Irvine511 said:
i think, originally, circumsicision came out of victorian anti-sex mores, that if you removed the foreskin, then the boy would be less likely to masturbate. that's Western, though, can't say where it came from in the Jewish tradition.
No one knows where it comes from in the Jewish tradition--it's prescribed by the Torah obviously, but as with many other Jewish laws, no "reason" is offered. It's often speculated that perhaps circumcision was practiced by some other group or sect of people in the region who were somehow influential or seen as worthy of emulation, but that's just speculation. Originally it was only the tip of the foreskin that was removed, though--removal of the entire foreskin came later, and apparently as an act of resistance to Hellenistic influence (in Greek culture having one's glans penis showing was considered offensive, hence the 'kynodesme' worn by men at gymnasium to prevent unintentional "showings", as well as the use of foreskin stretching techniques--'epispasm'--by men e.g. Jews whose foreskins were embarrassingly short).
Circumcision for the purpose of preventing men from masturbating or being "overly" sexually active, while indeed a Victorian hypothesis, is, of course, in itself about as effective as female circumcision for the purpose of preventing extramarital pregnancy--i.e. not at all.
CTU2fan said:
Reduces sensation, particularly during sex - check
While I understand there are aspects of FGM that are unique (specifically the way societies that practice FGM treat their women)
No, what is "unique" is the extent of tissue destruction involved. There is one procedure sometimes classified as a form of FGM which could be described as anatomically analogous to male circumcision, so-called "sunna" circumcision (clitoridotomy) which entails the removal of the clitoral hood and frenulum clitoris, which are the developmentally homologous female tissues to the male foreskin and frenulum. Internationally, however, "sunna" accounts for only about 3% of all "female circumcision" procedures. The most common form by far (about 80%) is so-called "Type II," which involves both clitoridectomy (clitoridotomy plus removal of the entire external and internal clitoris) and removal of all the labia minora and labia majora. In other words, ALL the erectile/engorgeable genital tissues are removed. Anatomically speaking, it is not possible to analogize this to male circumcision because in terms of homologous structures, that would mean removal of the glans penis and both corpora cavernosa, as well as the foreskin, frenulum, scrotum and distal urethra. At that point obviously the man could not function sexually nor reproductively--whereas to be cynically blunt, all that is required for sexual and reproductive "functionality" for women is for a man to still have a place to stick his penis (recall what sula said in an earlier thread about how, far from being more "chaste," circumcised Malian women in fact have epidemic extramarital preganancy rates because it reduces sex merely to something they do to get financial and other favors from men, and no one needs to get horny to recognize the "advantages" of that). Furthermore, FGM is associated with greatly increased risks in childbirth (70% increase in postpartum hemorrhaging), and it also frequently leads to lead to severe urinary tract and menstruation-related infections. "Reduces sensation" doesn't even begin to cut it.
That difference of degree matters, because it explains why human rights activists in Africa have spent a tremendous amount of time campaigning against FGM, whereas many other equally traditional and widespread forms of bodily modification have been left untouched--tattooing, ritual scarification, lip and earlobe stretching, piercings etc. etc. It has never been a generic argument from principle of not performing bodily modification procedures on non-minors. And the handful of health officials who have had success on the ground getting villages to commit one at a time to ending FGM have done it by addressing the all-too-familiar reproductive health problems that villagers already know routinely cost the lives of women and infants, and letting them begin to ask their own questions about how exactly FGM might be affecting those. Not by marching in and telling them about what kickass orgasms they're missing out on (obviously not their top quality-of-life priority) or how nasty and barbaric their ways are.
Above and beyond that, there is nothing "unique" about the way those societies treat their women--you won't find a traditional society anywhere where regulating female sexuality (and male sexuality to a much lesser extent...unless you're gay) is
not a top priority. The reason for that is simple--women have this nasty habit of getting pregnant, and children demand major sacrifices of time and money which may or may not be welcome. Sure, humans are crafters of "meaning" and so that baseline reality gets elaborated with all kinds of religious and philosophical and aesthetic window dressing--custom, in other words--that tends to obscure how practical the underlying concerns are. And yes, most of that packaging, like any other aspect of culture--e.g., our belief in "all men created equal"--is arbitrary (as shown by the contradictions in practice) and not some hard-wired imperative. But it is definitely not coincidence that this is a universal human preoccupation.
...)
