New legislation signed into law by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday makes female genital mutilation a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The laws apply both to doctors who conduct the procedure and parents who transport a child to undergo it. "Those who commit these horrendous crimes should be held accountable for their actions, and these bills stiffen the penalties for offenders while providing additional support to victims," Gov. Snyder said in a statement. "This legislation is an important step toward eliminating this despicable practice in Michigan while empowering victims to find healing and justice."
The governor also signed a bill allowing for a health professional's license or registration to be revoked if he or she is convicted of female genital mutilation.
Michigan is the 26th state to ban the practice; the state laws go into effect in October. The practice was banned in the United States in 1996, but Michigan's laws impose harsher penalties than the federal law. The package of bills comes amid the federal criminal trial of an emergency room doctor in Michigan, Jumana Nagarwala, charged with performing the procedure on multiple girls at a clinic in suburban Detroit. The Department of Justice says it believes the case is the first to be brought under the federal law. Another doctor and his wife are also charged in the case, the AP reports.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:31PM (40 children)
Our moslem brothers have every right to oppress, mutilate, and honor kill women however they wish! Infidel laws in kfir countries do not apply!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by frojack on Friday July 14 2017, @03:37PM (13 children)
Which would be exactly the position of the "Progressives" if the bill had been submitted or signed by Trump.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday July 14 2017, @04:01PM (12 children)
Man, you pro-treason asshats really gotta reach to blame everything on the libs don't you?
It's been illegal in the entire country, with 5 years of jailtime [cornell.edu] for doing so. Guess who signed that law. Go on. Also guess who proposed it [wikipedia.org].
All your idiot Snyder is doing is taking a law that's known to have been broken once, ever and pretending like it's the human rights crisis of our time, and you buy it hook, line, and sinker, because, as I have noted before, you're fucking retarded.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Friday July 14 2017, @05:10PM (6 children)
I always forget how sensitive traitors are. Sorry for hurting your feelings, retards.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:38PM (5 children)
making friends and influencing people
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:12PM (4 children)
Who wants to befriend idiots, get dragged into stupid arguments where you try and explain reality to clearly delusional people, get called names, get harassed, and ultimately have your ideals compromised just to shut up the inane stupidity?
Seriously, who would want to do that? Better to let the idiots know you don't respect them than to try and put wasted effort into helping them.
Sorry, are you idiots offended? Still defending Trump? Still buying the GOP propaganda? Idiots don't need to be respected until they start making even a tiny effort to fix themselves. Until then they can hang out in the special needs GrOuP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:32PM
making friends & influencing people
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @09:05PM (2 children)
Have you ever heard the saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all"? Take a chill pill, Azuma.
obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 14 2017, @11:24PM (1 child)
Reminder: XKCD is With Her™. [xkcd.com]
Then Randall discovered that women can smell Men Who are Much Nicer Than They Have to Be™ a mile away and the vote he thought would get him pussy did, alas, sadly, fatefully, regretfully, get him none. He came close one time but that lady ended up going home with a V-chested tribal-tattooed Trump-voting Black man with a swastika tattoo on his forehead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @03:50PM
He already came out as a tranny anyways.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:05PM (4 children)
If you don't want to get caught, this is almost the perfect crime.
The parents are willing. The doctor (part of the same community) is willing. The child depends on the parents for everything, loves the parents, and doesn't understand what is happening. Who is going to talk?
Obviously, the parents and doctor won't fess up to a crime. The child would experience additional hurt if the parents went to prison, and anyway the child loves the parents.
Who is going to know? We don't have a policy of independent experts regularly checking little girl parts. Maybe we should! Without that, this crime goes unreported. Nobody with knowledge of the crime has any incentive to report it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:56PM
Little girls don't remain Daddy's little girls forever.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday July 14 2017, @08:02PM (1 child)
So... your solution to the (for the moment entirely hypothetical) problem of underreporting is to increase maximum punishment?
Do I have your argument correct? Am I misrepresenting you in some way? Because that's fucking retarded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:01AM
I wasn't offering a solution.
Generally, fast and reliable punishment tends to be a better deterrent than severe punishment. Of course, the best is both.
Here we're dealing with people who would gladly suffer moderate punishment, so some severity is required. These people are worthless garbage, so killing them would be no loss for society. The most effective punishment would likely be transfusions of pig blood or pig shit, or drowning them in pig shit, causing death in a way that they feel would send them directly to Hell.
Getting the punishment to be fast and reliable would be invasive. I suppose it would catch other kinds of abuse too: for example, kids with STDs have likely been attacked. So yeah, quarterly crotch exams for everybody under age 25 would find this stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @03:06PM
Couldn't the TSA report this crime?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:39PM (21 children)
Exactly. The American Academy of Pediatrics even recommends that female genital mutilation should be widely available as a harm reduction measure. (lol [nytimes.com]!) The AAP writes [aappublications.org]:
Cultural sensitivity is imperative in these matters. Muslims deserve equal rights
to violate the bodies of their childrento religious freedom!Clearly, education is the key, and educated, culturally sensitive people will be more accepting of this diversity.
