Female circumcision, a practice that is still common in some parts of Africa and the Middle East, is against the law in Canada, and rightly so as there is no medical justification for the procedure. In terms of religious justification, some Muslims who are in favour of the procedure claim that it is allowed because of statements that the Prophet Mohammed made, as recorded in the Sunnah (other Muslims will point to passages in the Qur’an and say it is forbidden by Islam).
On the other side of the coin we have male circumcision. There is the odd medical justification for performing the procedure on males, but the truth is that the need is extremely rare. The vast majority of circumcisions performed in North America are completely unnecessary. In terms of religious justification, Judaism requires that all males belonging to the faith are circumcised as part of a covenant with the Lord.
I’ve done some thinking on this issue, and it has left me with the following questions…
1. Why is a Judaic religious practice tolerated while an Islamic one is not? Does this indicate preferential treatment of one religion over another?
2. If performing female circumcisions can be considered child abuse, does the same apply to male circumcisions?
3. At what point will some enterprising lawyer recognize this and force an end to male circumcision in this country? (Those performing the procedures usually come from places with enough money to provide a nice settlement). With the ever increasing number of rights that children have in Canada, surely at some point someone will add the right to keep one’s genitals intact to the list.
I’d be curious to hear what others think on the topic.
I thought male circumcisions were mostly performed for reasons of hygiene.
We all know what male circumcision entails but before we talk about female circumcision we need to define what is being spoken of. The difference can be very dramatic. A little bit of skin, or the whole thing!?
Female circumcision usually results in a woman never being able to enjoy sex. The same is not true of male circumcision.
My dad contracted an infection when he was 16 and had to be circumcised then. According to him, dreadful pain is putting it lightly.
Actually, male circumcision isn’t seen as being completely unnecessary as it used to. Some major pediatric groups came down against it a few years ago, but now there is compelling evidence that male circumcision significantly decreases sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS and HPV. A few top AIDS researchers have been clamoring for routine circumcision in Africa. And just last week a South African leader endorsed the idea.
I also don’t know if male and female circumcision are comparable. I assume that female circumcision significantly decreases sexual stimulation, while male circumcision doesn’t. Besides, even though penile cancer is vanishingly rare, it never happens in circumcised males. On the whole, I think it’s a rather benign procedure that has risks and benefits. It really depends on which risks or benefits mean the most to you.
I am “uncut” and I can assure you that I am utterly hygienic!
It is true that there are some medical circumstances where the “area” needs surgical adjustment, both in males and females, but that is a wholly different issue.
I have no problems with genital mutilation, providing it is *consentual*. This principle should apply regardless of gender.
It is ironic that some religious groups apparently feel the need to correct God’s mistaken design of our genitalia, yet the same groups go crazy over gender re-assignment. Go figure.
Jewish circumcision is more or less harmless. Female circumcision isn’t and mostly the woman can never enjoy sex.
Female circumcision is not officially part of the Muslim religion. As per your link it’s a social custom.
Jews have practiced circumcision since > 3000 years before Christianity and longer for Islam.
(It strikes me that a religion’s veracity could be graded by its age. This may assist in managing current issues with various religions. Scientology e.g. could lose its tax free status for being too new. Just thinking out loud.)
Just call me circumspect:
—————————–
Are there benefits from circumcision?
There are several:
1 Many older men, who have bladder or prostate gland problems, also develop difficulties with their foreskins due to their surgeon’s handling, cleaning, and using instruments. Some of these patients will need circumcising. Afterwards it is often astonishing to find some who have never ever seen their glans (knob) exposed before!
2 Some older men develop cancer of the penis – about 1 in 1000 – fairly rare, but tragic if you or your son are in that small statistic. Infant circumcision gives almost 100% protection, and young adult circumcision also gives a large degree of protection.
3 Cancer of the cervix in women is due to the Human Papilloma Virus. It thrives under and on the foreskin from where it can be transmitted during intercourse. An article in the British Medical Journal in April 2002 suggested that at least 20% of cancer of the cervix would be avoided if all men were circumcised. Surely that alone makes it worth doing?
4 Protection against HIV and AIDS. Another British Medical Journal article in May 2000 suggested that circumcised men are 8 times less likely to contract the HIV virus. (It is very important here to say that the risk is still far too high and that condoms and safe sex must be used – this applies also to preventing cancer of the cervix in women who have several partners.)
A BBC television programme in November 2000 showed two Ugandan tribes across the valley from one another. One practised circumcision and had very little AIDS, whereas, it was common in the other tribe, who then also started circumcising. This programme showed how the infection thrived in the lining of the foreskin, making it much easier to pass on.
5 As with HIV, so some protection exists against other sexually transmitted infections. Accordingly, if a condom splits or comes off, there is some protection for the couple. However, the only safe sex is to stick to one partner or abstain.
