Welcome to the Manchine

Ok, the circumcision thing. When I was pregnant with my son, I turned myself inside out over this subject. I read a book by an ob/gyn that said she would “throw her body over her baby before letting the doctor come near him with a knife”. I also talked to a dear friend whose dad had all sorts of penis health problems when he had to be catheterized because he was never circumcised. Then my ob/gyn told me the procedure was “cosmetic”. Then my uncircumcised nephew (who was premature and had to be in the NICU for 2 weeks, so my sis didn’t want to do circumcision on top of it) kept getting yeast infections at 6 years old. Then I looked up the local stats in circumcision rates (65% of babies are circumcised in our area).

Finally, I just put the ball in my husband’s court and told him it’s his call. He decided to have our son circumcised with no pause or worry.

I’m really uncomfortable when male circumcision is referred to as “genital mutilation”. I would never genitally mutilate my child and I don’t consider his penis mutilated. I’m glad my second child is a girl because I really don’t think I could handle the guilt and confusion I felt again. Yes, I still wonder if what we decided was necessary, but fuck! He’s not mutilated!

Some dude calls himself “lordofthealphas”!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

>>>Some dude calls himself “lordofthealphas”!

Bet on “20ish year old college bro doing an MBA and heading towards a crappy middle management position”.

What will he do when emperorgodofthekingofthelordofthealphas shows up?

I assume there some sort of alpha dick swinging contest?

Oh, I thought that alphalorddude was being sarcastic or otherwise making a poor attempt at humor. I love that it’s often impossible to tell the difference between MRAs and people satirizing MRAs. It truly is the epitome of Poe’s Law all up in here.

Kitty!

MY couch.

My desk.

MY bed.

All is well with the world.

Marie: “I don’t think anyone’s trying to call it genitial mutilation for when it’s for health concerns.”

Don’t bet on it. Right now on Feministe there’s a thread about how “intactivists” (yeah, stupid name) take over every damn conversation about FGM. Thread’s full of douchebags screaming that most FGM isn’t infibulation (so, presumably, is no worse generally than circumcision) and that circumcision is the worst thing ever. One idiot even said he’d rather lose a leg than be circumcised, and then went on to compare it with rape, then said he’s a rape survivor. A very WTF thread altogether.

Far as the definition of the word goes, yeah, routine infant circumcision constitutes mutilation. It’s disfigurement by removal and it’s entirely irreparable. The fact North Americans aren’t offended by circumcised penises doesn’t change that. No chance in hell any kid of mine would have it done prophylactically unless they were an adult choosing as much. I’ve completely unnecessarily modified my body in ways that definitely constitute mutilation but it was by choice. I’ll leave those decisions to my kids.

There are too many MORE effective means by which to avoid the issues having a foreskin supposedly causes (which it doesn’t) without removing a large piece of healthy genital tissue from an infant. These horrible problems supposedly caused by a lack of circumcision only exist in parts of the world where circumcision is the norm. Elsewhere populations are doing just fine without having a piece of their penises removed at birth because more effective health and safety practices are emphasised. Washing and condoms will get you much, much further than circumcision ever will.

That said, the vast majority of routine infant circumcision doesn’t begin to compare to most female circumcision. If female circumcision were the removal of the clitoral hood under anaesthesia by a physician in a sterile setting, the issues would be comparable. That’s not the case. While the vast majority of male circumcision is just that, one of the rarest forms of female circumcision is removal of the clitoral hood. Excision of the clitoris is much more common. Infibulation in which all the external genitalia are removed and allowed to fuse together through healing compares in no way whatsoever to male circumcision except that it’s unnecessary harm to genitalia. Furthermore, it’s not as though physicians are performing these procedures under anaesthesia in sterile settings. Local barbers and women who act as midwives are. They’re using string and kitchen utensils.

There are definitely cases in which male circumcision is performed in a much more horrifying manner than we’re accustomed to in the West and, in these cases, it’s absolutely comparable to removal of the clitoral hood by an amateur without anaesthesia in unsterile settings. Boys aren’t having the glans of their penises or external genitals removed in these settings though. Male people are disproportionately affected by routine infant circumcision. Female people are disproportionately affected by cultural ritual circumcision which, undermost circumstances is far more destructive and violent

There’s some crossover in that they’re both unnecessary genital harm. That’s about where the similarities end though. They’re very different issues and need to be tackled separately if they’re going to be solved. Treating them like they’re peas in a pod is dismissive towards the experiences of girls who have suffered far, far more than the average boy who experienced completely unnecessary genital tissue amputation under anaesthesia performed by a physician in a medical setting, not to mention the boys who experienced cultural ritual circumcision who are lumped in with the boys who experienced routine infant circumcision. All are valid cases. The vast majority of cases of each aren’t comparable to one another though. Degree matters.

Sure, most female circumcisions aren’t infibulations. Most are clitoridectomies though. Most are performed by amateurs. Most are performed without anaesthesia in unsterile settings. Most male circumcisions are removal of the foreskin under anaesthesia performed by a doctor in a medical setting.

One of these things is not like the other.

It’s horrendous that MRAs can’t even tackle a real issue disproportionately affecting men like routine infant circumcision in the West without making it about silencing women.

I have actually heard from a couple people that it’s ALWAYS mutilation because it’s NEVER necessary and conservative methods are ALWAYS available and effective against ANYTHING and EVERYTHING so doctors who EVER perform circumcision are MISANDRY.

I also heard one person say adult men who elect to be circumcised for reasons of preference should be denied on the basis of mental illness. :/ You can’t POSSIBLY want to modify your body without being mentally ill! It’s a double whammy; infantilising and shaming people whose preferences differ from yours AND the mentally ill!

Why can’t people just take the science-based approach?

One idiot even said he’d rather lose a leg than be circumcised

Some of these guys are waaaaay too fixated on their genitals. Freud would have a thing or two to say.

@bailyrenee

my curiosity is getting to me… what’s a prince albert?