Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Male Circumcision is Not Genital Mutilation

One evening I was dining with my anthropologist friend Natalie and I expressed just how viscerally and zealously I abhor the African practice of female genital mutilation. As a male champion of women’s rights and a lover of the female form I believe that there is no reason to hack off a pubescent girl’s clitoris and/or labia other than to make the act of intercourse painful, to deprive women of their inherent sexual freedom and to oppress them as a permanently subservient class. I think that female genital mutilation is such a patently wrong act, a reification of misogynist and phallocentric violence that should be prohibited and criminalized. Anyone who practices female genital mutilation is a menace to society, and our police forces should lock them up behind bars.

Natalie threw a wrench into my crusade for the sanctity of the clitoris; “But Zac, aren’t you Jewish?”

“Yeah, so? What’s that have to do with anything?”

She looked down in the direction under the table and cleared her throat.


At that moment I realized the hypocrisy of my zeal. I was so humbled and dressed down that I concluded that when speaking of subjects as delicate as a culture’s practices pertaining to the sexual organs – especially those of cultures that are not one’s one – perhaps one should generally abstain from casting matters in sweeping judgments of “right” and “wrong”. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t criticize the genital practices of foreign cultures; sometimes one must. But perhaps we should limit our analysis to those things that we can prove at least somewhat scientifically and avoid subjective critiques of metaphysics and postmodern gender theory.

My friend Natalie isn’t the only one who thinks that my righteous indignation against genital mutilation should apply to both genders. There is in fact a growing faction of feminists, human rights activists and lovers of the natural male form want to broaden the definition of assault to include those who circumcise the foreskin. The self-proclaimed “Intactivists” advocate for the preservation of “genital integrity” and an end to the practice of male circumcision – or “male genital mutilation” as they prefer to call it.


One such group known as the Bay Area Intactivists values the foreskin as a nerve-rich portion of the male genital organ. From their perspective, male circumcision is means of denying to a male and his future partner(s) the potential for maximum sexual satisfaction.


Other groups such as Intact America are organizing the opposition to male circumcision from comparatively more scientific, rationally more compelling grounds. If you read their literature, you get the sense that they represent a faction within the American medical community who oppose the practice under the logic that 1. the act of circumcision can be painful; 2. it can lead to infections and other harmful complications, and 3. removing the foreskin is not medically necessary.


Now the combined Intactivists of San Francisco have garnered enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot which extend the definition of assault to those who circumcise males under the age of 18. If the proposition passes, the circumcising of a male’s foreskin would be a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or up to one year in jail. The consent of the underage male in question would be irrelevant; a male could only consent to having his foreskin removed if he is a legal adult. There would be no religious exemptions.

The movement to utilize the compelling force of criminal law to prohibit male circumcision is not without foundation. After all, since federal legislation was passed in 1996, Section 116 of the U.S. Code has defined whomever “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” as a perpetrator of assault. The Intactivists make a reverse-sexist argument that by creating a set of legal protections for women – but not extending those same protections to men – the continued legality of male circumcision is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

As much as this blogger disagrees with the claims of the Intactivists, I am equally critical of the campaign by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Civil Liberties Union who are arguing against the San Francisco ballot measure in terms of religious freedom. If a federal judge were to strike down a municipal ordinance banning male circumcision because it is a violation of the Jewish people’s freedom to exercise our religion, then that same judge would have to uphold the right of West African Muslims to practice female genital mutilation on the same grounds. This would be an argument of cultural relativism; e.g. “Yes, it is a barbaric practice, but we live in a barbaric society in which cruelty and torture are woven into the fabric of our culture.” This is not the argument that the defenders of male circumcision ought to take.

If defenders of circumcision are going to make a valid argument based on moral logic and reason, one must contend why the practice itself is not just a tolerable tradition with religious significance but actually a positive good with secular and tangible benefits. And moreoever, it doesn't hurt to deconstruct the logic for the argument against circumcision.

From what I gather after a comprehensive reading of their literature, the moral logic of the Intactivist movement runs as following:

1. Female circumcision is a cruel, inhumane practice which can cause disease and pain over the course of the victim’s lifetime. (Given)
2. The only reason why cultures practice female circumcision is to make the act of sexual intercourse excruciatingly painful and undesirable. (Given)
3. Therefore, female circumcision is a form of assault (1, 2)
4. Gender is only a social construct, there is no substantive difference between men and women, in fact, the binary characterization of human beings as either men or women is a form of gendered chauvinism. (Given)
5. Therefore, male circumcision is also a cruel, inhumane practice (1, 4)
6. Therefore, the only reason why Western culture practices male circumcision is to make the act of sexual intercourse excruciatingly painful and undesirable (2, 4)
7. Therefore, male circumcision is a form of assault (5, 6) Q.E.D.

