dirty, wrong, or shameful about their body, but I’m not sure that’s a given.
I don’t agree. The right to privacy isn’t a fear of being seen naked, it’s a right to not be seen by strangers against one’s will. If you feel a sense of shame about small breasts, small penis, or what you think looks abnormal – for sure you won’t want to show it to the world, or be forced to do so. But even without feeling any sense of shame, people have the right not to bare their genitals or breasts for all to see. The Sikh do not want to show their hair (which their religion says to never cut) outside their home, and so wear a turban. It’s not a sense of shame to them.
I would be less than thrilled, as a pre-operative trans woman, to be forced to be naked among peers, wether that be women or trans women (and let’s not even talk about being forced to change in a men’s locker room). Even if I did have surgery, I’d reserve the right not to make it the public domain of every locker room I go in. Everyone should have that right.
In the UK, I take they call genitals “privates”. It seems they had a good reason to use that word.
I also find it ironic that healthy heterosexuality for men includes (according to #49) being fine with seeing a lot of male genitals and being fine with a lot of guys seeing yours.
I agree with B. Adu.
Part of being a white straight male ally means not insisting that a lot of discourse be shaped around my feelings and perceptions* but I get pretty tired of discussions of circumcision that assume that a circumcised male is missing something. It gets a little paranoia-inducing, frankly. I’m not even sure how anything should change, because whatever my feelings about it it obviously needs to be discussed, but I tend to completely avoid discussions like this one because I start to wonder why I don’t feel incomplete.
* Don’t get me wrong. Almost all discourse is shaped around my feelings and perceptions as a member of the super-majority. I just try not to insist on it, on those occasions that it’s not.
Schala, I think it is clear that there is a difference between being forced to be naked and being comfortable being naked. There are lots of reasons a person might not wish to be naked. That doesn’t mean it’s not healthier, generally, to be comfortable with nudity. Forced nudity might, in fact, be the worst way to cultivate a sense of being comfortable with your own body.
I read your comment in #51 to be a homophobic dig–something like, “Harumph! Straight guys shouldn’t be ‘fine with’ seeing other men’s genitals!” Is that how you meant it?
It’s because I heard in one of the scout threads here that not wanting to be naked with other guys or men in a communal shower setting was a sign of being gay. I just think it’s ironic that some people think that when it’s counter-intuitive.
Sort of like saying: A man who can have a shower with a stranger woman and refuses is a sign of his heterosexuality (not to be confused with faithfulness or chastity). As opposed to not being a sign of anything specific.
I’m all for nudist camps and beaches also. Just not with forcefully being exposed or being forced to exposing oneself.
People have different levels of comfort with nudity depending a lot on how they were raised and their personality, both. In some countries, running topless for women, outside a beach or closed setting, is totally normal, probably much less sexualized.
I remember finding it weird from my point of view that South American tribes presented in The Mysterious Cities of Gold mini-documentaries (at the end of each of the 39 episodes) had topless women dancing around with men and it being totally non-sexual. Because I wasn’t used to toplessness being seen as no-big-deal like them.
Titanis,
That’s all well and good, but I’ve heard “un-neutered” a lot more. That doesn’t mean that you haven’t heard “intact” more. But I’m saying that your argument applies equally to “un-circumcised” as “intact”.
(And also note how the presumption that cats, dogs, etc. are supposed to get neutered is reinforced when “un” is used in that fashion.)
Auguste,
Depends on how you’re using the word. If you mean “missing” as in “it has been removed” then it’s not an assumption, it’s fact. But if you mean it more like, “I miss my finger” if you lost it somehow, then yeah, that’s inappropriate to force upon circ’d males (or anyone with any kind of genital cutting, for that matter). There is a tendency to make false consciousness arguments, as in men who aren’t upset must be unaware of what really happened or are repressing their true feelings or whatever. And yeah, I think that’s totally inappropriate. Many circ’d males simply don’t miss their foreskin. And that’s fine.
But part of what bothers me about many of these discussions is that there often seems to be an implicit assumption that me feeling violated and missing my foreskin is my problem or a sign that something is wrong with me, rather than being due to someone else harming me. “He wants his foreskin back? He’s crazy. Why can’t he just be like the rest of us and be okay with it?”
As someone who does feel greatly violated by being circumcised without my consent, I have run into a great deal of stigma and denialism about my feelings.
I am unintact. They did a bad job of excising my masculine labias, or foreskin. I hate the word circumcision, because it is dishonest. Meaning by deffinition “a circular excision, it is meant to hide the truth by not allowing the sayer of the word an accurate discription of the part that is being excised.
I just want to say how much I am enjoying this conversation.
@57 I’m not sure, but I think the labias of the vulva are from the exact same proto-tissue as the testicular sac, not the foreskin. The equivalent AFAIK, of the foreskin, would be the clitoral hood and maybe a small, but important functionally, part of the internal clitoris (as circumcision removes more than just the covering).
The tissues are from the same original proto-tissue of the undifferentiated fetus, and while they don’t always serve the same function (scrotal sac vs labia), they probably have equivalency (or near it) nerve-wise overall.
In trans female surgery, the scrotal sac and penile tissue are used to line the neo-vagina and form the labia, the glans become the clitoris. I’m not sure if they put all the tissues in their homologue spaces or not (my guess is they simply can’t due to technology, like the internal clitoris part), but from reports, it results in sexual function overwhelmingly. That’s about the best guess we can have about the comparison between the two organs: when making one from the other.
