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Monday, April 08, 2024

Links - 8th April 2024 (2 - Genital Mutilation/Circumcision)

Female Circumcision – The Hidden Truth | Asiff Hussein - - "An Islamic practice that brings untold benefits to women... Female circumcision as prescribed in Islam involves removing only the prepuce (foreskin) covering the clitoris. This is a relatively minor and harmless procedure very much like male circumcision and which like it confers many health benefits.  Of course there’s really nothing so novel about it. Much has been written about it even by Western Doctors but these studies have been conveniently overlooked to conform to Islamophobic sentiments expressed by a largely Jewish controlled media... There is a strong body of evidence emerging to support the view that the proper Islamic procedure involving the removal of the clitoral prepuce is beneficial to women and not detrimental to them.  So there you are. It is in the interests of the Jews to criticize female circumcision while promoting male circumcision. Why, because male circumcision is a Jewish practice and female circumcision is not... It was not until about the early part of the twentieth century that some daring US doctors, reasoned that since women too had a prepuce (the equivalent of the foreskin in males) some of the health benefits conferred on males through circumcision could be enjoyed by women. Moreover they discovered another interesting fact, that the procedure could in fact increase sexual gratification in women since it exposed the surface area of the clitoris to greater stimulation during the sex act as well as in oral sex. Shire Hite’s groundbreaking study on the importance of the clitoris in the arousal and satisfaction of the female led to further interest in this until then rather insignificant part of the female anatomy. To keep a long story short, it is in the interests of the Jews to hide the facts about the benefits of female circumcision, because if it is shown that it is indeed an Islamic practice, and that what Islam advocates is only the removal of the clitoral prepuce and no more, it will be another feather in the cap of Islam. Islamic tradition then becomes a double-edged sword, where both the male and female circumcision it upholds are shown to be beneficial, in contrast to the single-edged sword of the Judaic tradition. My aim in this essay is to prove exactly that!   But before doing so let me disarm its detractors a bit to show that it is indeed an Islamic practice...   It has been found that the genital hygiene of women is, on the average, poorer than that of men because of numerous folds and the semi-hidden position of the clitoris...   Indeed, there are even those surgeons today who believe it could prevent genital cancers in women, just as it prevents penile cancer, vulvar cancer for instance, which is a malignant persistent growth in the vulva reported in about 4 % of all types of gynecological cancers...   I recently came across an interesting article posted in the internet that suggests that it may contribute to preventing oral cancer- causing HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) transmission from uncircumcised women to male partners who engage in oral sex with them... And now finally for the Coup de Grace. It is often claimed by detractors that female circumcision has the effect of reducing the sexual gratification of women. Why, because they simply don’t care to study more about it, carelessly lumping the Islamic form or removing the clitoral prepuce with the unislamic forms like clitoridectomy and infibulation practiced in some African countries. These harmful forms certainly have a detrimental effect on female sexuality as has been shown again and again and should be outlawed and penalized to the maximum possible.  But little do they stop to think that the Islamic form also known as the Sunna form should be differentiated from these harmful forms, if not for anything because it has the opposite effect from these. In fact it contributes to enhancing sexual satisfaction in women during the sex act rather than decreasing it. In fact this procedure is gaining popularity among Western women, and especially American women who are only too familiar with the benefits of male circumcision, but not so much for health reasons as to lead satisfactory sex lives. It is popularly known as hoodectomy, after the hood of the clitoris (clitoral prepuce) that is removed in this minor procedure. It’s a nice term and I will continue to use it from this point... Recent studies reveal that a large number of women experience sexual dysfunction due to the presence of the clitoral hood... isn’t it high time Muslim feminists who always seek to conform to the dictates of unislamic forces revise their stand on this issue. If not for its obvious benefits, then at least for the equality between the sexes it confers in the spiritual sphere. Lynda Newland says in her contribution on Female Circumcision (Kaleidoscope of Gender. Ed.Joan Spade & Catherine Valentine.2008) that it is seen as an “expression of the idea that both men and women are considered equal before Allah”.  At least then they could say we’re all equal without adopting double standards. Indeed there are those who believe that Jewish misogyny has its roots in the Biblical account of the Covenant God is said to have entered into with the Children of Israel, the sign of which was the rite of circumcision to be practiced upon the males of Israel on the eighth day of life. Excluding the females from the rite also meant relegating them to an inferior position as the Covenant could not be applicable to them. In fact so strong has this argument been that there has of late been a book written about it titled Why are n’t Jewish women circumcised. Gender and Covenant in Judaism by a Jewish Author named Shaye J.D.Cohen."
So much for female circumcision having nothing to do with Islam (Shafi'i school be damned)