The most knowledgeable body of pediatricians in the world knows that all forms of ritual genital mutilation, both male and female, are
$100,000,000 per year profit centers of unnecessary surgeryrespectable medical procedures.(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:45PM (13 children)
Meanwhile male circumcision is widely endorsed. I'm guess it's not as harmful in its long term effects based on popular opinion, but then again popular opinion is frequently wrong and I have no other basis by which to judge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:50PM
Yep. If everybody else jumps off a cliff, I was always told to follow suit. If a doctor tells you to jump off a cliff, then it's a no-brainer. Throw yourself over the cliff! That many people and experts can't be wrong! lol
(Score: 3, Funny) by Wootery on Friday July 14 2017, @03:53PM
Is a quick Google too much to ask?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 14 2017, @04:05PM (4 children)
There haven't been as many studies on it, but there's some evidence that it causes similar although not quite as drastic harms as female circumcision, such as reduction in sexual pleasure. Of course, the real reason it hasn't received the same kind of scrutiny is that it's something "our" people do rather than those weirdos from faraway places that talk funny.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)
Don't be stupid. This is almost a partial abortion and must be punished as such.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @05:02PM
Which, FGM or circumcision?
I don't buy your analogy.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lgsoynews on Friday July 14 2017, @06:21PM
From what I've read, the result depends on people (and probably on how the circumcision is done).
Some men who were operated as adults report a GAIN in pleasure, some a LOSS (and regret their decision).
Those are individual testimonies, I don't know if there has been a serious study on the subject.
Of course, the problem if that most are operated very young and don't have a comparison point, very convenient for the assholes who push for it being done on kids. (I have nothing against adult deciding to be operated if it's a personal choice)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @09:13PM
Please provide citations for this that don't come from the anti-circumcision crowd.
Not saying it isn't true, but buying biased claims without confirming them isn't the best way to get at the truth.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by NewNic on Friday July 14 2017, @04:44PM (4 children)
FTFY. Male circumcision is rare outside of Jewish communities in Europe.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:10PM
Jews are a tiny minority in Europe.
(source [pewresearch.org])
(Score: 2) by lgsoynews on Friday July 14 2017, @06:16PM (2 children)
Not that rare.
I'm french (and not Jewish, my family is atheist). I'm lucky enough to have escaped the moronic doctors' scalpel, but my younger brother was circoncised -for no medical reason- as a baby. I think at the time those MORONS thought it was some hygienic measure, despite the fact that it's well, total B.S.
So, about 40 years ago, it was done in France.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by MostCynical on Friday July 14 2017, @10:05PM
While some reasons are purely cultural, there are medical grounds for male circumcision.
Male circumcision can help limit HIV transmission http://www.catie.ca/en/fact-sheets/prevention/penile-circumcision-reduce-risk-hiv-infection [catie.ca]
And has been shown to have up 73% curative effect on the auto-immune disease BXO.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 14 2017, @11:34PM
Uh, what? I'm Murrican, and my totally non-homosexual observations throughout the years yield a best guess across all my definitely non-Jew friends and sports teammates of 95% circumcised. I am not and considered it in my adult years because foreskin is ugly as fuck. It reminds me of an elephant's trunk, or a housefly's proboscis. Only problem is that once it's gone, there's no getting it back (disregarding some bullshit phoney procedure which is nothing like the real thing).
When I was bored and alone I used to play with it like it were chewing gum, rolling it up in a pencil or blousing it back inward on itself.
There is some truth about it regarding matters of cleanliness, but it's like any other part of your body in that it's clean if you wash it regularly, unclean if you don't.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday July 15 2017, @07:02PM
Not popular opinion — fact. 'Circumcising' a female would involve just removing the small part of the clitoral hood that covers the tiny tip of the clitoris that's visible if the hood is retracted. Female Genital Mutilation is a whole other level of structural damage, as Wikipedia describes:
"[It can] include removal of the clitoral hood and clitoral glans; removal of the inner labia; and removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva. In this last procedure, known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid; the vagina is opened for intercourse and opened further for childbirth."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 14 2017, @04:30PM (2 children)
> The most knowledgeable body of pediatricians in the world
It would be really nice if most Americans stopped non-jokingly elevating anything the US does as "the best in the world". Thanks for one clear example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:31PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 14 2017, @08:09PM
> best aircraft carrier [military-today.com]
How high was the guy who wrote that ranking?
I'll give the Ford Class a pass for not being quite ready, and the Elizabeth class is still so far out from being useful it should be near last...
The Russian carrier is acknowledged to be in terrible shape, yet number 3 ? The Chinese one is pretty limited, yet number 4?
