Aira Hospital

 

 

“What God created man should not change!”

 

MALE CIRCUMCISION

The circumcision of males is described in the Old Testament as a physical sign of the covenant between God and his chosen people. Let be if it really was a God given command or a way to keep the preputium clean in a desert with lack of water, today - with the old laws replaced by the New Testament, and a modern life with good hygiene - it has no justification except for the Jewish and Muslims who live by the Old Testament.   

There have been - and still are - many different arguments circulating in favor of the procedure. One very popular believe is that male circumcision protects women from getting cancer of the cervix. That idea aroused from the fact that cervical cancer is rare in the Orthodox Jewish population and since they are all circumcised the wrongly conclusion was made that male circumcision protects against cervical cancer. The incidence of the malignancy is very high in all African and Arab countries where all males are circumcised, so the conclusion is wrong. The explanation for the low incidence among the Jewish population is of course the strict monogamous life style among Orthodox Jews. Another common argument is that removal of the foreskin makes it easier to keep the glans (head of the penis) clean. That may be, but I and all my fellow countrymen who are not circumcised have no problems with that, using daily soap and water. The umbilicus is difficult to keep clean too, but we don’t excise that, do we?

Unfortunately a recent scientific study from South Africa concluded that male circumcision is protective against heterosexual acquisition of HIV in men. Therefore it is now recommended to perform the procedure on that reason. In Scandinavia the occurrence of male circumcision is extremely low – so is the incidence of HIV/AIDS. In other words there are much more efficient ways to protect against the infection – that is of course avoiding promiscuity and the use of condoms. The surgical removal of the foreskin may even have a contradictory effect. A false sense of security, may cause circumcised men to continue fooling around, dipping the trunk here and there, promoting the spread of the virus!

I personally consider the procedure unnecessary and even harmful. Why? I see a lot of complications after the procedure, such as secondary severe phimosis, partial amputation of the glans, urethral injury with urinary fistula etc.

 

Another thing is that a controlled double blind study carried out in USA among adult men showed that 60% of them experienced inferior quality of sexual intercourse after circumcision.

Had there been such thing as a “masculinism” equivalent to “feminism” I would naturally claim that circumcision of men is done to control men’s sexuality – a global conspiracy by wicked women who oppress the men and benefit sexually themselves.

A strange phenomena is that announcing yourself against male circumcision always promote an attack from all kind of upset people who wrongly draw the conclusion that then you must be for female circumcision. So please continue reading carefully below and be aware that I am against all form of circumcision – be it male or female. 

 

FEMALE CIRCUMCISION

 

No suggestions of this procedure are found in the Bible, Koran or other religious scriptures. How this came into use is still something of a mystery, unless you are a true feminist who takes it as the ultimate proof of the universal feministic conspiracy theory which concludes that all evil come from the male gender who have only one object in life – to suppress and harm women.

Could it be that the third world women started the tradition to promote equality between the sexes long before the appearance of the suffragettes in Europe – African women claiming the same right to circumcision as men?

Whatever the origin of the tradition it occupies the mind of a huge group of women and men in the western world who have engaged themselves seriously in the battle against Female Genital Mutilation as they like to call it. Although I appreciate the good thinking behind the introduction of that term, I personally think its use is a humiliation against millions of circumcised African women. I wouldn’t like to be called a mutilated person – would you?

It is a very widespread misunderstanding that female circumcision causes fistula. That is plain and simple wrong. Even in its most extreme forms as practiced in Somali and Sudan circumcision does not lead to fistula. Read the FAQ on the official homepage of the famous Hamlin Fistula Hospital. 

Any midwife who has seen a large third degree tear (a tear involving the rectum) in an otherwise normal delivery will understand that soft tissues can never cause any major obstruction to delivery. The expelling forces are simply too powerful. That is why female circumcision, even in its most extreme form, is not related to fistula. Some years ago a Swedish gynecologist published her result of comparing the second stage (the time from start of pushing to the delivery of the child) in circumcised and uncircumcised women. Very surprisingly she found that the second stage was shorter in circumcised women!