Meme - "Women: "OH MY GOD UNCIRCUMCISED DICKS ARE GROSS! ALL THAT LOOSE SKIN! Ew"
Also women: *walk around with vaginas that look like old coin purses*"

Meme - "Muslims: "body modification is haram"
also muslim to 5 yo boys: *circumcision*"

Neonatal male circumcision is associated with altered adult socio-affective processing - "Early-circumcised men reported lower attachment security and lower emotional stability while no differences in empathy or trust were found. Early circumcision was also associated with stronger sexual drive and less restricted socio-sexuality along with higher perceived stress and sensation seeking."

Local movement against female genital cutting turns to Ramadan bazaars to advocate its cause - "Amid the crowds of people at the Kampong Gelam Ramadan bazaar looking for food or clothes for Hari Raya, a group was making its rounds distributing booklets advocating its cause: To end the practice of female genital cutting (FGC) in Singapore.  The group, which calls itself End Female Genital Cutting Singapore, is a community-led movement founded in 2020 by local Muslim-raised women and activists. A pilot study conducted by the group on 360 Muslim women in October 2020 found that more than three quarters of its respondents had undergone FGC. The group's booklet states that FGC is also known as sunat perempuan or female circumcision, and that it involves the cutting of some genital tissue. The group hopes to abolish the practice by dispelling what it described as “myths” surrounding the practice. These include the commonly held belief that female circumcision is compulsory in Islam, or that it is different from female genital mutilation (FGM), which is predominantly done in Africa and Arab states."
Islamophobia! Not to mention misinformation

Neyland mayor branded racist resigns amid circumcision row - "A mayor accused of racism has resigned after branding the council environment "toxic".  The claims were made against Andrew Lye at a Neyland council meeting when members were handed an extract of a 2008 blog he wrote discussing the morality of male circumcision.  The post, titled "Uncut," asserted God made man in his image therefore "we must assume God has a foreskin".  Mr Lye said he was against all forms of abuse and insisted he was not racist.  The furore was sparked after the mayor of the Pembrokeshire council wrote he could not understand why any religion would require the removal of a foreskin, adding: "If God didn't mean us to have one, he'd have created us without one."  According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he questioned whether those who did circumcise their sons were "contravening God's laws". Councillor Brian Rothero said in the Monday meeting the blog was stirring up racial hatred towards Jews and Muslims.  "It's nothing short of antisemitic and anti-Muslim," Mr Rothero said.  He proposed a successful vote of no confidence in Mr Lye, who was temporarily removed as mayor ahead of an emergency general meeting.  Mr Lye has since resigned both as mayor and as a councillor.  Speaking after his resignation, Mr Lye said he raised the issue of male circumcision as part of a blog against female genital mutilation... "I just believe in equality for all and that is why I am in politics.""
How come it's not racist to condemn female circumcision?

Federal Ban on Female Genital Mutilation Ruled Unconstitutional by Judge - The New York Times - "More than two decades ago, Congress adopted a sweeping law that outlawed female genital mutilation, an ancient practice that 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone. But a federal court considering the first legal challenge to the statute found the law unconstitutional on Tuesday, greatly diminishing the chances of it being used by federal prosecutors around the country.... “As laudable as the prohibition of a particular type of abuse of girls may be,” he wrote, prosecutors failed to show that the federal government had the authority to bring the charges, and he noted that regulating practices like this is essentially a state responsibility.""
Liberals claim that medical decisions should only be between people and their doctors, but in only 4 countries in the world (including the US) can you get an abortion at 40 weeks

Twitter is hit by furious backlash over Muslim group's FGM video - "'FGM is FGM no matter how you want sugar coat it. Leave alone cutting - even touching the female genitalia of a girl is still child abuse. Twitter must explain why they sponsored such a message.'... The Dawoodi Bohra Women for Religious Freedom group - a branch of the Shi'ite Muslim community - promotes female circumcision and claims that it has been 'wrongly classified as female genital mutilation'. It also claims the procedure involves 'removal of a speck of superficial skin, a simple gentle process in which there is negligible, if any, pain'."