For the record, I oppose intersex infant surgery, where crucial nerve chunks are severed for the sake of conformity of immature (as opposed to adult matured) genital appearance, even when it happens to be the ‘right choice’ for that kid’s identity later (they work with so little tissue, they can’t be as precise as on adults).
No one has mentioned that circumcision rates in the US have fallen steadily since their high in 1965. It certainly was not routine when either of my sons were born…you had to request it, and you had to ask if I recall correctly. Insurance no longer covers it. We spent a great deal of time doing research on the subject before the older one’s birth (they are 10 and 6). The decision came down to the fact that while Mom is a very secular Jew (I actually know more about the religious aspects than she does, figuring if Jesus was a Jew, it behooves Christians to understand His culture and religion). If either boy decides as an adult to become Orthodox, adult circumcision is both very painful and has a greater risk of complications than infant. That was the deciding factor. Linking the boys to their heritage.
We did not use a moyel, as funds and emergency c-sections made that impossible with the nearest 6 hours away. But the doctor did the elder on the proper day, with both of us holding him and sugar syrup substituting for the wine (did you know sugar is a powerful pain-killer in newborns? That is why the wine, not the alcohol)). Doctor was skeptical, but humored us. 4 years later he trotted out the sugar syrup and solemnly informed us of the pain relieving properties, having forgotten who informed him to begin with. Neither boy was the least upset, except being held still, and all is well. Now the 10 year old has heard the story of his circumcision and the reasons for it, and he is cool with it. It ties him to his heritage, and he really likes that. I realize you all are complaining about people doing it for cosmetic or wrong-headed notions of hygiene, but I think the men who mourn their lost foreskin and resent their parents are a minority… at least none of my many partners in my wild youth found it worthy of mention. Wait, there was one, who had a very minimal trim and seemed unhappy with it being neither fish nor fowl.
The rates 5 years ago were down to 33% in the western US, 43%(I think, I closed my page) overall from the high of 85% in 1965. Demographically, if trends continue there will be few non-religious circumcisions in very few years. As it is, unless the local hospital is an aberration, and the insurance company also, it is far from being pushed on new parents.
No, I am not a guy, so have no idea how I’d feel. I doubt I’d feel betrayed by being cut vs/uncut, but I can’t say. As for the person upthread that talked about never having to be naked in a group of peers…I wish I’d gone to your high school…2 private showers, the rest open, and yes, we all showered (I don’t remember if it was required,(I think so) but I know anyone that didn’t would have been ridiculed for being a dirty sweaty slob). As it was , dressing out with a bunch of the skinny popular girls was not fun. As an adult, I got over my body shyness, which is good. Meanwhile, our boys are cut, their cousin(almost another brother) isn’t, and none of them seem to care that they look different when they decide streaking is the thing to do. All of them understand that while being naked is comfortable and okay at home, there are people that just don’t want to see it, so to be polite, we wear clothes around them. None of them find naked as dirty as of this point at least.
My 2 cents.
One more thing…. I have never associated a penis in any form as being remotely feminine…taste, smell, appearance…. I’m bi and have a dirty mind, so I know both things., and if I can make a bad banana joke, I will. I find phallic and vaginal shapes everywhere. I do not see this even with it explained in detail to me. I admit to skepticism as to circumcision having become widespread as a means to de-feminize penises.
I just want to note that this does not, in fact, hold true for the foreskin vs clitoral hood, nor the glans penis vs the glans clitoris.
The glans clitoris has not only substantially more nerve endings than the glans penis, but also a greater variety of types of nerve endings. So not only is the glans penis less sensitive than the glans clitoris, but it also has a very limited repertoire of types of sensations it experiences compared to the glans clitoris.
IIRC the reverse is true of the foreskin vs clitoral hood (i.e. the foreskin is more sensitive and experiences a wider variety of sensations than the clitoral hood).
(There is also a lot to be said for how the brain processes the signals from these parts of the body. Dense innervation doesn’t necessarily equal intense sensation, for example. Otherwise our finger tips would be exploding. So these things can be difficult to measure properly from an experiential standpoint.)
Thus saying things like, “But FGC is like cutting off the head of the penis!” or “Circumcision is more comparable to removing the clitoral hood” aren’t really accurate or useful statements. It’s not that simple. In all likelihood, removing the glans penis is less of an issue than removing the glans clitoris, and removing the foreskin is more of an issue than removing the clitoral hood.
As I noted in one of my above comments, I’m reasonably sure that if only one part of my penis had to be removed, the most effective at restricting my sexual pleasure for the rest of my life was my foreskin. I certainly get pleasure from my glans penis, but it’s really not comparable to the sensations I get from the small vestige of foreskin tissue I have remaining.
(And lest someone think I’m biased due to being anti-circumcision, I’ll note that this is something I noticed and enjoyed before I found out what circumcision was.)
Wild Clover,
This varies a lot by region. At the moment, IIRC, circumcision rates for newborn infants is roughly 50/50 nation wide. But as you noted, in the western USA rates are much lower. In some states they are still around 80%.
Again, I will note that the same thing is true of FGC in many FGC cultures. If the “most people it’s done to are okay with it” argument is really the point you’re hinging on to justify circumcising infant boys without their consent, then I’d be interested to know how you think such arguments apply to other things.