6 Lots of men, and their partners, prefer the appearance of their penis after circumcision, It is odour-free, it feels cleaner, and they enjoy better sex. Awareness of a good body image is a very important factor in building self confidence.
7 Balanitis is an unpleasant, often recurring, inflammation of the glans. It is quite common and can be prevented by circumcision.
8 Urinary tract infections sometimes occur in babies and can be quite serious. Circumcision in infancy makes it 10 times less likely.
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http://www.circinfo.com/benefits/bmc.html
“The same is not true of male circumcision.”
The surgery removes 35-50% of penile skin, and most of the penis’ fine-touch neuroreceptors. You’d better believe this reduces the ability of the male to feel what’s going on (it would be the difference between operating with and without a condom and then some, I’d imagine).
Very few studies have been done on the topic, but here’s an interesting one. This study is about five men who were circumcised as adults. Following the link will show you that most of the men reported decreased sensitivity, but that they didn’t always regard it as a problem.
Since you’re female, ask yourself this: How would your sexual enjoyment be impacted if the parts of your breasts with the most neuroreceptors, the nipples, were surgically removed? Would it be increased or decreased?
My understanding is that female circumcision is a custom with extremely ugly roots:
It goes something like this: If your wife is circumcised, then she won’t enjoy sexual intercourse and voila – she will not have adulterous relationships when you are away from your village.
So, circumcise your child to make her more desirable as a wife.
If this is true, it has nothing to do with Islam, and more do to with barbaric tribal traditions.
JasperPants
You’re right Sean, that it does (likely) decrease sensitivity. Being “cut” myself since an infant, I have no personal reference to compare how it would be if I were “uncut.” However, I think it’s less due to the missing “skin” and more to the fact that the glans are always exposed. This leads to more friction on the glans from clothing, and decreased sensitivity. As you said, not necessarily a bad thing.
There are some minor medical benefits to the procedure, as Plato listed. Likewise, there are potential problems that can arise from circumcision, such as the very rare cases where the infant’s penis has been damaged or severed during the procedure.
My dad told me this story of how in WWII US Navy recruits for the officer corps were strongly encoraged to visit the base hospital for the procedure, otherwise they might not make it through training and end up as enlisted personnel. I’ve had other people claim the same experiences as my dad, but I’ve never been able to verify it. The US armed forces has always preferred circumcised recruits as a matter of hygiene.
I never circumsised my son I’m hoping he will learn to wash.
Plus one boy in winnipeg had the procedure botch and he lost his penis. The doctors told his parents to raise him as a girl and that backfired. He comitted suicide in his 30’s.
It’s sad.
I say F**k Mohammed. What a piece of S**t. Really. I’m completey fed up with everything this jerk said, or was ‘claimed to have said’.
The inability to enjoy sex is the least result of female circumcision. It’s not otherwise known as “genital mutilation” for nothing. Many who under go this proceedure (generally under unhygenic and primitive conditions)are left with difficulty urinating and menstruating. As well, intercourse is frequently very painful not just unexciting. Chronic infections (bladder esp.)are common.
Talk to someone who has worked in the OR at Sick Kids in Toronto(where they devote time to reparing the mess)if you want to learn more about the joys of this barbarity.
As father of 3 sons, husband of a physician, I’ll say that there’s no reason to cut the end off your pecker. Evolution provides us with a foreskin; if it wasn’t needed why would it be there? We don’t take out tonsils “just in case there might be problems with infections”.
My wife has seen them done. They’re barbaric. Should be against the Geneva convention.
Setting aside Jewish practices, its a puritanical Victorian custom designed to prevent boys from playing with themselves.
Even some Jewish groups are now questioning it.
“its a puritanical Victorian custom designed to prevent boys from playing with themselves.”
Obviously spoken by a cultural historian of erudition beyond my powers. Here’s a question for all you Steynsian’s out there:
Was Jesus circumcised?
Woops.