Amazing cognitive dissonance and silencing of a minority
This link was previously featured in 2018 but has been moved to this dedicated post

Australian Court Rules Bohra Practice of Female Circumcision is Not Mutilation – Religious Freedom News - "“I am delighted that the Supreme Court of Australia confirmed what female members of the Dawoodi Bohra faith all over the world have been asserting for many centuries: that the Bohra practice of Khafz is a harmless procedure that in no way can be categorized as female genital mutilation,” a Dawoodi Bohra spokeswoman commented. Khafz is women-led ceremony.  It is an important and private ritual organized for girls by female family members and performed by experienced females whose carefully honed techniques have been passed down the generations.  At no stage are men involved, let alone by forcing such a procedure upon women. Khafz is an important but harmless procedure that has been practiced for centuries by many Bohra women.  Unlike male circumcision in both Jewish and Bohras communities, which requires the removal of the foreskin, female circumcision in the Bohra faith is more symbolic, requiring no part of the body to be removed.  Crucially, it has no negative impact on a girl’s mental, physical or sexual health."

It's telling of female circumcision hysteria that people are condemning this
This link was previously featured in 2018 but has been moved to this dedicated post

Male and female circumcision are equally wrong - "I study childhood genital surgeries. Female, male and intersex genital surgeries, specifically, and I make similar arguments about each one. As a general rule, I think that healthy children – whatever their sex or gender – should be free from having parts of their most intimate sexual organs removed before they can understand what’s at stake in such a procedure... ‘Private parts’ are private. They’re personal. Barring some serious disease to treat or physical malfunction to address (for which surgery is the most conservative option), they should probably be left alone. That turns out to be extremely controversial. In the 1990s, when the Canadian ethicist Margaret Somerville began to speak and write critically about the non-therapeutic circumcision of infant boys, she was attacked for even addressing the subject in public. In her book The Ethical Canary, she says her critics accused her of ‘detracting from the horror of female genital mutilation and weakening the case against it by speaking about it and infant male circumcision in the same context and pointing out that the same ethical and legal principles applied to both’... You often hear that genital mutilation and male circumcision are very different... Unfortunately, there’s a problem with these claims. Almost every one of them is untrue, or severely misleading. They derive from a superficial understanding of both FGM and male circumcision; and they are inconsistent with what scholars have known about these practices for well over a decade. It’s time to re-examine what we ‘know’ about these controversial customs... the vulva has all sorts of warm, moist places where bacteria or viruses could get trapped, such as underneath the clitoral hood, or among the folds of the labia; so who is to say that removing some of that tissue (with a sterile surgical tool) might not reduce the risk of various diseases?... as the sociologist Lisa Wade has shown in her research, ‘attributing [the] persistence [of female genital altering rituals] to patriarchy grossly over-simplifies their social, cultural, and economic functions’ in the diverse societies in which they are performed... in nearly every society that practices such coming of age rituals, the female half of the initiation is carried out by women (rather than by men) who do not typically view it as being a consequence of male dominance, but who instead see their genital-altering practices as being beautifying, even empowering, and as an important rite of passage with high cultural value. The claim that these women are all ‘brainwashed’ is anthropologically ignorant"
Despite lip service to the idea of gender equality, if advancing it means women could lose out, it's clear where feminists stand
This link was previously featured in 2015 but has been moved to this dedicated post

Female circumcision and HIV infection in Tanzania: for better or for worse? - "The authors sought to explain an unanticipated significant crude association of lower HIV risk among circumcised women... A lowered risk of HIV infection among circumcised women was not attributable to confounding with another risk factor in these data"
Amazingly, at least one source claims that this study showed the opposite result.
This link was previously featured in 2010 but has been moved to this dedicated post

Keywords: HIV female circumcision, female circumcision reduces hiv
Addendum: Updated broken link with archived version

