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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdaisy!saquigley
From: saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.women.only,net.religion
Subject: "sexist" surgery
Message-ID: <6376@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Jan-84 20:11:21 EST
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.6376
Posted: Wed Jan  4 20:11:21 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Jan-84 06:15:49 EST
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 66

Well, I do not agree with you that clitoridectomies are "equivalent" to
circumcision, I think a more correct equivalence would be complete removal
of the penis; If you look at anatomical charts of the nerves around both
the clitoris and the penis, you will find that they are quite similar; so
as far as sensation is concerned, a woman without a clitoris would be very
close to a man without a penis except that she would of course be better off
because she would still have her vagina (and uretha).

Yes, I am aware that the foreskin is a very sensitive skin, I do have some
friends who are not circumcised, and managed to find out from them about this
sensitivity.  The only written reference I've ever found to this was from
pseudo-medical books advocating circumcision to prevent premature ejaculation
caused by "over-sensitivity".  I think this is not only a horrible way to "cure"
the problem, but a useless one too; this comment is only based on my own 
experience of circumcised premature ejaculators and uncircumcised "patient" men,
(a sample group too small to be able to draw "scientific conclusions from)
and I've never seem any litterature questioning the usefulness of such surgery
to deal with premature ejaculation.

The anatomical charts I was refering to above, interestingly enough, showed
the genitals of a circumcised man vs the genitals of a woman with everything
intact; therefore, I do not know for sure how the nerves run in the foreskin,
but judging from the descriptions I've heard, I would say that the penis in
general is a very sensitive organ with a concentration of nerves on the base of
the foreskin and on the tip of the penis.  In the woman, the vagina is in
general sensitive although not as much as the penis, and the core of the nerves
is situated in the clitoris.  The bulk of the nerves seem to be more spread out
in the male than in the female so removing the foreskin would be similar to
removing say a third of the clitoris.  Most circumcised men can enjoy sex quite
well, although I doubt whether many women can enjoy sex as easily without a
clitoris.

This does not mean that I advocate circumcision.  On the contrary, I think it
is an outdated, harmful and useless practise.  I can understand how it can
be useful for people living in extremely unhygienic conditions, but I don't
think it is for people in the north america, and europe. I don't buy any of the
other arguments I've seen on circumcision either, especially those directed at
women (wives of circumcised men not getting cervical cancer, and the premature
ejaculation ones).  In general, I don't believe in preventive surgery, and I
don't really believe in surgery except for extreme cases.  If I have one, I will
not get my son circumsised, and I've been urging my friends to do the same for
theirs.

I just think that your comparison of circumcision to clitoridectomy is unfair,
and that your suggested treatment of mothers of circumcised boys is very harsh
(anyway, as far as I know, the fathers have a say in this decision too). The
motivation between the uses of circumcision and clitoridectomies are quite
different too, on is for hygienic reasons and the other is to stop women from
enjoying sex, so I don't think that a parent asking for his/her son to be
circumcised is doing it for the same reason that the parents who want their
daughters' clitoris removed.
Like you, I have this very strong suspicion that even though most advocates
of circumcision believe in the hygienic arguments, the idea behind circumcision,
which is (as far as I know) a judeaic-christian practise, is very related to the
judeo-christian belief that there is something wrong with sex.  I am not a
theologian, so I will not continue for fear of saying something wrong. 
Our culture definitely does not want us to enjoy sex; it has tried to reduce
female sexuality to reproduction; male sexuality is made a big fuss off, but I
think it is actually only tolerated and for the good reason that it can be
exploited commercially.  I have the impression that women have been able to
rediscover their sexuality because society was trying to obliterate it.  On
the other hand, men's sexuality was never as overtly threatened, so men have
had less of a reason to reclaim it, and therefore are not as successful at
doing so.  Many times I've had the impression that men don't enjoy sex as
much as the women who do (they do enjoy it more than the women who don't). I
wonder if this is just an impression; Does anybody agree with me?