And being one of the people in that minority you mention, it makes me extremely angry that you think I’m not important. Circumcision is not reversible. I cannot get my foreskin back. Ever. Your sons, had you not circumcised them, could always have gotten it done later if they wanted to. Also, you had no guarantees that they would be okay with it. Frankly, you still don’t. When they get older they may research the subject and decide they’re not okay with it.
It is baffling to me that people cannot understand this. You did something significant, irreversible, and unnecessary to your sons that you had no guarantees they would be okay with. I’m glad they ended up being okay with it. For their sake I honestly hope they continue to be okay with it for the rest of their lives.
But my parents took that same gamble with me, and they substantially harmed me. It’s not an okay gamble to make with someone else’s body and life.
If circumcision were reversible, then you might have a point worth considering. But as it stands now, circumcision is an irreversible and (nearly always) unnecessary procedure.
Infant circumcision is also very painful, and almost never involves post-op pain management. As an adult you can get all the pain management you need.
And I’m extremely skeptical of your claim that adult circumcision has higher complication rates. Intuitively I would expect infant circumcision to have higher complication rates:
– They are operating on much smaller genitals
– The foreskin has not yet separated from the glans penis
– They can’t predict for certain how those genitals will grow, so they are more liable to cut off too much (IIRC over-tight circumcisions are the most common complication at a rate of about 10%)
– There is substantially less room for blood loss in case of hemorrhaging.
If you’re going to make this highly counter-intuitive claim, please provide some citations.
I’m circumcised and from a country where about 100% of native boys are circumcised. I can attest that it is a very unpleasant experience, even in my case where it was done under local anesthesia. Actually, it’s the days that follow the operation that are hellish, especially when you need to urinate.
However, depicting it as extremely traumatic and irremediably damaging is quite exaggerated, and the comparison with girls’ excision is totally off-base, in my view.
The notion that circumcision originates from a patriarchal agenda is also laughable. It was not so long ago in history, that a bar of soap was a luxury that only a happy few could access; there was then a strong medical rationale to circumcise boys, notably in order to reduce STD’s prevalence.
Now that hygiene is highly improved, that rationale has but disappeared; though some recent research that was validated by the WHO and the UNAIDS contends that risk of HIV transmission is significantly lower for circumcised men (risk is said to be reduced by half in terms of female-to-male transmission and 30% for male-to-female). It is now scientifically accepted that circumcision can help in slowing down the spreading of the AIDS epidemic, especially in Africa.
I think it is an issue where the parents decide what they think best for their kid, and I can empathize with the woman’s reaction in the OP, in the same way that I would empathize with her if the situation was reversed, that is if she didn’t want her son to be circumcised but some third party would try to convince her to do so.
In my country, it is clear that leaving a boy “intact” is definitely not an option. In the US, the practice is declining steadily so the parents have a choice to make. Whatever it is, it has to be respected.
BernardSG wrote:
People continue to conflate two different things that I think are important to keep separate, not just because, as a factual matter, they are separate, but also out of consideration for the feelings of people, like Cessen, who have been circumcised and who feel violated by it:
1. As a surgical procedure, circumcision is irremediably damaging to the penis. It removes a part of the penis that cannot be restored and, in the process, removes a whole slew of nerves, glands, etc. that are part of the penis in its uncut state. To deny this is to deny a fact.
2. The fact that circumcision permanently alters the penis does not mean that circumcision is necessarily damaging to a man’s ability to have a rich and fully satisfying sex life. At the same time, a man who does feel himself violated and who feels that his sex life has been impoverished by circumcision, who is angry, etc., is not only entitled to his feelings; his feelings are rooted in a physical fact about his body; they are not something he has conjured out of a theoretical abstraction.
3. Neither of the above points accounts for the feelings of men whose circumcisions were, in one form or another, botched.
I would appreciate it if people commenting on this thread could keep this distinction in mind and speak from their own experiences, rather than making sweeping generalizations.
BernardSG,
Thanks for the erasure.
Could you elaborate? I haven’t seen any particularly inappropriate comparisons made on this thread so far.
Washing with soap doesn’t significantly lessen the spread of STD’s as far as I know, if that’s what you’re implying?
And I’m pretty sure that with the exception of HIV (which is a comparatively recent disease), studies have quite solidly demonstrated that circumcision has negligible effects on the spread of STD’s. And even with HIV, it seems far and beyond more sensible to just use a condom.
At the time that medical routine circumcision became popular, there was no scientifically credible evidence that it was beneficial. As noted by Richard in part 3 of this series of posts, medicalized circumcision started largely to try to prevent boys and men from masturbating (as much, at least).
@Richard:
Please accept my gigantic virtual hugs.
Also, regarding point 2:
It is also the case that men like myself can have a rich and fulfilling sex life and still feel angry and violated about being circumcised. Genital cutting doesn’t need to make all forms of meaningful sexual pleasure fully impossible before it is violating. Yet so often I feel like people believe that is essentially the case.
Cessen:
You’re right, of course. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Thanks for the clarification.
It’s a given that boys should not have sex and be exposed to sexually transmitted HIV at infancy or very young age. So obviously they don’t need to be circumcised when they’re young. And when they’re old enough to have sexual relations they’re also old enough to make an informed decision on whether they should have a circumcision or not.
