[Hugo-B]

In Africa the girl's clitoris is cut out with a sharp rock or dirty knife in an unsterile environment with zero medical attention around. A male infant has it done by a trained doctor, with a sterile knife, in a safe environment and antibiotics on hand should any infection occur. They are not the same.

I agree that the conditions under which the 'procedure' is carried out are VERY different, but the end results are comparable - an altered genitalia - more often than not altered without the full consent of the individual being altered.

[ItsASecret]

Ugh the medical side of pros and cons to circumcision can get quite messy. I have read articles that say circumcision can lead to more cancers, less cancers, less risk of this or that goes up or down...then I have read about increased risk of HIV in uncircumcised men, more cancers, less cancers, more infections. I have stopped reading anything regarding the matter altogether lol, it seems as soon as I see something on NCBI or PubMed there is another saying the opposite. I will stick to my favored neuroscience topics and avoid penis skin article arguments lol.

[ItsASecret]

I agree that the conditions under which the 'procedure' is carried out are VERY different, but the end results are comparable - an altered genitalia - more often than not altered without the full consent of the individual being altered.

No it is not the same, a girl is losing a whole 'organ' per se. If that little boy has the head of his penis removed there would be a comparable notion. If a girl looses her clitoral hood only then it is even more comparable, a piece of skin covering a more sensitive area. But until then it is simply two procedures that involve the genitals but physically not comparable.

[Stillness]

The only technicality I can try and get you on is that - with respect - your dad isn't a poster on here, and I said on here

I would get mad, but I expect these kinds of shenanigans from a guy who didn't see Star Wars and doesn't like The Matrix.

[DreamP346]

Just a bit of the medical background to circumcision - years ago there were doctors that noticed that partners of men that were circumcised had less cervical cancer and cancers of the uterus. The practise of circumcising males became more prevalent around that time. It was also thought that circumcision was cleaner than uncircumcised and would prevent problems in the males as well. I'd like to be able to cite the studies (there were more than one) unfortunately my memory isn't that good anymore.

There have been multiple studies and every few years new ones come out showing benefits and others against it. There were studies that showed decreased rates of STD transmission (leading to lower rates of cervical cancer). But then research came out that those numbers were so small, it was not significant. There is research saying circumcision increases certain other types of infections. The debate goes back and forth constantly.

[Stillness]

The fact that there is a debate and that there are benefits, even if miniscule, should say a lot to the people comparing this to female circumcision.

[Little]

I'm sure if somebody could drum up the money and evade the ethics board to a sufficient degree as to actually get a study done on Type I FGM (the type comparable to RIC,) they might find similar benefits. I googled "benefits of FGM" just to see what I could get, and there are folks claiming all the same kind of benefits - fewer UTIs and less chance of getting HIV. Maybe somebody with easy access to searchable medical journals can back these up, or debunk them?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing in favor of FGM, but I'm not going to pretend it's different than RIC when done to a similar level of tissue removal in a sterile environment. Removal of ANY female genital tissue is illegal for sterile doctors with sterile knives in sterile environments just as it is for sharpened rocks in the backyard ... at least in the US.

Female genital mutilation
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
(b) A surgical operation is not a violation of this section if the operation is--
(1) necessary to the health of the person on whom it is performed, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner; or
(2) performed on a person in labor or who has just given birth and is performed for medical purposes connected with that labor or birth by a person licensed in the place it is performed as a medical practitioner, midwife, or person in training to become such a practitioner or midwife.
(c) In applying subsection (b)(1), no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of that person, or any other person, that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.
(Added Pub. L. 104-208, div. C, title VI, Sec. 645(b)(1), Sept. 30, 1996, 110 Stat. 3009-709.)

Either that's an undue restriction of an unpopular cultural ritual ... or baby girls are being protected from a bad thing and baby boys aren't. If circumcision on boys ain't so bad, then why not limit the legal restrictions to the World Health Organization's 2nd and 3rd types of FGM? And leave the 1st type legal?

[Claret]

This is from my home town in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - I knew his family. It shows just what can go wrong both from the medical and from the psychological point of view.
Boy raised as a girl suffered final indignity

The Globe and Mail, By GRAEME SMITH, May 11, 2004 - Page A1
WINNIPEG -- Most of David Reimer's tragedies have been well-documented: how his penis was burned off during a botched circumcision, how doctors tried surgery and hormones to make him a girl and how the experiment went horribly wrong.
But only his friends knew the 38-year-old Winnipegger was agonizing over yet another personal catastrophe in the months before he committed suicide last week.

