22 responses to “Genital Mutilation and World Religions – Tony Kooi Morphew”
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I feel like I learned so much from this presentation. I honestly had very minimal knowledge of genital mutilation and this presentation changed a lot of the previous perspectives and notions I had about the subject. I appreciated how you covered various number of religions, not just the most mainstream ones. I feel like I learned a lot about female genital mutilation and some of the downsides of circumcision that I didn’t previously know about or even think about. Your presentation was full of many different texts and maps which also enhanced the nuanced takes on this subject in different cultures. Overall I feel like I walked out with a much deeper understanding of the real harm of genital mutilation to men, women, or any person who undergoes it. It was interesting to see how religion interacts with whether a group of people finds it absolutely necessary or abhorrent to partake in this practice.
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Thank you, I appreciate it! I didn’t focus very much on the danger of circumcision since I was writing more about the religious views on cutting children’s genitals. I didn’t mention any babies that died because of it, but if you are interested in learning more, there are hundreds every year, including some in the United States: this study estimates 117 circumcision deaths of infants in the United States each year due to circumcision, a rate of 00.009%, but I think that estimate may be a bit high, since it’s about 4.5 times higher than this study’s estimate of about 200 circumcision deaths in the United States between 2001-2010, a rate of 00.002034%. It’s hard to determine the exact number, since causes of death are sometimes uncertain, though unexplained sudden infant deaths have been shown to be strongly positively correlated with foreskin amputation. If you’d like to read specific stories of babies who have been killed by circumcision, it is not hard to find news reports of them. Of course, that is only male circumcision in the United States, where it is mostly done in hospitals and has a lower death rate, and hundreds of children in other parts of the world, mostly in Muslim countries and/or some African countries, die from male or female circumcision each year as well. Of course, death is not the only complication, many people have even worse disfigurement and damage than just the typical circumcision scar and keratinization, as we mentioned one day in class when we discussed David Reimer, who lost his whole penis as a baby from circumcision and eventually killed himself.
I’m curious about the “previous perspectives and notions [you] had about the subject”. Were they misconceptions about the prevalence of it? Many Americans think it is normal in most of the world, when in fact the opposite is true, as you can see in the paper. Were they notions about the religious reasoning behind genital mutilation? As I wrote, some American Evangelicals’ religious practice includes circumcision. Was it the common cultural bias many Americans have where female circumcision is treated differently than male circumcision, since the former is seen as “foreign” and “barbaric” while the latter is seen as “normal” (or not even considered), though the two are similar cultural/religious practices? I wrote about the cultural double standard in the paper too.
Thank you again for your comment, it’s very validating of the hard work I put into this paper!
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Anthony, this was a super in-depth and thorough presentation and paper! I think your topic is super interesting and I learned a lot from your project. I had no idea that in the rest of the world mostly Jewish and Muslim men are circumcised but that in the US it’s mostly white and black men. I thought it was really interesting that you brought up this might be the case because of the way healthcare works in the US. I also had no idea that circumcision makes men feel less pleasure and that this is what might’ve led to its rise in Christian traditions. In Mexico where I am from circumcision isn’t a huge things so it was very nice to learn what worldly and American perspectives of the practice are. Overall, I learned a lot about genital mutilation from your project and I thought it was very well done!
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Thank you! As you wrote, male circumcision is rare in Mexico, and as you can see from my paper’s map in which no Latin American country has fewer than five in six men having intact, normal penises, it is uncommon in the rest of Latin America too (e.g. Argentina 2.9%, Bolivia 0.11%, Brazil 1.3%, Chile 0.21%, Colombia 4.2%, Costa Rica 0.15%, Cuba 0.11%, Ecuador 0.11%, El Salvador 0.11%, Guatemala 0.11%, Nicaragua 0.1%, Panamá 0.95%, Perú 3.7%, Puerto Rico 0.14%, Uruguay 0.62% Venezuela 0.33% and 0.1% in Belize, which isn’t really a Latin American country), and is usually performed only to treat very uncommon congenital problems, mostly frenulum breve and/or pathological phimosis.