Pushing/arguing for routine circumcision of infants/young boys as a weapon in the battle against AIDS sounds to me scaringly similar to the rationale used to defend forced sterilization of mentally ill and vagrant minorities like the Romani people and the Sami people. In essence it’s the same: violate someone’s bodily integrity in order to prevent, no make that reduce the risk of, future possible problem.
The laws in my country makes it illegal for me to give my son a spanking, but I am allowed to get someone to cut off his foreskin. Any arguements that the parents should get to decide what’s best for the child is frankly bullshit. If we could trust parents to do that we would need no child protection laws and the CPA would have nothing to do. Sadly it’s not so.
Tamen,
I agree with you entirely, of course, but I feel it necessary to point out–though I don’t have sources handy–that, as far as I know, no one who has participated in any of the studies which found circumcision to help prevent the spread of HIV, nor anyone who has advocated any public health policies as a result of those studies, has advocated routine infant male circumcision for this purpose. (More, if I remember the study I read correctly, the authors were pretty clear that they were limiting their conclusions/recommendations to Africa, where the study was done.) Nor is it clear to me that BernardSG was advocating routine infant male circumcision as an anti-AIDS measure. Again, it’s not that I think your point is unimportant, I just think it’s important not to ascribe to people views they did not express.
@62, I meant it like you say, that the total amount of nerves of the genital area is equal, while it might not be distributed in the same way. Like 8000 + 12000 for a male and 5000 + 15000 for a female (totally hypothetical numbers).
@69 You can’t spank your child, but if your child has developmental delays, you can send him or her to Judge Rotenberg Center to have him or her tortured for years. JRC uses techniques that we aren’t allowed to use on prisoners of war, terrorists or anyone else, and most often on children (they also have adult ‘students’*). And it costs over 200,000$ a year of taxpayer money on top.
I don’t know for you, but 200k a year for lodging, food AND “therapy” sounds a bit exagerrated. I could live in a pretty big house with a private shrink on-demand for that much, not in group homes and being given electric shocks for not making eye contact.
For the record, organizations have tried to close down the place for over 20 years, have documented the abuse from a Boston commission (including wrongful deaths). But parents pushing to have their kids sent there have reversed court decisions preventing abuse.
*Their term
Schala:
IIRC (I would have to look up sources again to be sure), but my understanding is that the foreskin is substantially denser in nerve endings than the glans penis. IIRC, the glans penis is actually quite sparse in its innervation, whereas the foreskin is closer to finger tips or the lips of the mouth in how densely innervated it is.
So maybe more like 15000 + 5000 for male and 5000 + 15000 for female. (Also pulled totally out of my ass. Perhaps I’ll try to track down some sources and get accurate information.)
(EDIT: I also remember reading that the glans clitoris has twice the nerve endings of the glans penis. If that’s the case, and if what you say is true, then at the very least the other half of the nerve endings from the clitoris may well end up in the foreskin. Hypothetical again, of course.)
I also recall a few years ago reading in “The Guide To Getting It On” that an anatomical study or two was done that determined that the innervation of women’s genitals actually varies a fair amount from woman to woman. I haven’t seen the study myself, so grain of salt and all. But if that is the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same is true for men. And that could go a long way to explaining such vastly different accounts of the sexual impact of circumcision by men who had it done later in life. It would also explain some of the differing conversations I’ve had with intact men in Europe (I only talked to two, so not a representative sample). All hypothetical, of course. But an interesting thought.
Okay, I’ve done a bit of internet research. Some pointed back to original research, but most did not. So take this with a giant block of salt. But here are the figures I came up with for the number of nerve endings in various parts of the genitals of both genders:
Male:
glans penis: 4000
foreskin: 10,000 – 20,000
Female:
glans clitoris: 8000
“additional nerve endings throughout the pelvis”: 15,000
The statistic on foreskin nerve endings seems the most reliable, as there were multiple original research citations. However, it was on an anti-circ site, and also I could not gain access to any of original papers (hidden behind pay walls) to verify.
The statistics on the glans of both the clitoris and penis were stated in multiple places, which also suggests some level of reliability. However, it’s also possible that they are simply repeating each other.
The last one is the most fuzzy, both because I only found it in one place, and also because it seems oddly and vaguely stated.
Also note that just the raw number of nerve endings only says so much. As I said before, if that were the only variable in the equation then our fingers would be exploding. Both the types of nerve endings and the way the brain interprets their signals are highly relevant to how the person experiences sensations. (For example, those of us with a penis can enjoy verifying that the glans penis is pretty pathetic at feeling temperature, excepting for on the coronal ridge.)
Anyway, hope this is of interest.
Well, as long as I can keep my foreskin as a future clitoral hood, I should have enough nerves, even if the ratio differs from those of a cis and non-intersex woman. My amounts might also be varied given my resistance to testosterone, but I have no idea how to know that. It’s definitely sensate, but I’m anorgasmic anyways (which I don’t know due to what).
I think trans women who want the surgery would benefit from being intact, a lot, given the configuration post-op is different from a cis woman’s (lacking the internal clitoral nerves and a cervix) and every little bit helps. Though the event of maybe your child turning out to be a trans woman is rare enough, estimated at 0.2%.
I think everyone, male or female, benefits from being intact, short of a severe injury. Even phimosis (too tight foreskin) is grossly overestimated. Circumcision should be a last recourse, in adulthood (there are many non-surgical ways to make it better – my boyfriend had a problem and since we’re together he’s much better in that regards and we weren’t consciously trying to fix it).
