The new issue of New York Magazine has a major story on circumcision: the pros, the cons, the details, and and the ongoing controversy. Because I’d blogged about the subject before, and shared my own personal experience of getting circumcised in my thirties, the reporter who wrote the piece, Molly Bennet, interviewed me a few weeks ago. The article is out now, and here’s a link to the main index of articles on the topic — and here’s the link to the piece featuring my story. Walks right up to the edge of TMI, but stops short, thank goodness.
Your thoughts are welcome. But no links to websites, please; this isn’t a soapbox. And anyone who suggests even the remotest degree of equivalence between the( generally) minor and harmless procedure of male circumcision and the various forms of female genital mutilation will have their comment removed.
It’s very different how you gave consent to have you penis modified as an adult in your 30’s than to inflict that kind of permanent change/harm/damage on a child. If you have a male child in the U.S., the child will be an American citizen governed by the right of choice. Your quote at the end of your article, “If I were to have son, I don’t see why I wouldn’t have him circumcised,” you are effectively taking that ingrained right away.
So I hope by that quote, you mean you will offer to pay for said elective procedure when your child is over 18 and has himself made the choice.
Inflicting that much trauma on an child with an undeveloped brain tends to rewire things, effects breast feeding, opens routes to infection etc… see informative website above…
Pah. The man in the left hand picture definitely looks happier.
“anyone who suggests even the remotest degree of equivalence between the( generally) minor and harmless procedure of male circumcision and the various forms of female genital mutilation will have their comment removed.”
One form of female circumcision (aka FGM or FGC), is removing the clitoral hood aka prepuce. How is that so different from removing the male prepuce?
Have you ever tried debating with the women that cut their daughters, and trying to tell them that it’s different from male circumcision, and is in fact mutilation. They go ballistic.
John, the picture on the right was shot by the magazine — and why they picked a rare one where I’m not smiling, I have no idea!
There is no justification for circumcising a male infant. It is a traumatic procedure that causes unnecessary pain for no real reason. My son was circumcised against my will by his father. He wanted his son circumcised simply because he had been circumcised. He quite intentionally took advantage of my vulnerable post-delivery exhaustion and drug-induced state to force a procedure on my son that he knew full well that I was against. My son was brought back to me covered in blood and screaming so hard he was blue. He was unable to breastfeed properly for several days due to the pain.
Forcing a child to go through an unnecessary painful medical procedure simply because of the parent’s preference is nothing short of child abuse. If adult men wish to be cut, fine. That’s his decision. But stop denying children their right to bodily autonomy. I’d actually support banning the practice of infant male circumcision if I thought there was any possibility of a ban actually being taken seriously.
“John, the picture on the right was shot by the magazine — and why they picked a rare one where I’m not smiling, I have no idea!”
Perhaps because in the first picture (before) you appear more “feminine”. In the second (after), you appear more “masculine”…
My nephew wasn’t circumcized at birth and there were problems a few years later with rolling the foreskin back for washing, so my sister and brother-in-law had him circumcized then. I know another guy for whom sex was painful because his foreskin was too tight who later got circumcized. I think in both cases it would have been less traumatic for the circumcision to have taken place shortly after birth.
There is a kind of feminist argument to be made for women not having moral ground to argue either way in the issue, analogous to a sometimes advocated men shouldn’t have a say in abortions position (this is a little tongue in cheek, though living in the only country where abortions are entirely unregulated, I may be able to make the argument semi-seriously?)
For what it’s worth, I’m quite happy that my parents had me circumcised when I was a child, and I think it was at worst entirely benign, and at best definitely the right call. Entrusting our parents to care for us when we’re infants does entail giving them all kinds of authority over us, in a myriad of ways. To pick and choose those ways isn’t clear cut (a pun?!), and to naively argue it’s different from a host of other things your parents can compel you to do is probably naive. I may be arguing from a pragmatic, rather than idealistic viewpoint here.
And Hugo, I hope you’ll stick to d anyone who suggests even the remotest degree of equivalence between the( generally) minor and harmless procedure of male circumcision and the various forms of female genital mutilation will have their comment removed. Trying to appropriate the outrage over female genital mutilation to garner support for an anti-circumcision position just serves to dull opposition to the former, since I know firsthand (ugh, masterbation pun?!) the latter is harmless. Please don’t tolerate it.
“There is a kind of feminist argument to be made for women not having moral ground to argue either way in the issue, analogous to a sometimes advocated men shouldn’t have a say in abortions position (this is a little tongue in cheek, though living in the only country where abortions are entirely unregulated, I may be able to make the argument semi-seriously?)”
If you are referring to adult men, or even teenage boys choosing to being circumcised, I’d agree. Male infants, on the other hand, are an entirely different can of worms. Infants - male or otherwise - cannot defend themselves. It is the responsibility of the adults in their lives to do that for them.
Forcing a child to go through an unnecessary painful medical procedure simply because of the parent’s preference is nothing short of child abuse. If adult men wish to be cut, fine. That’s his decision. But stop denying children their right to bodily autonomy.
Very few (possibly none) of men who were circumcised as children remember that pain. I certainly don’t. I much prefer having been circumcised as a baby to doing it as an adult (where you will remember the pain).
Babies and toddlers, even children, do not have bodily autonomy. It is up to parents to decide if they need surgery, certain diets, dress, vaccinations, etc. The idea that parents have no say in their kids’ bodily development is ridiculous.
Excellent comments, Faith. This issue is an appalling moral blind spot for Hugo.
A.Y. Siu: “Very few (possibly none) of men who were circumcised as children remember that pain. I certainly don’t.”
– and if you had had your right foot needlessly amputated when you were an infant, you probably wouldn’t remember that experience at all. So?
Has the attempt at invalidation of any and all concerns of men and boys stretched so far that it now includes trampling on the rights of newborns?
“Babies and toddlers, even children, do not have bodily autonomy.”
Whoa.
Children most certainly do have a right to bodily autonomy. All human beings have a right to bodily autonomy. Without the right to bodily autonomy, anyone would have the right to do anything at all to infants and children. Do you think people have the right to abuse their children? How about having sex (read: raping) with them? What if a parent decides they want to tattoo or brand their child for some reason? How about foot binding? Without bodily autonomy, there is no reason that people couldn’t do these things to them. Without a right to bodily autonomy, it could even be argued that parents could murder their children. Are you really prepared to make that argument?
“I much prefer having been circumcised as a baby to doing it as an adult (where you will remember the pain).”
There are other men who feel differently.
“It is up to parents to decide if they need surgery, certain diets, dress, vaccinations, etc. The idea that parents have no say in their kids’ bodily development is ridiculous.”
There’s a big difference between discussing necessary and/or non-permanent aspects of a child’s development, and interventions which are permanent, painful, and unnecessary. Parents are obligated to provide -necessary- care for their children (although, as an aside, I’m also largely against mandatory vaccinations of children for similar reasons).
Parents do not have any right to permanently alter a child’s body for completely unnecessary, selfish reasons (My son had to suffer through his first few days of life because of his father’s decision. And for what? To appease daddy’s male ego?). That this even needs to be said is extremely depressing. This applies whether we are discussing circumcision or piercing the ears of infant girls…another practice which I find disturbing and nothing short of abusive.
@Faith - that’s exactly how I feel about ear piercing.
I also want to say that just because you don’t remember a sensation intellectually, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an affect on you.
Uh huh.
Okay then, let’s imagine a parallel universe where female “circumcision”/genial mutilation never involved actual removal of the clitoris or other such barbarism, but instead a much milder operation with some carving around it. Now, let’s imagine that women who didn’t have this surgery were considered “weird” or “funny-looking”. Would feminists, and Hugo, approve of this state of affairs, where women’s bodies had to be mutilated in this considerably less horrific way to be considered normal? I dare say they would not. As someone said, there’s a serious moral blind spot you’ve got going on here, Hugo.
And before we get to the circumcision-prevents-HIV arguments - which is pretty much the only pro-circ argument that isn’t of the “it looks better” variety - it should be pointed out that the link to reduced HIV with circumcision is more tenuous than often acknowledged - there are too many confounding factors, and the effect varies by region. (I’d link to studies, but Hugo doesn’t want any links to challenge him here, I guess, so …)
I’m with Faith on this and, since it was the subject of a bit of hypothetical debate in my (Canadian) household I while ago, I have a bit of research to share on this issues.
The view in favour of genital integrity …
….is shared by the Canadian Pediatric Society that concluded in 1996 after extensive review of the evidence that “Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed.”
… is consistent with professional ethics insofar as performing an irreversible, medically unnecessary operation on a minor is generally viewed as a breach of medical ethics.