The crucial fallacy in this logical argument is postulate number 4. Though traditional gender roles and identities might be a mere social construction, it is more than fair to say that there is, in fact, at least one significant difference between the vast majority of individuals born as males or female; generally speaking, males are endowed with penises and females are endowed with vaginas. In light of this fundamental distinction, the removal of the clitoris and/or the labia should be banned while the removal of the foreskin should remain legal because there is in fact a very compelling case to be made that male circumcision and female “circumcision” are two very different operations performed on two very different organs which ought to be distinguished as such under law.

Intactivists’ Sophistry #1: “Surgically removing part of a baby boy’s penis causes pain.”

If one were to practice circumcision with the same crude instruments and techniques as say, the Dogon tribe of Mali, then it is indeed an unnecessary painful procedure. The Dogons gather all of the uncircumcised boys 12 years old and up and to have the village blacksmith remove the boys’ foreskins with a homemade blade which is not very sharp by Western standards – and they perform the operation without any sort of anesthetic. Perhaps this argument over pain might be valid if Jews in America were to practice circumcision in a way similar to the Dogons; if that were the case, maybe circumcision should be prohibited under law.

The modern Diasporic Jews of America, however, have developed a method of circumcising our boys at the age of eight days when the nerves of the appendage are not as sensitive as a pubescent boy and we utilize various means of anesthesia which all but eliminate pain. The most effective of these is nerve-block applied locally with a shot to the penis – a remarkably effective anesthetic which renders the applied area completely numb. Rabbinical student Josh Stanton and Dr. Anne Epstein write: “While the idea of an injection to the penis sets teeth on end, it is as close to pain-free as we can get in this sort of minor surgery… It hardly hurts.”

Just about any operation involving the cutting of flesh – even an operation as minor as a tonsillectomy or the removal of an ingrown toenail – would be painful without anesthesia. But if the prick of a needle was reason to ban a medical procedure on the basis of pain, then banning circumcision would make no more sense than banning tetanus or polio vaccinations. In this day and age of modern anesthetics, the contention that circumcision should be banned because the procedure causes pain holds little ground.

Intactivists’ Sophistry #2: “Male circumcision creates immediate health risks and can lead to serious complications.”

Indeed, a botched circumcision could lead to an infection of the penis or worse. In cultures that perform this operation with crude tools and unsanitary conditions – such as the Dogon blacksmiths with their homemade iron blades – yes, the removal of a boy’s foreskin does sometimes lead to more serious complications including not only local infections but hemorrhage, scarring, difficulty urinating, loss of part or all of the penis, and even death. According to the Center for Disease Control, between 2% and 8% of all circumcisions performed in African cultures lead to an infection or more serious complications.

However, such fears are essentially unwarranted in the developed West because we utilize modern medical practices, the doctors and mohels who perform circumcisions are rigorously trained, and we perform the operation in a sanitary environment. Even if the most basic aspect of male circumcision remains the same, the cleanliness of our foreskin-cutting arenas, our medical instruments and our practices make a world of a difference. Local infection is still nevertheless possible – but then again, even having your bellybutton pierced can lead to an infection if it is not done by the right person in the right place the right way.

Whether an adequately trained, certified mohel conducts a circumcision in a synagogue or if a bona fide doctor circumcises a baby boy in a hospital, the risk of immediate health risks with serious complications is extremely small. According to the CDC, the rate of complications due to male circumcision in the United States is around 0.2% of all cases – in other words, just about negligible.

Indeed, the medical Intactivists are correct when they argue that male circumcision can cause infections – there is that 1 case in 500 in which the circumcision does lead to a complication – but that fact cannot be adequately evaluated in isolation. In a study of circumcised boys in Washington State conducted over the course of a decade, it was found that for every circumcision complication there were 6 urinary tract infections prevented. Circumcision also reduces the chance of contracting human papillomavirus (and thereby penile cancer), genital herpes and HIV.

Intactivists’ Sophistry #3: “Male circumcision is unnecessary” because “Claims that circumcision prevents HIV have repeatedly been proven to be exaggerated or false. Only abstinence or safe sex, including the use of condoms, can prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.”