Mr. Reimer was distraught after losing at least $65,000 in an investment scheme last year, friends say. "He was crying on my shoulder, because he said they're not worth the paper they're written on," one said.
The Manitoba Securities Commission issued a warning in November about Gary Perch, who ran the shop where Mr. Reimer worked.
"Gary Perch has been soliciting money from the public to invest in his Winnipeg-based pro golf shop," the statement said. "If you have invested your money with him, your money may be at risk."
Mr. Reimer's wife recently hired a lawyer to recover about $65,000 that seems to have gone missing, said author John Colapinto, whose book about Mr. Reimer's bizarre medical ordeal made him famous.
"What an absolute horror," Mr. Colapinto said. "One has to wonder if this didn't contribute to his despair." Mr. Colapinto had believed that Mr. Reimer was financially comfortable, because he gave him half the proceeds from his book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised A Girl.
"David made a wad of money on the book and movie options," Mr. Colapinto said. But people who knew Mr. Reimer from his days at the Transcona Golf Club in the eastern suburbs of Winnipeg said the boyish handyman was often short of cash.
The club kept him busy washing windows, changing light bulbs and scrubbing the bathrooms, they said, but he often talked about hunting for a weekend job to supplement his income.
"He didn't have money to feed the family," said Brian Andrews, a member of the golf club's board of directors.
"So what the members did was we put together $800, I think it was, for food."
Mary Mogg, 64, remembers giving him leftovers after she finished her shift at the clubhouse.
"He'd have a pot of soup if we made it, and at the end of the day he'd take it home," she said. "I think he appreciated it."
The indignity of poverty was just one of many cruelties Mr. Reimer endured.


The trouble started eight months after he was born in 1965, when he went for a routine circumcision at a hospital in Winnipeg.
The regular surgeon wasn't available that day, so a general practitioner tried the operation herself. Something went wrong while she was using an electric cauterizing machine, which produced a puff of smoke around Mr. Reimer's genitals.
"I heard a sound," said a witness quoted in Mr. Colapinto's book, "just like steak being seared."
The boy's penis was so badly burned that it dried up and fell off. His family eventually asked for advice from John Money, a well-known sex researcher at Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore, Md.

Dr. Money had theorized that gender depends on how a child grows up rather than genetic coding, and the burned child with a twin brother offered a chance to prove it.
The doctor oversaw a series of procedures that cut away the boy's remaining genitalia and gave him female hormones. His parents started calling him Brenda.

But Mr. Reimer never felt comfortable being female, and when he learned about the accident at age 15 he rebelled against the experiment and began acting like a young man. He renamed himself David, after the Bible story, and began more surgery to remove his breasts and create an artificial penis from muscle and cartilage.
For years, he quietly tried to live a normal life in Winnipeg. He worked a series of menial jobs and got married to a woman named Jane.

His hobbies included fishing, camping, antiques and collecting old coins.
"He absolutely loved Elvis," his eulogy stated.
When he went public with his story in the mid-90s, it forced sexologists to re-evaluate their practices, said Ken Zucker, psychologist-in-chief at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
"His legacy is that his case has encouraged a lot more research," Dr. Zucker said.

Mr. Reimer committed suicide May 4. His family has not released the cause of death.

At his funeral yesterday, his father, Ron, just shook his head when asked whether he wanted to talk. His mother, Janet, leaned forward with tears in her eyes and whispered: "He was a hero. He showed the doctors. He was a worldwide hero."

[Claret]

Agreed with what you are saying. If memory serves me correctly the study indicated that in those countries that traditionally held circumcision to be the natural order of things, that the women's incidences of the cancers were very low. This was noted in particular with countries with high Jewish populations. As you say for every study leaning one way there is another study leaning the other way.
On a personal note I never had my son circumcised. I thought that it was a matter for him to decide if and when it became medically necessary.

[Hugo-B]

No it is not the same, a girl is losing a whole 'organ' per se. If that little boy has the head of his penis removed there would be a comparable notion. If a girl looses her clitoral hood only then it is even more comparable, a piece of skin covering a more sensitive area. But until then it is simply two procedures that involve the genitals but physically not comparable.

I did not say 'the same', I said the 'results', (and should have replaced 'results' with 'outcome') are comparable because after the procedure the genitalia has been altered. Male and female circumcision (of whichever of the varying degrees of severity) are a form of genital alteration - in the broadest sense that is.