…. is consistent with the law in Canada — In a landmark case called Re Eve, the Supreme Court of Canada set the legal precedent in Canadian law that limits parents’ ability to give medical consent on behalf of children. If circumcision is not necessary for a baby’s physical or mental health, then it is arguable (on the basis of Re Eve dealing with forced sterilization) that a parent cannot legally give the consent necessary to perform it. Genital mutilation is on the face of it a violation of the right of the child to bodily integrity no less for boys than for girls.
… is shared by Canadian parents who are decreasingly likely to subject their sons to this unnecessary procedure. While for males born in 1966 in urban areas circumcision was almost universal, the rate for male infants in Canada has dropped from about 50% in 1998 to about 20% in 2000. The Canadian Institute for Health Information, which in 1994 took over the national Hospital Database from Statistics Canada, reports that in fiscal 1996/97, circumcision was performed as a primary procedure on about 20 percent of Canadian male neonates, however by 2005, this had declined to 9.2 percent, which brings the genital integrity rate up to 90.8 percent.
….is informed by an awareness that, though more traumatic if required later in life, the probability that an uncircumcised boy will at some point require the procedure for medical reasons is less than 1/16,000 or 0.00625 %;
….is mindful of the fact that cirumcision alters the person’s sexual response for life. The various parts of the penis, including the foreskin, form a functional whole. The foreskin is the primary sensory tissue of the penis. The ridged band of the foreskin is built to trigger orgasm and ejaculation. Compared with the true (outer) skin of the foreskin, the glans is only feebly sensitive to light touch, pain, heat and cold. The structure of the foreskin is analogous to the lips on your face with similar innervation. Specialized stretch receptors are lost though (in infant circumcision) the nerves may be remapped to differently sensitive tissues of the glans allowing for conservation of ejaculatory response despite an overall reduction in the range of sensations which trigger the ejaculatory response.
…Men circumcised in adulthood do not benefit from this neuronal remapping and report up to a 70% loss of sexual sensation from their penis.
…women’s sexual prefences vary and are not a good reason to perform unnecessary and sensation-limiting sexual surgery on boys who may, after all, prefer celebacy or male sex partners in adulthood or at least have no way of knowing in advance what their partners might prefer.
bmmg39
So far as I know, the only people who really show up to defend infant circumcision are men who were circumcised as infants. Nobody’s invalidating our concerns when they advocate for infact circumcision, we’re voicing our concerns. That we don’t have completel unanimity as a group is what it is, and obviously has to be dealt with. But it isn’t imposed from the outside, but from the inside.
I decided not to have my son circumcised, so I was heartened to read your account which didn’t make the operation sound so bad for an adult. At least from your anecdotal evidence, I haven’t failed to do something in infancy that he couldn’t change later in life.
I’ve heard some people say that it’s a lot less painful for an infant than for an adult, but how the heck do they know? Pain is very much subject to the context in which it’s felt.
For example, there was something on Radio Lab (NPR) where soldiers who were shot tended to forego pain relief more often than civilian victims of violent crime outside of war zones. This was explained by a) the soldier was better equipped to anticipate the possibility of injury b) being shot as a soldier led to glory and honor more more readily than being a victim of a crime and c) the soldier would likely be allowed to leave the war zone whereas the civilian crime victim had to now face a worse kind of life)
When pain is forced on you, and you have very little control or understanding, I’d imagine it’s much worse than when you knowingly choose it. Inflicting unnecessary pain on an infant seems especially egregious in this light.
As someone who “knew” you before in that sense, and remember the pain it caused you, I’m glad you got this taken care of. You’ve always pushed the limits, Hugo, and you’ve done it again. Never thought I’d read about your penis in New York Magazine, but then again, if I was going to read about the penis of any ex in the media, it makes sense it would be yours.
We had our son circumcised when he was born five years ago. My husband is circumcised with nothing remiss.
Hope you and all the Schwyzers are well.
All right, it isn’t my area of expertise, but if a body part is too tight, can’t it be stretched a little, instead of being torn or cut?
Injuries to one’s sensitive parts–intentional or otherwise–are something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Been there, still avenging that.
I’m with Faith, Randomizer and Barbara. Kids have enough to go through without unnecessary assaults on their bodies–any part of them. Stuff that’s absolutely needful, and/or protects all, like vaccination or dentistry, that’s one thing, but to hurt someone just because you aren’t satisified with their looks? Please. Living beings aren’t chunks of raw material you can drill and carve to your needs like the metal I used to work. I’m not even a vegetarian but I wouldn’t even do to an animal what some folks do to their kids.
As for cleanliness and so on–I can think of a few things I have that are a nuisance to have to clean but I still wouldn’t want to go thru the ordeal of taking them off. I am so glad I didn’t have someone else make that decision for me, despite the other things I endured. Disease risk? Well, there might be other ways to minimize that.
If doctors spent less time trying to standardize people, they might have more time and resources to do something really useful, like cure cancer. (I recall a gyno who decided to switch to hair-restoral for men. I still wish I had let him know I never knew so many guys died from cancer of the bald spot.) How to fix society so the market for such insanities dries up, that’s worth a few other threads.
How in the world was this fair? Asking ONE man who was circumcised as an adult? They needed to ask at least two! Either specifically one who is NOT happy about the after results, or they needed to get some sort of representative sample.
Asking one guy and presuming that he speaks for all men cut as adults is a joke.
Putting aside the moral questions — which presumably people decide for themselves — *legally* banning the procedure (as Randomizer seems to be saying has already happened in Canada (a policy I have to guess is not enforced)) would have the effect of driving the vast majority of Jews and Muslims out of the country. (Temporarily, if the procedure was available elsewhere… but if it was ruled that it could be punished after the fact even if the surgery was done elsewhere, then this would presumably become permanent.)
And it’s no use saying that Jews and Muslims *ought* to change their religion on this issue; the chances of it happening, absent a direct intervention from the Messiah or Mohammed, is essentially nonexistent. Whatever one thinks ought to happen, banning circumcision would be de facto banning religious Jews and Muslims.
(I suppose for some people this would be a feature not a bug, but I’m going to presume that there aren’t any such commenting here.)
Something worth bearing in mind when discussing this aspect of the question.
well, hugo, i don’t know if you know about this, but clitoridectomy was paid for by blue cross blue shield until 1977. it was ‘big business’ according to one surgeon in manhattan NY.
i am a white anglo-saxon protestant female, born and raised in kansas… i was circumcised. many of your readers’ mothers, grandmothers, aunts, teachers… may have also been circumcised.
i have begun to dismiss ideas that men and women are all that different - but embrace the idea that traumatized people are alike in many ways and that untraumatized people are very unlike traumatized people.
when i look at routine infant circumcision, i do not focus on the immediate pain nor on the sexual repercussions, but instead on the psychological effects of trauma on the infant and the adult he becomes. this is my concern. a revision of my book, “the rape of innocence” will be hitting the internet soon… within a week or two. it addresses issues that are not usually considered in most books about circumcision. i hope you will read it before you decide to circumcise a child.
I am so glad to not belong to a religion that asks people to hurt children for a symbolic purpose. There have got to be nicer ways to symbolize things. I have no suggestions on how people within those traditions might change things; I believe I read somewhere that some Jews are rethinking it, but not sure.
Now if it finally turns out that there are real health benefits for this procedure…well, then, all right, but make it less painful however you can. Still seems like an elective choice, with alternatives. Case-by-case, for sure, not automatic.
If I can put up with everyone else’s looks, they can put up with mine…this includes what the public doesn’t get to see. I am sick, sick, sick of spilling young people’s blood on the altar of “let’s make him/her look like we want/like everyone else/like what we went thru because misery loves company”, just as with a religion the kid didn’t choose either. I rejoice that others are trying to bring that crap to a halt, and thank them/you also. The cruel gods of yesteryear are poised to fall; while we’re at it let’s take out the cruel ones of today–the injunctions to conform at the expense of oneself, to give one’s life over to fad and fashion and whatever else the body fascists on all sides come up with to make us part with our money–and throw our kids under the same bus.
Patricia, just before me…oof da [expression of sympathy]. You didn’t tell us about the circumstances, but if that was done to you or the others without consent, you just might have a legal case. Read up. At least you can call whoever is responsible to account.
Hugo, I hope that if there is a little boy in your future that you will think long and hard before letting someone take a knife to him. With the money you save, you could get him his first book.
“Putting aside the moral questions — which presumably people decide for themselves — *legally* banning the procedure (as Randomizer seems to be saying has already happened in Canada (a policy I have to guess is not enforced)) would have the effect of driving the vast majority of Jews and Muslims out of the country.”
Religion doesn’t justify abuse. It never ceases to amaze me how people will scream “Religion!” as if religion excuses anything and everything, no matter how foul, disgusting, or abusive.