At this point in the evolution of homo sapiens, the continued possession of a foreskin actually poses a risk to the health of males and those who have sex with them. The main reason why not circumcising a boy creates a health risk is that this vestigial structure creates a cavity which can retain smegma which can sit and fester, inviting bacterial and viral infection. Uncircumcised males are more likely to contract and transmit HIV than those who are circumcised, largely because the smegma which can be retained in the foreskin allows for the transmission of the virus to and from vaginal fluids. In addition, the foreskin has considerable surface area which renders the penis more susceptible to minor trauma and ulcerative disease – thus increasing the chance of transmitting the HIV virus.

A 2000 study of the relationship between male circumcision and heterosexual transmission of HIV in Africa noted “a substantial protective effect of male circumcision on risk for HIV infection”; finding that the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men was 44% lower than those who were uncircumcised. The strongest association between circumcision or lack thereof and HIV infection rates was found in high risk populations (e.g. patients at STD clinics) for whom the adjusted relative risk was 71% lower for those who had been circumcised. Another study conducted in 2003 found that the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men was 42% lower than their uncircumcised counterparts.

More macro-level epidemiological studies indicate that the practice of circumcision is not limited to the individual men but also the population as a whole; after all, if a man has contracted HIV due to his smegma-retaining foreskin, he is then liable to transmit the virus to his sexual partner(s), who are then liable to transmit the virus to their sexual partners, etc. African and Asian countries in which less than 20% of the male population has been circumcised have HIV infection rates several times greater than comparable African and Asian countries in which more than 80% of the male population has been circumcised. Of course, there are many other variable including religious mores and sexual norms which also vary among these countries, but the link between relatively high rates of circumcision and relatively low rates of HIV infection is so strong that the value of the practice as a significant factor in reducing disease transmission cannot be ignored.

I have heard a number of objections to this kind of analysis; namely that such studies have only been performed in underdeveloped Third World nations and not the developed West. These skeptics contend that since Americans and Europeans have better hygiene than the typical African, since we generally practice monogamy, wear condoms and bathe regularly we do not need to bother with circumcision.

Such First World-centrics are faulty in their reasoning, particularly because the studies linking the lack of circumcision to higher rates of HIV infection found the greatest correlation in the most at risk populations – precisely those persons in the United States who are the most likely to have sex with multiple or even concurrent partners, those who do not wear condoms, and those who have the worst hygiene. The mere fact that one might reside in the Global North does not separate that person from the basic facts of virology which tend to be associated with the Global South. Likewise, if circumcision has been found to be an effective method of minimizing the HIV epidemic amongst homo sapiens in sub-Saharan Africa, absent any fundamental anatomical or physiological distinction between Americans and Africans, there is only reason to conclude that that practice remains effective amongst homo sapiens in the United States.

I have also heard the argument made that circumcision is unnecessary for homosexual men, because the studies cited above have only demonstrated a link between circumcision and reduced prevalence of HIV amongst heterosexual men. This Intactivist argument maintains that for a parent to decide that they will circumcise their boy to protect him from HIV and AIDS is to make a heteronormative assumption that their child is in fact straight, and that if their boy turns out to be gay then they will be deprived of sexual satisfaction due to a societal bias towards heterosexuality.

This Intactivist sophistry is not only spurious in its logic but quite dangerous in its potential for giving homosexuals a false sense of security. Though the possession of a foreskin is most likely to transmit disease via the mixing of smegma and vaginal fluids – which is exclusive to heterosexual intercourse, that is not the only reason why possession of the foreskin increases the chance of disease transmission. Disease can also be transmitted because the foreskin is more easily susceptible to tearing. One must also take bisexuality into consideration; an uncircumcised man could very easily receive the HIV virus by trading fluids with an HIV+ woman and later on transmit the virus to a male sexual partner (or the other way around) explicitly due to his possession of his original foreskin.

Read Intact America’s sophistry again: “Only abstinence or safe sex, including the use of condoms, can prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.” This is more or less the logic of abstinence-only sex education; “if you don’t have sex, then you can’t get a sexually-transmitted disease; therefore don't wear a condom”; “if you always wear a condom, then you can’t get a sexually-transmitted disease; therefore you don’t need to be circumcised.” The problem with this logic is that uncircumcised men do have sex, sometimes they use condoms, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they have sex with a condom but the condom breaks, etc. Even the highest-quality prophylactics can fail - that is why instead of relying on the effectiveness of one or two disease prevention methods, it is best to employ as many as possible.

