Genital mutilation

"Hands off my dick" (German campaign slogan)

Genital mutilation (euphemistically called circumcision) is known in our culture as the circumcision of boys among Muslims and Jews and as the circumcision of girls, preferably in parts of Africa.

“	There is no female circumcision without male circumcision. – Bülent Erdogan

The circumcision of the female genitals in particular attracts a great deal of attention from the "concern industry". What is new for many is the fact that circumcision of the male genitalia also leads to numerous death cases worldwide or causes lifelong suffering. While male circumcision is primarily a ritual tradition in the so-called "Third World", non-theraputic circumcision of boys immediately after birth has become a lucrative practice in the United States of America on which a large number of jobs and careers depend directly and indirectly. What connects the medicine man on the Solomon Islands with the hyper-modern doctor in the USA: Both of them commit genital mutilation on children without any medical indication. There is no medical necessity which, according to German law, makes a surgical intervention in the first place an exemption from punishment.

The kowtow of the Bundestag for genital mutilation of boys
Source: Jacques Tilly / giordano-bruno-stiftung.de

Circumcision argumentation, explained by ErzaehlmirNix

Short and sweet

• Wherever there is female genital mutilation, there is also the male form; the other way round does not apply.
• Reasons include: To be more attractive to women in order to be able to satisfy them better.
• Male genital mutilation IS comparable to female genital mutilation.
• Effects on psyche (trauma), sexuality and health (partial / complete loss of penis, death)
• Extreme forms are little known: skinning the penis, crushing a testicle
• Male circumcision as a weapon in the "war of the sperm"
• Small piece of skin? - If the foreskin is completely removed, the largest part (!) of the penis skin is removed.

Current situation

Boys Discriminatory Bill 2nd Quarter 2009

It deliberately prevents boys from being protected from genital mutilation and thus promotes violence against boys. Boys are thus granted fewer human rights than girls. Bodily harm against girls are thus given a criminal offense of their own, while bodily harm against boys, for which the same reasoning would apply, is ignored.

In Art. 24 Paragraph 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by Germany, clearly states:

"States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children. "

Types of genital mutilation

The first three types are detailed here: [[Genital mutilation{Table]].

• Circumcision: The foreskin is removed in a ring (partially or completely).
• Incision: The foreskin is incised one or more times.
• Subincision (Aborigines): The penis is cut so deep on the underside that the urethra is cut open lengthways (partially or completely). Widespread infection can develop, and it is not uncommon for them to end fatally.
• Sewing metal bells into the skin (India): This is said to enable men to better satisfy women.
• Sewing bamboo or metal balls (ampallangs) into the glans or penis shaft (Indonesia, Korea, Natives of the Philippines): This should stimulate the future partner's clitoris better.
• Skinning the penis (Dowayos in Cameroon).
• Crushing a testicle (some African and Micronesian peoples).

Numbers

• In Turkey around 1.5 million boys are involuntarily circumcised every year.

• In the USA (2016), approximately 51.7% of all male newborns are non-therapeutically circumcised shortly after birth (downward trend).

• J. Steven Svoboda, a Harvard-trained attorney for human rights, estimates that boys and men are six times as likely to be victims of genital mutilation as girls and women.

• Circumcision is the most commonly performed surgical procedure in the world, currently an estimated 25 percent of the world's male population is circumcised.

Common reasons for circumcision

Esthetic

Some might think that a circumcised penis is more attractive. However, this opinion is by no means shared by everyone. When the boy is grown up, he should be able to decide for himself whether any advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Parents are also not allowed to cut off their child's ears, even if they think that's nice.

Hygienic

Smegma is a white, waxy substance that is found under the foreskin can form. It consists of natural secretions and flaky skin cells. It used to be feared that smegma could be cancerous, but that has been refuted. Good general hygiene and common sense are keys to preventing infection and disease. A circumcised penis is slightly easier to keep clean. An intact penis can also be kept clean: using warm water. Again, it would not occur to anyone to cut off a child's ears just because they can get dirty.

Constriction of the foreskin

Circumcision is sometimes justified because foreskin problems can arise later. So you don't wait to see whether the operation is necessary at all, but cut preventively. Nobody comes up with the stupid idea of carrying out a preventive breast decrease in women to prevent a possible cancer Breast cancer^[WP] from occurring.

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In the vast majority of cases, phimosis or narrowing of the foreskin is named as the medical reason for the surgical removal of the penile foreskin. It should be noted, however, that this is a completely normal developmental condition, which, as long as it remains symptom-free, does not actually require treatment. Experience from the Scandinavian countries clearly shows that most children’s foreskin "problems" (constriction or sticking) resolve themselves by puberty[WP]. – Intaktiv e.V.