Meme - "circumcision became popular because Jewish women won't touch anything unless it's 15% off"

Florida Mom Jailed Over Circumcision Dispute Agrees to Procedure - "A Florida mother has agreed to circumcise her son after spending a week behind bars for refusing to cooperate with a court order to do so, ABC News has learned.  Heather Hironimus, 31, had been in custody since May 14 after going missing for several months with her 4-year-old son, allegedly to avoid circumcising him"
If it had been a daughter, she'd have been a hero

Was Foreskin Evolution’s Great Mistake? - "Imagine if we as a society decided to permanently dull infants’ sense of taste as a standard practice, perhaps by applying some kind of chemical solution shortly after birth. If we felt the need to defend the practice, we could come up with plenty of justifications. Obesity is, after all, a major health problem. Dulling our sense of taste could empower people to eat healthier but more unpalatable foods, which would save money and improve health. To anyone outside of our hypothetical culture, however, this would rightfully sound insane. Think of how we react to arguments in favor of “female genital mutilation” (FGM), also known as female circumcision, a practice that is common in parts of the Middle East and Africa, but which international organizations consider a human rights violation. Yet its male equivalent remains distressingly commonplace. As of 2016, according to one estimate, just under 40% of males were circumcised globally, and 71% in the United States, which is an extreme outlier among Western nations.  Circumcision is, in a sense, easy to justify through the trappings of science by overgeneralizing from limited findings. For example, a randomized control experiment from Kenya published in 2007 showed that male circumcision reduced rates of HIV infection. Studies like this have led scientists to recommend circumcision in the United States, where rates of HIV and other STIs are a fraction of what they are in Africa, and where condoms are more freely available. In fact, HIV/AIDs deaths have sharply declined in recent years, as has the rate of new infections among gay and bisexual men, the most at-risk group. Comparing circumcision to other issues, we begin to see how strange the practice truly is. Gender-affirmation surgery for trans individuals has become a hot-button political issue in many countries, but whatever your take on the matter, at least those being operated upon — even teens — have some say in what happens to their bodies. In general, just about every culture allows for the removal of a body part if there is a medically valid reason to do so. Male circumcision, on the other hand, is widely inflicted upon infant boys as a matter of course — and nobody can truly argue that it’s life-saving or even has clear and substantial benefits. It is like nothing else in modern society, and the post-hoc justifications for the practice are weak.  Outside of countries with extremely high HIV rates and low availability of condoms, the supposed benefits of circumcision are quite small. For example, the American Cancer Society notes that while circumcision was once thought of as protective against penile cancer, many of the studies involved did not properly account for variables such as hygiene and a congenital foreskin problem known as phimosis, which can be dealt with through less drastic measures. The fact is that the difference in rates of cancer between circumcised and uncircumcised men in the US is minimal. Other proponents argue that circumcision can prevent infections. But one must consider the magnitude of any effect size. One paper estimates for every 111 boys who are circumcised, one case of urinary tract infection can be stopped. Most UTIs either go away on their own or can be treated with antibiotics, and only about 3% lead to any kind of serious complications. How many parents would agree to have any other part of a child’s anatomy excised for a less than one percentage point reduced chance of getting a relatively minor infection during childhood?  One may ask why we as a society aren’t open to evidence suggesting that disfiguring the genitalia of young girls has equivalent benefits. After all, some Muslim proponents of the practice argue that it does. There appears to be little scientific inquiry into the matter in Western countries, probably because we don’t think such research would discover anything of value and we wouldn’t care if it did. We readily recognize that mutilating young girls and dulling their capacity for sexual pleasure is an ethically unacceptable practice, whether or not it may have some benefits in a few narrow areas of life. We regard FGM, rightly, as a cruel, misogynistic, and barbaric custom. But our own cultural baggage doesn’t allow us to similarly evaluate male circumcision on its merits. As different as we might think we are from Muslim societies, it’s helpful to remember that concerns about masturbation were central in the original push to institute the widespread circumcision of male infants in the English-speaking world. In 1893, when the practice was still rare among Christians, surgeon Jonathan Hutchinson published a medical article in the Archives of Surgery titled “On Circumcision as a Preventative for Masturbation.”... While Islamic fundamentalism openly rails against female “hypersexuality” when arguing for FGM, in the secular West, it is male pleasure that is more likely to be discounted.  Foreskins are observed among practically every mammalian species. When biologists find phenomena that are this universal, they usually assume nature wouldn’t be so frivolous as to equip a large number of distantly related species with the same feature if there wasn’t a great benefit to doing so... Thankfully, the tide appears to be turning against male circumcision in the US, albeit slowly. This may be because anti-circumcision advocates are winning in the marketplace of ideas, or due to immigration, as the trend away from the practice appears particularly pronounced in the western part of the country, which has a high Hispanic population. According to one study, circumcision rates for newborns dropped from 83% in the 1960s to 77% in 2010. Another shows a dip from 61% to 57% between 2000 and 2010 alone. While there is wide variation across publications, they generally show a downward trend. Medical organizations have also become more equivocal on the issue, and at least 10 states have dropped Medicaid coverage for the procedure... Thankfully, circumcision has not been engulfed in the culture war to anywhere near the same degree as so many other issues, which provides hope that the practice may decline universally, as long as it does not become tied up in polarized political identities"