However, some cultures in Mesoamerica and Northern South America practiced male and/or female genital mutilation before Spanish colonization, and a few isolated indigenous groups continue to do so today in Perú and Colombia, explaining those countries’ higher rates relative to the rest of Latin America. In modern-day Venezuela, people around the Orinoco river previously practiced male and female circumcision. (Gumilla, J. El Orinoco Ilustrado. Bogotá: Editorial Presidencia de la República, 1956: 86-87.) A couple of centuries after Spanish colonization, ritual male and female genital mutilation are mentioned in the Aztec Codex Magliabechiano. (Andrade Valderrama, E. La Cirugía En La América Precolombina. Rev Colomb Cir 2021, 2, 117-121.) There is a carving of a penis that appears to lack a foreskin made circa eighteen hundred years ago from the Tumaco culture in modern-day Ecuador, but it may depict aposthia. The Panche people of modern-day Southern Colombia practiced type 1b female genital mutilation, which is the removal of more than just the prepuce covering the clitoris. “entre los Panche (Tolima y Cundinamarca), se practicó la clitorectomía, a los 8 o 10 días del nacimiento.” (Aguado, P. Operaciones Cirugía Tomo 1: 456.) In Mesoamerica, priests used to cut some newborns’ ears and penises in a way “manera de circuncisión” that resembled what the Spanish knew of circumcision from Muslim neighbors. (Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y Islas de Tierra Firme, 1581.)
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This is such an in-depth look at genital mutilation, and I’m sure it took a lot of time and effort, which I really appreciate. As someone who grew up Jewish, I have a pretty narrow-minded and limited understanding of the topic, so it was really eye-opening to learn about different variations of the practice and get a fuller perspective. I think it’s especially interesting how female and male genital mutilation are perceived so differently, and your presentation made me think a lot about why that might be. FGM receives a lot of criticism around the world, but male genital mutilation seems much more normalized, at least in the United States. This is really impressive project!
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Thank you so much! Religion and culture is really a lens through which we see the world and make morality judgements. It’s hard, but I think everyone should think about cultural relativism and learned bias when they make evaluate other religions’ or cultures’ traditions and especially when we make irreversible decisions violating another person’s bodily autonomy without their consent.
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I honestly didn’t really know anything about genital mutilation, so hearing your presentation in class was super informative. Coming from a Christian family, every male in family is circumcised and I had always almost just assumed that it would continue to forever be this way when either me, my sisters, or cousins have children. Now, as my perspective has been broadened, I no longer just assume so. Not that I would have children anytime soon, but I guess if this conversation ever does arise within my family I have this resource to look back to for background information which is really cool.
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The United Nations say that fewer than ten percent of non-Muslim men are circumcised. And as you can see in my paper, the vast majority of Christians aren’t circumcised. There are exceptions though, namely Africa, the USA, and countries where the USA has had a lot of influence, like South Korea and the Philippines. Unlike in Japan, North Korea, China, and Taiwan, circumcision is somewhat common in South Korea, due to decades of pervasive influence from the United States of America. As I wrote in my paper on page six, “In South Korea, … in 2012, 14–16 males had a circumcision rate of 56.4%”. Male circumcision was introduced to South Korea by the US military during the Koran War, and is a foreign cultural practice that has become ingrained in South Korea solely due to American influence.
Before the Korean war, circumcision was nearly unknown and incredibly rare, as it is in most of the world. Kim and Pang write: “The circumcision rate in 1945 was < 0.1%."