The Hebrew word, like the Greek (peritome), and the Latin (circumcisio), signifies a cutting and, specifically, the removal of the prepuce, or foreskin, from the penis. The number and variety of tribes and nations who practised it are surprising; a conservative estimate places the number that practise it in our day at two hundred millions. Herodotus says that the Egyptians, Colchians, and Ethiopians, from very early times, were circumcised; and he mentions other races, the Phoenicians and Syrians of Palestine (the Jews, as Josephus maintains), who say that they learned the use of circumcision from the Egyptians (Herod., II, 104; Jos., C. Ap., I, 22). Even some Christians circumcise their children, the Copts, for instance, and the Abyssinians, in Africa; and among the Filipinos, the same may be said of most of the Tagalos, who are Catholics. To these last, however, it is a mere ceremony without religious import. The Mohammedan Moros may have introduced it into the islands, where it remains, notwithstanding centuries of Christian influence against it (C. N. Barney, see bibliography). The Abyssinians are entirely under Jewish influence, though they profess Christianity: they observe the Jewish Sabbath, circumcise on the eighth day, and observe many other usages. (See Andree, cited below, p. 189.) Andree states also that the custom of circumcising is found in Sumatra (pp. 191, 192), the east coast of New Guinea (p. 197), and among the Samoans, who call Europeans “the uncircumcised”. Even in America, circumcision was in use among the Aztec and Maya races (op. cit. 201, 202). The fact of its existence in Australia (Spencer and Gillen, Tribes of Central Australia, p. 218 sq.), and in a great part of the islands of Oceanica, not to speak of America, would seem to throw some doubt on the assertion of Herodotus that it had its origin in Egypt.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03777a.htm
http://www.circinfo.net/
(Benefits of male circumcision megasite)
Jesus, as a Jew, was circumcised. To become a Jew in those days, when it was a major religion, circumcision was required. Jesus never mentioned the subject in the writings attributed to him. However, Paul, in order to spread the new religion beyond Jews, replaced circumcision with baptism.
Medicolegally there seems to be no difference between a baby being circumcised – a procedure with risks and benefits, where the benefits seem to slightly outweigh the risks – and such things as vaccination or the surgical correction of a sixth finger in infants. Culturally it is a different matter altogether. Why not leave it in the hands of the parents, who supposedly know best?
Why not leave it in the hands of the parents, who supposedly know best?
Hell no! This is a job for government.
I sense a new national daycare antimalecircumcision program coming from our Master of Shutouts, Ken Dryden:
“Don’t shave junior’s stick before he has a chance to shoot and score.”
You could call it plato’s parodic pucksterism.
Circumcision is a universal value.
Are you people nuts? Male circumcision is the removal of a bit of skin. You can argue if it helps or hinders but, as a circumcised male, it is hardly a life defining thing. Female circumcision, on the other hand, is MUTILATION! It’s not the removal of a bit of skin, it is the removal of the entire LABIA AND CLITORIS!!! The only way to compare that in a male would be if you cut off the entire tip of the penis. So please, all you anti-circumcision crusaders, try not to trivialize what is a horrendous and almost unimaginable barbarity by comparing it to the loss of a bit of skin.
BUTCHERING BABIES IS WRONG.
And that includes male circumcision.
There is no excuse or health justification.
How many incomplete men are there out there?
Not me 🙂
Feisty – You’ve highlighted the problem that the original post was trying (oddly) to address — to prohibit one and not the other you have to be willing to say some things that are simply not said in MapleBoosterCanuckistan.
Plato’s Stepchild: To prohibit an ancient religious rite that, at worst, minimally impinges on male sexual enjoyment, because it seems hypocritical stretches logic. The problem here is that we use the word “circumcision” when describing both. What is done to girls is NOT circumcision, it is the excision of a great deal of flesh. And it doesn’t minimally impinge sexual pleasure, it removes it completely and replaces it with pain. And pain during menstruation and urination. Is that a fair comparison? And as a circumcised male I find it weird how men, especially uncircumcised men, get so worked up about the practice. Using female cricumcision to attack male circumcision is a red herring that minimizes the real suffering of many muslim women.
A point that may be overlooked here insofar as Muslims are concerned is that they practice male circumcision across the board whereas they do not all indulge in clitorectomies and it is not mandatory in the religion.
I think the way is pretty clear.
Feisty,
I agree with you unreservedly. The correct terminology is then “genital mutilation” rather than circumcision. I will lay odds, however, that the phrase will not gain currency amongst our elite.
PLato’s Stepchild, I agree. Using the word “genital” would be too uncomfortable for most of our politicians. Euphemisms are so much easier.
That is because they are organs of generation. Thats a revelation that cuts too close to the bone for this generation who prefer emancipation as always and everywhere equivalent to the mutilation of generation.
What a nation.
This discussion is not only interesting but also informative. It’s become abundantly clear that the Lib/NDP government should establish a Ministry to provide regulation and controls for circumcision. What better opportunity to establish a whole new bureaucracy with all information to Canadians handled through Quebec advertising agencies. Of course it should be patterned after the highly successful gun registry – in fact, I would hope the entire business would be within the purview of Screeching Annie of Alberta.
As someone who was circumcised at the age of 21 (now 52), I’d like to weigh in on this.