In spite of the fact that in the vast majority of female circumcisions in most part of Africa, and certainly in Ethiopia, only the clitoris or part of it is removed (total or partial clitorectomy) it seems that everybody knows that circumcision is inconsistent with a normal sexual life. How do they know? You cannot make a similar double blind study as was done in USA for adult males (see MALE CIRCUMCISIO), so we have to leave science and use common sense instead. In west the medical profession lent itself to changing the sex on individuals. For a male it implicates the removal of everything - the penis as well as the testes. After this mutilating procedure the new “woman” claims to experience orgasm at sexual intercourse. The sexologists explain that it is due to the fact that the orgasm is a mental experience. So maybe that the removal of the clitoris or part of it does not have that devastating effect as generally claimed?

Only very recently a scientific approach to this delicate question has been made. A Swedish midwife made interviews with young circumcised immigrant women. She found that the women were generally confused since from all available public information they were not supposed to have a functioning or even satisfying sexual life, and their own personal experiences were in contradiction to that.

It is also a widespread claim that female circumcision increases the risk of infection with HIV. No one can explain why that is, and until today the mechanism behind that postulate is still hidden to me. Do people mean that the equipment – often a razor blade – is contaminated? If so, the same argument values for male circumcision.

For the feministic movement the practice of female circumcision is the ultimate proof of the universal feministic conspiracy theory, doubtlessly caused by males to oppress women and take control of female sexuality. I do not believe in that.

Everybody knows that men like to penetrate – if not in the natural way, then with bottles, rings, dolls, animals and whatever - you name it. Then why on earth would they want to close the vaginas of their women and make them impenetrable? That sounds extremely illogical to me.

The fact is that in the majority of Africa, and certainly in Ethiopia, this is a pure woman’s affair. It is women who circumcise girls, not men. No man in the country side has any idea of how the genitals of a women looks like, because they will never get to see such an intimate part of a woman their whole life (in the big cities that is unfortunately starting to change with the internet) and has no idea of what female circumcision implicates.

In Kunama, a tribe in the northern part of the Horn of Africa, where matriarchy is practiced the tradition of female circumcision is very strong. That is my ultimate proof that the tradition being caused by male dominance and oppression is nonsense. What I did learn in school is that it takes only one untrue example to prove that a postulate is false.

In our area around Aira a recent research disclosed that 80% of the women think that female circumcision is unnecessary and harmful. In spite of that they still practice it on their girls due to heavy social pressure. It is taboo to talk about such thing for a man, but between women the talk goes that if a girl is not circumcised she will be hyperactive and break kitchen utensils, and she will not be married. Unfortunately men were not interviewed, that would have been very interesting to hear their point of view.

Let it be stated firmly that female circumcision is not a medical problem. I have never been exposed to any severe complication after female circumcision as with male circumcision. Some would probably think that it is because the girls would never be brought to the hospital since the procedure is illegal. We do have many unfortunate young women with severe complications after illegal and septic abortions, so in my opinion that argument doesn’t hold. 

Female circumcision is a social problem, but how serious? For people here it does not seem to be a major subject although women’s groups – church related or not – have started to raise the issue. No one is far as I know have expressed any objections to that, and I never heard any person talk in favor of female circumcision. But keep in mind that even men in between cannot discuss this matter – it is strictly taboo.

I once watched one of the many “documentaries” about this issue. It was on Swedish television. The “documentary” which claimed to be filmed in Ethiopia mixed as always facts and fiction to make a spicy experience for the audience to watch. A sequence from Egypt with a male circumciser practicing on a girl was cut into the “documentary”, and all the usual misunderstandings and misinterpretations were included, even a long sequence from the Addis Abeba Fistula Hospital which has nothing to do with female circumcision what so ever. After the program I overheard a conversation between two married Ethiopian women, mothers of several children. One asked the other “are we really mutilated (circumcised) as they claim in the program?” - The other woman replayed “I think they cut us a little down there”. This is a good example of the level on which people here in this country experience the problem.

Do I have to mention that the practice of female circumcision is prohibited by law in Ethiopia?

Finally let me again state firmly that I am against circumcision – female as well as male. I have a dream - and that is all of us marching together under the banner “STOP female CIRCUMCISION”