Male and Female Genital Cutting Compared

American male genital cutting and African female genital cutting have similarities

 

  1. Over 100 million procedures have been performed on current populations.
  2. They are unnecessary, extremely painful, and traumatic.
  3. They can have adverse sexual and psychological effects.
  4. They are generally done by force on children.
  5. They are generally supported by local medical doctors.
  6. Pertinent biological facts are not generally known where procedures are practiced.*
  7. They are defended with reasons such as tradition, religion, aesthetics, cleanliness, and health.
  8. The rationale has currently or historically been connected to controlling sexual pleasure.
  9. They are often believed to have no effect on normal sexual functioning.
  10. They are generally accepted and supported by those who have been subjected to them.
  11. The decision is generally controlled by men though women may be supportive.
  12. Those who are cut have a compulsion to repeat their trauma on their children.
  13. The choice may be motivated by underlying psychosexual reasons.
  14. Critical public discussion is generally taboo where they are practiced.
  15. They can result in serious complications that can lead to death.
  16. The adverse effects are hidden by repression and denial.
  17. Dozens of potentially harmful physiological, emotional, behavioral, sexual, and social effects on individuals and societies have never been studied.
  18. On a qualitative level, cutting the genitals of male and female children are the same. The harm starts with the first cut, any cut.
  19. They violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
  20. Where female genital cutting is present, male genital cutting is also present, but not the other way around. This suggests that female genital cutting results from male genital cutting.**
  21. If we stop both, we may better develop toward our individual and social potential.

 

* For example, most American medical doctors do not know the Functions of the Foreskin.

** A form of American female genital cutting is episiotomy, an obstetrical ritual that may precede hospital childbirth.
It is unnecessary like other unnecessary surgeries on women.

 

Confront the double standard of male and female genital cutting.