Danish parliament rejects ban on boys’ circumcision - "With about two-thirds majority, the Danish parliament rejected a proposal to make boys’ circumcision more difficult."
The population overwhelmingly (88%) support a ban. Ahh... democracy!

Ontario Pizza Hut becomes famous for hilarious ‘circumcisions’ typo - "A Pizza Hut in Timmins was forced to close its doors at the last minute, posting a sign on its door to let customers know.  But in hindsight, perhaps it was a little too much information to share with potential diners.  “Due to unforeseen circumcisions, the dining room will be closed this evening!!,” read the note, apologizing for the inconvenience but explaining takeout and delivery was still available... Marc Girard, the restaurant’s general manager, had fun with his location’s newfound fame and added a new sign — along with a new deal for customers.  “We at Pizza Hut appreciate all our loyal customers!!!,” he captioned the new sign that began very clearly with, “In light of recent CIRCUMSTANCES…”"

Meme - khadijah (0/50): "this is why im gonna circumcise my baby boy due in March"
San (Gluten hater): "Why would you ever care if your son's dick looks pretty or not? That's pretty creepy if you ask me." khadijah (0/50): "as a woman, im going to be the one expected to do all his diaper changes and do all the caring for the baby 24/7 while my deadbeat dad plays online games all day, if i have to do all that I might as well make sure that my son has a pretty dick for me to look at!"

Male circumcision decreases penile sensitivity as measured in a large cohort - "This study confirms the importance of the foreskin for penile sensitivity, overall sexual satisfaction, and penile functioning. Furthermore, this study shows that a higher percentage of circumcised men experience discomfort or pain and unusual sensations as compared with the uncircumcised population. Before circumcision without medical indication, adult men, and parents considering circumcision of their sons, should be informed of the importance of the foreskin in male sexuality."