There are major differences in the way that circumcision is practiced in South Korea and the US, the most important one of them being consent, since most people in South Korea are old enough to give consent to the procedure with understanding of the risks and pain when they undergo it, unlike in the USA, where babies are forced to endure the pain and complications without their consent. Kim and Pang write: “Although circumcision in South Korea has been strongly influenced by American culture, it has never been predominantly neonatal. The age at circumcision has continued to decrease and boys are now circumcised at approximately 12 years old.” However, boys of this age group in South Korea obviously often face parental pressure to conform and have part of their penis removed. Lee, Kim, Ku, and Park write: “Circumcision was carried out mostly during their elementary and middle school years. Of men circumcised, the decision whether to circumcise was most often made by their parents.” There are similarities too, since the same cultural tradition and myths (circumstitions) about hygiene were brought to South Korea by the US military and persist in South Korea. Lee, Kim, Ku, and Park write: “Of the subjects, 75.0% believed that circumcision is necessary…Among those who believed circumcision to be necessary, the most common reason was to improve penile hygiene (89.1%)”Many people in the USA believe these circumstitions too, though medical organizations all over the world have consistently stated that they are simply not true. For example, the Royal Dutch Medical Association states: “There is no convincing evidence that circumcision is useful or necessary in terms of prevention or hygiene. Partly in the light of the complications which can arise during or after circumcision, circumcision is not justifiable…”
Like everyone, when you have a child, you ought to respect the child’s bodily autonomy and should leave it up to him or her whether s/he wants to keep his/her genitals normal and intact or undergo a painful procedure with risks of serious complications. I am happy to hear that you thought it was informative, I worked really hard on it.
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Your presentation was so informative. I’m taking a mutilated bodies class about genital mutilation right now but for some reason we have barely acknowledged the religious reasons behind it which I think is so significant so I’m really glad you did this project so I could learn more about that side of it as well. I could tell your paper was so well researched and that this was clearly a topic you were very interested in which I think is so important. Good job!
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You told me about that class, and it really surprised me. I don’t understand why the religious reasons aren’t mentioned that often, since religion is by far the most common justification for for male and female genital mutilation (most men and most women who have been subjected to genital mutilation are Muslim). Thank you for your praise, as you could tell, I do think consent and its intersection with bodily autonomy are very important as universal human rights.
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This was such an informative project! I honestly did not know very much about the topic so it was really interesting to learn so much about it. I thought it was really interesting that you pointed out how hypocritical many countries are when it comes to genital mutilation, saying it is okay for some but not for others. It was really interesting to see the worldview of this project and to see the statistics of where and how much it occurs in other countries. Overall I thought this was a very well-researched and super interesting/informative project!
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Thank you, I am happy you learned more about it. Genital mutilation is a really controversial practice, to say the least, but so many people support it strongly, and I think it’s important for everyone to examine their own cultural bias when they condemn it or defend it. The cultural bias on this issues reminds me of how many Americans condemn the common cultural practices of eating horses or dogs as wrong, even though most Americans eat cows and pigs, but people in some other parts of the world don’t eat pigs or cows because of their religions and/or cultures.
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Tony, thank you so much for all the work you did for this project. It was an extensive consideration on how different religions and cultures treat the topic of genital mutilation, and thank you for taking the extra step in, I would assume, in covering more than just the major World Religions. I only knew about this matter in some African countries and parts of Europe but only through a cultural lens. I had never considered the religious aspect of genital mutilation. I appreciate how you were able to provide an unbiased overview on the topic and how you mention the importance of cultural relativism in another comment. Although it does not justify some of the harms this causes, it is important at least on a basic level when discussing others’ practices. Again, thank you for this project, you should consider trying to get it published in other academic spaces as well:)
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Thank you for your praise! I agree, cultural relativism is very important when talking about genital mutilation, and so many other topics too. When I lived in Austria, that was when I first talked to people about genital mutilation, learned about it, and examined my own cultural bias. I’m curious, what parts of Europe did you know about? Circumcision is only common in Europe among Muslims and Jews. I know circumcision is common among the Muslims in Bulgaria, who mostly live in the south, and all the sources I saw said it is pretty much exclusively the Pomaks and and Bulgarians Turks who circumcise their children.