If actually ranked by "deadliest" (and not to their own crew), it should be
0: Ford (soon operational)
1: Nimitz class
2: Charles de Gaulle
3: Sao Paulo
(a-k-a the catapult-driven, 4th-gen planes equipped carriers)
4-6: not quite sure how to rank the Italian vs the Indian vs the Chinese
7: Russia
8: UK, expected to climb once it get real planes
9: Thailand.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 14 2017, @06:17PM
Those links don't really say what you are claiming they say.
The NYT piece is saying that maybe it should be OK to perform a less-harmful procedure if it means the victim doesn't get flown to Africa to have her entire clitoris removed in unsanitary conditions.
The AAP is explicitly against FGM. From your link:
The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that pediatricians and pediatric surgical specialists should be aware that this practice has life-threatening health risks for children and women. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes all types of female genital cutting that pose risks of physical or psychological harm, counsels its members not to perform such procedures, recommends that its members actively seek to dissuade families from carrying out harmful forms of FGC, and urges its members to provide patients and their parents with compassionate education about the harms of FGC while remaining sensitive to the cultural and religious reasons that motivate parents to seek this procedure for their daughters.
Your quote is from the section where they are defining the terms used in the paper.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday July 14 2017, @08:45PM (2 children)
I'm pretty liberal, but that stuff is a bunch of horseshit. It's mutilation, plain and simple: any time you perform a medically-unnecessary procedure, it's mutilation. Getting your ears or nose pierced is mutilation too, though it's so minor that it's not a big problem (and it's generally only done on adults). Why are they trying to discourage accurate language to avoid offending religious nuts?
Same goes for male genital mutilation too: it's mutilation, and it's not necessary. Humans should not be physically altered before they're old enough to consent, unless there is a clear medical reason to do so.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 14 2017, @11:36PM
Because they will mutilate your head off just like they mutilate genitals off. Also, feminist liberals think it's okay.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:08PM
That's best practice for intersex people and it should be best practice for everyone.
1702845791×2
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @12:32AM (3 children)
What about Male Genital mutilation?!?!
Some of us want our foreskins back! Some of our girlfriends/potential girlfriends want it back too!
Remember, minors can't consent! So why should any form of (pre-majority) genital mutilation be allowed?!?!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 15 2017, @02:25AM (2 children)
I agree it's something that we should seriously reconsider as a culture, though mine never caused me any issues (and was done for medical reasons)
Female "circumcision" is in an entirely different class though - more akin to removing most of the nerves from your penis than just the mostly vestigial evolutionary remains of your sheath.
(Score: 2, Informative) by EEMac on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:59PM (1 child)
It's tough to find unbiased information on this, but if you'll accept Wikipedia as Neutral:
"The foreskin is specialised tissue that is packed with nerves and contains stretch receptors.[6][26][27] Sorrells et al. (2007) reported the areas of the penis most sensitive to fine touch are on the foreskin.[28]" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin)
It may not be perfectly equivalent, but it sounds comparable. Genital mutilation of either gender is a horrible practice.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday July 15 2017, @08:59PM
I agree that genital mutilation of either gender is horribly wrong — but circumcision & FGM aren't really comparable. Also from Wikipedia:
"Procedures differ according to the country or ethnic group. They include removal of the clitoral hood and clitoral glans; removal of the inner labia; and removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva. In this last procedure, known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid; the vagina is opened for intercourse and opened further for childbirth."
Or to put it another way, I suppose: circumcision was designed to prevent males from masturbating by removing a source of pleasure, while FGM is intended to prevent females from doing anything remotely sexual aside from servicing/mating with their eventual husband by removing all pleasure & replacing it with pain.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @03:57PM (34 children)
Got all the way to the third-to-last paragraph before they finally used a pronoun to identify her. How does a DOCTOR, a WOMAN doctor even, possibly justify this?! Ever heard of a thing called the fucking Hypocratic Oath? And "first do no harm"?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Bot on Friday July 14 2017, @04:04PM (5 children)
> Hypocratic
*hypocritical
(hey don't blame me, I am just applying an algorithm)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @04:59PM (4 children)
People using "hypocritical" to mean "stupid" is up there on my list of misused words that drive me nuts. This doctor would only be hypocritical for performing FGM if she was a well-known opponent of FGM.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday July 14 2017, @07:38PM
I have some familiarity with Greek terms, thank you. I could have been referring to the hypocrisy of some (#notalldoctors) people who swear the oath and then make money off the patients by not pursuing the optimal long term cure, opting for treatments or suboptimal alternatives.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:46PM (2 children)
If she took the Hippocratic oath but she's doing genital snips--which she denies doing? Unless she believes snipping is harmless, that's hypocritical. Because the Hippocratic oath goes something like "first, do no harm." If you take an oath to do no harm, then you do harm, that's hypocrisy. It's a broken promise. Bot was half-joking, I think, but it makes a point even so.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)
According to Wikipedia it's a misconception that "first, do no harm" is actually in the Hippocratic Oath, but the sentiment definitely is.
I didn't think of it from that angle; thanks.