The studies that launched a thousand snips - "Medical researchers may hope their work will eventually give rise to large-scale, well-funded health programs, but those dreams rarely come true. Though it can happen and indeed did happen to three sets of researchers who conducted clinical trials in Africa several years ago. Their research, which linked circumcision to lower rates of HIV transmission, drew support from high-profile luminaries, donations from well-heeled philanthropists and resulted in mass circumcision programs in several African countries. Opponents of circumcision, however, claim those much-praised trials aren’t all they were cracked up to be.  “For the past 100 years, advocates for circumcision have been coming up with ideas of why to circumcise boys,” says Dr. George Denniston, founder of Doctors Opposing Circumcision, based in Seattle, Washington. “There was cancer of the penis, and then it was cancer of the cervix for their partners, and on and on. Now they have HIV. But the HIV studies are extremely flawed.”... The research in support of circumcision, however, does not seem so impressive to Dr. John Travis, a member of the board of directors of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children, a donation-supported educational organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia. “I can tell you that the research being touted as significantly protective of HIV is highly biased, poorly done,” Travis writes in an email.  One the major problems, according to Travis, is that the researchers didn’t determine the source of HIV infections acquired during the clinical trials, assuming all infections would be from heterosexual sex, though some of the infected men reported acquiring the virus during a period when they didn’t have sex or had sex using condoms.  “Conservatively for the three trials, 89 of the 205 infections (43.1%) were sexually transmitted,” writes Travis. “Without knowing which infections were sexually transmitted, it is impossible to test the hypothesis of whether circumcision reduces the rates of sexually transmitted HIV.” Travis also claims the clinical trials were rife with various types of bias, such as attrition bias (the number of participants who dropped out vastly outnumbered those who became infected), duration bias (the trials were not long enough to determine if the positive effect would plateau) and expectation bias. Some of the primary investigators had already called for mass circumcision, Travis writes, so it is no surprise that they got the results they expected to see. This expectation of positive results may also explain why all three trials were terminated early. Another form of bias in the research, writes Travis, is lead-time bias. The circumcised men were told not to have unprotected sex for 4–8 weeks, yet they were monitored immediately, as were the men in the uncircumcised group. The men in the control group were therefore exposed to infection for a longer period of time.  “It is like having a ten-mile race in which one group is give a 20-minute head start and then being surprised when the group with the head start finishes the race first,” writes Travis... Geisheker notes that mass circumcision could lead to problems in some settings. It could discourage the use of condoms, for example. Also, circumcised men are “likely to present themselves, especially to poor or illiterate village women, as rendered surgically immune to HIV.”  “The conundrum remains how First-World circumcision proponents can remain so single-minded and intransigent while individual citizens of the target countries they claim to be ‘saving’ understand the village-level risks and costs,” Geisheker wrote in the book. “We think this is simply a modern example of colonial medicine, complicated by a failure to learn from past failed efforts, such as vasectomy programs in India and an almost exclusive medical-model approach.”"
I knew a circumcised guy who didn't use condoms when having sex with prostitutes, claiming that circumcision protected him

Are Uncircumcised Penises Really Less Hygienic Than Circumcised Penises? Here's the Truth - "For Georganne Chapin, executive director of the anti-circumcision advocacy group Intact America, some parents who opt to circumcise their babies mistakenly believe their sons won't be able to clean themselves properly. But that's ridiculous, she told Mic: If we can learn to blow our nose and brush our teeth twice a day, men should be expected to clean underneath their foreskins.  "Men can become astrophysicists, great fathers, mathematicians, chess players, jazz musicians and Nobel Prize-winning writers," she said, "but they can't wash their penises?"...  some people are turned off by the idea of bacteria around the penis — be it transparent or chunky. But as Chapin pointed out, bacteria are beneficial to our health.  "Imagine if we used that rationale with the stomach," she said. "Are we looking for an uncolonized gut? That would kill us all. Bacteria are not bad — bacteria are good."... there are tons of body parts that get dirty and smelly if you don't clean them enough, like your mouth, armpits and feet."
Circumcised American men love to go on about smegma and dick cheese. Probably because they don't clean themselves properly, so they think uncircumcised men are even dirtier

Circumcision Is Tearing Apart The Silent Hill Wikia, Maybe Avoid It For Now - "  For those of you familiar with Silent Hill 4: The Room, you should know all about Walter Sullivan; the homicidal maniac that was abandoned in apartment 302 and raised by the series’ resident cult, The Order. What you may not remember is an excessive amount of symbolism linking Walter’s disturbed outlook on life to having been circumcised as an infant. Well, visiting Walter’s Silent Hill Wikia page for the last few days has taught anyone who cared to know all about this possibility as one of the Admins for the Wikia has written out a long, rambling diatribe about just that. Detailing not just a theory about how this Admin believes that Walter was a victim of genital mutilation, but also goes into excruciating detail about how circumcision is actually a construct of Satanism and the Illuminati and that doctors are puppets of this conspiracy. Not just in the game lore mind you, but in our world.  It actually gets worse from there. A long list of explanations as to why circumcision is bad has now been laid out smack in the middle of the page, as well as a fervent defense of why it should be considered child abuse and a human rights issue. Honestly, that’s all fine, I guess. Don’t really know about the Satanism/Illuminati thing, but everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. The real question is: What the hell does any of this have to do with Silent Hill?... The thread has gotten so much traction it’s even shown up on a completely unrelated news site, NYMag.com of all things."

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