The procedure itself was painless, performed under general anesthetic. I suffered minor complications related to the anesthesia, *not* the circumcision. Following the procedure, the pain was minimal and healing was very rapid. I do recall the annoyance of the extreme itchiness when my pubic hair (shaved for the operation) was growing back. The decrease in sensation was about 20% or less but in any event welcomed both by me and my girlfriend at the time 😉
Since then, I have not given the topic much thought. Overall, the procedure has been beneficial for me with no discernable drawbacks. Maintaining hygiene is somewhat easier. A huge bonus when I was younger was that many women told me they prefered “cut” men and liked the look better. No complaints.
I do understand the consent argument but don’t really see it as a big deal. None of my Jewish friends or their sons seem to be in the least traumatized by this procedure, practiced by Jews for millenia
Georg
“Why not leave it in the hands of the parents, who supposedly know best?”
Because most men, if given a choice, would rather not have part of Mr. Johnson hacked off. I know it wouldn’t have been my choice.
Why not leave the children intact and let them make a decision for themselves when they reach the age of majority?
Excellent point Sean. Let people decide for themselves when they are old enough.
The same goes for intersex babies. They should not be raised male or female until they tell you which one they are. Probably by age 3, they’d know.
“A point that may be overlooked here insofar as Muslims are concerned is that they practice male circumcision across the board whereas they do not all indulge in clitorectomies and it is not mandatory in the religion.”
Excellent point, one that I forgot to mention. Thank you for bringing this up.
Once again
an attempt to correct the ignoranti
on this old misunderstanding:
Female ‘circumcision’ is NOT a Moslem practice
it is (primarily) an African practice
not adopted by the vast majority of Moslems
outside Africa.
Many Christians in Africa practice it.
(I am an authority on this subject
because my wife is from a Moslem background).
It would be wrong to legalize female genital mutilation in Canada because there is no medical justification for the procedure.
I would be curious as to what the MEDICAL justification for an abortion is.
Wimpy Canadian
“…And that includes male circumcision…There is no excuse or health justification…”
try a lifetime of yeast infections which are near impossible to get rid of.
Back when my wife was in nursing school, the medical necessity circumcision debate came up during a homework session with her friends at our house. My wife and her friends were unified in their objections to female circumcision but couldn’t seem to make the “mutilation” connection for male circumcision. Funny, huh?
They did concede that most journal articles on the subject don’t support circumcision as having medical value for either sex. In fact it put children at some risk during the procedure for far greater damage (i.e. infections, slips of the razor, etc.). But it seems that they all knew of someone’s little boy that had been circumcised (mostly because his daddy was)and seemed to be turning out “just fine”.
So it’s o.k. to permanently mutilate a boy without his informed consent but it’s wrong to do the same thing to girls. The double standard is obvious.
1. Just tradition, no logical reason, nor does ‘discrimination’ play a part.
2. Yes, who ever asked the baby if he wanted to be mutilated?
3. Soon, one would hope. Better still, the practice should stop by itself, providing people became thinking human beings as opposed to religious/traditionalist automata machines.
Apples and oranges! The difference between male and female circumcision is total. Female circumcision is the cutting off of the entire clitoris, making orgasm practically impossible for most women, ever, in their whole life. Male circumcision is only the removal of most of the foreskin, which has no effect on the male’s future sexual pleasure.
The blunt, very un-PC truth is that this is almost entirely practiced by Muslims. And it’s almost always done to pubescent females. To my mind, it’s another extremely ugly manifestation of Islam’s hostility towards women and their sexuality.
Short of forcible incest, it’s the quintessential worst child abuse of females. The UN is supposed to be combatting this practice…as usual, yet another UN non-performance of an assumed duty.
If it isn’t already, it ought to be a felony crime…AND enforced. I’d be totally surprised if it isn’t done very commonly by Muslims in Canada, the US and in Europe. With their arrogant attitude towards their new countries, they need to be made abundantly aware this criminal abuse will not be tolerated in the civilized West.
Asshat alerts all over the frikkin place, you can sure tell when Kates not around.
I presume Dave’s been cut. As a “member” of the uncut tribe, I’m quite happy that my parents didn’t unilaterally make the decision to mutilate me with circumcision. Given the choice how many other males would? Soap and water works!
Dave’s argument that circumcision doesn’t affect penile sensitivity holds as much water as a cut foreskin. You cut many nerve endings…you must be losing something.
By the way no question female circumcision is much more brutal…but cutting anything off is still mutilation and isn’t right if the individual isn’t allowed to make that choice.
Who cares. Just send the cast-offs to the Liberal party of Canada. After all, they have taken just abouat everything else from us.
Martin B
I assume you haven’t read my post above. Cirumcised at the age of 21. Loss of sensitivity negligible
Georg
Was it not Echo and the Bunnymen who urged, “Spare us the cutter”?
Good on ya George…so you’re o.k. with doing it to your son then without his consent?
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