I read that the foreskin shouldn’t be moved for cleaning purposes until the child can do it himself, which can take up to being 10 years old (and it’s normal). Forcing it down could injure the nerves and cause complications. Until the glans and foreskin detach, they are protected from germs anyways. The foreskin is also a very elastic skin, once detached it can be stretched greatly, and that’s also how people can recover foreskin (in time) from nearly nothing left by stretching it over and over.
Cessen,
If you can list the papers and their titles, I might be able to get access to them–though I don’t know how quickly I would be able to do it–through the college where I teach.
Schala wrote:
That’s a really good point. I don’t imagine that it would likely be persuasive to the average U.S. parent considering circumcision, but it’s a whole category of anti-circ argumentation I hadn’t really considered before. It underscores the fact that some adults really do make important decisions involving their genitals, and that parents who make decisions about their children’s bodies can hurt them in ways they might not anticipate.
I wonder if any research exists comparing trans women who were and weren’t circumcised prior to MTF genital surgery.
@ Tamen –
Clarisse Thorn told me, a while back, that the anti-HIV activists (at least the campaign she’s part of) are pushing for adult circumcision, for what it’s worth. That’s Africa-based, though; if there’s such a movement in the US that does advocate infant circumcision for that purpose, that’s another matter entirely.
Edit – RJN said it better, and earlier… ah well. What I get for not having read all the way through the comments first.
Edit again – And corrected by Tamen seconds later. Motley: 0, Internet: 2.
For what it’s worth (in case anyone’s keeping count): male, circumcised, don’t feel particularly violated by it (not that that matters). About fifteen years ago, my parents started feeling very guilty about it; I don’t know why then and not some other time.
I’ve only recently started thinking about the topic when it came up elsewhere (I think Schala was there; hey Schala!), and it felt mildly hypocritical of me to claim opposition to something that’d been done to me and about which I have no complaints. On the other hand, I find the “my body, my choice” argument persuasive.
Richard Jeffrey Newman,
It didn’t take me long to find this paper called Male Circumcision at Different Ages in Rwanda: A Cost-Effectiveness Study
from which I quote:
So now you know.
Among the authors are people from UNAIDS and UNICEF. Another author is Stefano Bertozzi who in his current postion as director of the HIV Global Health Program of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has great power to influence what policies African nations will implement to fight against HIV/AIDS.
And then there is this from UNAIDS: http://www.unaidsrstesa.org/files/MC%20Country%20Updates%2011July09.pdf
So now you know it’s not just a fringe paper. It’s not even just some people advocating such health policies, it’s UN and African governments setting such strategies and implementing such policies.
I assumed BernardSG brought up the studies showing a lower female to male HIV transmission as a point to justify circumcision, I mean, why else bring it up. That combined with the fact that this thread is about infant circumcision (as no-one disagrees that an adult man can choose to be circumcised if he wants) lead me to write that comment. I’ll apologize to him if that’s was not a correct interpretation of his comment, but as I’ve shown; pushing routine infant circumcision as a mean to control HIV/AIDS is not so uncommon as you thought.
I don’t think you’re being hypocritical… I mean, god, I can reach for some really terrible examples, but for instance, I’ve had friends who felt they were personally strengthened by abuse or discrimination, for instance, but that doesn’t mean that they’d advocate it for others. “It worked out for me” doesn’t mean it’s okay for everyone.
Or, hey, here’s a slightly less horrible one, but I’m sure that a generation or two ago we’d have found plenty of people who didn’t feel harmed by having been paddled by school administrators for disciplinary reasons. But that doesn’t make it hypocritical for them to listen to others who were harmed and say that the risk of harm is unacceptable.
@80
I’ve also heard the “But I was okay with it” argument from people receiving
severe abusetherapy, in mental institutions and the use of aversives by Lovaas and co at the UCLA (especially autistic children, but all those considered mentally retarded as well).Some have said it was necessary for them, would be dead if not for it etc ad finitum. Even if those therapies often produce anxiety and PTSD, doesn’t matter because those children become obedient drones (which is what their parents apparently wanted of them) who need the stick to do anything because that’s how they were educated by that ‘therapy’. They can’t have initiative because they were never allowed to have any, it was quashed long ago with contingent skin shock, full body restraint and being refused daily food if they did anything not asked of them.
One mother was quoted as saying that to make her son obey now, she only needs to show a remote control for shock and he obeys. Just like showing a rolled newspaper to a dog…
I find that stupid.
Countries like say, the US, had extremely high rates of infant circumcision in 1965. When that cohort was sexually active, in say, the 1980s, they were one of the most touched demographic group by HIV. Didn’t seem to protect them one bit. Condom usage and long-time monogamy with the same partner seemed to be waaay better predictors of being HIV negatives. Male circumcision doesn’t prevent HIV any more than pre-emptive sage teeth removal prevents cavities overall.
I had 3 of my 4 sage teeth removed because they didn’t fully grow and if they did get cavities, they would be unreachable by the dentist – but he did so at 22, when it was reasonable to conclude they stopped growing, he didn’t dig in my gums to unearth them for the future in 10 or 20 years down the road (he also fixed 18 cavities and removed 2 other bad teeth in the same weeks, so it was reasonable to think it might be an issue soon for me). Even then having those 3 teeth removed won’t prevent my getting more cavities in the future, I just won’t fix them cause I can’t afford the dentist (I got it 100% free back then).
