Medical Genital mutilation

[Suzetig]

To bring up FGM to men who are struggling with the effects of their own mutilation is simply disrespectful. I'd thank you to keep your comments to yourself, or start your own thread

The OP started the thread and wrote a fairly substantial discourse about FGM - and the thread is entitled Genital Mutilation which can happen to both sexes. If you want to specifically discuss your trauma, as opposed to the wider issues around genital mutilation, perhaps it is you who needs a new thread?

I don’t see anyone dismissing anyone’s pain, I certainly am not. Piggy backing on a very different trauma to in some way validate your own experience is equally disrespectful. Removal of a male foreskin is in no way comparable to removing the clitoral hood, clitoris, inner and outer labia and/or sewing a woman’s vagina closed. They are very different acts with significantly different impacts physically and psychologically.

I’m not minimising your pain by saying that, I hear your experience has left you traumatised and angry - im not denying your right to feel the way you do. I’m denying they are comparable traumas in the same way as I would argue rape as an adult is different to CSA. Both damaging, but very different.

 

[somerandomguy]

Very well. I am triggered to f*cking hell. I will f*ck off from this thread. Well done minimizers of MGM. How sad. I guess i am glad for you that you can't relate.

 

[Suzetig]

I am triggered to f*cking hell.

Therein lies the issue, it’s a hugely triggering topic for some folk - if you’re able to come back when you’re less triggered you’ll maybe see that I’m not trying to minimise male experience, saying they are two vastly different acts doesn’t minimise one or the other.

 

[somerandomguy]

And yet. You have people mutilated RIGHT HERE, that you are talking to RIGHT NOW. You're telling us our pain doesn't matter, and doesn't compare to someone else's pain, someone who has had A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PROCEDURE.

What????? Explain how you get to compare just because they are both procedures on genitals. Explain how you get to tell me my pain doesn't matter. Tell me.

 

[Swift]

Are we talking about male circumcision or FGM?
I was under the impression we were talking about the former.
(Otherwise, @Anarchy, sorry. Your facts are demonstrably wrong.)
I think male circumcision is a very specific trauma.
I think it's related to the concept that men consent by default. That anything done to a (cis) man has his consent.
That it's not even considered that a man doesn't consent to anything regarding his genitals.
It's wrong and it's f*cked up and it's mutilating, and society seems to sit and twiddle it's thumbs because he's a man so he must have wanted it?
I hate it. These are literal babies we mutilate for no f*cking reason other than "orthodoxy"'
And that seems to me to sit in step with the fact that we assume "men" consent to sex by default.
Men don't even get time to discuss their traumas because of classic "whataboutism" - what about, say, FGM, or, women not consenting?
It's not actually like the people who derail the conversations care.
It's just that people are uncomfortable discussing specific masculine trauma.
Male circumcision is so f*cked up.
If it were anything else - I can't imagine people being like. "Hey, we're gonna chop off half your kid's finger because Reasons!" Super good idea.
We're literally gonna cut into this infant's flesh. Going to leave them without a part of their body. Because we think it's a good idea, based on no evidence.
And a finger is a much less emotionally linked part of the body.
I've written to all my local hospitals, my activist group actually got the policy changed at Big Regional Centre Hospital re: circumcision for non-medical reasons.
The one near me still leaves it up to "parent's discretion", but they'll probably fold soon after the Big Regional Centre did.
So. That's what I've done. That's where I stand. I'm not a man, but I don't have to be to do something about it.

 

[Suzetig]

You're telling us our pain doesn't matter, and doesn't compare to someone else's pain, someone who has had A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PROCEDURE

Are you talking to me? Please show me where I’ve said any of that?

I didn’t start the comparison - in fact I’m saying there’s no comparison to be made.

 

[Anarchy]

about the uselessness of circumcision. Don't leave out the part about the cousin of mine that needed one, because his foreskin had begun to seal itself shut.

Male circumcision can have medical benefits (I know 3 men who were circumcised for health reasons in adulthood),

Amputation hardly occurs at all in continental Europe
Apart from cancer (incredibly rare) or gangrene (also incredibly rare) there is no more medical reason to amputate a foreskin than there is to amputate say an eyelid or facial lips.

In every case, conservative techniques could have been used

The only reasons why they weren't, stem from shite training, lack of creativity and penny pinching meanness and laziness on the part of medical practitioners.

Reconstructive Plastic surgoons can create masses of skin, by tissue expansion in a few days. Even ligaments that have been over stretched by a parent following the disastrous advice of doctor Spock, and trying to forcibly retract a child's foreskin, can be slowly stretched to allow safe and comfortable retraction

The medical "benefits" are entirely bogus. None of the claims has an evidential basis.

The discussion in the late 19th and early twentieth century was of controlling sexuality and stamping out sin and the "disease" of masturbation.

The "medical" claims are simply rationalisations for mutilation

 

[somerandomguy]

Not you @Suzetig, but plenty others in this damn thread.

Edit: wait, yes you! You're minimizing just as much as everyone else by disparaging my pain and saying "you don't see how it compares to removing lady parts." Oh, just because I haven't had all of my genitals removed means I don't get to feel pain and traumatization? Why did you bring one up at all if you're not comparing it to the other?

 

[Suzetig]

Ok, thanks, I was starting to worry that I wasn’t writing what I thought I was.

I think the very superficial comparisons are there to be made, however the cultural and societal drivers behind FGM are vastly different- and bare no reflation to @Anarchy’s essay. Not understanding the differences does result in people lumping the two together and inevitably down plays the male experience, which is unfair.

I’m sorry this is an issue and a trigger for you.

 

[somerandomguy]

@Suzetig, see my edit. With that, I'm out, for real this time.

 

[Suzetig]

The only reasons why they weren't, stem from shite training, lack of creativity and penny pinching meanness and laziness on the part of medical practitioners.

Given two of the three men concerned were senior medics who have had a strong hand in their own care, I’d respectfully disagree.

 

[Suzetig]

Oh, just because I haven't had all of my genitals removed means I don't get to feel pain and traumatization?

Where have I said you don’t get to feel pain and traumatisation?