If a Jewish individual or a Muslim feels that they can’t practice their religion without abusing infants, they are free to leave the country if circumcision is banned.
Stephen
Circumcision isn’t banned in Canada, it’s just no longer officially recommended by the Canada Paediatric Association that newborn male infants be routinely circumcised as a matter of course. The net benefit/harm is too small to measure, and so since there’s no strong grounds to advise for or against it, they offer no opinion.
Realistically, even if one could make the argument that it should be illegal, no one has, and you probably couldn’t find a jury who’d convict anyone (since you’d have to make a point of excluding men who’d been circumcised, and thus knew the procedure to be unproblematic).
Look at the discussion here; to come to a negative view of routine infant circumcision, you have to let other people define the experience of circumcised men for us. A very unfeminist approach. :)
“Look at the discussion here; to come to a negative view of routine infant circumcision, you have to let other people define the experience of circumcised men for us. A very unfeminist approach. :)”
I’m not defining the experience of circumcised men. I’m defending a child’s right to bodily autonomy. A very feminist approach. :)
“It never ceases to amaze me how people will scream “Religion!” as if religion excuses anything and everything, no matter how foul, disgusting, or abusive.”
I didn’t say it justified or excused anything. (Personally, I agree with you that religion wouldn’t justify or excuse anything if circumcision was, in fact, abuse; but I don’t agree that it is.) I was simply pointing out, as a worthwhile thing to know, that a law against circumcision would come close to a de facto ban on both religious Jews and religious Muslims living in the country doing the banning. And that this is a fact worth considering.
“If a Jewish individual or a Muslim feels that they can’t practice their religion without abusing infants, they are free to leave the country if circumcision is banned”
This seems to me slightly disingenuous. If you believe circumcision is abuse, then presumably you support it being banned *everywhere*, which would mean there would be no “free to leave” option. (Although in practice I grant you this is unlikely ever to be the case.)
On a slightly different matter, it’s misleading to emphasize it being a Jewish/Muslim “individual”. Because it’s not an individual matter; these communities have made choices, centuries (or millennia) ago, as to circumcision’s status. Undoubtedly some individuals would convince themselves that it can be changed. But overwhelmingly most would not.
If you are sanguine about de facto forcing observant Jewish & Muslim communities from a country, then fine. If not, you should confront the fact that banning circumcision would mean precisely that. You might decide it’s worth it. But you should be honest about the consequences.
“I didn’t say it justified or excused anything.”
I actually didn’t really think that you did. I wasn’t really directing that comment at you.
“This seems to me slightly disingenuous. If you believe circumcision is abuse, then presumably you support it being banned *everywhere*, which would mean there would be no “free to leave” option. (Although in practice I grant you this is unlikely ever to be the case.)”
Of course I support banning it everywhere. But what are the chances of that happening? At least anytime in the near future. I’d say we might have a slight chance of having the practice banned in the U.S. Perhaps a couple of other Western countries. That would be about it, I would guess. I have no control over whether anyone bans anything, however.
“On a slightly different matter, it’s misleading to emphasize it being a Jewish/Muslim “individual”.”
I know at least one male Jew who is against male circumcision. If there is even one person of a particular group who is against an activity, then it very much is an individual matter. My guess is that there are more out there. I’d guess the same is likely true of Muslims.
Besides, who makes up communities? I’m really quite sure that individuals make up communities. Without individuals, there is no community to speak of. And, contrary to popular belief, one individual with the courage to stand up and speak their mind -can- have a very strong effect on the rest of the community.
“If you are sanguine about de facto forcing observant Jewish & Muslim communities from a country, then fine.”
I’m not really sanguine about de facto forcing anyone from the country. I am sanguine about forcing people to stop abusing children. If people don’t want to stop abusing children, the next best thing, should a ban be passed, is for them to leave. But even then, no one would be forcing them to leave. Only to, you know, stop hacking off an innocent child’s body part with a sharp blade without their consent.
“But you should be honest about the consequences.”
Where exactly have I not been?
“I know at least one male Jew who is against male circumcision. If there is even one person of a particular group who is against an activity, then it very much is an individual matter.”
I know lots of male Jews who are against male circumcision. But I don’t think that the presence of a single individual makes it *Just* an individual matter. (Remember, I didn’t say it was *not at all* an individual matter, just that it was *misleading* to emphasize the individual elements.) Lots of Jews think that being against intermarriage is an immoral stance, but that doesn’t mean that they would deny that it’s a community norm, and one not easily given up.
The point is, this isn’t an idiosyncratic individual decision; it’s a community norm of centuries standing. Saying “if some individual wants to do it they can leave” misses the actual lived experience of making that decision.
Who makes up communities? On some level, of course, individuals. But in another way, communities are also made up of *past* individuals, of texts, of beliefs and of rule systems, including rule systems for how rule systems are changed. As a reductio example, if you forced Jews to convert to Christianity, Jewish *individuals* might all survive, but the *community* most certainly wouldn’t. As I said, this is a reductio — but it’s not all *that* far-fetched, since Jews, at least (I can’t speak for Muslims) think of circumcision as *definitional* to their community. (It was *the* action that created the Jewish people with Abraham, according to the biblical myth.)
“contrary to popular belief, one individual with the courage to stand up and speak their mind -can- have a very strong effect on the rest of the community.”
I actually think popular belief is on your side — that one courageous individual can change a community (at this point it’s a cliché, usually involving Rosa Parks). And there are Jews trying to change Jewish communal values against circumcision — more than one. So far they’ve had a fairly small effect. If they do, then what I wrote above will become moot (as far as Jews are concerned). At the moment it isn’t.
“I’m not really sanguine about de facto forcing anyone from the country. I am sanguine about forcing people to stop abusing children. If people don’t want to stop abusing children, the next best thing, should a ban be passed, is for them to leave. But even then, no one would be forcing them to leave… “But you should be honest about the consequences.” Where exactly have I not been?”
When have you not been? Right then. As I said, banning circumcision *would* mean, de fact, forcing religious Jews & Muslims to leave a country. (Until and unless a change in communal values takes place — one which, as I’ve said, is so far not in evidence or even much on the horizon.) So if your for banning circumcision, you’re de facto for banning religious Jews and Muslims from your country. To say no no no, I’m just against circumcision, is not being honest about the results of what you’re advocating.
To say “no one would be forcing them to leave” isn’t fully capturing the consequences, just as saying that a law passed forcing Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity wouldn’t be “forcing” them to leave. No, they could convert. But de facto you’re forcing them to leave.
Finally, you keep saying “abusing” children. You may well believe circumcision is abuse. But it’s tendentious to use that word when talking about what other people are advocating. Religious Jews and Muslims don’t believe circumcision *is* abuse. (A belief also held by lots of non-religious people — me, for example.) To say they’re for abusing children isn’t a good way to conduct a debate, because it makes it seem like you don’t want to change minds but rather just insult people.
Again: I think that if circumcision *really were* abuse, then you’d have a good case to make for banning it, notwithstanding all of what I wrote above. But even in that case, one would have to be honest about what one was doing: de facto forcing a mass exodus of Jews and Muslim communities from a country.
An alternative approach, by the way, would be to *not* ban it until you had *already* convinced a significant proportion of the Jewish and Muslim communities that it was an immoral thing to do. (If you truly believe that individuals can so readily change communities, then this should be a real option; as we’ve both said, there are Jews and Muslims against the practice….) Banning it *after* such a change would, of course, no longer mean de facto expelling religious Jews and Muslims. Or you could advocate a legal ban against circumcision with exceptions for religious beliefs. Both these options would be ways to ultimately aim for banning circumcision without de facto expelling religious Jews and Muslims from your country.
Again, if I were convinced it was abuse, as you are, I think I might be on your side regardless of the consequences. (But then again I might not. An America purged of religious Jews and Muslims would be a far worse place.) All I’m advocating is recognizing what a legal ban on circumcision would lead to (at least prior to the community change you’ve envisioned). It wouldn’t be pretty.
Thanks, Faith. Stpehen, good point about going for the grass-roots change before making legal sanctions if that is the word.
The Aztecs didn’t believe that holding their children’s heads over burning peppers was abuse. There’s plenty of people in other countries don’t think FGM is abuse. My mother didn’t think gouging up my face and back was abuse. But that didn’t make it hurt any less, and so for all the ones who actually have to feel the pain–the ones who don’t get to decide. I don’t know if long round-and-rounds about what constitutes abuse are the key–but I do know what makes me want to 1) lose my lunch, 2) crawl into a hole and pull it in after me.