Compare rates of HIV between countries with high circumcision rates and those with little. Like say Canada and the US. We have much of the same mentality about monogamy, sex etc. Maybe a bit less puritanical than some corners of the US. Our rate is much lower with an corresponding low rate of circumcision at birth.
By Canada’s data, we could say male circumcision is a risk factor in getting HIV, not a protection.
I agree with you that the policy proposals in Africa seem flawed, but I have to point out that the way you are arguing here is not the way that science works. No one is suggesting that circumcision is the only way to prevent HIV, or that it is a guaranteed way to prevent HIV all of the time. Data have shown that circumcised men are less likely to contract HIV in some sexual situations than uncircumcised men, and apparently the difference was significant.
It is possible that U.S. men in the 1980s would have had higher rates of HIV if circumcision rates had been halved in the 1960s. It is possible that an 80% circumcision rate in a country like Botswana could lead to a significant reduction in HIV infection rates, all other things being equal. That makes the morality of something like routine infant circumcision complicated in a place like Botswana, but I don’t think the best strategy in a complicated situation is to attack the science unless you’ve got really credible data with which to do that.
Of course, the recommendation of circumcision–perhaps even the idea to study it–stems from a culture in which it is already considered a reasonable option for parents to alter the integrity of this part of their child’s body. It is possible that removing one breast bud (left or right) from infant girls could have a huge impact on breast cancer rates among adults, but would anyone seriously consider making that recommendation?
@83
Isn’t it the Catholic church and the Pope specifically that recommends not to allow usage of condoms in Africa? To the point where some might think, more than US kids (who don’t use condoms often because they are either safe – both partners are reasonably sure to be STD-free – or because it is rumored to reduce pleasure), that not using condoms is better?
If male circumcision reduces risk by 25%, and condoms by 95%, the solution seems obvious. Religion be damned. And if the Pope thinks he can dictate stuff to African people, then maybe it’s time to make him completely obsolete (his opinion is already mostly obsolete for most Catholics, especially in the west). Why not have a revolution to kill the “monarchy” of the Pope and its hierarchy, keeping only priests and reverends (and other local preachers)? It’s not like we need the smallest sovereign state in the world to control people’s thoughts.
@Schala #82:
Perhaps the substantially lower HIV prevalence in Canada than in USA has a lot to do with a very effective campaign for the use of condom in Canada vs. a political discourse highly polluted by abstinence-only language in the USA?
You say: “By Canada’s data, we could say male circumcision is a risk factor in getting HIV, not a protection.” You may want to elaborate on this?
@BernardSG #85:
Possibly so. Definitely abstinence has much less leeway here, even with a conservator government. He (the prime minister) wanted to bring abortion back as a debate and had to go back on this due to popular disinterest in debating it (he wanted to possibly make it illegal – currently it’s legal in all ways AFAIK).
A high-ranking Catholic guy in Quebec province went public about his wanting to make abortion illegal in all ways. 91% of the population disagreed with him. Where most people seem to be more opiniated is late term pregnancies (more against), using it as a form of contraception (more against) and following a rape (more for).
I was a bit satyrical about this. If circumcision can be said to help Africans without controlling for other factors, then it can be said to be a risk factor for Canadians if you also don’t control for other factors. It’s equally faulty logic.
Encouragement to form long-term sexual partnerships, to screen for STDs and HIV and condom usage (amongst other contraception methods) ought to be waaay more useful in preventing the spread of HIV (than male infant circumcision and even male adult circumcision).
Regarding HIV in Africa, I wonder if there has been any scientific approach taken to verifying the effectiveness of various programs from a social perspective. Because my understanding–although limited–is that a big part of the problem is social in nature. And I wonder what effects circumcision would have on those social issues.
I think(?) we can agree that the ideal solution is for people to simply use condoms (and get regular testing if they have sex with many people), since it is far more effective than circumcision and has no bodily integrity issues to speak of. So in many respects, I can only see circumcision as a temporary stop-gap method while trying to better promote condom use.
And so I wonder if circumcision, especially of adults, will actually make it more difficult to promote condom use. “I cut off part of my dick for this, and you still want me to wear a condom?”
It also strikes me that promoting male circumcision probably makes all the anti-FGC talk seem pretty laughable to people in those cultures. So that’s also a factor to consider.
Perhaps these things have already been thought about and thoroughly studied. But I’m wondering if anyone knows for sure if they have. It seems like these are very complex issues, and the seemingly blind push for circumcision without considering other factors worries me even aside from the ethical implications of circumcision itself.
Schala,
Although I myself am a fan of long-term partnerships, I don’t think that’s necessarily an ideal that can be pushed without marginalizing some people. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth promoting for disease prevention, but it would need to be done in a sensitive way. People with many short relationships, or many sexual encounters, are already stigmatized in the west–especially women. I wouldn’t be surprised (although I don’t know for sure) if that’s the case in many countries in Africa as well.
@Cessen
I’m sure the UNAIDS have weighted their options thoroughly before going public and taking such an assertive stance on circumcision.
HIV issue in Africa involve several layers of complexities, social/cultural, as you mention but also infrastructural and economic. International organizations and NGO’s are doing tremendous efforts to promote safe-sex, with programs of nearly-free or free condoms, wide-spread information and so on but, despite a lot of progress made in that area, the epidemics doesn’t slow down. Actually it expands.
