Why is the ethics of cutting in the genitals of children so different dependning on the sex of the child?

[SimonP]

https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/ ... 596442/en/

There is universal condemnation of FGM by international legislators. Are you saying Danish medics are intimidated by FGM terrorists?

Mutilating little boys' foreskins is not nearly as horrific as mutilating little girls' peritoneal areas.

Your link is from UN agencies, they are not reliable on the issue as they promote GM. In any case it doesn't document your claim. No, why would you think I was saying that? Danish medics organisations have stated the practice in Denmark is unethical. It is the Danish politicians that are intimidated by Islamic terrorists among others.

[Sy Borg]

The truth is in the quote. The most obvious and serious loss of sensitivity comes from the cutting of thousands of nerves in the foreskin but that simple fact, is no match for your cultural conditioning! It's not possible to have a normal sex life when you don't have a foreskin since that is not normal.

I addressed this issue some time ago and will not repeat myself for the sake of your political games. Again, when people don't care for philosophy - as you clearly do not - and instead have a laser focus on politicking, then this kind of game-playing is inevitable.

When I was young, most young lads were circumcised. It was standard practice. So your claim is that this entire generation of men did not have normal sex lives. Yet every one of my circumcised former partners functioned normally sexually. Sex may well have been better for them if they had their foreskins, but to claim that none of them could have a normal sex life is typical of the hyperbole that anti-philosophy politicos embrace.

Do you have any philosophical observations at all about the situation to contribute, or is single issue politicking all you care about?

[SimonP]

Greta, you've made a long lame excuse when I showed that I was absolutely correct in quoting you for a "tin foli hat" claim. You have previously made a claim that I not only made an easily demonstratably false statement that no forms of ritual female cutting involve the complete excision of the clitoris, but that it also undermined both the forum and its members, which I thoroughly refuted. In yet another case you claimed that I had claimed circumscision often includes the glans which I once again showed was quite wrong. When you are shown to be wrong you never apologise, in fact you don't even acknowledge your mistake.

I have already answered your question and all you had to do was read the title of the thread...

[Terrapin Station]

Citation?

Can you be specific? Which claim do you want evidence for?

All of them, but start with the claim that it was historically as prominent/widespread as male circumcision.

[SimonP]

Well to start with my claim was: "Cutting of female genitals was just s well established for most of history and prehistory", not "historically as prominent/widespread". The basis for this claim is that cutting of both sexes existed in Africa from at least the time of the out of Africa migrations since it is practiced among tribal peoples in Australia and South America who have had no contact with other cutting traditions in Africa since that time and certainly not in more recent historical times with Jews and Muslims.

[Terrapin Station]

Well to start with my claim was: "Cutting of female genitals was just s well established for most of history and prehistory", not "historically as prominent/widespread". The basis for this claim is that cutting of both sexes existed in Africa from at least the time of the out of Africa migrations since it is practiced among tribal peoples in Australia and South America who have had no contact with other cutting traditions in Africa since that time and certainly not in more recent historical times with Jews and Muslims.

I wrote "Simply because one (re males) became a well-entrenched, widespread custom and the other (re females) didn't. With females, it was much rarer and more localized."

You quoted that in your response to me. Were you disagreeing with what I said there or not?

[SimonP]

As I replied it is presently and has been for centuries mor common and widespread to cut boys than to cut girls by a factor of around 8. I'm not sure but perhaps earpiercing has the reverse proportion. Would you then claim that piercing of female ears became a well-entrenched, widespread custom and the other (re males) didn't? There are two seperate attributes here, one is entrenchment and the other the degree of practice among different peoples. I see no evidence that the cutting of males is more entrenched through history than that of the cutting of males whereas the one is clearly practiced among a greater number of peoples. Still the practice of cutting females must still be considered to be widespread when 5% of the global population are cut and in dozens of different countries across Africa and Asia. So yes, I think on balance that counts as disagreeing ie there's no essential difference in the phenomena on the basis of entrenchment or distribution among many different peoples.

[Sy Borg]

Greta, you've made a long lame excuse when I showed that I was absolutely correct in quoting you for a "tin foli hat" claim. You have previously made a claim that I not only made an easily demonstratably false statement that no forms of ritual female cutting involve the complete excision of the clitoris, but that it also undermined both the forum and its members, which I thoroughly refuted. In yet another case you claimed that I had claimed circumscision often includes the glans which I once again showed was quite wrong. When you are shown to be wrong you never apologise, in fact you don't even acknowledge your mistake.

I have already answered your question and all you had to do was read the title of the thread...

Simon, your reliance on ad hominem attacks is telling. You persistently ignore and misunderstand what others say. Now you cling to a single loose statement I made early on (acknowledged to Sculptor at the time, despite your lies about me). Meanwhile your subsequent "correction" was more wrong still - your obviously wrong claim that no circumcised man can possibly ever enjoy a normal sex life.

I look forward to you acknowledging your error as I did to Sculptor.

[SimonP]

Pointing out a pattern you exhibit in your posts which is not conducive to reasonable and rational debate is not what is normally considered ad hominem as it is directly related to the debate and the patter itself represents ad hominem. Again you make a lose claim against me - of persistently ignoring and misunderstanding what others say, clinging etc etc. The fact is that I pointed out what you had stated earlier and your response was to claim I needed my tin foil hat adjusting and now when I point out the quote directly, instead of apologising, you attack me! That is not misunderstanding or ignoring what you say, that is doing just the opposite.

