# Genital mutilation of young girls. But it's a religious thing! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057 "2017-04-23T11:44:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/181 "2018-11-24T02:28:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Andy, serious question: do you believe people who agitate against FGM are also guilty of “body-shaming strangers”? If not, how do you defend this double standard? Advocate against circumcision all you want. I don’t have a problem with that. But when you insist strangers’ bodies are “mutilated”, and that they are “delusional” if they don’t see their own bodies this way, then you’re a body-shaming piece of shit. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/182 "2018-11-24T03:16:58Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Advocate against circumcision all you want. I don’t have a problem with that. But when you insist strangers’ bodies are “mutilated”, and that they are “delusional” if they don’t see their own bodies this way, then you’re a body-shaming piece of shit. So…advocate against it, except without really saying it does any harm. If a man says “I was circumcised, and I’m perfectly fine”, don’t dispute it. That sounds like the most milquetoast, ineffectual advocacy imaginable. :rolleyes: > [@Guinastasia](#): > > If there are women who say, “I’m perfectly happy with my body, and I really don’t care what was done to me”, and someone tells them otherwise, then yeah, I’d say so. But this is precisely what the mothers of most of these helpless little girls will say! It’s perpetuating a cycle of abuse, and we’re not supposed to interfere with that cycle because it’s “body shaming”?!? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/183 "2018-11-24T03:23:57Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So…advocate against it, except without really saying it does any harm. If a man says “I was circumcised, and I’m perfectly fine”, don’t dispute it. That sounds like the most milquetoast, ineffectual advocacy imaginable. :rolleyes: > > But this is precisely what the mothers of most of these helpless little girls will say! It’s perpetuating a cycle of abuse, and we’re not supposed to interfere with that cycle because it’s “body shaming”?!? :smack: If you can’t figure out a way to advocate against something without calling those you consider its victims “mutilated” and “delusional”, than you’re far too stupid to be an effective advocate. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/184 "2018-11-24T03:26:17Z")
THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOUR DICK. QUIT MAKING IT ALL ABOUT YOU!!! There was a thread in GD about circumcision, but that’s not enough. Just like ANY female-specific thread here. Do women do that to men here? Sometimes. That’s not right either. But as has been pointed out repeatedly, this place has gotten seriously misogynist in the last few years, and I’ve seriously fucking had it. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/185 "2018-11-24T04:58:54Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > You poor, poor man. I would probably be very similar if I had been genitally mutilated in infancy. You have my deepest sympathy, but I’m not going to let your defensive propaganda go unchallenged. No by all means let’s keep this thing going. Because quite honestly I’m now a bit apprehensive about how I may be missing out on some manner of dick-life that is apparently orders of magnitude greater than my current experience. Am I missing out? How would I measure this? Would there be some sort of challenge? Normally I’m quite shy in this area but right now I feel like science is calling me out. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/186 "2018-11-24T04:59:35Z")
Ok so certain people see no difference between a girl getting her clitoris entirely removed and a boy getting his foreskin removed. Totally the same fucking thing, I’m sure. So let’s make sure that in a discussion about FGM we thoroughly discuss the quality the male orgasms. Because that’s the important thing. ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/187 "2018-11-24T04:59:55Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Nope. The two issues are totally related, and people want them to be separated because otherwise they have to face cognitive dissonance. They’d rather keep condemning FMG as an unacceptable assault on girls’ bodily autonomy on one hand (because _other_, barbaric, people do it), while being able to keep ignoring people who point at the fact that circumcision is an unacceptable assault on boys’ bodily autonomy (because _they_ do it, and they can’t be barbaric, can they?). > > You can argue that FMG (or at least some form of it) have usually more serious consequences than circumcision, but they’re the same issue : people trying to find any excuse they can think of to justify mutilating children genitals in the name of tradition. Trying to keep the two issues separated is a tactic (maybe not by you, but by defenders of circumcision most certainly) to avoid having to face the fact that they support on one hand what they condemn on the other. I reject your (and theirs) premise that they are different issues. Well, I reject yours. One critical difference