Among the problems, there’s the fact that many (perhaps most) of HIV-positive don’t know that they’re infected and their access to testing labs is very limited, to say the least.
When you see that even in a country like USA, where information is widely available, you still have a non negligible portion of the population engaging in risky sexual practice (namely not using condoms), just imagine how it goes out there.
The WHO/UNAIDS’ position is that, when scientific data and projection models show a real potential to reduce the spreading of the epidemics through circumcision, it would be unethical not to put the option on the table and push for public policies accordingly.
FGC is an issue that concerns something like 1/5 African countries and 25%-30% of the whole African continent’s population. It’s awfully high, but it’s a minority, so the interference between anti-FGC policies and the HIV/circumcision issue has limited relevance.
As far as USA is concerned, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) released a paper ( http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm ) that, without taking a strong stance, seems to hint for a position favorable to neonatal circumcision; not only because of HIV but taking also into consideration other diseases for which circumcision can provide a certain level of prevention.
@BernardSG:
I count infrastructure and economics as a subset of social. But yes, you are of course correct.
That aside…
Do you have sources on the studies done on the social impacts of circumcision on this issue? Because frankly I don’t have faith in issues involving circumcision. History has demonstrated that there are a lot of people (including in trusted medical communities) who jump on any chance to promote circumcision–and almost always with insufficient evidence–and people pretty blindly follow them.
More broadly speaking, in general with problems that involve social issues, I have rarely seen a scientific approach taken to try to verify the effectiveness of approaches from a social perspective. These things are usually just determined on “common sense” grounds rather than first using real-world testing on smaller populations to figure out an approach that works. And it is then no wonder that these things often are relatively ineffective. (And I seriously wonder if this is also what happened in the case of trying to promote protected sex, which as you mentioned was not very effective.)
However, I confess relative ignorance on this specific issue, and clearly I need to research it more. But I feel I am justified in my skepticism, and I am unlikely to just take your word that these groups have done their due diligence.
That’s all well and good, but that misses my other point, which is that it’s far from enough. Absolutely, according to the research it would be beneficial in the fight against HIV in those areas. But it’s far from a solution. It’s more like a stop-gap while we’re trying to find one. And how it might interact with a real solution is important.
And your dismissiveness towards FGC is upsetting to me, just FYI.
(I also take for granted that you understand I am still speaking from a “pretending non-constening circ is okay” standpoint.)
Cessen, you’re touching an important point which also UNAIDS mentions as almost an afterthought. Some African women argues against MC saying that this will make it harder to negotiate condom use, something which in many places is already hard enough.
And that makes perfect sense. If one wants to convince someone to undergo male circumcision you have to emphasize the positive side which is the reduction of risk of HIV transmimssions without emphasizing it so much that it eclipses the most effective protection against HIV transmission – namely condom use. That’s a thin line.
Based on the low level of general education in Africa and UNAIDS and other organizations macro level view of this I believe that one needs to question whether the men who voluntarily undergo male circumcision have been given balanced, correct and understandable information which they base their consent on. We’re talking about pushes for male circumcision with target rates and a macro goal which trancends individual men and I believe that as a result both real and unreal upsides of circumcision will be exaggerated and very real downsides will be downplayed towards the individual men who’ll make their decision whether to get circumcised or not. Sideeffects of this may be less condom use after circumcision because one thinks one is already protected.
And when it comes to FGC you’re probably right. Especially in view of some studies (http://www.ias-2005.org/abstract.aspx?elementId=2177677) which have shown that female circumcision lowers risk of HIV infection in Tanzania. Interestingly, when a study find this for female circumcision the authors calls it a conundrum. And yes, there are other studies showing an increased risk for circumcised women – in particular for infibulated women where it’s speculated that anal intercourse is more common due to the infibulation making PIV intercourse difficult and painful. On the other hand, there’s also studies showing an increased risk for HIV for circumcised men and quite a few of the studies showing a reduced risk for female-male transmission for circumcised men also show an increased risk of male-female transmission. Theories on why that is include that there’s a higher risks of vaginal tears and rifts when having sex with a circumcised man than with an uncircumcised one. The reason why is simple mechanics.
And also like many circumcised men don’t feel harmed and want their sons to be circumcised as well, there are circumcised women who don’t feel harmed and who wants their daughters to be circumcised. That doesn’t justify FGC either.
I have to say that poeple who insist on FGC and (non consenting) MC to be two totally different things (not just a difference in severity) AND is against FGC, but for or neutral on MC to be either ignorant, hypocritical or downright misandric.
Tamen,
Thanks for those sources. I will read them when I get the chance.
ETA: For those who are interested, I found a website called Clearinghouse on Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention. I have not looked at it in depth, but it was linked to from one of the articles that Tamen linked to above.
It strikes me as weird to read the stuff here http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm such as (near the bottom):
“found neonatal circumcision to be highly cost-effective, considering the estimated number of averted cases of infant urinary tract infection and lifetime incidence of HIV infection, penile cancer, balanoposthitis, and phimosis.”
Urinary tract infection is rare, and easily treatable…so I don’t see how it would help there. I’ve had one such infection, and it was diagnosed as E coli and passed effortlessly with antibiotics.
Lifetime incidence of HIV can just as well be prevented in adulthood (and condom usage is a way better predictor). This is no argument for neonatal non-consented male circumcision.
