Today seems to be one of those days when people just can’t quit being Wrong On The Internet. Between antipornradfems on one hand and MRAs on the other, what started off as some webcomics with my morning tea has turned into a full-on annoyfest.
Before I type another word, by the way, I’m going to plonk a great big TW on the rest of this post. There’ll be strong language, I’ll be talking about MRAs and child mutilation. It ain’t gonna be pretty.
You see, there’s a thing that happens. It happens whenever women are ever mentioned. Something to do with women is mentioned, something a bit misogynistic is criticised, and all of a sudden the place is swarming with MRAs talking about- what else- FGM. And how those pesky feminists just couldn’t care less about all the baby boys being circumcised.
So if you don’t mind, as a fully paid-up member of the Evil Feminazi Conspiracy, I’m going to lay out precisely what the agenda is on the chopping up of kiddy bits. Since we’re a monolithic organisation that brooks no dissent, you can simply refer to this at any time in the future when talking to anyone of a feminist persuasion.
The Evil Feminazi Agenda On The Mutilation Of Children
- We support the right of all humans, regardless of gender or sex, to bodily integrity. This includes the right of children- whether female, male, or intersex- to never undergo unnecessary surgeries at the whims of their parents or societies.
- We oppose all violations of the bodily integrity of children.
- Where violations of the bodily integrity of children are present and widespread, we acknowledge that we may be forced to pick our battles, and to focus first on the instances where violations and harm are greatest.
- We acknowledge the fact that, while circumcision of male-assigned children is harmful, this harm is significantly less than that of the mutilation of female- and intersex-assigned babies, children and teenagers, who frequently have their external genitalia removed entirely, or altered to look cosmetically ‘normal’ while inflicting considerable nerve damage.
- We acknowledge, also, that while male circumcision is generally carried out shortly after birth, FGM and mutilation of intersex minors often occurs later in the life of the child, when they are old enough to remember the procedure.
- Because of this, from a harm reduction perspective, our initial efforts- while acknowledging MGM- are generally towards preventing the mutilation of female and intersex minors.
Or, in short, and far less politely:
- The equivalent of FGM isn’t male circumcision. The equivalent of ‘moderate’ forms of FGM would be chopping male-assigned kids’ penises off. The equivalent of more severe forms of FGM would be chopping their penises off, shoving their testicles right up into their abdomen, and removing their scrotum. And then saying that it doesn’t impair sexual function because you’ve left them with a working prostate.
If you read this, and still want to equate what is done to male-assigned babies to what is done to female- and intersex-assigned babies and kids? Then, in short: fuck you. Fuck you with a decaying fucking porcupine. And I hope, for their sakes, that you are never, ever in a position of guardianship or authority over a female- or intersex-assigned kid.
That is all.
considertheteacosy.wordpress.com 
Thank you! My step-mother to-be argued this very thing with me last summer (after touching on the hijab bans, and finishing up on abortion) and I was just too floored to know exactly how to respond. I will be quoting directly from you next time!
Well put.
Thanks for the post, it’s always frustrating when comment threads get derailed by people screaming “OMG!! WHAT ABOUT THE PENISES??!?!1”. In an ideal world it would be completely obvious to everyone that it is wrong to perform unnecessary surgery on a child, but it’s not an ideal world, and people need to focus their efforts where it can do the most good and in this case it’s where it can prevent the most harm, a no-brainer then to focus on preventing FGM.
I must admit though to never having given much thought to intersex babies, I guess it’s because it’s not something I’ve really been exposed to, except very superficially in medical shows on tv. What follows is just a stream of consciousness, so I apologise if it’s incoherent or the ideas are half formed. My first thought would be for doctors to remove the organs which are the least properly formed, but that seems naive as perceived sex has a large role in gender identification. My next thought would be to let the child grow up and discover their identity and decide later if they want to undergo any kind of surgery, but then I’m unclear of the psychological impact of that on a developing child in a society like ours. Basically I guess I just need more information from people who have experience and knowledge, and I would appreciate if anyone could point me at some useful resources so that I can become better informed.
Don’t worry about stream-of-consciousness, honest inquiry is the kind of thing I approve of wholeheartedly 🙂
As I’m not inter myself, I don’t feel comfy with speaking for inter people. However, if you’re looking to learn more, then the Intersex Society of North America, the Intersex Initiative and, as always, wiki are good places to start.
However, I will say that I’ve never heard (or heard of) an intersex person say that they were helped by unnecessary and purely cosmetic surgeries performed on them when they were too young to consent, purely to make them ‘look normal’. Or by their intersex status being kept a secret from them.
Thank you very much for the links, they were very useful, particularly the ISNA website which had a very detailed FAQ. It turns out I had a number of misconceptions, not the least of which were about the medical aspects of intersex conditions themselves. As my main concern was psychological welfare and there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that a child growing up with “ambiguous genitalia” is any more likely to have psychological problems, it seems to me that waiting until the child is old enough to make decisions about any surgery that isn’t strictly medically necessary is the right course of action.
Love this post!
This post is awesome.
Still remember my visceral physical reaction listening to Ayan Hirsi Ali’s description of her own FGM, and I have a circumcised male member and (thankfully) no vivid memory of how it got that way. As you say, not even remotely similar.
I’m going to express some mild disagreement here because I really like your blog, Nahida highly recommended you, and so I think the discussion is worthwhile.
Circumcision IS MGM. By definition, it’s mutilation. This isn’t equating it or addressing the question of scale. If I cut off someone’s pinky finger, and cut off someone else’s hands, BOTH acts are still mutilation, even if one drastically impacts the second question more. MGM and FGM are categories, and the specific practices in FGM, in our world, are typically more extreme than the practices of MGM.