1. "Phimosis treatment with ointment is successful in up to 95% of cases."
2. "If an intervention can be avoided, if the intended success can also be achieved in other ways, with less intensive measures, then the more intensive intervention is not in the child's well-being."

Even if the phimosis can only be corrected surgically, removal of the foreskin is often not necessary. With modern procedures, the foreskin is preserved.

Cervical cancer / penile cancer

Penile cancer is an extremely rare form of cancer. It mostly occurs in older men, and most doctors do not recommend infant circumcision as a preventive measure. Penile cancer can occur in both circumcised and intact men: The maggot study (an ongoing study of penile cancer at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle) found that 37% of penile cancers occur in circumcised men.

There are "claims that the incidence of cervical carcinoma (cancer of the cervix or cervix) increased in women after sexual intercourse with foreskinned men through the transmission of smegma. This relationship has been rejected by researchers as scientifically implausible."

The theory that wives of men with intact foreskins are more prone to cervical cancer has been refuted. The theory that having a foreskin increases the risk of STDs has been refuted in a new study.

Religious / ritual

Circumcision is also widespread among boys and men, especially in Judaism, in Islamic countries (in childhood) and in Africa.

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In African countries, for example, circumcision is primarily regarded as initiation rite for adolescents during puberty. The ability to endure the pain that comes with it is considered a prerequisite for becoming man in many tribes. Often it is a prerequisite for having a wife at all, as women attach importance to marrying a man who has endured this ordeal.

Germany: The religious communities claim that there is an exception here, which is covered by the basic right to freedom of religion.

Prevention of masturbation

According to the puritanical view, the foreskin amputation serves to control sexuality by avoiding the sensation of sexual pleasure, which is often viewed as undesirable (especially masturbation in boys).

AIDS prevention

Studies refute circumcision as AIDS prevention. Male circumcision is irrelevant to the spread of AIDS if one counts out the number of infected prostitutes in the region. There is less AIDS in Muslim areas. However, this is not caused by the higher number of circumcised men, but by the lower number of prostitutes per inhabitant. When looking at sexual intercourse individually, circumcision can reduce the transmission rate by 50-60%, but the problem is that individuals in areas with a high AIDS rate have multiple sexual contacts with infected people. Circumcision would only delay the inevitable and be ineffective as AIDS prevention.

Among 500 men, 23.4% of the circumcised had already been affected by a sexually transmitted disease by the age of 32, and 23.5% of the intact.

It has the opposite effect when circumcised men feel safe from AIDS and do without condoms.

Functions of the foreskin

• Protective function: In small children, the glued foreskin protects the glans from the excretions in the diaper. Throughout life, the foreskin keeps the glans soft and moist and protects it from trauma, injuries, environmental influences, friction and dehydration.
• Sexual functions
  • The foreskin contains numerous delicate nerve endings. Together with the sensitive surface of the glans, the inner foreskin, which is retracted and turned outward during an erection, forms an extensive and highly sensitive erogenous zone, which is important for normal, intense feeling during sexual intercourse and masturbation.
  • The foreskin prevents unnecessary friction during sexual intercourse with a special sliding effect and increases the sensation of pleasure in men and women.
• Immune system: Specialized cells in the foreskin form substances that fight and kill pathogens. However, research into this function is still in its infancy.

Just a little bit of skin?

A property of the foreskin is that the skin is double-layered and can contract very strongly when the penis is in a flaccid state. In the relaxed state, the foreskin is cut away. Transferred to a grown man, much of the skin of the entire erect penis is removed! The penis is THE erogenous zone in a man and with circumcision a considerable area (comparable to the palm of the hand without fingers!) Is cut away. How to determine the area is explained here. This area of skin is covered with an unusually high density of nerve cells.

Aftereffects

Impairment of sexuality

With a circumcision, the foreskin, which normally encloses and protects the sensitive glans, the most important erogenous zone in men. Otherwise damp and extremely sensitive, it dries out and covers itself with a new, thin skin. She becomes less sensitive. In addition to the desensitization of the glans, the sensitive foreskin tissue itself is completely eliminated as a pleasure donor. If the foreskin is removed behind the glans, this corresponds to about a third of the entire skin on the penis.

The frenulum (foreskin ligament) is particularly densely covered with nerve endings and is usually damaged or completely removed with the usual forms of circumcision.

All in all, masturbation is experienced as less pleasurable.