Penile cancer risks are laughable. Let’s remove breast buds of every female infant and we’ll eliminate breast cancer, why don’t we /sarcasm
Balanoposthitis, I looked it up on wiki. It talks only about it happening on animals. Must be awfully common on human men then. And having the prepuce wounded or ‘introducing a foreign body’ is rare, even within extreme masochism BDSM.
Phimosis, as I said before, is grossly overestimated. Diagnosing it on pre-pubertal children is stupid enough:
“In the neonatal period, it is rare for the foreskin to be retractable; Huntley et al. state that “non-retractability can be considered normal for males up to and including adolescence.””
and there has info about the diagnosis being given too often and how to treat phimosis without surgery: http://www.cirp.org/library/treatment/phimosis/
and note that the treatment for non-BXO phimosis should be applied only on adults, because non-retractability until then is normal. Also BXO is detectable in a medical test, and BXO is present in ALL *real* phimosis cases. If you don’t detect it, you don’t have it.
IIRC, the issue is that condoms can be difficult to get or prohibitively expensive. (Also, they’re an exchange of power that needs to be negotiated at each sexual encounter.)
Condoms are _so_ much more effective at HIV protection that there’s no reason to recommend circumcision as an HIV-therapy in a country where they are freely available and relatively cheap.
The Pope holds the superstitious belief that using condoms is a sin. In theory, his followers also hold that belief, and that’s why they choose not to use condoms. I’m not sure how structural upheaval in the Catholic Church will necessary eradicate the superstitious beliefs of the Catholic Church; some local priests might be more liberal than the pope, but some might be more conservative.
But the point of my previous post was not about which of the competing methods for HIV reduction would be better. I’m just pointing out that anecdotal analysis like, “Didn’t seem to help them one bit” is bad science.
@Phil #94
True if you consider that protestantism doesn’t care about the Pope, yet can sometimes be worst than Catholic doctrine would ever be. I still think the centralization of church powers gives it undue power on the powerless (like Africans who were ‘evangelized’ into it, by missionaries) which local powers could overthrow with common sense, if the ‘monarchy’ didn’t exist. I doubt it could actually turn worst anyways.
@Mandolin:
That’s a fair point. The basic structure of my argument, however, remains: circumcision even in the best case can only serve as stop-gap to mitigate the spread of HIV while a real solution is worked on.
IIRC even at the most optimistic 50% reduction over the entire population, it will slow the epidemic but will not contain it. (Though I could be misinformed.) And when you factor in that the studies are conflicting, and that likely not everyone would opt for it, and that it could have unintended effects on other efforts and social factors…
Still, it could potentially be worth while, as even a slowing would save many lives. But as I said before, due diligence needs to be made (if it hasn’t already) to verify that the proposed programs will actually be effective in real-world deployment, without problematic unintended effects.
(And although I’m sure I’ve been clear on this point, I’ll say again that I cannot condone circumcision of non-consenting individuals, large or small. I think most of us are in agreement on that point, however, so I’m not attempting to argue it.)
Phil @14: the vast majority of heterosexual woman I’ve talked to (and, having been pregnant and given birth three times, I’ve talked to a lot of other women about baby issues) don’t sound like Richard’s friend. Yes, I’ve heard many women give bizarre reasons for circumcision: they want him to fit in, uncircumcised penises look ‘strange’, he should look like his dad, it’s ‘healthier’, and so on – and incidentally I’ve never, ever spoken to a woman who wanted her son circumcised over the father’s opposition, though I’ve seen the reverse – but I’ve never, ever heard the kind of creeped-out, personalized venom that Richard describes.
I’m always amazed at the prevelance of male infant circumcision in the US. Apart from for religious or medical reasons, it’s not very common in the UK, and I’ve never seen a circumcised man in the flesh, let alone had sex with one. Most of the excuses about cleanliness/aesthetics could easily apply to women, why not cut our labia off? (actual clitorodectomy seems a lot more extreme than male circumcision to me).
It seems bizarre to care about how sexually appealing your son’s penis will be in the future as well… Obviously it’s been done historically, but I imagined circumcision would be less common in the US now.
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Hi,
I am glad I was circumcised – don’t remember a thing. No trauma. My parents weren’t sexual freaks. My Dad was circumcised, my grandfather was circumcised.
Are you still connected to your mom’s umbilical cord or are you intact? Did you ask for assistance on taking your first breaths, getting the goo out of your eyes, ears, nose and mouth or did you do all that yourself? Have your appendix? Fillings in your teeth? Tonsils? You do cut your hair – yes?
Most women find a FS gross, even if they are used to it – they know it is a place where crud hides. And it does nothing “extra” for them. The only group I can imagine it being a big turn on or plus for might be the gay, male community.
Consider – things referred to as “phallic shaped” are not of a shape that would suggest they have a foreskin. Apparently the bias runs quite deep.
Regarding being comfortable nude in front of other people: I think people have a right to keep as covered as they want to. But if you take a gym class or shower at a public gym, you will see naked people and they will see you. But they shouldn’t really LOOK at you unless they are really rude. Where I grew up there were a lot of lower-income households, so a large percentage had been born at home and not got the cut. I’d guess my gym classes and the wrestling team was about 50/50 cut/uncut. Sometimes guys would laugh about someone being smaller or larger down there, but I don’t remember a word about cut vs. uncut. I think this stuff is mainly in one’s own head.