No, my correction is not wrong at all. Normal sexlife would naturally include normal coitus and normal coitus is obviously not possible without a foreskin! An amputee may claim that they can walk and run just as a normal person and they may even be able to easily outperform ie Oscar Pistorius, but it still is not normal walking or running. The idea that normal coitus can be performed without a foreskin implies that the foreskin has no function and is only vestigial, a common myth propagated in cutting cultures, part of the arsenal in the social conditioning leading to a normalising of the abnormal, you have all the hallmarks of. This is no different to similar myths in cutting cultures where both boys and girls are cut with the notion that the labia minora only get in the way or that the clitoral glans is only vestigial penis development etc etc.

You continue to make sweeping claims of my "obvious errors" while failing to apologise for past mistakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZQ-2rV2zQ

[Terrapin Station]

As I replied it is presently and has been for centuries mor common and widespread to cut boys than to cut girls by a factor of around 8. I'm not sure but perhaps earpiercing has the reverse proportion. Would you then claim that piercing of female ears became a well-entrenched, widespread custom and the other (re males) didn't? There are two seperate attributes here, one is entrenchment and the other the degree of practice among different peoples. I see no evidence that the cutting of males is more entrenched through history than that of the cutting of males whereas the one is clearly practiced among a greater number of peoples. Still the practice of cutting females must still be considered to be widespread when 5% of the global population are cut and in dozens of different countries across Africa and Asia. So yes, I think on balance that counts as disagreeing ie there's no essential difference in the phenomena on the basis of entrenchment or distribution among many different peoples.

I know your answer, but I asked you a yes or no question, and you didn't answer yes or no. Is it possible for you to answer yes or no?

[SimonP]

As I replied it is presently and has been for centuries mor common and widespread to cut boys than to cut girls by a factor of around 8. I'm not sure but perhaps earpiercing has the reverse proportion. Would you then claim that piercing of female ears became a well-entrenched, widespread custom and the other (re males) didn't? There are two seperate attributes here, one is entrenchment and the other the degree of practice among different peoples. I see no evidence that the cutting of males is more entrenched through history than that of the cutting of males whereas the one is clearly practiced among a greater number of peoples. Still the practice of cutting females must still be considered to be widespread when 5% of the global population are cut and in dozens of different countries across Africa and Asia. So yes, I think on balance that counts as disagreeing ie there's no essential difference in the phenomena on the basis of entrenchment or distribution among many different peoples.

I know your answer, but I asked you a yes or no question, and you didn't answer yes or no. Is it possible for you to answer yes or no?

This wasn't good enough?

So yes, I think on balance that counts as disagreeing ie there's no essential difference in the phenomena on the basis of entrenchment or distribution among many different peoples.

[Terrapin Station]

I know your answer, but I asked you a yes or no question, and you didn't answer yes or no. Is it possible for you to answer yes or no?

This wasn't good enough?

So yes, I think on balance that counts as disagreeing ie there's no essential difference in the phenomena on the basis of entrenchment or distribution among many different peoples.

Sorry, yes, that would be good enough.

So you would claim the following presumably?

"Historically, there are just as many countries and/or with an equal geographic spread of female vs male circumcision, but in that equal amount of countries/equal geographic spread, male circumcision was eight times more common"

Yes/no

[Terrapin Station]

Re the above question, in other words, would you say, for example, that "There have been 150 countries (or whatever the number would turn out to be) that historically practiced male circumcision as well as 150 countries (not necessarily the same countries) that historically practiced female circumcision routinely, but among those 150 countries (again not necessarily the same countries), there averaged approximately 800 male circumcisions to every 100 female"?

[SimonP]

This wasn't good enough?

Sorry, yes, that would be good enough.

So you would claim the following presumably?

"Historically, there are just as many countries and/or with an equal geographic spread of female vs male circumcision, but in that equal amount of countries/equal geographic spread, male circumcision was eight times more common"

Yes/no

No. I stated there's no essential difference in the phenomena on the basis of entrenchment or distribution among many different peoples. That doesn't equate to "just as many". All communities which practice FGC also practice MGC whereas most communities that practice MGC do not practice FGC so clearly FGC is not as widespread, nonetheless it is sufficiently widespread for it to be governed by the same social mechanisms. If we take USA then we can seee that FGC did not catch on in the same way that MGC did and that this was because masturbation was not considered to occur so frequently with girls as with boys, so was less necessary. It has also been argued that less patriarchal communities meant girls should be able to have the same right to be considered adult as boys and therefore be cut. Take for example the Pokot people of Kenya/Uganda, here girls are expected to show the same bravery undergoing the cut as boys ie as a mark of being an adult. This is exactly the same as other such ritual torture for example putting on a glove laced with bullet ants, expected of boys but not so often girls. In most communities women are not expected to control their emotions like men are because they do not have leadership roles but are subordinate to men with a role more akin to children. A good example of this is here, where the Ethiopian father says: "don't worry I'll decide for you", he is cut, she isn't, he regards her as being controlled by her emotions while he is capable of divorcing himself from his emotions and acting rationally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvM3h1pBncA

[SimonP]

Re the above question, in other words, would you say, for example, that "There have been 150 countries (or whatever the number would turn out to be) that historically practiced male circumcision as well as 150 countries (not necessarily the same countries) that historically practiced female circumcision routinely, but among those 150 countries (again not necessarily the same countries), there averaged approximately 800 male circumcisions to every 100 female"?

No. There are three kinds of communities, ones that cut neither boys nor girls, ones that only cut boys and ones that cut both, with decreasing frequency from former to latter.