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Gambia Votes to Overturn Landmark Ban on Female Genital Cutting
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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A note on why it is more destructive: they generally just take off the whole damn clit. Imagine if male circumcision involved removing the whole head of the penis. You'd have a lot fewer dudes being okay with the cultural difference.
And I hear you on male circumcision being a touchy subject. Guys will rant about it being as bad as female circumcision (it's not) on one side and on the other you have people pointing out the benefits (complications with circumcision happen more often than instances of it being beneficial). Can't we just leave kids' genitals alone unless there is an actual issue? It's so weird to obsess on changing their bits.
I think for most parents it's just an uncomfortable subject and they don't want to go against the norm so they just agree to it.
You're probably right. It's the same way that circumcision is so common in other places. It's so assumed that you almost have to tell them not to do it, or they'll just go ahead and do it... Except in most civilized countries you need authority to do a thing, so the question is always asked if that's what the parents want. They don't have to ask about it, it's basically assumed that they want it, and the doctors need to ask so that they have legal protections in case something happens.
Whelp, that's barbaric.
I was considering saying something about the law maybe being to restrictive, and that if people with vaginas want to have the procedure, they should be allowed to have it if they choose to, but in every other case, it's banned, but the whole thing about the clit really turned me around on it.
Cosmetic surgery to reduce the labia is a thing, and such surgery should be entirely voluntary for the individual it will affect, but just hacking and slashing to the point where it's common to cut away the clit is just.... No.
Ban ban ban ban ban. I don't even have a vagina and fuck that. It's shameful enough that anyone performed that kind of mutilation, don't backslide into ignorance by lifting the ban on it.
The worst part is that by calling it "cutting off the clit" @SeaJ@lemm.ee is actually underselling how bad it is.
FGM in The Gambia is mostly Type II which is when they cut off the clit and the labia minora (lips). Clit chopping is at the mild end, and at the severe end they chop everything off and sew it up leaving a small hole for pee.
That's just not true, my dude.
The American Academy of Pediatrics states that "the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks and that the procedure’s benefits justify access to this procedure for families who choose it. Specific benefits identified included prevention of urinary tract infections, penile cancer, and transmission of some sexually transmitted infections, including HIV."
I'm all for choice on this topic. But they shouldn't even call it female circumcision, as there's no medical benefit to such a procedure, and such practice should only be referred to as female genital mutilation (or cutting).
Cultural and ascetic opinions aside, male circumcision is objectively medically beneficial.
There are also health organizations from many other countries that come to the opposite conclusion and recommend circumcision only when it is medically necessary. The policy seems outdated at the very least and based on misleading conditions at worst.
UTI rates can be lowered by teaching parents to properly wash their children.
For HIV, they mention female to male transmission which is something that is extremely rare in the US. The two studies they looked at were in Africa where that actually is an issue but far from being one here in the US. There are also non surgical methods to avoid that: PrEP and/or using a condom.
As for something like HPV, we have a vaccine that prevents the vast majority of forms of HPV.
So for the most part the benefit (when not medically necessary) boils down to a very small increase in penile cancer. But even that has likely changed significantly with the increased usage of the HPV vaccine. I don't think they would recommend circumcision if they were to update the policy (which is apparently an expired policy and has not been reaffirmed).
No judgement for those who do circumcise their children but I'm personally not a fan of unnecessary surgery.
Whenever I hear someone talk about health benefits of circumcision, I just assume they don't wash themselves very often. So despite the foreskin ironically being there for hygiene, it's probably best they have their's taken off them if they're not going to wash at least once every few days.
What sources are you citing there?
The World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS have stated that male circumcision reduces men’s risk of acquiring HIV through sex with women by approximately 60%. In East and Southern Africa, voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) has been a WHO-recommended HIV combination prevention intervention since 2007
The above WHO/UNAIDS report is from late 2023.
Not sure if you're uncircumcised and/or have children who aren't and are speaking from experience, but the couple of friends I have that are not all spoke of difficulties maintaining cleanliness, even when showering daily and pulling the skin back to clean thoroughly. My point being it's not typically the parents at fault here.
Says who? Maybe relatively rare, but "extremely"?
Without a single source cited in your comment, it sounds more like virtue signaling. I'm not trying to be combative but I think some folks get caught up in an article like the OP link and wrongfully attribute it to vaguely related topics like male circumcision. Just because it's an elective medical procedure doesn't negate the truth of its medical benefits.