Apparently I misspelled "Hippocratic" as OP and missed it. D'oh.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by chromas on Friday July 14 2017, @10:56PM
Oh, no you don't! You can't just secede from the argument in a polite manner like that. Where are the insults? Where's the name calling?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Kilo110 on Friday July 14 2017, @04:07PM (1 child)
Either she has zero scruples and will do anything for money.
Or it's been done to her and she's been brought up to believe it's the right and proper thing to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:10PM
Or she's actually innocent. But I guess waiting for the jury is old-fashioned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @04:14PM (13 children)
(For those of you who wisely don't want to read the gory details, infibulation is where they sew them up completely.)
Okay I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday July 14 2017, @04:23PM (11 children)
The women do it because they fear the rejection of their daughters by their husbands, which is their original setting leaves them as worthless and a shameful stain on the family.
And that makes little sense in the US context, where the girl may be rejected by the most traditional part of the group, but not by the rest of the male population. I guess they haven't progressed past the marry-in-the-group phase yet.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @04:32PM (7 children)
And the most maddening part of it is that there's absolutely no medical benefit to doing it. So it's a self-perpetuating peer pressure thing for entirely cosmetic and cultural morality reasons. Apparently somebody at some point said, "Hey, let's take a knife to that. Just because." But of course there are a variety of medical risks to doing it.
According to Wikipedia 97 percent of women in Egypt in 1985 were getting it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @04:38PM (6 children)
Women, or children?
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday July 14 2017, @06:31PM (5 children)
Let's say children, and agree not to quibble about the age of majority in Egypt (emphasis mine):
From the Wikipedia entry on female genital mutilation [wikipedia.org].
And here's a little bit more about the data:
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday July 14 2017, @06:40PM (4 children)
I would never have guessed it was that prevalent in Egypt. Holy shit.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FGM_prevalence_UNICEF_2016.svg [wikimedia.org]
2016:
(don't emulate) Somalia 98%
Djibouti (home of the foreign militaries) 93%
Egypt 87%
Sudan 87%
Yemen 19%
Iraq 8%
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by KiloByte on Friday July 14 2017, @09:40PM (2 children)
And MGM in United States: 71% [nih.gov], for boys born in the 70's: 91%.
You can expect a fourth-world hellhole like Somalia to cut little kids' genitalia, but such barbarous practice in a supposedly civilized country is unforgivable.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:15PM (1 child)
So, the figures for genital mutilation should be:-
Somalia: 49%
Djibouti: 46%
Egypt: 43%
Sudan: 43%
USA: 35%
Yemen: 9%
Iraq: 4%
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Informative) by KiloByte on Sunday July 16 2017, @01:57AM
Somalia also mutilates 93% of men, so total genital mutilation is 95.5% (gender population ratio in Somalia is roughly balanced).
Among these countries, Sudan is the only outlier with "only" 47% MGM, the rest are in 90%s.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:50PM
> (don't emulate) Somalia 98%
> Djibouti (home of the foreign militaries) 93%
> Egypt 87%
> Sudan 87%
> Yemen 19%
> Iraq 8%
hmmm this is not the chart they picked when deciding where to export democracy to.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 14 2017, @11:38PM (2 children)
The women do it also because there is a strict division between the sexes, as seen in Female-only shopping malls in the Middle-East, etc.
Another reason is that Muslim men are incapable of looking at even bare female ankles or toes without being stirred into an uncontrollable sexual frenzy which causes them to rape everything in sight regardless of age or species.
Westerners have given a name to this phenomenon: Sexual Emergency.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:51PM
> Westerners have given a name to this phenomenon: Sexual Emergency.
huh? I thought it was "getting away with it"
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:23PM
If a man has this problem then perhaps the onus should be for one man to wear blinkers rather than every woman to wear a sheet.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday July 14 2017, @08:48PM
It's just like one of my personal theories of life: every group of people is its own worst enemy.
Women have much more to fear in being oppressed by other women than they do from men.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Friday July 14 2017, @04:55PM
It's almost unthinkable for the kinda men who promote or enforce FGM to let a male see their daughter in a state of undress. If you read the stories about countries where this is still commonplace(if usually illegal), it's treated like a sacred ritual for all the women in the family without the men.
Never underestimate people's ability to perpetuate an unjust status quo onto the next generation because "that's how it's always been done".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:35PM
This shit is done to girls by women in every suckystan it's practiced in.
Women do tend to pass all kinds of damage to their daughters' generation. Instinctual antagonism with up-and-coming younger females, or whatever.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 14 2017, @06:20PM (9 children)
This doctor is a woman?!
And?? Women can't be religious whack-jobs?
What're you, some kind of Bro-selytizer!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @06:33PM (8 children)
No, my comment had nothing to do with religion. One would think that, logically, women would have more empathy getting in the way of mangling girls due to their shared circumstances.
