I doubt anyone who supports circumcision is deeply troubled by cutting the clitoral hood. It’s excision of the clitoris, and more drastic cutting, that I find troublesome, for one data point.
Sure, cutting just the hood is not as bad as cutting off the whole clitoris. Just as cutting off a finger isn’t as bad as cutting off the whole hand. So what?
But they rarely, if ever, just “trim the hood”, in the manner of male circumcision, and the reasons and way it’s done are much, MUCH different.
I’m a little confused by this constant comparison between male and female circumcisions. Are there variations of male circumcision where the purpose is to lessen sexual stimulation and pleasure, sometimes even to the point of cutting off the head of the penis?
Lessening pleasure and curbing masturbation is precisely why American gentiles began commonly doing it around a century ago.
You maybe, but in previous threads on the topic, there was a clear reluctance to express the idea that even the mildest forms of FMG could be tolerated. People would rather demand that no comparison would be made between FMG and circumcision and would attack any mention of these minor forms of FMG in a circumcision thread.
It seems obvious to me that they didn’t want to because they didn’t want to appear to not condemn any kind of FMG, nor to condemn circumcision, nor to contradict themselves on their own moral principles. I’m totally convinced that escaping cognitive dissonance is the main reason why people insist that these are utterly different issues (another reason might be simply that they’re so accustomed to perceive one as horrible and the other as perfectly normal that they’ve difficulties grasping the idea that those minor forms of FMG and circumcision are essentially the same thing. More or less, they aren’t classified in the same mental category in their mind, so comparing both appears “wrong” even though it would be difficult to give an objective reason why).
Clairobscur is right on again.
BTW, I’m perfectly willing to agree that I would likely be slower to bust a nut if my knob had been half-deadened by being continuously unsheathed for the past four-plus decades. But the idea that this would be a feature and not a bug is a horrifying one. I’m not here to be your fucking dildo! My maximal pleasure counts too.
Hell if I know. But it seems like you can’t have a discussion of FGM here without people barging in and hijacking it with “WHAT ABOUT THE MEN!!!”
They’re different issues, not because of the similiarity of procedures, but some people just WILL NOT ACCEPT THAT. It’s not about the procedure, it’s about the reason, the cultural issues surrounding it, and often the conditions it’s performed under.
It’s just so annoying that people cannot have the courtesy to allow a separate discussion on each – just for ONCE.
Very easy to understand. There are three reasons :
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People condemn FMG not only on the basis of the extent or frequency of the damages, but also on the basis of moral principles like the respect of bodily autonomy, which they then refuse to apply to male genital mutilation. Also they argue for the respect of freedom of religion in the latter case, then scream when someone invokes it in the former.
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The minor forms of FMG do exist (removal or even simply incision of the clitoral hood) do exist, and are identical in nature or even less damaging than circumcision. Nevertheless they’re banned in western countries and will land you in jail. As I wrote in my previous post, people thinking that circumcision should be allowed have shown a distinct reluctance to state that those minor forms of FMG should then be allowed too. Puzzlegal is the first person on this board AFAIK to be consistent on this matter.
Both of this points show that “pro-circumcision” crowd’s inconsistency. It’s obvious that they aren’t applying the same principles in one case and in another, as I already wrote either to avoid facing a cognitive dissonance, or because they’re so accustomed to consider one horrible and the other fine that they have difficulties putting both in the same mental category. I would add a third reason, that you’ll probably utterly reject : because defending girls is cool and popular and condemning any kind of FMG regardless how mild uncontroversial, while defending boys is tantamount to misogyny, uncool, and condemning circumcision is unpopular and controversial. It’s better and easier to be seen as a feminist that to be potentially suspected of antisemitism, for instance.
So, I would rather ask, personally : why are people so willing to try to keep the two issues separated when, regardless of what you think of either, they’re so obviously of the same nature, if not to be able to hold two different positions on two identical issues?
Which brings me to my third reason :
3)The condemnation of FMG is, again, uncontroversial in our culture. Everybody agrees it’s a bad thing. If you’re opposed to circumcision, it is obvious that the best way to convince people is to show them that circumcision if of the same nature as what they already condemn, and that the will to ban it is based on the same principles they already profess to follow. More or less in the same way than someone supporting gay marriage would point at the former ban on interracial marriage. Of course, there was no lack of people saying that a black wanting to marry a white was absolutely different from a man wanting to marry another man, and comparing both utterly unacceptable and offensive for reason X, Y and Z, like seriously, you compare all the evils of racism with your petty sexual deviance? But it was making other people think about why, indeed, they were accepting one and rejecting the other.
And here I thought if was because if the topic was about female genital mutilation you couldn’t dominate the conversation, so you shoehorn in male circumcision whenever possible(but not appropriate) to turn the conversation to your own problems.
Silly me.
If you want to talk about male circumcision here, fine. I have no desire to hijack the conversation to FGM. Unfortunately, some people don’t feel the same way.
The reasons are the same : tradition, belief that it’s a religious obligation, belief that you won’t be able to marry if you don’t go through it, and after all, if it was good enough for the previous generations, it has to be good enough for the next.
Do you think that women who insist on having their daughters going through FGM state : “I want her to be hurt and denied sexual pleasure” as their reason?
As for the conditions : are you going to tell me that you’d approve of FGM is it was done in a proper sterile environment?
Who said I approve of either? I think male circumsision, except for medical reasons, is generally stupid and pointless, as would be what, Type 1 of FGM? Again, only if it’s a medical necessity. But that’s not what I’m upset about it.
Somehow, I doubt that. Mainly because the topic rarely returns to FGM. It’s not, “well, the mildest form isn’t much different from male circumcision,” and you know it.
Yes, indeed, it was silly. Happy that you eventually realized it.
But you should probably go back to discuss things that are hardly ever discussed currently on this board, like issues women face, and condemn things that are hardly ever condemned like FMG. You shouldn’t waste your time with topics that won’t make you gain any brownie or virtue point.
I don’t know if you approve of either, and I didn’t say that you do. On the other hand, you seem to think that women issues like FMG are pretty much never discussed because we apparently only talk about men problem, and that circumcision discussed in the FMG thread deprives you of one of the rare “women space” available, which I strongly disagree with because women issues are one of the most discussed things on this board, I would suspect only second to Trump presidency.
You doubt what? That everybody agrees that FMG is a bad thing? That showing to people that they’re following a principle in situation A and then refusing to follow it in situation B is effective? That’s what I was saying in the paragraph you quoted. If the former, you’re not posting on a conservative east-African board, you’re posting on a leftist American board. How many FMG supporters that you need to convince do you think there are, here? And I’m not sure about how either would be related to the topic returning to FMG.
I don’t know what you mean with this sentence. That I’m not actually arguing that the mildest form is similar to or milder than male circumcision and taking people to task for condemning one but refusing to condemn the other (along with pointing at their use of bodily autonomy in one case and not the other, mentioning freedom of religion in one case and not the other, etc…) ? Because it’s exactly what I do.
If you meant something else, I didn’t understand what.
I don’t really get that sentence either. But you have them dead to rights: they want to preach to the choir, exchanging high-fives and virtue-signalling points, and we are the fly in that ointment. People get really salty when their circle jerks are interrupted.
How the hell would you know WHAT would be discussed – it’s never been given a chance.
I understand now why you were talking about approbation. Let’s reword it, then : if FMG was almost always performed under sterile conditions, would you think that it’s now a completely different issue? Would it really change anything in your perception of FMG? I don’t believe
My belief is that you simply think that circumcision is an unimportant and trivial issue, or rather non-issue (calling it “stupid and pointless” is clearly not the same thing as, say “wrong and immoral” and doesn’t give the feeling that it really matters either way) and as a result don’t like it to be discussed on par with an issue you think is actually worth talking about (even though the latter is totally non-controversial and there’s no real argument over it besides “Please record that I too disapprove of FMG like everybody else”).
You state they’re totally different issues, but frankly don’t give any good argument. You talk about the reasons, but the reasons given are blatantly the same. About the conditions it’s done under, but I don’t think that a change in conditions for FGM would change the slightest way your perception of it. And finally about cultural issues involved, but since you’re not telling what cultural issues you’re referring to, it’s difficult to take that as a proper argument. I too see a cultural issue at work, and I mentioned it many times : “FMG is done by those other people from elsewhere, so obviously wrong, how can people think they have the right to cut a baby’s genitals. Circumcision is done by me/my neighbors, so I need to think really, really hard before deciding whether it’s right or wrong for us to cut a baby’s genitals. Probably right, or at least inconsequential”
The actual difference I agreed too repeatedly is that FMG (but not all forms of it) is usually more damaging. But it’s only a difference of degree, not of nature.
Are you joking? FMG is a topic that is never given a chance? Denunciation of it are all over the internet. Documentaries and report about it can be found everywhere.
I’m talking about HERE ON THE DOPE.
You know what? Forget it. Just forget it.