Intact America is telling the truth when its literature states that circumcision is not the only way to prevent the transmission of HIV, that abstaining from sex or practicing safe sex are alternative ways of preventing disease transmission. But they're not telling the whole truth. “Male circumcision is unnecessary”; indeed, for a practitioner of celibacy there might not be much of a benefit, but for everyone else it remains a very sound, particularly effective means of reducing the transmission of disease. There is no silver bullet which can by itself inoculate an individual from HIV/AIDS, no one is claiming that circumcision can by itself rid the world of this deadly epidemic. Rather, medical proponents of circumcision are contending that it is but one of many practices which ought to be maintained – along with fidelity to one’s partner, safe sex, regular testing – in order to defend oneself from STD transmission.

Likewise, the Intactivist movement is making a grave mistake in trying to ban male circumcision under the guise of public health; their pseudo-scientific case to ban the practice is so full of misleading language, cherry-picked half-truths and outright falsehoods that it cannot be taken seriously. Perhaps there are other reasons why a parent might reasonably decide to opt to not circumcise their male child – religious, sexual, aesthetic or otherwise – but the health of the child is not one of them. Male circumcision is not genital mutilation; it is a sound medical procedure which is safe, which does not cause undue pain, and it is still a very effective component of our society's efforts to maintain men's health and curb the spread of disease in America and throughout the world.

14 comments:

Danielle Netherton said...

Wow, Seriously? All I have to do is look at your title and see that you're wrong. Not only do you need to research circumcision (I'll provide some links later) but you need to look at the English language.

Genital -of or relating to the human or animal reproductive organs (so we agree that the prepuce is part of the male genitals?)

Mutilation - Inflict a violent and disfiguring injury on

Now, unless you know much about male circumcision, you will not realize that it is infact a violent and disfiguring injury. Have you seen a circumcision video? Go to Youtube and check it out. They use a knife. They first rip the prepuce from the glans (because it is tightly fused at birth for protective purposes and isn't seperated naturally until usually 10 years of age, sometimes 3 sometimes 18 everyone is different) So they rip it, much like you would rip your eye-lid off or your fingernail, then they cut the prepuce (a vitally important male reproductive organ) completely off. First of all, amputating a body part without medical reason, is inflicting injury no matter what. The fact that they strap the infant down on a circumstraint and cut him with a knife (against his will) is definitely violent. So, please, tell me again how on earth male circumcision is NOT genital mutilation?

Ugh!

Danielle Netherton said...

Here is the difference between female and male circumcision...in a beautiful nutshell.

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D98f3IavuEgQ

Here are some other things to think about

My "notes" on my facebook page contain the articles I have read and compiled so far while researching. Do some reading please.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=105467039561323

Anonymous said...

Male circumcision IS genital mutilation. It does not matter the reason circumcision is performed, it should not be done. There are more deaths per YEAR from circumcision than there were from SIDs and from recalled baby products, yet it's still allowed to continue. Most of the world is uncircumcised. Female circumcision is as disgusting as male circumcision but yet baby girls are not subjected to it. Females have MORE smegma, MORE UTIs, but yet they don't get circumcised at birth. Females are not circumcised because it was outlawed in 1997 for being cruel. Why it is still allowed for baby boys is an absolutely disgusting thing.

Lyn said...

I'm sorry, but this blog is rather inaccurate. First of all, this whole circumcision=HIV prevention is a terrible thing in the sense that men in Africa think that all they need to do is get circumcised and they have an instant anti-HIV sheath. This isn't true. Condoms and safe sex needs to be pushed, NOT circumcision. Think of how high the rate of HIV is in the US which is a country where a large percentage of men are circumcised. Then, there's Europe which has a lower rate of HIV infection and a small percentage of folks circumcised.

You can't tell me that it doesn't hurt to have such a sensitive area cut either. Babies pass out in pain from it!

Worse of all, due to all the inaccurate information spread about circumcision in the United States we don't realize that a functioning part of the body that actually PREVENTS infection and protects the penis like an eyelid protects the eye is being cut off! The boy who is circumcised doesn't even have the right to object to this, to decide over a personal part of his body because it's cut off in his infancy. It really should be his choice. No one, male or female should ever have to have part of their body cut off for any reason at all. Not for religious reasons, not because someone thinks it looks better or smells better. It's their body and their choice. Plus, mutilation means to cut off part of the body. What is circumcision but cutting off part of a boy's penis?

Elizabeth said...

At birth, nothing has to be done. No retraction and no special hygiene requirements.

When a boy hits puberty and starts making smegma he is old enough to learn the importance of hygiene and retract his own foreskin to rinse underneath.