Emphasis on "logically": there seems to be very little logic involved in the practice as a whole.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday July 14 2017, @07:18PM (5 children)
Male doctors don't seem to feel any "solidarity" with the males they routinely mutilate.
Let me guess: but women are special-good, is that it?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @07:28PM (4 children)
Maybe they should.
SN is getting way too adversarial these days.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 14 2017, @07:40PM
Don't look at me, I was just trying to crowbar that Bro-selytizer joke into the discussion!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @11:03PM
NO! It isn't! You idiot, mangobutter! It is all because of the Russian money and "opposition research" promoting xenophobia and hypocritical oaths.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:50AM (1 child)
SN was born out of "Fuck Beta", and you wonder about adversarial people?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:52PM
why, you have a problem with it?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 14 2017, @08:51PM (1 child)
You're thinking too sensibly. It actually makes sense that it's the women pushing this crap more. Remember, women are generally less logical thinkers, and more inclined to be religious, than men. There's even country music songs by women talking about dragging their men to church, and I've heard of Christian women complaining how they can't find any men to date in church because there's 10 single young women for every single guy, and the 1 guy is a creep.
In general, women are more likely to push to maintain the status quo and not rock the boat, so in a conservative religious society, that means maintaining the religious traditions and promoting the religion.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Saturday July 15 2017, @12:44AM
I must be going to the wrong church.
Well, at least that part is right.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday July 14 2017, @04:41PM (37 children)
An AC already mentioned it but it got buried in a different thread so I'll say it here.
There should be exactly the same penalties for male genital mutilation.
At a minimum, people should be 18 years old before surgery like this is done, so they are able to consent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @04:44PM (4 children)
That would be anti-semitic.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday July 14 2017, @04:48PM (3 children)
So it's bad to criticize the Semitic sky-fairy but criticizing the Islamic sky-fairy is your American Duty?
They're both stupid and deserve to be shunned by all rational civilized peoples.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:42PM
Not saying it is fair, that's just the way it is. See also the position of the AAP, which can't bring itself to condemn male genital mutilation.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @08:27PM (1 child)
Given that both imaginary sky-fairies are actually the *same* imaginary sky-fairy (Allah == Yahweh), criticizing one is criticizing both.
Aren't religious morons fun?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @11:06PM
I'll just stick with my White Aryan Plastic Jesus, settin' on the dashboard o' muy truck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:35PM (2 children)
Age of consent for religeous indoctrination too, yeah, and to be fair no education, or vaccines, until then. /sarc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:05PM
*gaffaw* they WANT this and you offer it like a punishment.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday July 14 2017, @07:48PM
If you want to avoid indoctrination you should avoid school, media, internet. If parents indoctrinate children today, it is a defensive measure. A wrong one, of course because doing good because you are following orders yields no merit.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 14 2017, @05:44PM
Yes, performing elective surgery on anyone under the age of consent should be illegal.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jcross on Friday July 14 2017, @06:13PM (20 children)
Came here to say the same thing. What's funny is most of the shocked responses in the thread above applies just as well to MGM, e.g.:
> And the most maddening part of it is that there's absolutely no medical benefit to doing it. So it's a self-perpetuating peer pressure thing for entirely cosmetic and cultural morality reasons. Apparently somebody at some point said, "Hey, let's take a knife to that. Just because."
> Or it's been done to [him] and [he's] been brought up to believe it's the right and proper thing to do.
I grew up around a lot of old-school feminists and we got Ms Magazine at the house. I always thought all the activism to stop FGM in Africa was kind of odd when MGM is so widespread at home. In fact I think I could make a pretty good case to ban it on feminist principles, to wit: circumcision makes men less sensitive, therefore they require rougher sex, and that's not good for women. Of course a ban on MGM will never happen in the USA because white people do it, but hopefully it at least falls out of fashion.
(Score: 2, Informative) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @06:39PM (19 children)
BZZT! Wrong! [nih.gov] Thanks for playing.
In the US, back in the 1960s and early 70s, male circumcision was (regardless of religion) encouraged and was the default at many hospitals.
These days (given that you folks apparently haven't had children), despite the acknowledged medical benefits, it's a check box on a form for new parents and is neither promoted nor discouraged.
Assuming you can find a woman to procreate with (doubtful, you whiny little bitches) and have a son, don't check the box. Now that was easy, wasn't it?
When I saw this article, I knew that you "MGM" morons would try to hijack this thread because you are misogynistic fucks who can only think of themselves and think women are second-class humans. As such, you have no problem equating the enormously more damaging cutting off the clitoris [wikipedia.org] and removing the foreskin of the penis [wikipedia.org].
Anyone who has actually interacted with female genitals can tell you that removal of the clitoris is orders of magnitude worse than removing the foreskin of the penis.
Whether male circumcision is appropriate for babies is another question, but putting these two on an equal footing is disingenuous at best.
Go ahead an mod me down if you want. But facts are stubborn things.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:24PM (5 children)
No medical benefits I've ever heard of, or encountered in my oh so natural state. Haven't had any women complain either. So, you're some sort of idiot defending a stupid tradition.