The pain of the procedure was and is partly used as a punishment for "sinful" masturbation:

“

A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed. – John Harvey Kellogg, M.D.

In some cases, the combination of these effects leads to some blatant sexual restrictions.

For some circumcised men, masturbation is almost only possible with AIDS (such as lubricant, baby oil or saliva). During sexual intercourse, the penis lacks the natural gliding of its shaft skin, which can make penetration more difficult. Direct rubbing against the vaginal wall can cause vaginal dryness problems.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

In Boyle et al. (2002), 1577 Filipino boys aged 11 to 16 years before and after circumcision (performed either with or without local anesthetic) were observed. Before the procedure, it was ensured that only boys who did not have PTSD (according to DSM-IV) were included in the study. After the procedure, 50% of the boys circumcised with local anesthetic and 69% of the boys circumcised ritually (without local anesthetic) were diagnosed with PTSD according to DSM-IV criteria.

Damage to health

Subincision: The underside of the penis is split. Consequence: The semen flows down outside the female body, the chances of pregnancy decrease.

Paternalism

“

The main argument against the circumcision of minors should not be overlooked here: it is very clear that there is an important decision that must be made here, the consequences of which are, among other things. on sexuality, is hit by others than the person concerned. In all comparable cases (e.g. female circumcision) there is broad consensus that such practices should be prevented and, if necessary, punished. Only with regard to male circumcision is there usually an astonishing tolerance and acceptance. This ambivalent view of circumcision depending on gender can only be explained by the fact that knowledge about the functions of the foreskin is not very widespread, so that many (especially people who do not have such a body part, namely women) believe that circumcision does not mean loss.

Pain

The procedure is anything but painless for newborns. Boris Zernikow, head of the German Children's Pain Center in Datteln,, recently said in a SPIEGEL interview: "The pain-suppressing system does not work until a few months after the birth. Newborns feel more pain than adults."

South Africa

In 2009, until 15 August 2009, 53 boys died as a result of improper circumcision in South Africa, while thirteen boys suffered penile amputations. Dehydration, hypothermia, blood poisoning, heavy bleeding, and the fact that most boys don't seek help until it's too late are the most common causes. The circumcisions are performed without anesthetics using traditional circumcision tools.

Many more young people are admitted to hospitals with inflamed or mutilated genitals. Gangrene results in the loss of the glans in some.

Dimaza: "Apparently some were taken to hospital very late, so there is nothing the doctors can do for them. Your manhood just falls off."

In the 'winter season 2008' (the circumcisions take place twice a year) 24 boys died as a result. 535 boys were admitted to the hospitals - one boy with an almost severed, rotting penis.

In South Africa the "Children's Act" of 2005 provides:

12. Social, cultural and religious practices

(3) Genital mutilation or the circumcision of female children is prohibited.

(8) Circumcision of male children under the age of 16 is prohibited, except when-

(a) circumcision is performed for religious purposes in accordance with the practices of the religion concerned and in the manner prescribed; or

(b) circumcision is performed for medical reasons on the recommendation of a medical practitioner.

(c) in the manner prescribed.

(9) Circumcision of male children older than 16 may only be performed-

(a) if the child has given consent to the circumcision in the prescribed manner;

(b) after proper counselling of the child; and

(c) in the manner prescribed.

The "Children's Act" stipulates: no circumcision of boys [against their declared will, see above, ed.] under the age of 16 and only by trained and authorized personnel.

Extreme types

• With the Dowayos [in Cameroon], circumcision is a long drawn-out process. [...] The operation is designed to arouse fear and horror. The boys are stripped down to their skin at a ritual crossroads and taken to the grove by the river, where the circumcision takes place. On the way they are jumped at by the cutters, who growl like hunting leopards and threaten them with a knife. The operation is very painful as the penis is peeled off almost in full length. There may be several different circumcisers, each cutting off a piece of the foreskin. The boy is not allowed to scream, but the old men who told me about the festive event admitted that many did. That doesn't matter, as long as the women believed they had acted bravely. The results of such interventions can be studied at the bathing area. When the operated person is still very young, the limb sometimes takes on an almost spherical shape, which may be partly responsible for the very low birth rate among the Dowayos. Since all are circumcised with the same knife and the risk of infection is correspondingly high, the death rate is considerable. Boys who died as a result of the operation were said to have been eaten by leopards. Correspondence from French colonial officers shows how distressed they were at the large number of youths allegedly eaten by the leopard - even though leopards were practically extinct in the area.