is that circumcision appears to be under public scrutiny, waning for reasons that look fairly natural and progressive…unlike anything having to do with women’s bodies where we seem to be going backward very quickly. Very quickly. Which is reason enough to have a problem with your taking the FGM issue and cropping it to fit your anti-circumcision crusade to promote greater male pleasure and improved aesthetics. Gee, thanks mister! Beyond that, they may be “related” issues in that both involve genitalia and tradition, but they are not balanced at all. Circumcision is mostly a clinical procedure with foundations in religious law, and FGM is a shady practice categorized by degrees of injury, widespread in specific places on the globe for cultural reasons. There’s a world of difference, clear enough even for the preponderant gits who show up on these threads, you would think, but they persist, in an angry, fully-intact dick-waving sort of way. It just doesn’t seem logical. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/188 "2018-11-24T05:18:47Z")
Little Billy has a glans that is less sensitive than it could be. Little Suzy was sewn shut and had her sexual organs removed. Totally the fucking same. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/189 "2018-11-24T05:58:36Z")
> [@Tee](#): > > Beyond that, they may be “related” issues in that both involve genitalia and tradition, but they are not balanced at all. Circumcision is mostly a clinical procedure And FGM isn’t because it’s banned. Circumcision wouldn’t be clinical is it was forbidden, and FMG would be if it was allowed. > [@](#): > > with foundations in religious law FMG is often believed to be religiously mandated. Even though Islamic scholars state that it has no foundation in Islam, it’s still advocated by local clerics, which makes it no different from a religious obligation from the point of view of the locals who might not be deeply knowledgeable and have always understood to be a mandated by religion. In any case, I don’t know how it having “foundations in religious law” makes it different from having “foundations in traditional custom”. Somehow, if the tradition is more religious, it makes the act more acceptable? If FMG _was_ mandated in the bible or Koran, or if it turns out that it’s mandated by some traditional religion (it might be, I don’t know), it would be more acceptable to you? I doubt it. Or I hope so at least. > [@](#): > > and FGM is a shady practice It’s not shady in places where it was traditionally done. It’s not like anybody was ashamed of practicing it. At least not until it began to be banned. > [@](#): > > categorized by degrees of injury, I already admitted that FMG caused more damages. > [@](#): > > widespread in specific places on the globe for cultural reasons. You mean exactly like circumcision? > [@](#): > > There’s a world of difference, clear enough even for the preponderant gits who show up on these threads, So far, you’ve been unable to point at any real difference besides the degree and frequency of the damages. Well, there _a world_ of difference, in fact, indeed. One is traditionally done in the western world, which makes it perfectly fine, and the other isn’t. Seriously, you believe you have demonstrated a difference, here? You really can’t see how we’re talking about the exact same situation of people cutting in children genitals in order to follow a cultural tradition? > [@](#): > > you would think, but they persist, in an angry, fully-intact dick-waving sort of way. > > It just doesn’t seem logical. The attitude of refusing to see the parallel between two traditions essentially identical in nature doesn’t seem logical to me, either. And I don’t think it is. I think it is driven by cultural prejudice. You’ve been accustomed all your life to hear about circumcision as a normal thing, so you see it as such. If circumcision hadn’t been an accepted practice in your culture, but was instead something that, say, only Melanesian immigrants were doing on their children, I’m convinced that you’d have no trouble condemning it. Also, we haven’t been introduced, so I don’t think you know what my dick is like. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/190 "2018-11-24T06:30:14Z")
“you’ve been unable to point at any real difference besides the degree and frequency of the damages” between a baby’s first haircut and cutting a baby’s head off entirely. Why SHOULDN’T a thread discussing the horror of infant decapitation be hijacked to talk about how traumatic a haircut is? I don’t actually believe circumcision should be performed, speaking as the wife of an intact man and mother of an intact son. But I deeply fucking wish that people would stop saying things like FGM and circumcision are only different in degree and frequency. Of course they are! And so is trimming a child’s nails and cutting off their fingers. One is less frequent and more severe, and the other is less severe and more frequent. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/191 "2018-11-24T06:40:26Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > Little Billy has a glans that is less sensitive than it could be. > > Little Suzy was sewn shut and had her sexual organs removed. > Totally the fucking same. > **[Not as bad as](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as)** > > The "not as bad as" fallacy, also known as the fallacy of relative privation,\[2\] asserts that: ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/192 "2018-11-24T06:45:54Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > [Not as bad as - RationalWiki](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as) Complain away, I’m not suggesting you not complain about it. But coming into a thread about X to talk about how bad and awful and terrible Y is fucking tone deaf at best. In short: in a thread about X, I don’t care about how bad Y is. Hey look, there are lots of threads about how awful Y is. Go post there. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/193 "2018-11-24T07:03:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > God you’re a racist, ignorant, and worthless piece of shit. Fuck you for body shaming strangers just because of your own ignorant issues. Darn they got you all riled up! Tone down the virtue signaling and be glad they aren’t spamming the thread with plagiarized cookie recipes. That said, I do concur with the concept of keeping a thread about female genital mutilation on topic. It’s an important enough issue and I find medieval practices such as baby mutilation to be repugnant. But it’s the Pit and many asking for topic purity are often guilty of mucking up other people’s threads so it’s hard to be super duper sympathetic. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/194 "2018-11-24T08:13:59Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > Little Billy has a glans that is less sensitive than it could be. > > Little Suzy was sewn shut and had her sexual organs removed. > Totally the fucking same. This. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/195 "2018-11-24T10:02:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Ramira, I’m no “incel”. We know what you are. a pathetic attention seeker who seeks the validation by the posturing and trolling here. you found a new angle for this now. ---
**Author:** ![Modesty\_Blaise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Modesty\_Blaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Modesty_Blaise)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/196 "2018-11-24T15:19:25Z")
What about the menz! Waaaaaah! Every thread on every message board about female anything must be turned into but, but, but…_men_! We must focus on _men_! Jesus, it’s like a bunch of toddlers stomping their feet and screaming, “BUT WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEE? It’s fucking tiresome. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2018, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/197 "2018-11-24T16:16:52Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Nope. The two issues are totally related, and people want them to be separated because otherwise they have to face cognitive dissonance. They’d rather keep condemning FMG as an unacceptable assault on girls’ bodily autonomy on one hand (because _other_, barbaric, people do it), while being able to keep ignoring people who point at the fact that circumcision is an unacceptable assault on boys’ bodily autonomy (because _they_ do it, and they can’t be barbaric, can they?). > > You can argue that FMG (or at least some form of it) have usually more serious consequences than circumcision, but they’re the same issue : people trying to find any excuse they can think of to justify mutilating children genitals in the name of tradition. Trying to keep the two issues separated is a tactic (maybe not by you, but by defenders of circumcision most certainly) to avoid having to face the fact that they support on one hand what they condemn on the other. I reject your (and theirs) premise that they are different issues. This is nonsense. One just needs to ask two questions to understand that can fairly be discussed as two separate issues: 1. Why are genital operations performed on healthy young boys? 2. Why are genital operations performed on healthy young girls? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/198 "2018-11-25T03:08:48Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Ramira, I’m no “incel”. I’m married (for the second time—and no, my first wife did not leave me, I left her), and have four kids. I hope to hell you don’t have custody. Just being in the same room as you has got to count as some form of child abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/199 "2018-11-25T05:13:55Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > many asking for topic purity are often guilty of mucking up other people’s threads so it’s hard to be super duper sympathetic. Oh, the irony! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2018, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057/200 "2018-11-25T05:48:49Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > Little Billy has a glans that is less sensitive than it could be. > > Little Suzy was sewn shut and had her sexual organs removed. > Totally the fucking same. If it wasn’t for false equivalences, Donald Trump wouldn’t be president. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genital-mutilation-of-young-girls-but-its-a-religious-thing/785057.md?page=11)