Ellen Dennis HSP 301 Standpoint Essay - Circumcision Circumcision is a topic that I feel very strongly against as a whole.

The focus on circumcision as not only a gender biased act, but also whether it is an act that can be allowed to exist outside of our country as well as inside is a hot topic for some people. I have found that a large number of people do not have a solid reason as to why they feel one way or another about it and yet, are not really willing to discuss the topic. I think that this comes from disinformation and lack of knowledge of the extent of the damage that is done, neurologically, and not just from a mutilation of the genitals, a physical point of view. The effects are long reaching and do more damage than I believe we are willing to admit, from a societal perspective. To give you a bit of background, I grew up on a farm in Idaho, where I spent my first 13 years. My parents were, and still are, conservative in their viewpoints and kept many a family secret. I am the fifth born of six children, with a ten-year gap between myself and the next oldest You could say that I was an oops and so was my younger brother, for that matter. For the most part, we had a wholesome upbringing, always having family around and participating in growing our food, canning and hunting. Both of my parents are from an era in which you did not talk about sex, sexuality, puberty and least of all circumcision, which spilled over in not communicating with me about it. Circumcision was actually not a concept that I had ever heard of, was aware existed or had any such concept of until I was 17 and no longer living at home. At this point in my life, I was indulging myself sexually and learning an incredible amount about the human body, through books (the internet was in its fledgling stage and not something that had the vast array of knowledge on it as it does now). I read about bodies, both

Ellen Dennis HSP 301 Standpoint Essay - Circumcision male and female, social issues, feminist viewpoints, and worldwide atrocities. Somewhere within all of this searching, I read an article out of Our Bodies, Our Selves (1998) that addressed the issues concerning the brutality of and unnecessary acts of female genital mutilation. I began thinking about what that would feel like and the feelings and pain and what that must feel like afterwards; in other-words, my sense of empathy kicked in to overtime. Even attempting to contemplate the pain of how it would feel to go to the bathroom afterwards seemed like more than I could even fathom. I then became grateful that this was not something that was being addressed here in the United States and that I didnt have anything to worry about and feeling not sure that there was much that I could do primarily because this tragedy only happened to males in our culture. I stopped myself in the middle of the last thought and realized how gender biased that thought was. If I was having such a strong reaction to female genital mutilation, then why on earth would I think that it was acceptable to do the very same act to a male? Was it more brutal for a girl to be circumcised as a part of a culture as opposed to a male? I didnt think that it was, but I also knew in my heart that it was one in the same, no matter the anatomical structure. At the time, I was struggling with my own sexuality and what I wanted, what I liked and at the same time attempting to make sense of the gender biases that I was facing concerning sex and sexuality. Within these thought process of guys are studs and girls are whores was a prolific thought pattern that I was having and I was seeing a carryover into my thoughts on circumcision. If there needed to be equality surrounding sexual conduct between the genders, then wouldnt it then stand to reason that there needed to be equality also surrounding the

Ellen Dennis HSP 301 Standpoint Essay - Circumcision topic of circumcision? I had made up my mind somewhere within all of this, that yes, there needed to be equality surrounding circumcision, whether inside this country and culture or not and although I was still not sure what to do about this occurring outside of my sphere, not only in my community, but nationally, but also, where do I start? Where do I make a difference? I realized that I had to start with myself. I had started having conversation with people concerning their thoughts female genital mutilation and the responses were overwhelmingly centered on disgust and anger coupled with a hopelessness of what to do, or more prevalently, the not in my backyard (Carlin , circa 1980) mentality. It doesnt happen here, so why worry about it. To follow up the viewpoint, I would then ask why is then ok for males to be circumcised here and not one time, ever, had anyone given me an answer other than, because its what we do or because my Dad is or I dont know. I would also then point out that this specific reasoning didnt make any sense to me and reiterated that I was sure that the reasoning in other countries was probably similar, so then why is it okay for us to circumcise males and still throw a fit about the horrifying truths about female circumcision. It just didnt make any sense to me how we could consciously and knowingly inflict that kind of pain on another human being which feeds into beliefs of humanity and the ways that we interact with each other. From my humanistic standpoint, I believe that if we spent the same amount of time nurturing one another as opposed to harming one another, we would live in a much different world. We will fast forward about six or seven years and I was pregnant with my son. My husband and I had a conversation where I asked him how he felt about circumcision and he said