If a young man is old enough to have sex, he's old enough to understand about HIV and other STDs. At that point, his sexual health should be his responsibility. If he makes the informed decision to engage in risky behaviors, that's on him. I would rather my son wait until he is in a stable monogamous relationship or even married but he's his own person and he may very well choose to have unprotected sex outside of marriage.
When he was born I decided to put my trust in the person I'm hoping to raise. What he does with his penis is his business. Whether he is heterosexual, homosexual, monogamous, or polyamourous, I don't need to permanently alter him to what someone thinks might benefit him.

Anonymous said...

If you swap "foreskin" for ANY other body part - or if you are talkinga bout an adult or a girl - then it IS indeed mutilation. What makes the foreskiin different or less than other body parts? What makes baby boys less deserving of their whole body, un-tampered with genitals than baby girls?

Answer: NOTHING. The foreskin is just like any other body part; the baby boy has just as much right to keep it and choose what to do with it as he does his finger, his septum, his eyelid, his toe, his nipple, his earlobe. The baby boy is just as deserving of protection as a baby girl. Amputating any body part without an existing medical condition IS mutilation.

Forced genital cutting significantly and permanently alters form and function, it causes pain, it is often done without pain relief, it causes problems with sexual function and exposes the child to increased risk.... it IS mutilation. It is abhorrent.

HIS BODY. HIS CHOICE.

Stormwatch said...

In most of the West, circumcision is "some freaky jew/muslim custom". It is not regarded as usual or medically advisable; and it is increasingly regarded as child abuse and bodily harm. Among the developed nations, the USA stands almost alone in its ignorance regarding this matter.

sweeneysindigo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

You're an unbelievable hypocrite.

Yes it most certainly is genital mutilation. Yes it does deny maximum pleasure to both the male and his partner. No it is nowhere near as big a health risk as you seem to believe. The process is far more dangerous than you seem to believe. Women produce far more smegma and are on the whole "dirtier" than men, yet it's somehow different for men.

It's nice that you tried to research this but you did a poor job. I understand the feeling that you may have been denied something in life you can never get back and never had a choice in can hurt, but you have been misled, and maybe you allowed yourself to be. This is mutilation, and life altering as much as it is for females. If it is to be done, it should be a choice for a mature male as it would be for a female.

Anonymous said...

This is very simple - if babies were born with a small, extra flap of skin under their arms that ultimately produced a smelly secretion and made them 10 - 20% more likely to get hpv or "underarm cancer" but a simple procedure could remove this extra piece of skin during infancy what parent wouldn't? Women have as much right in this conversation as a man telling a woman she has to have an abortion.

Anonymous said...

You are wrong about your facts. The foreskin contains the most sensitive nerves on the penis. So removing it is equivalent to removing the female clitoris.

Funny how you managed to completely ignore this "inconvenient" fact in your lengthy article.

Circumcision is an assault and mutilation of a helpless baby. Those are the world of doctors. http://knmg.artsennet.nl/Diensten/knmgpublicaties/KNMGpublicatie/Nontherapeutic-circumcision-of-male-minors-2010.htm

Anonymous said...

It is very true that America stands alone in the developed world on this issue. We haven't had the foresight to exile or execute most of our Jews and today we don't want to do the same to our Muslims. Compare to the European view...

On top of it we still aren't as enlightened a Europeans because I had this horrible operation which ruined me sexually. I still orgasm, I still love sex, I still bond with my partner, but look at me! I have such a horrible quality of life in a way I can't actually prove or figure out. Anyone who disagrees is brainwashed by religions!

Oh, leave out that a majority of the world will be circumcised within a half a decade. Everyone is barbaric! Except a zealot like me who wants to kill everyone who disagrees with my views on religion to save them. I mean, where is our crusader spirit?

Survey Programmer said...

Sorry to be a latecomer to this thread but felt compelled to mention that even if one could make infant circumcision 100% painless and bloodless (which is impossible) the infant still faces a 10-day period of pain while the open wound heals in an abrasive, urine and feces contaminated diaper and against which there is no OTC or Rx pharmaceutical to ease the baby's pain. The medical literature describes this as a period in which circumcised boys are less likely to successfully breastfeed and the event interrupts the maternal-infant bond and the first task of any human being, that of building trust.

Pain notwithstanding, we men who were subjected to this genital cutting as children are left with a scar on our penis and must endure the lifelong loss of the foreskin's multiple functions as designed by God/Nature. See www.CircumcisionHarm.org

For a broader examination of this issue, I recommend the video documentary 'Whose Body, Whose Rights?' available in two parts on YouTube at these links:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0kr6BiVZMM
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSAjpzpF6qM

seforim said...

thanks