In order to work as a rhetorical device, he would have to be equating the removal of a foreskin, which results in a less-sensitive glans, and getting one’s clitoris removed, having the labia cut off and having the ragged raw edges sewn up - sometimes using nothing more than thorns!
if not exactly equivalent, then certainly at least on par with one another. It is telling that some consider that it makes more sense that these two experiences are close enough to equate with a rhetorical flourish, and not that it was meant as a correction and mansplaining of the female sexual experience.
It makes sense for a religious sect with very tight social controls to claim that these women are exaggerating or making up stories, because collectively and individually, the sect has motive to lie. They lie outward to the people not in their circles for self-preservation, they lie inward to their own girls to ensure a proper ritual. They’re probably lying to themselves about what they’re doing in order to keep doing it, and their actual practices probably couldn’t survive a week after being fully exposed and brought out for scrutiny. It’s interesting that you expect the reporting women to be lying and exaggerating. In droves. About their own grandmothers. I’m not sure exactly how that pertains to what you are saying, but you did already demonstrate a certain bias with your cite and it’s clear we’re not seeing the same things.
I can’t really argue with your main assertion, but Ramira did. I kinda hope to be around the next time she’s pissed off about something.
My husband was born in '64, was circumcised and had orgasm upon orgasm upon orgasm… since we have 3 kids. Let alone other evidence.
My younger sister had cancer and lost her clitoris due to it. She had kids before this happened but spent 2 years after doing major drugs (I don’t count alcohol or pot as major) before she centered herself. I think she is ok now. I’m not sure because… she stopped posting on FB and she hasn’t shown up at family getogethers.
We had a talk during a memorial for her dad at a bar. She was frank.
I miss her.
(Some of her kids are my FB friends so I get snippets to know she is still alive.)
This group of religious conservative Dawoodi Bohra women says they want “the right to practice khafz.” Khafz seems to be the nicking, partial, or total removal of the clitoral hood. It sounds like something you’d really, really, really want Novocaine for, but not that should wreck a woman’s sex life. Of course, this is just speculation on my part, never having had a clitoral hood trimming myself, or a clitoral anything else.
My rule of thumb for raising kids is, “I don’t care what you think of me now; I care what you think of me twenty years from now.” Since we don’t have a time machine to get the adult opinions of today’s little girls, the next best thing here is the consensus of today’s Dawoodi Bohra women who’ve been through khafz themselves. My haphazard internet research doesn’t really show a consensus; the closest is the 80% “no” vote quoted in [post=21353961]Guinastasia’s post[/post], although I’m not sure where the quote is from.
Anyway, that’s the opinions that I think matter, not mine or Blalron’s.
thanks, coffeecat. If that’s all they did, and if they explained it to the girl, and told her the importance of the procedure, I don’t think I’d have a problem with that. I wonder how it’s done in Sri Lanka, and if there is a bad interaction between the custom and our laws that leads to children being hijacked.
I’m giving up on this conversation. Just a quick note for people lecturing about how minuscule the damage of circumcision can be, and how people are complaining about some infinitesimal, barely noticeable under a microscope, loss of sensitivity only because they can’t stop talking about their small dicks from mom’s basement.
Some people lose pretty much all penile sensitivity as a result of circumcision. Which means a penis about as sensitive as a finger, and not just no orgasms, but also no pleasurable sensation during sexual activity (be it masturbation or intercourse), and great difficulty in reaching what is essentially a reflexive ejaculation. And added to these direct issues, the serious indirect problems it causes with their partners.
But of course, there aren’t enough of them to even begin to argue against respectable bronze age shepherd’s traditions, the complex issue of washing an uncut penis, or the importance of looking like dad.
Ditto. I’m a Jew. Most of the men I know are circumcised. While I certainly don’t talk about the details of sex with all my male friends, they pretty universally seem to like it. I just feel like if that were an issue affecting, I dunno, half a percent of circumcised men, it’s something that would be widely known and would come up from time to time. Instead, I’ve heard stories of a slightly crooked scar, and similar horrors.
Oh, and the story of the kid who needed emergency medical intervention because he has hemophilia. But in some ways it was good that they learned right away of his issue. Before he was accidentally bruised, say.
Compared to what, though? I’m sure you’ve heard the old saw about sex and pizza. But what if you had never had anything but bad pizza? Does that really mean you aren’t missing out on anything, because you still like it and don’t need to try really good pizza?
In the blog post I linked to upthread, I cited award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris. He lacks stereoscopic vision, but that hasn’t stopped him from obviously having a “good eye” (literally). He has gone so far as to scoff at the idea that he is missing anything, and insists that he does have depth perception. Other people try to tell him “no, dude: it’s more than that” but he isn’t having it.
Now, certainly the difference between going from two working eyes to one pales next to the difference between one and zero. Which is actually a good analogue to MGM and FGM: the latter is often more like having both eyes gouged out. But if girls were routinely blinded in both eyes while boys were “only” blinded in one, would it really be fair to dismiss anyone who said “it’s terrible what’s happening to girls, but it’s also not cool to blind boys in one eye”? :dubious:
I can tell you what has always indicated to me most clearly that there is something majorly lost in one’s penis function when circumcised: all the sniggering references so prevalent in Western culture, at least in more raunchy movies and comedy, to boys keeping hand lotion by their beds. I honestly did not even get what this was about for many years. Then it slowly dawned on me that circumcised guys need lubrication to masturbate! (I guess if lotion isn’t nearby, they spit in their hands or something.) That is so weird to me, and sad. Because it’s not just an inconvenience, it tells me something is fundamentally different about the way they get stimulated. (For me, it’s nothing like “whacking off” as is the usual term of art, but all about small, delicate movements of the foreskin over the glans.)
Uh, I haven’t heard those sniggering references*. And I never heard anyone suggest that cut men need lotion to masturbate until I read threads about circumcision on this board**. I can assure you that my husband has never used lotion (or spit, or any other lubricant) to masturbate, and indeed, it is about small, delicate movements of the hand over the glans. In one of the other threads on the topic, other cut men chimed in to say “huh??” to this canard about needing lotion. You really shouldn’t repeat that peculiar story.
Whereas I have heard many sniggering references to keeping a sock or towel near the bed. It’s not like the topic doesn’t come up.
** And I’ve participated in threads about circumcision on other boards.
In terms of doing something without permission of the person it seems both of these acts meet that criteria. On how it actually impacts one’s life negatively FGM is objectively horrific and barbaric and circumcision may be a net benefit. I like to argue as much as the next person but c’mon now.
:rolleyes: I’ve been here since 2004 (and on the AOL board and af-ca since the late ‘90s). I’m not going to stop posting. But if you don’t stop being so tiresome and one-note, I will use my first ever block (or “plonk”, as they used to say) on your posts. And you are of course free to do the same for mine at any time.