To cut, or not to cut.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, I meant to post that yesterday.

[axordil]

we are entitled to choose for ourselves how we wish to live, and to adopt additional restrictions or liberties that apply only to ourselves. Anyone who is uncomfortable is free to opt-out by residing (or even merely just shopping) elsewhere in the Bay Area, while still enjoying, if they so desire, non-residential access to the full array of attractions that SF offers. This would be extremely difficult if these policies were implemented at a state-wide or nationwide level.

I'm generally okay with additional liberties. Additional restrictions at the local level, though, are too often the result of petty grudge matches between individuals to get blanket approval, even conceptually, from me.

And I wouldn't wish an enforced house sale on any but my worst enemies in this economy.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

we are entitled to choose for ourselves how we wish to live, and to adopt additional restrictions or liberties that apply only to ourselves. Anyone who is uncomfortable is free to opt-out by residing (or even merely just shopping) elsewhere in the Bay Area, while still enjoying, if they so desire, non-residential access to the full array of attractions that SF offers. This would be extremely difficult if these policies were implemented at a state-wide or nationwide level.

I'm generally okay with additional liberties. Additional restrictions at the local level, though, are too often the result of petty grudge matches between individuals to get blanket approval, even conceptually, from me.

And I wouldn't wish an enforced house sale on any but my worst enemies in this economy.

I wonder whether an increased liberty to lower the age of consent for sexual relations to, say, 12, would meet your general approval? Because, after all, it is only a restriction that stops this.

Democracy, for what it is worth, really does seem a fragile concept. Small is good, except when big is better. I confess; I'm confused. It seems to me that 'democracy' is only acceptable when the outcome is what 'I' want...

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

I'm generally uncomfortable with any "here is the age line" legislation. You will always find a few people on either side of the line that, due to their differing rates of maturity, should be on the other side of the line. But then those who are on the correct side of the "you have not yet met this requirement" line generally do need to be there for their own protection.

Well, not always. If you set the age of attainment either absurdly high or absurdly low then you will find very few outliers on one side of the line. But that is made up for by the masses of outliers on the other side of the line. Setting the age to vote at 60 will guarantee that the majority of people competent to vote will be excluded. Setting the age of consent at 9 will indeed make sure nobody us unfairly excluded but at the price of including many people who really aren't ready yet.

It's nice that Brown has signed a law that says the state can't protect kids from an unnecessary and painful surgical procedure. He has yet to do something I'd approve of and he's working hard to stay that way.

[nerdanel]

On the female/FGM side of things re: cutting, Liberian women are speaking out against the practice at great danger to themselves.

The commonality between the purpose of this "sacred cultural ritual" and Western "religious beliefs" about women's bodies and lives stands out to me:

Despite the many risks, the removal of the clitoris is a sacred cultural practice that people in the Sande and Poro secret societies say will prevent promiscuity. Ma Sabah says the aim is to stop women running around once they marry.

The universal aim seems to be to deny women's autonomy, right to experience sexual pleasure with whomever they choose and with no one else, and right to decide what will happen to their bodies. Genital cutting may be more extreme than the measures that Western, male-controlled religious organizations advocate, but it is quite glaring that the end objective is the same. What is particularly perplexing about this southern African tradition is that it tends to be female-enforced, as the article again describes.

[Impenitent]

Egypt, on the other hand, having experienced the "Arab Spring", is facing the very real prospect of FGM being legally re-introduced and encouraged on the basis of "cultural revivalism" as part of the new political era.

http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2012/0 ... -in-egypt/

There is much emotive language in the article I've linked to, but the bare facts are quite real and not at all encouraging.

[vison]

What is particularly perplexing about this southern African tradition is that it tends to be female-enforced, as the article again describes .

It is my understanding that this practice is always female-enforced.

Culture and tradition are hard to escape. It seems barbaric to us - I have no hesitation in saying it IS barbaric, but it is part of the their lives and has "worked" well, so why would they change it?

Their world has to change. The cultures and traditions that govern their lives in every realm have to be broken and discarded.

During the upheavals of change, rules become more strictly enforced in a futile attempt to stop the change - the people, especially the older people - want the good old days back when everything was clear and everyone understood what the rules were, and obeyed them.

And not just in societies that practice FGM.

[Alatar]

Culture and tradition are hard to escape. It seems barbaric to us - I have no hesitation in saying it IS barbaric, but it is part of the their lives and has "worked" well, so why would they change it?

Which is precisely how I feel about Circumcision. And round and round we go again.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Culture and tradition are hard to escape. It seems barbaric to us - I have no hesitation in saying it IS barbaric, but it is part of the their lives and has "worked" well, so why would they change it?

Which is precisely how I feel about Circumcision. And round and round we go again.

Agreed.

I notice, still, how female circumcision is routinely described as FGM, whilst male circumcision is not routinely described as MGM. Why would this be?

I'll quote from Impenitent's reference article, but change a few bolded words

Children are not likely to be asked for their view, as Newsnight‘s Sue Lloyd-Roberts discovered when interviewing an Israeli mother;

‘”Of course he must be circumcised,” said Ruth, referring to the little boy lying beside her.