Now if there’s an actual medical benefit–say, sparing a son the during-sex injuries his father had, if that problem is inheritable–okay. Case by case. Maybe there’s other remedies. But the basic idea that one’s child is just another item to brand with this or that stamp of conformity–and the idea that one’s religion or identity depends on spilling anyone’s blood, that no other sort of covenant or whatever can be devised–needs to go. Just because something goes back a few thousand years doesn’t mean it’s worth holding on to, when we now know enough to think of something better. I’m glad some people who are working to change those religions from within.
Angiportus — that brings us back to the central issue, IMO, namely whether the practice is *moral* or not. And I think I’m going to refrain from debating that now.
But perhaps I’ll just say this: you endured what you endured, and are here to testify that it is abuse. (And I bet few would deny it.) But as far as circumcision goes, I myself am one of “the ones who actually have to feel the pain–the ones who don’t get to decide”. And I’m glad my parents did it. And my high school friend who got a terrible infection there — one circumcised men apparently don’t get, or at least are far less likely too — told me at the time that he *wished* his parents had done it for him.
So there’s actually a legitimate debate here. If it’s primarily a cosmetic surgery, with some health benefits and questionable drawbacks, that sounds very different than all the other things you listed. And listing people who didn’t think such-and-such were abuse doesn’t prove that *this* is. (I can easily imagine a pro-lifer giving the same list and then ending it by saying that pro-choicers (including myself) don’t think that removing an unwanted fetus is abuse. That’s not to say I’d agree; just to say that a list like this can end with cases that *are* disputable.)
Anyone who publicly admits to owning a Roomba is pretty much exempt from mockery. ,
Uh, I missed the part about the Roomba; where was that? Do you have to circumcize *them* too? Or did Settor88 get into the wrong thread, as I and some others have at times done?
I’m not saying this isn’t a legitimate debate, or that some cases aren’t disputable. I do say that whatever you do to your kids, or any life-forms with a nervous system in your care, you should put a lot more thought into it than some folks seem to do.
Having just read a later blog posting, “Princesses, princes, daughters and dads”, I’ve picked up a factoid which Mr Schwyzer somehow never got aound to mentioning here, or in his 2006 posting about his circumcision: his wife is a Jew. Or at least, she’s served in the Israeli armed forces, so maybe she’s an Israeli Arab–they’re 20% of the population there–but I kind of doubt it.
Hugo might say that he got circumcised for reasons totally unrelated to his wife’s ethnicity–in fact that’s what he did say, at least by omission. But now that I know her origin, I can’t believe it. It may well be true, as he said, that she didn’t push him. But I can imagine a man feeling the obligation to conform to Jewish custom, even without an explicit demand, or request, or hint. I can also imagine it would be especially complex for someone who’s aware of his family’s Jewish roots back in Europe.
This added information just makes an interesting story all the more interesting. Though the most interesting part of all, is why we didn’t hear the full story all in one telling.
“s I said, banning circumcision *would* mean, de fact, forcing religious Jews & Muslims to leave a country.”
Stephen,
I’m far from being the one being disingenuous here.
Banning a practice that many people believe to be a part of their religion will not -force- them to leave any given country. That is a flat-out red herring. It will mean that they will have to -voluntarily- leave the country if they wish to continue to practice that particular part of their religion. Or risk the consequences of their action if they continue to practice in the country where it is forbidden.
My chosen religion had no legal protections in the U.S. until very recently in history. Oddly enough, that didn’t -force- those of us who practice Paganism/Wicca to leave the U.S. Did some people leave voluntarily? Perhaps. That was their choice, however. They were not -forced- to leave the country, though. They were only forced to perform their chosen religion in private or not at all. Even with legal protections in place, that still doesn’t mean that Pagans/Wiccans are free to practice their religion openly. There is still a very real fear and hatred towards those of us who honor the Goddess. We still have to live in fear of very real retribution in most parts of the U.S. Yet, oddly enough, we’re still here. Whether you or anyone else knows it or not.
“Finally, you keep saying “abusing” children. You may well believe circumcision is abuse. But it’s tendentious to use that word when talking about what other people are advocating. Religious Jews and Muslims don’t believe circumcision *is* abuse.”
And there are a lot of Christians who honestly don’t believe that it’s wrong or abusive for a man to rape his wife. Again, just because a group of people don’t believe something is abuse that doesn’t mean that the practice isn’t in fact abuse.
“Or you could advocate a legal ban against circumcision with exceptions for religious beliefs.”
Why on Earth would I support such a thing? I don’t believe Christian men should get to rape their wives. I don’t think Jews and Muslims should get to abuse their sons either.
“Again, if I were convinced it was abuse, as you are, I think I might be on your side regardless of the consequences. (But then again I might not. An America purged of religious Jews and Muslims would be a far worse place.) All I’m advocating is recognizing what a legal ban on circumcision would lead to (at least prior to the community change you’ve envisioned).”
So you’d support allowing people to abuse their children just so they don’t have the leave the U.S.? How very thoughtful of you.
“It wouldn’t be pretty.”
I didn’t say it would be pretty. Or easy.
“And I’m glad my parents did it.”
That isn’t the point. I understand many men are fine with having been circumcised as children. I’m actually glad for the men who feel that way simply because it means one less thing for them to worry about in life. That does not change the fact that no one had the right to alter your body without your permission. That does not change the fact that you should have been given a say in such a procedure before it was performed. You were denied your right to bodily autonomy. You may have also suffered an impact, or impacts, from the procedure that you aren’t even aware of. If it hadn’t turned out so well for you (and for many boys/men it doesn’t), I doubt seriously you’d be sitting here defending the practice in any conceivable fashion.
Wrong, John. My wife was raised Catholic, the daughter of a Croatian-American father and an Afro-Colombian mother. We’ve been to Israel as pilgrims and tourists. (Non-Jews do go to Israel.)
That isn’t the point. I understand many men are fine with having been circumcised as children. I’m actually glad for the men who feel that way simply because it means one less thing for them to worry about in life. That does not change the fact that no one had the right to alter your body without your permission. That does not change the fact that you should have been given a say in such a procedure before it was performed. You were denied your right to bodily autonomy. You may have also suffered an impact, or impacts, from the procedure that you aren’t even aware of. If it hadn’t turned out so well for you (and for many boys/men it doesn’t), I doubt seriously you’d be sitting here defending the practice in any conceivable fashion.
And again, we come back to someone else defining our experiences for us. My parents absolutely had the right to impinge on my autonomy as necessary, useful, correct and advisable. Whether this took the form of circumcising me, forbidding me to play in traffic, or forcing me to attend school (okay, that third one never happened; nonetheless), doesn’t matter. Again, this is a feminist context, those of us who were never little boys (or, I suppose, little pre-identification transgendered girls) shouldn’t tell us that we’re wrong about our experiences, that our feelings, thoughts and beliefs about them are wrong, and that we need to be corrected. Faith posits she’s talking about a child’s right to bodily autonomy, but the glossing over of the issue that we’re talking about boys’ bodies is pretty telling of the issue that we’d all be more uncomfortable if we were explicit that the position she’s advocating is a woman’s position, which runs roughshod over the voices and experiences of the people whose treatment we’re talking about. That Faith’s position is only tenable if we ignore the voices of everyone who has experienced what she’s talking about should set off alarm bells for everyone. At the very least, the unanswered “Why should those who’ve never experienced this get to define it, rather than those who have?” should be answered.
Are you sure that Faith never had anything wrong done to her when she was little, never suffered from any adult’s mistreatment however they rationalized it? If not, then maybe she does know what she is talking about, or at least can sort of analogize. I don’t have long floppy ears, but when the dog is lying down and someone steps on his ear and he yelps, I can sympathize.
Saying to someone that their rights were once breached does not automatically constitute defining their experiences for them. It does suggest that some experiences just might have been unnecessary, useless, incorrect and inadvisable. If said experiences turned out to have no lasting bad effects on you that anyone can tell, or if there were never any instances of anyone else being harmed by the same experience, then maybe it isn’t a rights violation after all. But if anyone ever was damaged, that’s another story, and suggests at least that some things should not be done automatically.
A serious study of the men who claim to have been harmed by circumcision would help find out if their claims were valid, and also help determine in the future which infants would benefit and which would not. That would help keep anyone from being harmed. There’d always be a tiny risk of screwing up, but you get that problem in anything you do. It would at least be better than just automatically doing it–surgery is no picnic, and better to avoid it if not needed.
Defining what one has never experienced is one thing; questioning it is another. Now those of us who have been abused are going to be touchy about this sort of thing to start with, and have to examine our own biases about what we don’t know that well. But some of us are doing so, and have a right or perhaps duty to question a lot of things taken for granted. The very idea of unconsented surgery is going to seem horrifying for some of us survivors–you don’t know all of what we’ve been thru either, BTW–and that can lead us to lean too far the other way, and try to prevent a needed surgery. But I am trying not to lean that way.
