| M A L E
. . |
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| Yes | Is the practice rooted in ancient barbaric blood rituals? | Yes |
| Yes | Was it initially adopted to suppress
or control sexuality?
(Circumcision of U.S. males began when it was adopted from England in the late 1800s to "prevent" masturbation. Female circumcision is practised to "prevent" promiscuity.) |
Yes |
| Yes | Did (is) the practice become (becoming) "medicalized?" | Yes |
| Yes | Do communities use hygiene, medicine, religion, tradition, cancer prevention or STD transmission rates to "justify" it? | Yes |
| Yes | Is it usually done without anesthesia, and is it painful and traumatic to the child? | Yes |
| Yes | Does it carry long-term physical, sexual, emotional or psychological effects? | Yes |
| Yes | Does it diminish sexual sensitivity? | Yes |
| Yes | Does it abuse, mutilate or modify the child's body? | Yes |
| Yes | Does it leave surgical scars in most cases? | Yes |
| Yes | Is it forced upon the child without his/her consent? | Yes |
| Yes | Do parents who insist on circumcision being performed on their baby, believe that they do it "in the interests of the baby"? | Yes |
| Yes | Is it a violation of a person's fundamental human right to his/her own body? | Yes |
| Yes | Do the victims learn to accept it as "normal" or even defend the practice in later life? | Yes |
| Yes | Do the victims generally insist on their own offspring to undergo it? | Yes |
| Yes | Do the victims propagate it as something "normal" and "beneficial", of lesser consequence, and try to convince others to also do it? | Yes |
| Yes | Was it originally generally practised in countries with low levels of personal hygiene? | Yes |
| Yes | Is the practice of routine circumcision decreasing? | Yes |
| No | Do Americans widely condemn it? | Yes |
| No | Is it legally outlawed in most civilized countries of the world? | Yes |
Why are the answers "No" to the last two questions if it does not boil down to gender discrimination?
The comparison goes further. A whole industry of ingenious devices have been developed to perform the operation, but essentially both male and female circumcision uses the same pair of scissors. Continuation of the ritual is important to sustain a source of income for those performing both male and female circumicision. But there are some glaring differences: those performing female circumcision are often prosecuted, but those performing male circumcision are mostly revered.