• The removal of the entire skin covering the limb, sometimes up to the navel, is very rare, but has been documented in some villages in Yemen.^{(This information has no reference yet!)}

• In some African and Micronesian peoples, the older men crush a testicle on the younger one.

• The Hijra, a sect in India, appears to have radically amputated the penis and testicles. To what extent this is enforced cannot be read from the Wikipedia article: "Although it is very often assumed that Hijra mostly undergo or at least seek ritual castration and penectomy."

Others

An investigation produced the unsurprising result that in none of the cultures concerned do those affected voluntarily undergo this operation. Although always traumatizing for them, there are considerable differences in the implementation of the ritual and thus also in the psychological consequences. For example, it makes a significant difference whether a boy on the small Pacific island of Tikopia, after he has been mentally prepared for it, has his foreskin incised as part of a celebration while his relatives are there and comfort him, or whether a boy in the provinces has one Islamic State is sent to have his hair cut and is held there on a table while a barber cuts off his foreskin, no matter how much he protests.^{(This information has no reference yet!)}

Legal gray area

In the article "Consequences under criminal law even with religious grounds", the doctors Maximilian Stehr, Hans-Georg Dietz and the lawyer Holm Putzke advise against religious circumcision without medical necessity. Because the removal of the foreskin represents a "not only insignificant loss of substance, it is therefore a violation of physical integrity", in which the surgeon could be liable to prosecution for bodily harm.

In Cologne, circumcision was made a criminal offense, but it is not seen as clearly as it seems to some in Germany in other western countries. In the USA, for example, it is almost routine. The health organizations in different countries assess the procedure differently.

Modern medicine knows the advantages and risks that can arise from the circumcision of male genitals. Science does not yet give a unanimous answer to this question. However, Islam and Judaism do not care at all about the state of research. They are concerned with the observance of iron commandments and customs.

History of circumcision

If the scientific argument is omitted, it becomes clear that the question of the permissibility of circumcision is only about a decision about social values, legally speaking about "legal interests". In fact, it is also about whether Jews in Germany are allowed to live their Judaism as they understand it and not as others think. Elizabeth Wyner Mark, editor of a volume published in 2003 entitled "The Covenant of Circumcision" writes with a view to the fact that most secular, by no means religious Jews have their boys circumcised, that circumcision is an expression of the Jewish will to survive after the Shoah and thus for has become a moral obligation for many parents.

In any case, circumcision has been a sign of Jewish self-assertion for millennia. The categorically experienced instruction of Jews to circumcise their sons on the eighth day can be historically proven for two and a half thousand years. However, since ancient times there have been repeated attempts to prevent circumcision. The Hellenistic culture, with its worship of the beautiful body, led many Jewish men to lengthen their foreskin again in order not to be ridiculed when doing sports in the nude. The Hellenistic King Antiochus IV even tried - despite all alleged pagan tolerance - to forcibly prohibit the circumcision of Jewish boys in the second century BC. This measure contributed significantly to the development of Jewish martyrdom.

Female circumcision

Female circumcision is usually performed by women. This aspect, that women are not only victims but at the same time also perpetrators, is mostly ignored in the reporting. It is also the circumcisers themselves who defend themselves against a ban and are also prepared to use violence.

There is no support for female circumcision in Islamic theology, but it has been passively tolerated in countries where it has been practiced for millennia. Recently there has been an active outlawing of the genital cutting female genital cutting^[WP] by Islamic scholars.

In November 2006, TARGET organized and funded a conference at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. As a result of this conference, leading Islamic legal scholars condemned the practice of female genital mutilation.

In March 2009, the Islamic legal scholar and publicist Yusuf Abdallah al-Qaradawi, who is considered the most important contemporary authority in Sunni Islam, issued a fatwa condemning the genital mutilation of women as "the work of the devil" and declaring it haram under all circumstances (prohibited) because it is directed against the ethics of Islam.

International Day "Zero Tolerance Against Genital Mutilation"

This takes place every year on February 6th. The day is mainly used by feminist organizations to agitate against female genital mutilation.

In fiction literature

• In Elfriede Jelinek s autobiographically influenced novel "The Piano Player", a sadomasochistic, mentally disturbed woman mutilates her own genitals.
• The same thing happens in Lars von Trier's depressing film "Antichrist".

In the media

The German BILD newspaper has an independent PR manager say about genital mutilation in boys:

"The ritual is part of growing up like nail painting for girls."

In politics

Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP), out of concern for the girls, has examined how the circumcision of boys can be made legally secure. According to the Ministry, the judgment represents a break with the prevailing legal opinion. The formulation of a law is associated with considerable technical difficulties. In particular, it should be ruled out that girls can also be circumcised for religious or cultural reasons.