It’s going to be hard to prove that all the traumatized men out there got that way from being circumcised as opposed to all the other things infants/toddlers go thru. It might also be hard to prove that infections are caused by being uncircumcised, I don’t know. I guess that I would just give the uncut state the benefit of the doubt, for one thing it sounds like a money-saver. But if some really need it…well, the way to find that out isn’t by either doing it routinely or banning it altogether.
Vaccinating me, keeping me from playing in the street, I can see. But doing anything to me just because someone doesn’t like my looks, or to satisfy some ancient myth, no.
Adherents of a religion that calls for spilling blood can devise a ritual that spills or cuts something else, and spares human beings. Remember Iphigenia–well, that might be a bad example, but you get the picture, what good is a tradition anyway if it doesn’t grow along with its users?
Are you sure that Faith never had anything wrong done to her when she was little, never suffered from any adult’s mistreatment however they rationalized it?
It’s irrelevant, because we’re not asking about how to handle it when someone mistreats a child. We’re asking whether the child is being mistreated, and ignoring the child’s opinion on whether he’s being mistreated. Suggesting that some experiences “just might have been unnecessary, useless, incorrect and inadvisable” does “constitute defining their experiences” when the people who’ve gone through it have said it was correct, advisable, useful.
Asking about the drawbacks and benefits is worthwhile, and done pretty often. There’s pretty clearly no consensus, more or less because both the risks and rewards are pretty minimal. Small risk of complications (as with all surgery). Small reduction in the rates of penile infection and penile cancer; possible a small reduction in the transmission rates of HIV. On average, I’ll live maybe a week or two longer. Costs a little to get circumcised (maybe more State-side, where medical procedures are more costly), but you (on average) save cost on reduced rates of treating infections, cancers, whatnot. Whether we circumcise or not, some boys will definitely be worse off for that decision. If you want a “cause no harm” option, it doesn’t exist. If you want a “cause the least harm” option, the two options are competitive; there’s a tendancy to try and discount the “don’t circumcise” as not an action, so having no moral culpability; it shouldn’t fly in this crowd.
I think it’s important to observe in this discussion the tension between group rights (the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their values) and individual rights (the right of a child to certain basic freedoms, perhaps — perhaps — including body integrity.) The courts have threaded the needle here as best they can; our constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, and that cannot possibly be construed as to mean that parents must wait for their children to be autonomous agents before inculcating certain customs and beliefs.
See Wisconsin v. Yoder, a hugely important case in parental and religious rights — and a very special one to the Anabaptists, with whom I was affiliated for some years.
A civilized society must do the difficult work of holding in tension the rights of groups to cultural practices and the rights of individuals, particularly children, to be free agents. The tension between these two competing goods is part of the ongoing culture war, of course, and it goes back at least as far as the Enlightenment.
Brian,
“My parents absolutely had the right to impinge on my autonomy as necessary, useful, correct and advisable.”
Except that circumcision is not necessary, useful, correct or advisable. They do not have the right to impinge upon your autonomy for unnecessary, incorrect, or inadvisable procedures.
“That Faith’s position is only tenable if we ignore the voices of everyone who has experienced what she’s talking about should set off alarm bells for everyone.”
I’m not ignoring any man when he says that his experience with circumcision has been positive. As I stated already, an adult man’s opinion is irrelevant in regards to a -child’s- right to not be impinged upon. If men want to get circumcised in adulthood, hey, knock yourself out.
“Small risk of complications (as with all surgery). Small reduction in the rates of penile infection and penile cancer; possible a small reduction in the transmission rates of HIV.”
That’s actually not entirely true. There are much more severe risks, including a possibility of death. It does happen. I’m not going to get into a detailed discussion of the risks involved in circumcision since I can’t post links (for whatever strange reason) to back any of those statements up.
“our constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, and that cannot possibly be construed as to mean that parents must wait for their children to be autonomous agents before inculcating certain customs and beliefs.”
Freedom of religion does not mean that people can abuse other people, regardless of the relation of that individual to the other individual. Children are not property of parents. Religion is not an umbrella under which people should be able to hide. You of all people should know this, Hugo. That you fail to see the problem in this matter is really quite bizarre. You correctly recognize that it is unacceptable to hack away at a young girl’s genitals, but you just seem to metaphorically shrug your shoulders when it comes to hacking away at a male child’s genitals. You are undoubtedly aware that there are grown women who were circumcised who support the practice, I’m sure. Should we stop arguing against FGM because many of the women who have experienced it sanction it? Clearly you don’t feel that is the case. So, what exactly is the difference aside from your own admittance that you believe that you yourself would have your son circumcised largely due to wanting him to look like you?
FYI, I do not agree with Wisconsin v. Yoder either. Parents do not have the right to deny their children education, regardless of their religion. Children have a right to education. All human beings have a right to education.
“A serious study of the men who claim to have been harmed by circumcision would help find out if their claims were valid, and also help determine in the future which infants would benefit and which would not.”
That wouldn’t even be possible in many cases…because some of those boys died as a result of complications from circumcision.
Faith, care to provide some statistics for infant mortality due to circumcision in developed countries?
Comparing male circumcision to FGM is, to me, a grotesque false equivalence. Yes, both involve cutting part of the genital region. But that’s like saying that crucifixion and ear piercing are equivalent because they both involve metal piercing part of the flesh. No one debates the catastrophic consequences FGM has for women’s pleasure and health — but a great many circumcised men are quite clear that they’re loving their bodies and their sex lives. I’m not that unusual here. It’s at the least an open debate in terms of whether it has a deleterious impact; there is no question that FGM has a disastrous one.
Look, I won’t go to the mattresses to defend infant circumcision. It’s not a vital issue for me, though I suspect when we have a son (if we have one, god willin’) we’ll have him circumcised.
Faith
Except that circumcision is not necessary, useful, correct or advisable. If this statement wasn’t a flatly false assertion, the rest would follow. But it doesn’t. Being circumcised was certainly useful and advisable. As the subject (in this case), I’ll say it was correct. It may well not have been necessary (though almost nothing is, that’s a pretty lousy qualifier).
I’m not ignoring any man when he says that his experience with circumcision has been positive. As I stated already, an adult man’s opinion is irrelevant in regards to a -child’s- right to not be impinged upon. If men want to get circumcised in adulthood, hey, knock yourself out.
Yes, you are. I’m not saying this as an adult man, I’m saying it as a child who was circumcised. I don’t want to get circumcised in adulthood, I want to have been circumcised as a child. You very much can’t suggest that it’s an adult man’s opinion, or trying to obscure that you’re talking about boys, rather than children, being circumcised, unless you’re ignoring their experience.
Being circumcised as a boy was not a violation of any right I had not to be impinged upon. And the same statement, or variations thereof, has been made by everyone here. You’ve ignored it again, and again and again, and repeatedly made statements that our experiences as such are wrong, and you know better.
Please stop pretending this is about the child’s rights. The children are speaking, and you’re ignoring what they’ve said in favour of your own vision of what they should want. Even if I had a right not to be circumcised, forcing me to exercise it against my interests and will would not have been appropriate.
That’s actually not entirely true. There are much more severe risks, including a possibility of death. It does happen. Which is a severe risk in terms of intensity, but an extremely minor risk in terms of likelihood. Not being circumcised results in a reduced life expectancy (of a couple weeks), not being circumcised can result in death; just as being circumcised can. The net benefit is relevant. Circumcision can result in bad things is meaningless unless it’s compared to the bad things that can happen without circumcision.
Brian,
I’m not going to argue with you since you seem so set in justifying your position with no consideration for the effects on -children-. Since you also seem to believe that since I posses a vagina instead of a penis and therefore have no right to have an opinion on this, it seems pointless to discuss this with you.
This very much is an issue of children’s rights. It is also a human rights issue. Since you are so offended by my statements, how about taking the time to listen to the men who have been circumcised - men who are, in many cases, btw, leading a growing movement to ban male circumcision. There is a growing worldwide movement to ban male circumcision if you care to research the matter. There are many -men- who are involved in this movement. Again, many of them who were circumcised at birth.
As I said earlier, Hugo, even if FGM was replaced by a cosmetic procedure no more harmful than male circumcision, there would likely still be outcry by feminists against the notion that it should be performed, en masse, on infant females in the name of aesthetics or tradition. And the outcry would be justified.
Sorry, a big “Oops” from me here. I assumed that anyone in a position to “dress down Israeli soldiers on patrol” must have been one of them, presumably an officer. I suppose there are other ways to meet Israeli soldiers!