On the topic of Europe, in 2013, the Council of Europe passed (overwhelmingly, by a six-to-one margin, with more than three-fourths of the votes against it coming from Bosnia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Russia) Resolution 2023 endorsing a child’s right to physical integrity and Resolution 1952, strongly against mutilating children’s genitals, which states in the second paragraph: “The Parliamentary Assembly is particularly worried about a category of violation of the physical integrity of children, which supporters of the procedures tend to present as beneficial to the children themselves despite clear evidence to the contrary. This includes, amongst others, female genital mutilation, the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, early childhood medical interventions in the case of intersexual children and the submission to or coercion of children into piercings, tattoos or plastic surgery.”
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This project was incredibly informative. I cannot imagine how much time and effort went into this, as it is so in depth and covers so many religions. I thought the statistics you mentioned were very interesting, especially regarding male circumcision in the United States. I had heard previously, though quite recently, about how circumcision effects sexual pleasure, but I never quite thought to connect the dots about why that may have been connected to the religious motivations surrounding the practice. I also hadn’t known that there are multiple variations of genital mutilation, particularly for women.
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This was a very impressive paper – you clearly did your research! I haven’t really learned much about genital mutilation before, but I’ve noticed more debate over it on social media recently. I’ve also noticed that many people don’t actively educate themselves on the negatives of genital mutilation and many women in heterosexual relationships simply allow their husbands to make the decision on whether or not to circumcise their sons. It’s also interesting how when you frame it as “genital mutilation” (which it is) rather than calling it “circumcision” you tend to get a more negative feeling from it, which shows how important language can be. I appreciated how you covered so many different religious & cultural views and practices – it was interesting to see the different rates among different groups and the main reasonings behind their practices.
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Thank you! I haven’t really been seeing any debate of it on social media, but that is good to hear. I hope people can question what they’ve been taught was normal their whole lives and stop perpetuating the pain they went through on their own children. I have noticed a lot of people are really surprised by its prevalence; when I was in Austria it blew people’s minds when I told them that ~60% of newborns are still forced to endure male circumcision in the United States, and I have talked to Americans who thought the vast majority of men in Latin America and Europe are circumcised, when in fact less than 10% are. I would like to speak with people from places/cultures/religions that traditionally circumcise girls too, but I have only met two in my life to whom I’ve talked about it.
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Your project was so informative! I had never really learned a lot about genital mutilation other than brief insight into the controversy surrounding it. Your research placed the topic in context for me to truly understand how cultural and religious differences determine whether the practice is condemned or supported across the world as well as the reasoning behind these differences. I think many people only understand things from a strictly American perspective without ever learning or giving acknowledgment to the rest of the world. Your project is an incredible example of the need for people to understand things outside of their own practices.
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Anthony, this is really impressive! Although I wasn’t able to view your presentation, I can’t imagine how informative it was. Your research is above and beyond — extremely detailed. I loved how you broke it down by genital mutilation in the Abrahamic religions. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences between them and the opposition in each respective religion. I learned many new facts by reading your paper. Really great work!
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Tony, your paper was super impressive and informative, and it is clear that this is a topic you are passionate and knowledgeable about. Given I do not have a penis, I have not thought much about circumcision, so I learned a lot from your paper and presentation. One detail I appreciated was your use of textual passages from across the religions you surveyed and how you included the original language so that if someone comes from that tradition or can read that language, they can interpret the text in its original context and wording. The direct links to Sefaria were also a nice touch, as Sefaria is super easy to access and provides rabbinical commentary. The section about the bris was interesting as well – I’ve been raised with the bris being part of my culture, but I didn’t think as much about some of its problematic elements. I’m curious as to whether you think the bris should be ended or if the brit shalom is a valid, harm-reducing alternative.
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Thank you for taking the time to research this topic extensively; this was an incredible amount of information. It was interesting to see how many religious texts, across religions, mention circumcision and provide strict religious basis for the circumcision process. I also loved how you highlighted similarities and differences between different religions’ circumcision practices. I was wondering, if you don’t mind sharing, what drew you to this topic in the first place? Is there anything you have observed from your own religious background that piqued your interest in this topic?
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