All that said, yes FGM is worse than MGM but that doesn't mean MGM should be treated as unimportant. Kinda like men who suffer domestic abuse, they are laughed at instead of given sympathy and support.
There is nothing wrong with putting this on equal footing, don't mutilate babies / children! Do we really need separate buckets of concern when it comes to this??
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @08:14PM (4 children)
I helpfully provided you with a link [nih.gov] specifically describing the medical benefits.
Did you look at it and ignore it because it doesn't fit with your view? Or did you not even bother, as you don't want your specially constructed view of reality to be disturbed?
I never said that circumcision should be treated as unimportant. I pointed out that cutting off the clitoris is *much* worse (especially for sexual response) than male circumcision (which has not been shown to affect sexual response *at all*).
Yes, I get it. But I disagree that these two procedures are comparable.
I pointed out that the question of performing these sorts of procedures on babies was a larger question. That's certainly problematic, but is tangential to the discussion, IMHO.
My ire was drawn because these types of articles always draw in those males who need to hijack the discussion to put the focus on them, rather than the horrific (cutting off the clitoris is often done in incredibly unsanitary conditions) ways that girls are tortured.
Given the enormous differences in medical outcomes, complications and reduced sexual response/function between cutting off the clitoris and removing the foreskin of the penis, there really is no valid comparison between the two.
I don't advocate either one. I just find the comparison both inappropriate and, in some cases, downright misogynistic.
Feel free to disagree with me. I have no designs on your (or anyone else's but my own) penis.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 14 2017, @09:38PM (2 children)
Those "benefits" are a nothingburger. Cuts HIV transmission in half? So not nearly as effective as abstinence, condoms, and Truvada, and obsolete if HIV/AIDS is ever cured. Same for the other STIs.
All treatable and can be reduced with proper hygiene.
Ahahahahaha! What a benefit!
Even if these benefits were compelling, and they're not according to the AAP, whose statement [aap.org] was written after this paper was published, the mutilation procedure is done without the patient's consent and remains a violation of human rights. If you want it cut, do it as an adult. You'll love it and get to make some nice memories.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @11:11PM (1 child)
This is why it must be stopped, right here, right now! There is nothing that is a "nothingburger"! Do NOT start using that term! It is a cultural disease, spreading from New York, and has infected Washington DC. Do not let it spread to SN!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @05:54AM
I'll nothingburger your nothingburger until you can only nothingburger, you nothingburger!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @12:36AM
So yeah, cut the head off a guy's penis and see if he has the same sensitivity problems as a woman who has had a 'total' FGM done.
Yeah they would have problems too, not including any potential problems with peeing and other issues pertaining to having the whole tip cut off.
The point is: both are terrible, and both should be abolished on the same legal grounds and for the same reasons. It is time to stop this masculism vs feminism crap and start saying what should be right for both until they are old enough to legally decide for themselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday July 14 2017, @07:24PM (6 children)
Where's the box I check to become retroactively un-mutilated? Not so easy, hmmm?
So that makes it OK? Perhaps if we just cut away a smaller part of the female region that would be OK too?
What part of "don't cut up someone else's body without their permission" do you have a problem with?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @08:20PM (5 children)
Take it up with your parents. But don't try to force your own bitterness on others. Heinlein had it right, IMHO:
Where exactly did I say that? Look long and hard. Nope. You can't find it, because I never said anything close to that.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:05PM (4 children)
Whether someone later turns out to be okay with their mutilation genitals or not is inconsequential; their human rights were still violated, since it was done without consent.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @09:23PM (3 children)
Absolutely. And so the whiny little bitch complaining about it should, as I pointed out, take it up with the people who did it. That would be his parents. Anything else is just gratuitous bullshit.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday July 14 2017, @09:58PM (1 child)
Nobody is impressed with your so-called benefits, allegations of misogyny, and excuses for routine human rights violations. I'm not sure if you're malfunctioning or just heated. Hopefully the latter.
Male genital mutilation has nothing to do with female genital mutilation? If only there was some sort of relationship between the clitoris and the penis...
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Friday July 14 2017, @11:15PM
I'm not going to argue the point with you Takyon.
Don't like circumcision? Don't do it.
Don't like cutting off the clitoris? Don't do it.
But the former is like clipping your cat's nails, the latter is like declawing (which, if you don't know, is cutting off their "fingers" at the first knuckle) the cat. The differences are striking and broad.
The two are not comparable. Those are facts. What you do with them is up to you.
If you disagree, fine. I have no interest in forcing anything on anyone.
That said, I have no interest in hearing about kittens with their nails clipped claiming it's the same as being declawed. It ain't.