Volker Beck defends genital mutilation of men with Renate Künast (GREENS) openly ("This is not a criminal offense").

In the Bundestag, members of the government were prevented from voting by asking the circumcision critics to leave the plenary session.

Child protection activists and detectives protest against the resolution of the Bundestag to impunitify circumcision of boys. In a petition they demand the suspension of a legal regulation for two years and the establishment of a round table. The petition says:

"The German Bundestag should decide not to take legal steps to legitimize the circumcision of boys in Germany for two years."

The aim is to objectify the debate about circumcision and to induce politics to allow the interests of children to be weighed up at all. It cannot be the basis of legislative action to regard circumcision exclusively as a religious ritual and thus only as a question of religious life in Germany.

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The "mass protest" or the "storm of indignation" against the Cologne judgment is an invention of the circumcision advocates, a comparatively small minority, a handful of functionaries of the respective religious communities. The Central Council of Jews or the Muslims in Germany are not the Jews or the Muslims in Germany. – Eugen Maus (MANNdat-Forum)

In the medicine

In a press release from their professional association (BVKJ), paediatricians demand:

“	Only a child's right to physical integrity counts.

“	Like girls, boys have a right to physical integrity. And the lawmaker must protect this right and also guarantee boys the basic right to physical integrity.

Kinderdoc, who runs a widely read blog on pediatric topics, says:

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From a legal point of view, circumcision is, from a legal point of view, bodily harm, just like any other intervention into the integrity of the body, as long as the patient cannot consent to the intervention. If Muslim or Jewish parents are involved with the Request for transfer to a circumcision for religious reasons, I refuse. For me, the medical aspect is all that counts. And only then does the health system have to pay. Whether the parents then have the operation carried out anyway and whether they and the surgeon are then punishable - must be decided on a different, philosophical-religious and ethical level. See you again in Karlsruhe.

In business / science

Baby foreskin is a sought-after "raw material" for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. The tissue is extremely reproductive and almost certainly free from pathogens. Injectable collagen, obtained from the foreskins of newborn boys, can reduce the formation of wrinkles in aging skin, can be used for spraying on the lips and for the cosmetic treatment of scars.

An artificial skin product is sold worldwide under the name "Apligraf", which is also obtained from a baby's foreskin and supports the natural healing process of large wounds.

In order to get the coveted raw material by circumcision, American boys are handcuffed with spread arms and legs on a so-called "circumstraint" immediately after birth and often without anesthesia. The doctor then slides a medical instrument under her glued foreskin and peeled it off the glans. The babies cannot move during this ordeal. They scream in despair, some get convulsions. The foreskin is then cut lengthways and removed either with a scalpel or with a special clamp.

The price of vanity: terrible pain!

The pharmaceutical industry calls this "foreskin harvest" and claims in all seriousness that the raw material comes from "donated" foreskins of newborn boys.

Feminism and boys circumcision

Feminists declared female circumcision to be sexual violence in 1985. In the case of boys, the Bundestag has now defined as legally "permissible" what is considered to be a criminal offense for girls. The outcry from gender researchers and feminists has not materialized. Rather, Alice Schwarzer campaigns for male circumcision.

Further information

Literature

Ent-hüllt! Die Beschneidung von Jungen - nur ein kleiner Schnitt? (2015)

• Dr. Jörg Scheinfeld: Erläuterungen zum neuen § 1631d BGB - Beschneidung des männlichen Kindes, Online Archive of the HRR Criminal Law (§ 1631d BGB)
• Bergner C (2015): Ent-hüllt! - Die Beschneidung von Jungen - nur ein kleiner Schnitt?. tredition. ISBN 3-7323-4012-0.
• Lichtenheldt M (2012): un-heil. tredition. ISBN 3-8424-9540-4.
• MANNdat: Genitalverstümmelung bei Jungen und Männern . (23 August 2005). (Notes on a taboo subject)
• Beschneidung von Jungen. Fragen und Antworten zu einem politischen Tabuthema. . (May 2011). (Notes on a taboo subject)
• Genitale Verstümmelung bei Jungen und Männern. Gründe und Hintergründe. , Väteraufbruch für Kinder - Schwaben. (June 2005).
• More literature

See also

• Circumcision and violence
• Female circumciser
• Doctors opposing circumcision
• Sexuality
• Violence
• Genital mutilation/Table
• Self-determination
• Symposium Genital Autonomy
• International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation
• Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy