So over at young Ezra Klein’s there’s a big to-do about differential satisfaction rates for adult men who get circumcisions.
As with all circumcision discussions it immediately broke out into a debate of the pros and cons, with lots of people saying foreskins aren’t technically necessary for satisfactory sex so why not cut them off, and lots of (generally non-religious) men squeezing their knees together on behalf of their infant sons.
During the course of the debate in Ezra’s comments it occurred to me that while comparisons to North-African-style female genital mutilation are specious, comparisons of male circumcision to the roundly decried practice of labiaplasty which is springing up in trendier beauty-obsessed (porn obsessed?) parts of the country: there are extremely minor claims of “health” improvements (reduces possible chaffing and eliminates sticky creases where germs can hide.) There are claims for esthetic improvement. There are claims that partners like it better when your bits are trimmed.
I dunno. Except maybe for the God-says-so part, I really don’t see any argument against circumcision that wouldn’t apply equally to labiaplasty, nor any argument in favor of labioplasty that wouldn’t apply to circumcision as well.
Yet a surprising number of people reflexively balk at one while shrugging off the other. (In a world where piercing, branding, and tattoo parlors are as sought after as skateboard shops it doesn’t matter which comes first. This post is about gender-based double standards in general, not one in particular.)
Submitted by 1456 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-06-25 12:21.
You say "a surprising number of people reflexively balk at one while shrugging off the other" and I find I'm not sure which way would be prevalent.
For myself I think it's the timing of circumcision vs labioplasty that's the issue when one is considered more/less acceptable than the other.
Labioplasty is surely only for adult females for largely cosmetic reasons and, while in my opinion that's in the same league as any cosmetic surgery, it's performed on fully informed and consenting adults (I hope).
Male circumcision on the other hand is often performed on infants and whether the medical reasons are valid or not is sometimes in doubt. There lies the debate. Sometimes there are no medical reasons. If, on the other hand, the circumcision is for an adult the conditions must be the same as for labioplasty - fully informed and consenting adults undergoing the procedure for whatever reason.
Then of course you open a whole new debate over cosmetic surgery - when does an individuality of form become a deformity that needs correction?
[I agree it's at least a timing issue -- seven days for boys, or 7-12 years for girls for FGM -- are just shitty. Although actually if they did it to girls at seven days or boys at 12 years it would still suck because it's all done *exclusively* for the benefit of others -- potential partners for both, to please parents in both, to please someone else's beauty perogatives for pre-pubescent girls and someone else's religious perogatives for post-natal boys. Of course you *have* to make those mutilations in dependent children, though, because almost no experienced adult would submit themselves to it without some *serious* fear, piety, or absence of self confidence weighting them down. Thanks, A. --fl]