Ellen Dennis HSP 301 Standpoint Essay - Circumcision abso-freakin-lutely NOT! and started going off on a tirade as to why and we agreed with each other. That was the end of the discussion. I was forever grateful that we didnt have to have an argument concerning this and mostly ecstatic that we both were on the same page. During this time, I was searching for additional information about the health risks both for and against circumcision and I was not able to locate any swaying arguments either way. I had also gone back to my memory banks and thought of a conversation that my Dad repeatedly had with my as to why I wanted my ears pierced when I was thirteen. His response to my asking permission to do so was, Why do you want to put holes in your body when you werent born that way? or If god wanted you to wear earrings, you would have been born with holes in your ears. I translated that to, If my son wasnt supposed to have foreskin, wouldnt he be born without it? and If foreskin didnt serve some sort of purpose, why is he born with it? There is a natural state to things and the parts and pieces that are attached to us at birth do ultimately serve a purpose, even if we dont know what that is at a specific point in time. Through this research at this point, I discovered that hygienically, there really isnt a difference between cut and un-cut penises and neither had benefits outweighing the other, so why would I agree to mutilate my son from birth? I feel as if the normalization of uncircumcised penises is growing and the perspective of what is abnormal, is based within community, medical and religious biases, none of which seem to be able to agree with one another. Most recently, in the last year or so, I have come across various pieces of information concerning female genital mutilation and the atrocities that stem from this specific type of circumcision. Naomi Wolf explicitly speaks to this in her book, Vagina: A New Biography

Ellen Dennis HSP 301 Standpoint Essay - Circumcision where this procedure is done when the girls are varying ages from six to mid-adolescence and is done without anesthesia and most often unclean tools. Either the labia majora, labia minora, clitoral hood or the nerve that ends at the clitoris is excised causing excruciating amounts of pain, which you can witness in a variety of videos online. I have also learned that the act of removing this nerve and the removal of labia has severe neurological complications to women and makes them complacent. There is a direct neural connection between the genital nerves and the thought processes of self that come from positive genital arousal. This same phenomenon occurs through rape as a means of warfare, where in refugee camps it has been seen that these women are ghosts of their previous selves (Wolf) with the destruction of this neural pathway. Rape with implements that damage the neural networks are known to devastate and control the women that are affected by these atrocities making them not a tool of warfare but most certainly an effective strategy to overtake and breakdown and control a population (Wolf). In a matter of moments, I remembered that the tissue between male and female anatomy is similar enough in structure to each other, that the cutting of foreskin would be mirrored to the removal of the clitoral hood, and also that the removal of labia is congruent to the removal of the foreskin, I remember feeling hopeless and wanted to know why these events kept happening. I quickly came to the conclusion that if damaging the neural networks for control and power was indeed the case with females, then it must apply to males as well. At various points in the last seven years or so, my husband, son and I have had frequent conversations concerning circumcision and my sons gratitude that we did not cut him and allowed him to make that decision for himself, if he so chose, later in life. In contrast, my

Ellen Dennis HSP 301 Standpoint Essay - Circumcision husbands mother has apologized to him profusely an d multiple times for circumcising him as she was not aware of the long-term emotional complications and issues surrounding this act. This was a major confirmation for me and I felt relief in the knowing that we had made the correct decision and that I would not have to deal with the subsequent guilt that I believe I would have felt had we actually not chosen to leave our son intact. At the same time, I felt horrible and shameful on behalf of my husband and guilty for being a female that is intact and responsible for the trauma and issues that surround a majority of men in our culture directly due to having tens of thousands of nerve endings cut from their bodies while only being days old. I firmly believe that human beings do not have the right to violate one anothers bodies, specifically genitalia, without express permission. No one chooses to have a part of their body cut away when they are young. How could we when we cannot comprehend the aftermath, not to mention how excruciating it is perceived to be. We view male circumcision with a right thing to do attitude and not a why do I really want this perspective. Its just something that is done without a large amount of thought and continues to be so. We must open up the conversations and educate ourselves as to why this is happening and why is it that we continue to let it happen to our baby boys. The mutilation of females abroad must also be addressed, as we see it as an other from a whole cultural perspective. This creates a thought process of not caring; it doesnt happen here. Male circumcision does and we can choose to change that normativity and in doing so, I believe we can grow our appreciation of humanity and the need to let ourselves be who we are, fully and intact in every aspect possible.