Female Genital Cutting and Surgery vs. Male Genital Cutting and Surgery: and one man's use of Logical Phallusy

Please watch this utterly condescending, patronising video made by some white guy named "freedom0f5peech". He's super annoying. But please try and get through his little lesson for all us numb-heads on the realities of all forms of genital cutting and surgery, to infants and children, primarily:



At issue, as is so often the case, is the way "educated" "literate" men misuse a highly cultural and political concept called "logic" to argue "rationally" how some phenomena are injurious to both females and males in some kind of "equal" or "mutually harmful" fashion, as if it were true because information without knowledge is used to present "logical arguments". This is a CLASSIC Western euro-white male supremacist example.

We want to focus our logical attention on this guy: freedom0f5peech who posted on this forum--http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=28460.10;wap2
about the logic problems in how so many people discuss the matter of what he terms FGM vs. MGM, terms which, for reasons stated below, I refuse to use on this blog, other than to note it here, above.

He's not satisfied to have his rational logical argumentation presented in text. He made all of us stupid idiots that video above, so we can "get it" because, you know, if only we'd just listen to these "logical" white men, the world's suffering would all become understandable as JUST AS DANGEROUS to white males as it is for males of color and females--of all colors. (Because these white guys just never want to own publicly that they have it EASY compared to other groups of people--groups of people that white men systematically and globally oppress and mass murder.) And, as you'll note here, the white guys always kind of want to subtly--or not--suggest that the WORST of what happens is: surprise! really to THEM!

After watching the video, please see my reply to him below, published here only, thus far.

Hello Mr. Logician, aka freedom0f5peech,

What you fail to take into account in your conveniently manipulative video are a few things that humane beings who care about human cruelty might argue are important and relevant to the discussion. Things such as:

1. Just so you know, many women of color do not support the term "female genital mutilation" as they prefer not to consider their genitals "mutilated" for the rest of their lives--and out of compassion for their feelings, I don't use that term. And the term "male genital mutilation" is overtly dishonest, as the genitals aren't "mutilated" at all. The word isn't helpful in any case.

2. Compare to the number of males who experience the worst form of male genital surgery or cutting to the number of females. Personally, I've never even heard of this "top/worst" category of "MGM" you have listed wherein all the skin is removed, including the scrotum. So you're saying somewhere in the world male babies have the whole of their genitals removed? Their penises cut off at the base and their testicles cut off and their scrotal skin removed? Where does that occur and to how many male babies worldwide annually? I'd argue that since you place that form of "MGM"--which you argue shouldn't be understood as happening to males at all, isn't socially real as a human rights problem but I welcome you educating me on this as an endemic cross-cultural problem impacting millions of male babies that, thus far, seems to be going under everyone's social justice radar. (I know of NO males to whom this has happened. Not one.)

3. You very conveniently neglect to frame the discussion in the social context in which these phenomena happen. Do they happen in societies in which male are dominant over women and female sexuality and in which females are not only genitally cut but are controlled in other ways, sexually and physically, oppressively, as a group, by men? Are these cuttings and surgeries occurring in societies which also promote marital rape of girls and women and other physical and psychic traumatic violations of female bodies as natural, God-ordained and ordered, or evolutionarily inevitable?

Or, do they happen in societies in which females are dominant over men and male sexuality and in which males are not only genitally cut but are controlled in other ways sexually and physically, oppressively, as a group, by women? Are these cuttings and surgeries occurring in societies which also promote marital rape of boys and men and other physical and psychic traumatic violations of male bodies as natural, God-ordained and ordered, or evolutionarily inevitable?

Such as through dominate religious and secular institutions promoting woman-hating or man-hating as normal and natural? Do they happen in patriarchal societies or matriarchal ones? Whose interests are served by the procedures? What is the presumed gender of the god who is prayed to? Which gendered beings write the laws, predominantly? What gendered beings, primarily, enforce the laws? Which gendered beings, usually and most forcefully, punish those who break the laws?

This is relevant because no girl, woman, intersex person, or intergender person is served by having their genitals cut or destroyed when a child when there's absolutely no health-related reason to do so. But boys who are circumcised either due to religious custom (as in Judaism) or secular custom (as in the U.S.) DON'T have their penises removed or their scrotums either. And males and boys still end up with fully sexually functional genitals with plenty of sensation sufficient to enjoy happy sexual lives, including having orgasms easily. The most common forms of female genital cutting and surgery, globally, often leave females without most of the nerve endings necessary to experience sexual arousal. Why don't you organise your helpful chart according to which procedures prevent full sexual functioning as adults? Why not make that list in order of trauma to the person, over a lifetime? You show no stats on occurrence of each type. Why?

And, in case you've forgotten: What is this phenomenon you conveniently invent to make it seem like overall, some of what happens to males is worse than what happens to females, while some of what happens to females is worse, as if, overall, it's all kind of awful, but really--pssst: the worst thing that happens is to MALES?

And stop arguing it both ways: you can't keep identifying things in terms of gender and then ask us to ignore gender. And, you're going to have to back up your truth claims, such as this notion that there even is such a thing as all male genitalia, including scrotums, being cut off of male babies. Again, where does that happen and to how many males globally?

Your videos arguments may be "logical" but that doesn't make them knowledgeable or helpful, necessarily. "Logic" alone means nothing, sir. The question is this: in what social reality does the logic exist? Math problems can be logical. So what? What does that have to do with social justice? With ending atrocities? You won't even use math in ways that it could illuminate the practices of atrocity, such as by noting THE NUMBER OF FEMALES negatively impacted by the worst forms of female genital cutting and surgery compared THE NUMBER OF MALES who experience and survive the worst forms done to males. Produce those statistics if you want your video to be taken at all seriously.

Let me draw you a parallel to your "logical" but inaccurate video.

Let's say you were making the "logical" case that all heterosexual spousal murder is wrong. Using your socially well-restricted logic methodology, you, sir, might produce a video showing all the ways humans who are murdered by "the other" sex are accomplished, among heterosexuals who are lawfully wed. And you'd note: some women kill men in their sleep, which gives them no opportunity to fight back. And men beat up women, but those women at least have the chance to fight back, so let's put women killing men in their sleep as "worse" than men beating and killing female spouses.

And you'd display all the ways heterosexual spousal murder occurs. But what you'd fail to note is WHY those women kill those men and that the greatest reason for that happening is that the husbands are terrorists, threatening those women's lives daily, beating and torturing them, or "just" psychologically terrifying them and dominated them, controlling and manipulating them in oppressive and degrading ways designed to crush their wills for freedom. Because that little detail might muddy your "logic system". And men kill women because the women didn't have dinner on the table, didn't get the laundry done, and told a man he was wrong for the way he treats their children. Or she said not to sex. Or she complained that he's spending too much time away from home. So he pounds the shit out of her, and sometimes he breaks her bones, and sometimes he kills her. But, more often, if she leaves him because he beats her, he is then far more likely to kill her. The statistics are that death from battery--from men beating women routinely and regularly in escalating patterns of increasing danger, are more likely to be murdered if they leave than if they stay with the controlling, sadistic bully. So, some women know this and they stay. And for you, them staying wouldn't factor into your argument because she wasn't killed yet.

So you see, your "logic" doesn't equal "knowledge" and it certainly doesn't demonstrate the exercise of compassion or wisdom in the service of gender justice or human rights.

Julian Real