Reading Notes: Fox and Thompson, "Sexing the Cherry"

[rax]

They will be discussing intersex surgeries performed on infants as well as infant circumcision. They feel the justifications for both are similar, and that both should be challenged. "Genital cutting practices ... [play] an important symbolic role in the somatechnical formation and fixing of 'proper' male and female bodies." (108)

They recognize that these are complicated questions and that there are "communities where cutting is an integral expression of cultural belonging." (109)

P110 has a list of reasons male circumcision is different from FGM or intersex surgery, and the authors want to destabilize some of those. In particular they feel it is a somatechnology that enforces male gender norms. They also challenge the idea that circumcision and FGM are inherently different, pointing out that declaring that male circumcision is fundamentally less damaging makes assumptions about what sorts of sex acts a man should want to engage in. 

In 1870 a doctor named Sayre started touting circumcision as the best thing since sliced bread. It was particularly claimed to cure masturbation --- for example, Kellogg (you may have eaten his company's cereal) recommended that boys be circumcized without anesthesia as a way to prevent them from masturbating. (115)

"the foreskin is feminized; characterized as a dangerous and permeable interior space." (117)

They talk about the issue of anti-Semitism and they provide an argument (119) but I don't find it terribly cogent. Not even bad, just, it doesn't seem like it's really a direct engagement.

They say that while the discourse has changed, circumcision is now a choice rather than a given because it's potentially risky and not because it's potentially harmful, and they don't think there's compelling arguments that parents should be able to consent to this procedure on their childrens' behalf, much like intersex "corrective" surgery. 

I'm going to leave my opinion out of this for now.

Comments

[somnialcat.livejournal.com]

I'd be curious to know what behavior you did observe in the infants. I've never seen a circumcision performed live myself, but I've read that some infants exhibit an increased unresponsiveness -- a catatonic torpor induced by shock (as indicated by elevated cortisol levels and decreased body temperature).

I'll refrain from providing references since you said you aren't interested, but they are available. My point is only to question what "not acting traumatized" means.

[sethg]

As I said, the baby tends to stop crying after his diaper is back on. After that, he is given a gauze pad soaked in wine, and he sucks on it during the giving-of-the-name ceremony. Then he is given back to his mother, who takes him to a quiet room and feeds him.

I can’t say I have the clinical training to distinguish between catatonic torpor and just being calm, but I have dealt with babies in a lot of moods (in particular, the mood of “can’t fall asleep”), and I really have not noticed the circumcision day as a day where their suffering is very high above the baseline.

I should also note that our local mohel is very, very skilled, which means that he can go through the whole clamp-cut-bandage procedure quickly. It would be reasonable to expect that a urologist who only does the procedure once every other month will cause more suffering than a mohel who has been doing it every week for a decade.