‘I asked Ruth if I could find out from the child himself, her son Benjamin, who sat shaking with fear, what he thought.

‘”There is no need to ask him,” her mother declared. “He doesn’t understand what we are talking about”.’

Does this engender the same outrage? If not... why not?

OK, round and round as Alatar wrote...

[Pearly Di]

I notice, still, how female circumcision is routinely described as FGM, whilst male circumcision is not routinely described as MGM. Why would this be?

Because it's not?

Because it doesn't ruin a man's sexual enjoyment, or his sex life, the way it ruins a woman's.

Because there are even some claims that circumcision is good for the guy's health, and his partner's. You can hardly say the same about female circumcision.

The 'anti-male-circumcision' line is being spun as if 'pro-male circumcision' women are somehow anti-men.

I just don't think there is an equivalence here. If I really thought there was one, I'd be taking your line. But I can't.

I know these things were said upthread, but, well, I'm saying them again.

[vison]

Both my sons were circumcised. I wouldn't allow it now. At the time, it was SOP. However, the doctor who delivered my second son was quite strongly opposed to circumcision and I never had the chance to ask him why. The procedure was performed, however.

Nonetheless, it is not as life-hampering as FGM. We can call it MGM if it makes you happy,Ghân-buri-Ghân, but it doesn't change anything.

Does "motive" count? A Jew is circumcised because he is a Jew and it is required. It is meant - and I think this is important - as an 'honour" in a sense, to include him in the community, and will please his god.

Girls are mutilated for a different reason, yet the effect is the same: by it they are included in their community. That is why women do it to other women - there is a very strong belief that it is to the girl's advantage and credit since no man will marry a girl who is not cut. Marriage is the only "career" open to these girls, and that is a powerful incentive. In cultures where women are devalued in so many ways no family wants to be left with a useless unmarried daughter on their hands.

There are conflicting opinions on the value of male circumcision as to health, sexual pleasure, etc., and I have particular dog in that fight. Still, human males evolved with a foreskin and one would assume that if it was a problem, Nature would have got rid of it.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

So because one set of criteria is chosen (sexual gratification) which female circumcision affects whilst male circumcision doesn't (allegedly, and not definitively), the former is mutilation, the latter isn't?

Or perhaps there is a political/cultural aspect, and those who practice male genetic mutilation on their non-consenting children are, unsurprisingly, reticent in calling the mutilation they sanction mutilation?

That is how it appears to me. But I'm becoming even more repetitive than normal...

[vison]

Well, the axe you are always grinding must be worn down to a nub, but it's your axe and your time and who am I to say you should stop?

If "motive" means anything, then the Jewish practice is more "acceptable" to me than the practice of ensuring that sexual intercourse will always be basically pleasureless and very often extremely painful for a woman.

One practice is a sacrament ordained by god, the other a mutilation ordered by men who hate and fear women, particularly women's sexuality. Often - and this is cute, don't you think? Often those men are also ritually circumcised.

You are, of course, free to say that you think male circumcision is "just the same", and I daresay you will. Maybe your axe is made of adamant.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

One practice is a sacrament ordained by god...

Do you, by any chance, have the address of this god, so that I can ask him myself about this sacrtament he ordained?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If you can't be civil and respectful, Ghân, than take your comments some place else.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

If you can't be civil and respectful, Ghân, than take your comments some place else.

I'm sorry, Voronwë, there was absolutely no incivility or disrespect intended. I was not aware that vison actually believed that God had personally ordained the sacraments. My reponse to vison was intended to be a homorous reply to her in keeping with her posting to me.

Apologies to all for any offence caused.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm sure that vison does not so believe. But your making light of an issue that is of dire concern to millions of people around the world is getting beyond my ability to tolerate. You have every right to express your opinion (though I doubt very much that you are really expressing your true opinion and not yet again expressing a controversial position just to stir people up), but at the very least I'm going to insist that you do so in a respectful manner.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Well again, I apologise for any disrespect or uncivility I have shown to anybody. That was and is not my intent. Neither am I trying to "stir people up" by adopting a controversial position. I'm not even sure why my position is deemed controversial; I believe both male and female circumcision are wrong. It is the lack of informed consent that makes that conclusion necessary to me. If an individual chooses for themself either procedure, then agreed standards of informed consent should apply.

On the record, I find FGM utterly barbaric, male circumcision less so. But as both are unnecessary, and the surgery is not consented to in either, I think they are both deserving of opposition.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

I notice, still, how female circumcision is routinely described as FGM, whilst male circumcision is not routinely described as MGM. Why would this be?

Because it's not?

While shoplifting is not the same as armed robbery, both are theft.

[axordil]

I notice, still, how female circumcision is routinely described as FGM, whilst male circumcision is not routinely described as MGM. Why would this be?

Because it's not?

While shoplifting is not the same as armed robbery, both are theft.

But only one is a felony, as a rule.

We need an official Dead Horse forum.