Okay, I see your point. I would personally be slightly pissed if my parents had had something like this done to me before I was old enough to consent to it. However, what I meant by my “big deal” comment was simply that I can’t see why so many people get so frothing-at-the-mouth about this issue. Obviously it’s something people are bound to feel strongly about, but I’ve read people talking about circumcision as though it were akin to giving your child a physical deformity, which it certainly is not. No circumcized man I have ever spoken to about this would take kindly to the suggestion that he is somehow incomplete, deformed, or hadicapped in any way by the procedure.
Basically, no. If circumcision were a part of my culture, and was purely aesthetic and in no way associated with patriarchal control, I would probably not be as upset about it. But that’s not really the point, is it? The point is that male circumcision cannot be compared to female circumcision. Circumsized males are normal in every way, save lacking a little slip of skin that doesn’t serve much purpose to begin with. Circumsized males can urinate normally and without pain; they can engage in sexual intercourse without pain and derive great pleasure from it. Contrast this with female circumcision, in which a woman is basically stripped of all external reproductive organs, rendering her unable to feel pleasure, and usually unable to urinate normally or engage in intercourse without excruciating pain. Male circumcision is not and was not designed to control a man’s ability to engage in or derive pleasure from sex. Female circumcision was.
And I’m very confused and slightly offended about why you feel I’m being ethnocentric re: female circumcision. I have personally spoken to women from cultures where the practice is common, and without exception, I was told they suffered greatly from it for the sole purpose of being sexually controlled. I met one woman from the Sudan who was circumsized at age 11 with a sharp piece of metal. She was told that if she did not submit to the practice, she would be ostracized by her family and friends, would be considered “unclean” and a whore, and no one would ever marry her. She is now 47 years old, and to this day she suffers from chronic urinary tract infections, pain, difficulty urinating, and intercourse for her is so painful that she will no longer engage in it. She showed me her genital area, and it is a mass of scar tissue. Pubic hair will no longer grow there. It is about as intimate and inviting as a gnarled tree stump, and when it’s not completely numb, it causes her such pain that walking becomes a burden for her.
I have seen first-hand the effects of both male and female circumcision. Trying to compare them is like comparing the common cold with galloping pneumonia.