Those guys have all been circumcised, no wonder they’re so mean.
Hugo,
I just posted a long comment with a few links. The comment seems to have disappeared. That always happens when I post links on your site.
I’ve emailed the comment to you instead.
For anyone else who is interested in learning more, check out Intact America (an organization that states that over 100 deaths are caused by male circumcision in the U.S. annually)…
“”Comparing male circumcision to FGM is, to me, a grotesque false equivalence.”
In a sense, I absolutely agree. FGM is arguably far more destructive than male circumcision. I utterly loathe how MRAs and the like try to discount FGM by comparing it to male circumcision, or by trying to direct the conversations around FGM back towards male circumcision with “What about the MENz??” arguments. That being said: Even though male circumcision is not as harmful, it still carries serious risks and it still is very much a violation of a child’s right to bodily autonomy. In the sense that all people should have a right to bodily integrity, the two practices are very similar in nature.
The argument for the endorsement of MGM because it is harmless is not a very strong one. There are many acts that are harmless that are socially not condoned. Technically speaking, an adult performing oral or anal sex on a boy is relatively harmless (the chances of serious health risks, serious physical injury or death is possible, but minimal), but it is not socially condoned or endorsed. A tattoo is relatively harmless, yet putting one an infant boy is also not socially condoned. In both instances we have acts cause minimal or no physical harm, yet they are disallowed. The basis of them being disallowed has nothing to do with the frequency of their occurrence or the comparative harm of similar acts done to different people or gender politics, but specifically the impact those acts have on the boys they are done to.
Whether one personally finds the acts harmless does not mean all boys will reach the same conclusion, nor does it reason that because there may be less physical damage that the acts do not cause emotional or psychological harm that justifies not committing the acts. Reasonably speaking, if the circumcision causes any harm and there is no pertinent medical reason for it, a boy’s foreskin should not be cut off. Coincidentally, at the bottom of the linked article there is another related story titled “How Much Does Circumcision Hurt?” in which it is stated that the effect of circumcision on an infant boy essentially causes post-traumatic stress disorder.
Not sure what the author’s reason was for circumcision–perhaps there was a medical reason? So I’m not criticizing his individual decision to choose circumcision as an adult.
But for most males, with a normal foreskin, I think it is preferable to allow them to keep it. He’s born with it–why remove it–obviously God and/or the process of evolution thought it was a good idea (and traditional Jewish circumcision just removes the end of a foreskin, not the whole thing). Some other reasons why I believe this:
*With an infant, the foreskin is fused to the glans, so the process is more complicated than it would be for an adult. Also there is guesswork as to how much to remove, whereas an adult who chooses to be circed will get a more exact cut.
*The foreskin contains the most sensitive tissue on the whole penis.
*Circumcision means there is no “gliding action” and this affects women too–women in Europe don’t struggle so much with chafing and you can hardly find artificial lubricant because it isn’t needed. See the website and book “Sex as Nature Intended It.”
*Some men left intact will want to be circumcised. And they can be. There are many men who deeply regret having been circumcised (google “foreskin restoration”). They can never completely get back what was lost though.
*Most boys in Canada, the UK, Australia, and western Europe are not circumcised these days. Are there penises that much different than those of American baby boys?
Wow, I leave for a while and the thread returns to life.
“Banning a practice that many people believe to be a part of their religion will not -force- them to leave any given country. That is a flat-out red herring.”
It’s certainly not a *red herring*; what you want to say here, I think, is that it’s false. But while it’s not *legally* true, it will be true *in practice*, which is to say, that will be the lived experience of the people. Which is why I kept saying, repeatedly, that they would be *de facto* forced to leave. (This is, I think, precisely the sort of situation for which the phrase was made.) We still talk about the Jews “expulsion” from Spain in 1492 even though they were (IMS) able to stay if they converted to Christianity. So no, I don’t think I’m being disingenuous here.
(The importance of the practice in Jewish belief is relevant here, of course; I don’t know if banning the constructions of Sukkas would count as forcing Jews to leave somewhere (even though it’s required.) But circumcision is foundational. Again: I am pointing this out as a matter of *actual fact*. This could change if groups against circumcision gain enough ground. At the *moment*, it’s that important; if a circumcision ban were put in place now, it would have this effect, de facto.)
Incidentally, I don’t quite see the connection you’re making in bringing it up, but if anyone was forbidden to practice Wicca in the U.S. and left as a result I would have no problem saying they were “forced” to leave. (I don’t know much about the history of Wicca, I admit, so I don’t know whether or not this happened.) And certainly practitioners of Wicca deserve the full protection of any other religion. (As do, for that matter, atheists such as myself, who are comparably unlikely to get it, I think.)
“Yet, oddly enough, we’re still here. Whether you or anyone else knows it or not.”
If your point is that Wiccans endured persecution and are still here, then this is admirable but irrelevant. Some Jews pretended to convert to Christianity and kept their religion secretly; again, the expulsion from Spain was still an expulsion. Or, to take a comperable case, I think saying that a gay man or lesbian who had a foreign spouse who couldn’t get a U.S. visa was “forced” to leave the country (to be with their spouse) is fair, even though they could, in *some* sense, have chosen to simply stay apart.
Anyway, as I said, I think this is mostly off-topic. (FWIW, I’m friends with at least one Wicca practitioner in my hometown. So yeah, of course I know you’re here.)
“I don’t think Jews and Muslims should get to abuse their sons either.”
Good, neither do I. We agree on something. (We disagree, of course, on whether circumcision — which I would describe as a cosmetic surgery with minor health benefits — can be accurately described as “abuse”.)
“So you’d support allowing people to abuse their children just so they don’t have the leave the U.S.? How very thoughtful of you.”
No, probably not… it’s hard to say, given that I don’t, in fact, think circumcision is abuse. (Even if it is *immoral* — and while I don’t think so, a case can be made — I think calling it *abuse* is wrong.) Let’s just say that I find the image of the U.S. whipping up a modern version the experience of Spain in 1492 equally disturbing as the image of (ultimately fairly harmless) abuse — and the results (a U.S. purged of the majority of its Muslim & Jewish communities) to be utterly horrifying, and worth thinking of some way to avoid. So while (again, it’s hard to imagine) I *probably* would be on your side, I’m not *sure*, since the alternative is, I think, *equally* horrific.
“That does not change the fact that no one had the right to alter your body without your permission.”
What I think you’re missing — the point I think Brian was trying to make (although I strenuously disagree with him on the question of whether or not women can and should weigh in on this issue)is that a very large number of men are glad that they were circumcised *as* children. It’s not just that we retroactively think it was good; it’s that we are quite glad that it happened then, that we don’t have to do it as adults (when it is a far riskier surgery). I can easily imagine having been (probably unreasonably, but still) angry with my parents if I *hadn’t* been circumcised.
SF
how about taking the time to listen to the men who have been circumcised It should be unsurprising that I’ve done this quite a bit (and not just because I like the sound of my own voice!); which is why your arguments fall flat with me. Barring specifically seeking out the extreme minority of men who’re opposed to the procedure, you’ll encounter men who fall somewhere between indifferent views to favourable views. That a handfull of men (in a world with three billion men) are opposed to it isn’t very meaningful, that’s something I could say about almost everything one could come up with.
This very much is an issue of children’s rights. It is also a human rights issue. Again, asserted without evidence, or even a rationale as to why they should be forced to exercise such a right against their interest and will. “Rights” are generally not things we’re forced to do, but things we’re entitled to do.
But for most males, with a normal foreskin, I think it is preferable to allow them to keep it. We’re not discussing “allowing” them to keep it, but forcing them to keep it. Entirely separate question. Nobody (I think) is arguing for mandatory circumcisions, just between whether the parents should make the choice for the child, or the state should make the choice for the child.
Brian:
One is not forced to assert rights, others are compelled to respect them. They are inherent. Your argument is bizarre. How not being cut can be against the interest and will of a newborn boy is beyond me.
As for your second point, I can only hope it is supposed to be satirical. It’s like saying by not gouging out someone’s eyes you are forcing them to keep them.
The very idea that having a foreskin (which is there at birth) is a choice is culturally situated oddness, IMHO.
Hugo:
You are a dishonest man. You and the editors presented your instance as a representative case of adult circumcision to help settle the matter on the after-effects of circumcision on sensation. How common is tearing of the foreskin in uncircumcised men? Does every uncut male require medical attention due to tearing in his early 20s? That is not normal; the answer is very few if any.
You had a medical condition for which circumcision was appropriate. Improvement, therefore, was to be expected and is not surprising. More importantly, the improvement you had is irrelevant on the question of what are the effects of circumcision on the common, normal, uncircumcised male. Such accounts are plentiful and opposite to yours.
What you did was very misleading and wrong in furtherance of your own agenda, whatever it may be, through lies. Molly Bennett and her editors made an equal contribution and are no doubt even more well-seasoned liars. Journalists everywhere have a reputation for being untrustworthy–right below used car salesmen. Bloggers are about there too: they’re wannabe journalists. This is why.
Now that’s clever; taking what has historically been a practice performed by, mandated by and supported by males, and implying that it’s really just part of the feminist conspiracy to run around taping men’s mouths shut. Bravo!
Feel free to refrain from injecting words into others’ posts that weren’t originally there, M. I made no mention of feminists and I acknowledge that many feminists work to putting an end to the practice of circumcising boys.
The invalidation of men’s concerns is taking place here. Why does circumcision of boys receive less condemnation here than does FGM? For one, it’s the removal of “only” part of an organ, whereas FGM is more severe. But another reason is that it happens to boys, so opposition to it is dismissed as “silly whining.”
I tend to agree with bmmg39, mythago. While there may be at least some arguable (albeit not necessarily valid) justification for deprecating the gender concerns of adult males, one would think that when it comes to protecting the bodily integrity of newborns (particularly as it concerns the locus of their sexuality), that there would be near-unanimous consensus within the movement which is avowedly most concerned with issues of gender justice.
Don’t get me wrong. As a feminist myself, I’m gratified to see the number of fellow feminists who have an enlightened view of this appalling practice, and in fact I think feminists as a group are more likely to be opposed to it than the population as a whole (in America). But mainstream feminism’s gynocentric bias is so severe that too many of its proponents (like Hugo) are blind to legitimate male issues even when they involve helpless infants, and the toleration of such blindness tends to undercut mainstream feminism’s claim to any kind of overall moral superiority regarding gender issues.
Ballgame, fascinating to have you describe as a feminist. This is a new MRA tactic, I suppose, borrowing from Christina Hoff Summers and her ilk, claiming that Warren Farrell and his lot represent “real” feminism, while the rest of us are usurpers? And yes, there’s a “gynocentric bias” in feminism, just as, say, the NAACP does have a particular brief for African Americans. This means that feminists can have a host of opinions about male circumcision, because it does fall outside of the realm of traditional feminist concerns.
Not being an MRA, I wouldn’t know for sure, but I expect you are wrong (again), because I’ve often caught hell from MRAs for espousing the label. I don’t see you or other gynocentric feminists as ‘usurpers’, but your (royal ‘you’) blind spots regarding the way gender oppresses males certainly tarnishes your ability to be egalitarian feminists in my book.
The issue of circumcision certainly does not fall outside of the realm of egalitarian feminist concerns (i.e. those who don’t want anyone oppressed by gender). Now if you want to say that ‘gender justice for everyone‘ is not ‘traditionally a feminist concern,’ then I guess you agree with the MRAs more than I do.
Ballgame, look, you can call yourself a feminist if you please — heck, Sarah Palin does, so I suppose the label is as flexible as Gumby for some. But I assure you that I have no problem with what you call gynocentrism — after all, the entire point is to focus on the reality that we live in a system that privileges men as a class and as individuals at the expense of women. The only way to redress that is to focus our energies primarily on women until we have achieved equity — which, despite the claims of the apologists for the far-right like Hoff Summers and the like, we are miles away from achieving.
Achieving equity is important. Focusing our energies primarily on women until we achieve equity is an exceptionally foolish strategy.
Equity is not achieved by privileging one side and then the other, attempting to achieve balance through positive feedback mechanism. When you balance on a bicycle and feel yourself going over to one side, do you hurl all your weight to the other? No - you try to achieve balance.
You don’t get to equity by focusing your energy on one side. You get to equity by focusing your energy on equity.
Hugo, of the several years I have known ballgame he has not once identified as anything other than a feminist. Trying to impugn his character and by proxy invalidate his arguments by calling him a MRA only tarnishes and invalidates your own.
Equity at others’ expense is not equity. It is simply a thinly veiled power grab. One would think a feminist would be most aware of that assuming that a feminist is actually concerned with equality and not with simply taking sides. More disturbing, however, is the implication that you view male rape, male domestic violence, male suicide and male victimization (i.e. men’s issues) as you do male circumcision: wholly irrelevant, unimportant and undeserving of redress. Such a position is incredibly morally reprehensible and particularly dangerous given your contact with boys and young men who face those issues and effect your apparent apathy could have on them. Again, one would think a feminist would be most aware of such apologism and seek to avoid it rather than eagerly embrace it.
Hm. So if I make a batch of cookies, and one of my kids grabs a bigger share than the other two, it’s not equitable for me to say “Kid, you have to put some of those back so everybody gets the same number of cookies”? After all, I am achieving equity at the expense of that child.
bmmg, who is ignoring, invalidating or minimizing “men’s concerns”? If it’s being done “here”, on a feminist blog, then gosh, I wonder who those mysterious minimizers (hiding behind the passive voice) might be. And it’s odd when you complain about it “here” since, of course, circumcision of males is something supported by, practiced by and in some cases required by males - not females. Scolding a handful of feminists (a largely female group) for not doing more about it seems disingenuous.
I always planned, if we’d ever had a son, to let my husband make the decision on whether the son was circumcised, on the grounds that: A) Joel’s just as capable as I am of evaluating any evidence as to whether the medical benefits of circumcision outweigh the medical risks, B) He’s the one with the penis, so might as well be given the decisions that pertain to that, and C) I sure wasn’t giving him the decisions where my bodily experience was more pertinent, namely the ones related to childbirth, so it seemed fair to give weight to B.
Evidently, going by this thread, this line of thinking proves that I’m insufficiently feminist; a true feminist, I guess, would know even before looking at the medical pros and cons that circumcising our son would be an obvious violation of his human rights, and wouldn’t even need to ask Joel his opinion on the matter.
You learn something new every day, I guess.
Actually, Lynn, it’s just that everything pertaining to children is the mother’s fault.
Back when we were still at the ‘having babies’ stage I recall that one of the reasons given in favor of circumcision was “so that our son will look like his father”. I never understood that one and never heard a real explanation for it. Maybe one of the guys can enlighten me?
No, it’s not equitable, mythago, … if you ignore the fact that Betty and Chloe are getting more ice cream.
Ahh, the old “Men are Borg” myth.
Who is doing this? AFAICT, bmmg is scolding one feminist for the moral hypocrisy of endorsing an operation on male infants that the feminist would never tolerate being arbitrarily performed on female infants.
It’s a silly justification for an American operation that had its origins far more in Puritanical desires to control male masturbation than in any legitimate medical reason.
Mythago: “Scolding a handful of feminists (a largely female group) for not doing more about it seems disingenuous.”
My intent is not to scold anyone. I use the passive voice so as not to single any one person out, to address an attitude. Interesting that you actually objected to that.
I didn’t invade Hugo’s post on his Thursday music selections or poetry reading, or on a post about whether to wear pink clothes or not. I stated my view on circumcision on a post with that word in the actual title.
Oh, c’mon. You’re on a feminist blog talking about an attitude ‘here’. That’s not singling out, oh, I don’t know, feminists? Or participants in a feminist blog of whatever stripe, if we’re giving it a broad reading?
ballgame, then I’m disadvantaging Betty and Chloe by saying “and you two, make sure Alan gets his fair share of that ice cream”, so that’s not equitable either, is it? And does Alan really care about getting the same share of cookies and ice cream if he’s lactose intolerant? Equity sometimes means “disadvantaging” others, in the sense of taking away unfair advantages.
I’m pretty sure Judaism, with its absolute tradition of circumcision, existed before the Puritans. I’m also pretty sure there’s nothing Borgish about recognizing that in cultures that practice male circumcision, the practice is dictated, overseen and in most cases performed by adult males on infants or as part of a coming-of-age ritual for young men, just as female circumcision has traditionally been part of women’s rituals.
Mythago,
Technically, it is not at the child’s expense because the cookies were not the child’s to begin with. For it to be at the child’s expense you would have to make a batch of cookies for everyone and then tell the one child that the other two can take as many cookies as they want, or you split the cookies — let us say a dozen — evenly, but then take two of the one child’s cookies and give them to the other children, or the one child did some chores for the promise of two extra cookies, but you decide to count those as part of the child’s regular share, or the one child baked the cookies, but you come in and decide to split them evenly among the children. Those would be instances of achieving equity at the expense of the child. In other words, you have to take or deny something that would otherwise go to a person in order for it to be at the person’s expense.
