CircumcisionFollow

Not remotely the same thing.

Female circumcision is in no way comparable to male circumcision, just to start with. The only real tie between them apart from the name is having sharp objects touching your tender parts. From there on in one is a briefly painful, medically beneficial surgery grounded primarily in religious origins, and the other is a nightmare followed by a lifetime of pain in everything from menstruation to sex to even urination.

I've gone back and forth on male circumcision. Being circumcised myself as a baby I didn't have much of a choice. The one course I ever took that discussed it was a women's studies course, which of course focused primarily on FGM but mentioned male circumcision in passing with the terms "No medical benefit," "potential complications," and "loss of some sexual feeling." I felt pretty violated at that point until I looked deeper, found out there are some good medical reasons for it and the loss of feeling thing was unfounded as well. Overall, pretty happy with my parents' decision; if I was uncut up until this point I wouldn't go through with it now though as I don't think it's worth the pain (at least babies can't remember it).

Circumcision is shown to prevent or lower contraction/transmission of various diseases. Some of this can be replicated via hygiene or the diseases in question are infrequent anyway.

Circumcision has been shown in various studies to both decrease and enhance sexual satisfaction. It's hard to find unbiased data on the topic and some older studies have been discredited. It's also difficult since most males don't get circumcised late in life and so can't provide data on the subject. Those who do typically were circumcised as a solution to some other problem which may have been affecting them sexually. Sexual satisfaction is such a subjective thing anyway that I doubt any concrete data can exist.

Some health benefits of circumcision occur only in neonatal circumcision so delaying the procedure negates these benefits. Also, circumcision in older males is a more difficult procedure than neonatal circumcision.

Compared to female circumcision where the intent is to destroy the sexual (rather than reproductive) function of the organ, male circumcision ain't no thang.

The American medical societies have remained largely neutral on the subject, issuing statements that it does have some benefits but is not medically necessary and should be the informed decision of the parent.

My own opinion is that it has enough benefits to justify it if the parents want to and not enough benefits to warrant castigating someone for deciding against it. Unfortunately, it's one of those topics where the "against" side is much more emotionally invested in arguing against it than the "six of one, half dozen of the other" side is vested in supporting it.

They both remove a bit of the genitals. They both have the potential for complications. They're both done for religious/traditional reasons. They both are unnecessary. Sounds very comparable to me. One of the biggest difference I see is that one female circumcision is being done in third world and/or developing countries with a higher potential for a botched job.





Edited, Oct 3rd 2011 3:27pm by Elinda

My (perhaps flawed) understanding is that the nature of the ******** (porousness, moisture) allows transmission of the HIV and HPV viruses. Without it, it is much more difficult for those viruses to enter the *****. This is why HPV transmission rates are much, much lower among circumcised males and their partners as well.

I've honestly never heard of just a hood removal. Anything I've heard about is a full clitoral removal, so that the woman won't enjoy sex, and therefor won't be tempted to cheat on her husband.

No it's not. Type 1 is the most common, and that commonly involves removal of the ******** itself



I'm not really pro-male circumcision, but they're still not remotely similar.

Edited, Oct 3rd 2011 8:36am by Sweetums

If Joph is right about HPV, I'd still say that's pretty significant, especially since condoms do not protect against it. I'd also say any protection beats no protection, just for safety's sake.

And I didn't even realize it was that high; that's actually pretty amazing.

I was shooting from memory. Ten seconds of Googling calls it around a 20-25% reduction. I saw numbers from 15% to 35% but here's a mid-range report:

This argument relies on the other party agreeing that it's "mutilation"; a word chosen specifically for its emotional appeal. See my previous statement about the "anti" vs "neutral" sides of the argument.

My cousin had to have heart surgery a couple weeks after he was born (something about his heart working in the reverse direction). He has scars on his chest much more dramatic than any circumcision marks. Did his parents "mutilate" him without his consent?