Flap of skin

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Flap of skin is a derogatory, disparaging description of the foreskin. It's more than just an euphemism, but shows that those who use this phrase do not attach any importance to a part of the body and that this part of the body is viewed as unnecessary, superfluous or redundant.

This phrase is often heard by circumcision advocates who also use other derogatory terms like "just a snip" in order to play down the process of genital mutilation, devalue it and present it as harmless.

Healthy bodies of living beings do not have any superfluous skin flaps without function.

Review of the definition

Mirriam-Webster doesn't list "flap of skin" as a term at all. So one has to fall back to the definition of "flap" there.[1]

Based on the definitions there, the foreskin is not a flap for a couple of reasons:

  1. The requirement for the definition in #3 is that the object must either hang loose or project freely. No one who has had a foreskin for more than eight days or had sexual experience with one would say it "hangs freely or loosely". It fits like a glove. The skin fits the organ, meaning the opposite of loosely hanging. If it hangs at all, it does so fittingly, not loosely, that is the main and obvious reason why the statement is incorrect and pejorative, as it is meant to be. The term flap implies that it is unfitting and not meant to be their which is of course, the message that circumcision advocates are often trying to project.
  2. The only way they can define the foreskin as a "flap of skin" in example 3-C, is if they only recognize its existence to the extent of it being cut off, hanging there being excised, which is in fact, the only time they acknowledge its existence. To them it fits because to many Jews, its only function is to cut it off.
  3. Comparisons to an envelope or a book cover are inappropriate: a book cover is removable and an envelope flap cannot be secured without sealing it. It is like calling a glove a flap. Only if it is mutilated can the term apply, thus making the label an association to violence, as the label can only apply as something that the foreskin becomes during the act of violence that is male genital cutting.

References

  1. REFweb Definition of flap, Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 8 June 2022.