“Personal Control” Is Gender-Neutral

In this essay on the rights of females in Egypt to be free from genital mutilation, Maureen Gill makes several common mistakes in analyzing the subject, which allows her to extend that mistake to missing the comparison male genital cutting. She states:

This issue is at the very core of what it means to have personal control over one’s own bodily integrity and human sexuality.

The issue is female genital mutilation.

That is exactly the core of the issue. I don’t know why the obvious gender-blind leap is difficult.

After a brief introduction about FGM, she continues:

FGM comes in three basic forms, from the most extreme to the still extreme. …

WHO recognizes four types, ranging from pricking to the most extreme forms Gill describes. I agree that they’re all harmful and should be illegal and punished where there isn’t consent by the individual affected. But facts don’t change just because we have a particular angle we want to sell. While uncommon, medical organizations recognize pricking as a distinct, practiced type of female genital cutting. It is less severe than male circumcision. It is still illegal in Western nations. (And chaos predictably and correctly erupts when it’s seemingly endorsed by Western medical authorities.)

Continuing:

… It has been referred to as female circumcision but that is a gross misnomer …

I agree on this point, and not just based on the semantics of the word circumcision. But, then, I refer to male circumcision by its accurate description, male genital mutilation. Names should include ethics, where appropriate.

… and imparts on this practice a suggestion that it is the equal of male circumcision.

It is not.

The two are the same, ethically. Non-therapeutic genital cutting on a non-consenting individual, female or male, is unethical and immoral.

Of course, I acknowledge quite readily that the harm from female genital cutting as it’s typically practiced is more severe than the harm from male genital cutting as it’s typically practiced. But that doesn’t mean that male genital cutting gets an ethical pass because there’s something worse in the world. Every argument Gill makes in favor of protecting a female’s rights applies to males. To repeat her words:

This issue is at the very core of what it means to have personal control over one’s own bodily integrity and human sexuality.

Why do boys not deserve personal control over their bodily integrity and sexuality? Gill makes no serious attempt. (More on this in a moment.)

If male circumcision were its equal then male circumcision would be (in its most benign form) the reduction or modification of the male penis in order to reduce or eliminate full sexual pleasure. …

If intent matters instead of the actual harm caused by the surgical intervention, then parents merely need to claim good intent for cutting their daughter’s genitals to satisfy the low standard Gill established. Within the WHO link above on FGM, there is a clear statement that some excuses offered by parents for female genital mutilation mirror some of the excuses offered – and accepted – for male genital mutilation. She wouldn’t accept such a parental justification for females, so why does it matter that parents don’t intend to harm their sons? They harm them. That’s the unavoidable outcome.

Nor is FGM always performed to inhibit sexual pleasure, although that’s the likely result. Some women indicate that they still feel sexual pleasure after being cut. Does that matter? I contend no, and I’m sure Gill does, as well. Thus, it’s unpersuasive to base her argument on the generalizations she uses, or to miss the similarities she rejects.

A few individuals challenged her in the comments to her essay. She replied:

… No baby male child was ever circumcised without a parental consent form and I never met a man who refused the procedure for his child although I know there are some who would. …

To repeat, where is personal control over one’s own bodily integrity and human sexuality when parental consent is all that’s necessary to force an unnecessary, harmful, permanent action on a male child’s genitals? For me, I do not want to be circumcised. I want personal control over my own bodily integrity and sexuality, which I can never have. It’s not a violation of my personal control over my own bodily integrity and sexuality because I have a penis rather than a vagina? That’s flawed, sexist thinking.