If they don't like it, they should sue their parents.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @11:11PM
Well, maybe he should have a discussion with his parents, but that should not be all. Since there needs to be a ban on non-consensual genital mutilation, he should probably also contact legislators and try to inform other people about the issue.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)
They're trying to rationalize mutilating someone's genitals because they might behave unwisely (i.e. be careless when having sex, fail to practice proper hygiene, etc.) in the future, and that is totally unjust. The differences between genital mutilation and vaccinations are clear; one alters your body in a very visible way and one does not; one protects you against diseases that are nearly unavoidable and the other (if it protects you from diseases at all) merely decreases your chances of getting diseases that can be avoided by avoiding certain behaviors. The kinds of diseases that MGM may protect you from to some extent are not airborne or any other such thing. All the supposed benefits of MGM can be had in other ways that don't involve preemptively mutilating genitals, which is a violation of someone's fundamental right to control their own body. That the medical world would ever accept this is disgusting.
It's true that the quality of the evidence for vaccinations is much greater than for MGM, but I don't like making the conversation about that, because I would oppose MGM even if I knew absolutely that these benefits existed. That's what it means to support human rights.
There's nothing inherently misogynist about bringing up MGM here. I suspect part of the reason that people always bring it up is because they are frustrated that such a blatant violation of human rights not only still happens in the 21st century but is completely legal and largely accepted/ignored.
It also doesn't matter whether FGM is worse or not, since both should be banned entirely unless there is consent. It's a pointless argument unless someone is actually claiming that MGM is worse.
Maybe MGM should be allowed if there is an imminent medical necessity, but not 'Well, you might do unwise things in the future, so we'll mutilate your genitals now.' Maybe someone will practice safe sex and good hygiene. Maybe someone will be asexual. Maybe someone will be selective about their partners. But proponents of human rights violations don't care about your individual future behavior and would rather preemptively mutilate your genitals.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @10:32PM
Also, from the link:
It actually brings up religious freedom arguments about MGM, and this is a medical site! That is frankly unbelievable, because their arguments should be entirely based on the medical benefits of MGM. Although those arguments are ultimately unconvincing to me, at least they make some amount of sense. Arguing that you have the freedom to surgically alter other people's bodies because of your religion beggars belief. Following that logic, you could do anything (ritual sacrifice, cutting off other people's arms) in the name of your religion and any attempt to stop you would violate your rights. The reality is that one's religion doesn't give one the right to violate other people's rights. The people who use religious-based arguments for genital mutilation would probably engage in special pleading and act as if the logic magically ends with things like genital mutilation, but they are simply being inconsistent. No one should ever bring up religious-based arguments, personal preference arguments, or general parental choice arguments in an attempt to argue for genital mutilation, because they make absolutely no sense.
The most stunning thing to me is that it was actually brought up on a site like that at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:26PM
Wikipedia on FGM [wikipedia.org]:
(Score: 3, Informative) by jcross on Sunday July 16 2017, @02:27AM (2 children)
I completely agree it's not the same order of magnitude. What bothers me is that people went to the trouble of passing a law against a very specific custom, when they could have protected the rights of children in a much broader way. For instance what about intersex people whose genitals are surgically altered at birth without their consent? I'm sure this can and does drastically diminish their sexual function in some cases, aside from the problems of being assigned what will later feel like the wrong gender to them. Are they only protected if they have XX chromosomes? What if they're XXY? My guess is this law wouldn't be brought to bear in a case like that because it's not the specific custom it was meant to prevent, and babies are unable to speak up for themselves. I just feel laws protecting human rights should be as comprehensive as possible, and avoid separating people into classes if it can be avoided.
As for the medical argument, it wouldn't be hard to make a case that FGM reduces STD transmission as well. I'm sure the studies haven't been done and hopefully won't be done to show this, but I'd guess a woman without a clitoris is a lot less likely to have sex at all except out of "spousal obligation", and of course with a complete sewing up it's pretty much out of the question. I mean if we're justifying medical procedures by saying they protect people against future risky behavior, where's the limit? Sewing up the nostrils at birth reduces greatly reduces the incidence of cocaine addiction, and you can still breathe through your mouth so "function is not impaired". But as another poster has said, even if there were such a medical benefit, practices like FGM, circumcision, and nose-sewing would still be unjustified.
In my opinion this is a *human* rights issue, and shouldn't be applied to only one kind of human. I'm pretty sure that's not misogyny. It would be misogynistic to say boys get cut and it's no big deal, so it should be okay for girls to get cut too, but I haven't seen anyone saying that so far. Why do we have to keep pitching things as a battle of the sexes, such that speaking up for men somehow means hating women? Especially after feminists have spent decades fighting the accusation that speaking up for women means hating men.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Sunday July 16 2017, @04:55AM (1 child)
I don't really disagree with you.
The law was passed to target Africans as a virtue signal against muslims (especially since this was already a felony), given that most cultures that practice this particular form of torture against women and girls are mostly (althought not exclusively) islamic cultures.