Agreed! Apologies if I implied otherwise. Of course both are mutilaton- they’re both unnecessary, both permanently alter a person’s body, and both are done when that person is too young to consent. Absolutely!
Why don’t conversations with MRAs go this well?
you do everyone a giant disservice by denying or minimizing the horror and permanent sensory ,emotional and ejaculatory damage of male genital mutilation. you also display massive psychiatric ignorance by erroneously assuming that a young infant forgetting a trauma is akin to lesser traumatic damage than older boys who remember. that is sheer rubbish,and in fact the very opposite is neurologically true as the younger nervous system is very sensitive and infants frequently go into shock after the screaming is unable to save them from the horrific pain and terror and betrayal.
why on earth would feminists want to glorify one trauma at the expense of watering down the other. granted the anatomical loss is certainly more devastating with female mutilation, but the trauma and terror value is basically almost the same. and even if it werent the same,yet separating the causes instead of protesting all mutilation smacks of feminist personality problems(promoting their cause at the expense of deflating the male babys cause). this black and white thinking indicates psychic immaturity and usually a personality disorder level of maturity and reasoning. very pathological and unhealthy. and and what about the misogyny in the moslem world aka as honor crimes, , faceless covering of women as non humans in the name of “protecting” them, forbidden mixing of the sexes, lesser almost nil inheritance rights etc etc etc,SO where are you feminists cowering instead of showing us your fortitude and integrity and to say the least your lack of hypocricy. naah just pick on american men and babies, as they have been bullied into submission by the very criminal barbaric male circumcision that has in the end played to feminists benefit by creating obedient mostly docile male unless under alcohol or drugs. you and the elites have literally castrated american men with this circumcision demonically barbaric and evil weapon. and before you worry about females being mutilated in some far off country by their own people, why dont you play some integrity and get your priorities straightened by paying attention to your own males, sons brothers husbands and lovers bodily health and integrity being threatened by slimy religious mutilating groups ad slimier physicians and skin companies off to make a buck by daily crimes against humanity ie male genital mutilations. american feminists are shamelessly shameful. end of story
Sadly, a point-by-point rebuttal of this missive would require more time and attention than said missive deserves. I should have succumbed to the temptation to stop reading when the ad hom attacks started, as the logical fallacies only got worse from there.
It’s particularly interesting to me that expressing an opinion on the relative horrors of two bad things now implies an endorsement of the thing deemed less bad. I’d explore that odd quirk of reasoning with you, but as your attention is explicitly concentrated on American men, babies, and feminists I don’t see any reason to continue here on a blog by an Irish woman addressing issues of global concern. End of story.
1) I’m sorry, what? Dear, some communication tips: one paragraph, one point. Make one point, type a line break, then move on to your next. Stream-of-consciousness works like the above may be literary, but aren’t good arguments. I can put you in touch with a good editor, if you like.
2) On what I have parsed out of the above: how is saying “Genital mutilation of any kind is bad; FGM tends to more extensive, traumatic procedures than MGM” “denying or minimizing the horror” of MGM? Or glorifying it, as you state later?
3) You seem to have the impression that a blog with the word “Irish” in the subheading is written by an American. And that was the high point of your reading comprehension of Aoife’s post.
i think you should show some scientific fortitude and publish this above comment, otherwise you will just prove the point oh and please read the works of dr prescott vis a vis mutilations and consequences
thank you
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I am a feminist, but the most prevalent form of Mullerian Genital Mutilation (yes, you and your cisfeminist friends are a bunch of cissexists when it suits you, but that’s a rolling problem.) is removing the clitoral hood and the outer labia. That is completely analogous to removing the foreskin. Unsurprisingly both survivors of this procedure report a single-digit increase in the rate of significant sexual dysfunction over the intact population. Also, when you mention the median age of a population of 140 million victims of an illegal practice, you kind of engage in apples-to-oranges comparisons. What is the average age of Wolffian Genital Mutilation in countries where Mullerian Genital Mutilation is prevalent?
So yeah, have some fucking integrity, and stop trying to proclaim Type II MGM as worse than WGM worldwide, oh, and stop appropriating the lives of CAFAB people you’ll never see. You live in a country where the vast majority of victims of infant genital mutilation have been and will be CAMAB, this in a world where the gap between WGM and MGM is an order of magnitude. Oh, and here’s a fun fact. As many American CAMAB children die every year from WGM complications as do from SIDS.
And stop trying to sex CAFAB babies as female. (Yeah, I know, I promised I’d leave the cissexist when it suits you bit alone, but seriously).
Where would that be?
http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandlife/parenting/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-239186.html
They’re not reassigning 2.5% of Irish infants, last I checked, so the 2,000 per year (intrinsic prevalence, 160,000) CAMAB children who are judged to have dyadic genitalia and are victims of Wolffian Genital Mutiliation would make up the vast majority of surgical sex assignment victims (and if you don’t think removing clitoral-hood-analogous tissue that makes vaginoplasty more difficult is sex assignment in any way, see my above note on cissexism and your lot). Not to say surgical assignment of infants with non-dyadic genitalia (I question your metric of intersex. What is a woman with gonads that produce excessive endogenous testosterone if not controlled?) is not problematic, or less problematic, but don’t pretend it’s the majority of surgical assignment in Ireland.
If I’ve misplaced the country, you should know that the US leads the developed world in circumcision incidence, so please don’t even go there.
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