An unfair advantage means it is undeserved, so you are in no way disadvantaging the person by taking it away. However, if you argue that equity means disadvantaging others in the sense of taking away unfair advantages, then technically this would mean that should any men’s groups argue that female-oriented rape centers and domestic violence shelters should have their funding pulled and used to create services for male victims of those crimes until there are an equal number of services for both male and female victims those groups are simply correcting an unfair advantage in order to create equity.
?? Why would that not be equitable (other than in the somewhat tedious rhetorical sense that Alan might prefer cookies and Betty and Chloe might prefer ice cream)?
It’s “Borgish” if one implies that “men aren’t oppressed by gender because the people oppressing them are other men” (or, for that matter, “women aren’t oppressed by a particular dynamic because the people oppressing them in that instance are other women”). For example, it’s really not relevant to point out that the people who are conscripting males (and not females) to fight and be slaughtered in most of the world’s many fun little tiffs happen to be males themselves, by and large — it does not mean that “men are oppressing themselves” — but gynocentric feminists will do this All. The. Time. And you did it here when you said:
There isn’t anything the least bit odd in pointing out the moral blindness and gender double standard of a gynocentric feminist who doesn’t understand that he is endorsing a sexist and oppressive practice. The fact that this practice is typically executed by other males is wholly irrelevant because men are not Borg.
If this blog had a comment ‘edit’ capacity, I would re-word my last paragraph to respond to mythago’s point without belaboring my harsh criticism of your stance, Hugo; my apologies.
Mythago: “Oh, c’mon. You’re on a feminist blog talking about an attitude ‘here’. That’s not singling out, oh, I don’t know, feminists? Or participants in a feminist blog of whatever stripe, if we’re giving it a broad reading?”
Wow. Y’know, I e-mailed two national pediatric organizations about this topic just a few weeks ago. I had no idea at the time, but I simply MUST have included the phrase “and I direct these comments specifically to the feminists on your board of directors” each time. I thought I was addressing everybody, but I realize now that you just know me so much better than I know myself, M!
Mythago:
It’s worth pointing out that FGM is often (usually?) performed by women. There are many accounts of the act being perpetrated by or at the behest of the girl’s mother in the teeth of opposition from her father. Should we similarly dismiss these victims?
Happily, Daran, I already pointed that out in my previous comment. So we’re good, right?
bmmg, please, cut it out. If I go onto an MRA blog and talk about how some people here hold X opinion, it would be really disingenuous of me to claim that, gosh, why would anybody think I was directing my point to MRAs?
Well, such an inference is useful for rhetorical purposes, but no; this falls into the category of “patriarchy hurts men too”.
Okay, mythago, you can choose to ignore my (never needed in the first place) explanation if you so wish. The fact is: I’ll make my point on this topic when and where it comes up, whether the locale is a feminist blog or a completely different forum. So “cut it out,” yourself.
Wow, this discussion has stayed pretty busy!
I was circumcised as an infant, so I can’t say that I ever had any basis of comparison. No experience with smegma or other hygienic issues, accordingly, so I guess I’m grateful for that. Based on what I’ve heard, women tend to appreciate it that way compared to the alternative, and I can’t complain of any issues with insufficient sexual enjoyment.
My only concerns: 1) this sort of modification is a rather significant intrusion into a person’s bodily integrity, one that is permanent, and is typically done to an infant who cannot consent or refuse consent. Whatever the merits of the procedure, I have a problem with that fact. 2) I really think that, even in the case of infants, local anesthetic should be required. I cannot believe that, in that area with as many nerves as it has, that an infant feels no pain. They simply can’t verbalize it, and tend to cry anyways, so are ignored.
It doesn’t make sense to leave the decision to the father simply because he has a penis. A father who was circumcised at birth has no idea what it would be like to have a foreskin. It’s the mother who has the better idea (since the clitoral hood is analogous to the foreskin).
I don’t necessarily think male circumcision should be illegal. But I do think that the American medical profession should handle it as do doctors in countries like the UK. Unless it’s for medical reasons, parents should have to pay for it themselves. Doctors should make it clear that the practice is not recommended by any medical association in the western world. I don’t even see a reason why parents should be asked if they want it done. Not doing it should be the default–if parents feel strongly about having it done for some reason, they should seek out doctor willing to do it. As it is now, when parents are giving a consent form as part of all the newborn forms, asked over and over if they want it done, and have an insurance company that will pay for it, well, it follows that they will conclude it is normal and accepted thing to do.
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Many of you argue well from libertarian and communitarian standpoints. They can all be criticized in an academic manner, both from philosophical standpoints and from empirical standpoints. One of the arguments that have not been presented is the “natural law” argument that all people have the right to possession of their bodies. The same argument (sometimes wrongly) comes from feminists that abortion is a “natural law” issue. This “natural law” argument can also be extended to say that no one have the right to instill religion in their children through “cutting”. But when I think about it, some of you have presented similar arguments. This is a very tuff question, indeed.
I’m from Sweden, a country that has since 1985 been almost ethnically homogenous. Circumcision has never been a part of the Swedish culture. Until about 1985 only Jews circumcised their children. Today just 40 percent of the Swedish Jews are cut. Our Jewish community is very “assimilated” in the society. For instance, we have just a couple of Jewish primary schools and very few synagogues. In 1998 we had 18 000 Swedish Jews.
Because of Muslim immigration circumcision has become more frequent. Sweden has extensive protection of children “rights”. For instance is flogging of children illegal. That is not the case in many European countries, like UK. In 2001 the Left party and the Green Party including with help from the vast majority of major NGO were close to banning circumcision of infants and children under the age of 18. This was also supported by the government Party, which was the Social democrat party at that time. The “Liberal” and center parties were also close to agreeing upon making non-medical circumcision of children illegal.
But Jewish, Islamic and some immigrant-churches argued that against it. Everything was going one way, towards banning non-medicinally circumcision on children, but the Social democratic party changed their mind just in time for the referendum, because the Social Democratic Party wanted to please this rising minority groups. Instead of banning infant and children circumcision they made it heavily regulated. There were a short unrest, but everything went smooth. Today can only medicinal doctors and people that have permission from The National Board of Health implement circumcision.
A child older than two months most is circumcised by a doctor. In all the cases anesthesia has to be applied. The plan of the politicians was to make it so difficult for the minority group to circumcise their children and that parents would change their minds after the talked with the Swedish doctor. This actually worked pretty well. We have 400 000 -500 000 Muslims in Sweden and many of them do not circumcise their newborns. Only 100 000 of all Muslims are a member Muslim Congregations. So yes, it is possible to change people’s minds without making it illegal. BUT!
About 3000 non-medical circumcisions on boys under 18 are done each year in Sweden. But only 2000 are done according to law and there is a rising cases of boys that have been rushed to hospital because of layman surgery. This year the “National County council” said that all County hospitals most offer circumcision free of charge. About 2/3 of all County hospitals refused to carry it out and 2/3 of all medical surgeons’ refused to carry out circumcision on children under 18 because of “Swedish medical ethics”. This created a large controversy here in Sweden and when former “NGO” that was against male circumcision begun to back down issue, it has been even more infected.
Its election year in Sweden and one main reason why the Nationalist Xenophobic party Sweden Democrat will enter the Parliament is because the Swedish politicians do listen to notion of the Swedish people. A vast majority of the Swedish population is against non-medical circumcision of children and the Swedish Democrat explores this sentiment.
We have rising Muslim population that demands cultural rights. A major report by SCB was released this week claiming that over 40 percent of the Swedish population sees Islam as a major threat to the Swedish Identity and to our (very) liberal society. One many of the reason why, is because this circumcision issue. Only 7 percent of the population was in favor Islam. Also the more the 40 percent of Swedish population wants make ban Mosques, now. The Swedish Democrats is the fourth largest party in last poll and have been so for a quite some time.
Some of you have argued that “Muslims and Jews” will leave a country if circumcision is banned. That is actually not true. The Muslim community has been in this case very helpful and wants to have dialog – if there will be ban after the enter of the Swedish Democrats – who has made this one of their main issues. The Jews are sadly that ones who have trouble with this issue because of the tradition of infant circumcision. If we are living multicultural society we have to agree upon some values.
If we don’t, the Swedes will turn against Islam, Judaism and different non-protestant faiths and cultures. We have already become very anti-immigration. About 50 years ago Gypsies was a not allowed to immigrate to Sweden and before that we expelled immigrant that did not adopt our lifestyle. This can happen to the Muslims, the Jews and others if we not solve those kind issues. In Switzerland they banned minarets, In France it now illegal to wear religious in schools and in Denmark they are about close their borders, because they don’t want non-Danish people in their society.
In Europe this issue about circumcision is much polarized and politicized. Europe is about to awaking to ethnical nationalism again. This issue is larger outside America and its about too get hot, very hot indeed.