The issues surrounding surgical sexual assignment, as well as circumcision for babies are rather fraught, and are deserving of discussion around appropriateness and consent. However, the former is pretty rare (~1 in 2000 births are even *considered* for such procedures) and the latter, while problematic, especially around questions of consent, have extremely low rates of complications of any kind [circinfo.net].
That said, I'm not advocating either, nor am I saying that these issues shouldn't be discussed.
I do find it interesting that it's often that those who decry the "nanny state" (e.g., attempting to criminalize parents who let their kids walk home alone), yet demand that the same state prevent parents from making health choices for their minor children.
What does disturb me (and moved me to post the comment to which you responded) is that comparing removing the foreskin of the penis with cutting off the clitoris isn't a valid comparison. It's not even close.
As I pointed out in another comment about circumcision vs. cutting off the clitoris [soylentnews.org]:
While there is certainly no reason to ignore the issues surrounding infant gender (re)assignment surgery and male circumcision, the torture of girls and women by cutting off their clitoris, sewing their vaginas closed and other atrocities are orders of magnitude more dangerous and should be treated as such.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by jcross on Sunday July 16 2017, @03:01PM
Thanks for the clarification.
> I do find it interesting that it's often that those who decry the "nanny state" (e.g., attempting to criminalize parents who let their kids walk home alone), yet demand that the same state prevent parents from making health choices for their minor children.
Actually this is no contradiction at all if what you believe in is freedom, and consider the rights of children on an equal footing with the rights of adults as much as possible. I think the most basic reason to have a government at all is to protect the rights of the weak from the strong, because if you don't want that then anarchy will work just fine in many respects. Unfortunately, although US law purports to protect the "natural rights of man", there is a cutoff at age 18 or so below which these rights don't apply. I'm not going to enumerate all the constraints on children's rights, and you may argue they're all necessary in any case, but just consider that a parent assaulting their child is perfectly legal as long as the marks don't last more than 24 hours. So if you believe that freedom is good for children, allowing parents the freedom to grant their children freedom is good (e.g. kids can walk home alone), and so is protecting the freedom of children from their parents in extreme cases (e.g. no elective surgery without consent).
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by driven on Friday July 14 2017, @07:39PM (6 children)
Nothing significant is lost with male circumcision (I'm assuming that is what you're talking about).
Female genital manipulation results in the patient/victim being unable to enjoy sex or orgasm.
Big difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:03PM
Over 2/3 of the penis nerve endings are in the part that is removed, including 100% of the male body's external estrogen receptors.
Sometimes the tightness of the scar causes scrotal skin to be pulled onto the shaft of the penis. This is gets discovered at puberty, when the person gets a hairy penis.
Sometimes the result is a bent penis, again due to tight scar tissue.
Sometimes the penis, or the tip of it, ends up getting removed. (infection, inept cutting, etc. -- the usual surgical risks)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:20PM (4 children)
Who are you to decide what is and is not significant? That is subjective Mutilating someone's genitals doesn't suddenly become okay merely because you feel that the procedure changes nothing of significance. I would feel the same way even if it was literally just a snip; we shouldn't be mutilating or cutting people's genitals at all without their consent, period. The supposed medical benefits don't matter because they can be had in other ways (good hygiene, safe sex practices, being selective about partners, or not having partners) and because violating people's rights is not okay merely because there are (or may be) a few medical benefits.
People tend to get caught up in arguments about how bad MGM is and how many nerve endings are destroyed and whatnot, which I believe is a mistake. We must oppose all of these unnecessary procedures because they violate someone's fundamental right to control their own bodies.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by driven on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:03AM (3 children)
Who are you to decide what is and is not significant?
Well being circumcised I'm qualified to say that, in at least my case, sex has never been an issue. I can't speak for everyone out there, but I think making male circumcision out as some kind of genocidal nightmare is blowing it out of proportion. On the global list of problems to tackle, I think it's a lot further down than female genital mutilation.
What about cutting the umbilical cord? Fuck, I have a right to remain attached to my mother until the cord falls off naturally. Bloody barbaric medical procedures.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by isostatic on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:48AM (1 child)
So because you've only got half a cock you think little boys should be equally disfigured?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @03:57AM
You need to learn how to read.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @02:43AM
I said it is subjective. To me, the problem isn't whether it actually makes sex less pleasurable, but that we are violating people's right to control their own bodies, even if they later say they are okay with their mutilated genitals.
Every violation of someone's human rights is a large issue. There are bigger issues, but that is inconsequential since we can try to solve multiple issues at once.
MGM is still something that happens at an alarming rate in first world countries, so it needs to be tackled. Both should be banned.
I fail to see your logic in this case. Does the foreskin fall off naturally and cause you to be attached to your mother? You could also use this line to mock anyone who is opposed to any non-consensual surgical alteration of people's bodies, not just for MGM. Oh, you're opposed to FGM? Well, what about the umbilical cord, then? Gotcha! Even lopping people's arms off would be no exception, because your argument did not take into account the severity of the procedure or the properties of the body part being altered/removed/cut.