Wank on FARK.com? I'm shocked!
To think, I was afraid the elevator story would bring wank . . .

A story about female circumcision in Britain is posted on Fark, with the tagline, "Live in Britain and can't seem to find any locals willing to mutilate your daughters? Well, you are in luck. Just fly in some elders from Africa to handle the promiscuity-reducing mutliation." Naturally, people are sicked by the thought that it's still happening, even in the Western world . . . or are for all of two comments. Comparisons are made to male circumcision, and the wank is mighty as farkers fight over whether there are any advantages to being circumsized, if it's equal in magnitude to FGM, and whether or not circumsized guys do have reduced sensitivity.

242 comments later, it's calmed down, but still wanky.

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gobsmacked
2006-10-24 06:40 pm UTC (link)

Well, there's also the normalizing mechanism at play: mutilating their daughters confirms their own mutilization as a normal and desireable state

I think that this is possibly the most astute observation I have heard. Is it your own, or is it published somewhere? (Or both). If it's published somewhere, could you give me a reference.

One of my colleagues is writing on FGM in Egypt and Nubia and said that she had discovered that the women believe their labia will not stop growing if they do not cut them off ~~with a bit of a rusty can~~ and go right down to their knees. (Her eventual paper topic is the FGM in the late pharaonic and early Christian period in Egypt).

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frequentmouse
2006-10-24 08:46 pm UTC (link)

It's not entirely my own, although the particular wording is original with me. The concept was part of a list of conclusions in a "Women's Issues in Anthropology" seminar I took at WSU, which was the first time I was exposed to the issue of FGM. As a general principal, it takes the form of "Cultural practices persevere in the face of evidence that they have negative consequences because human beings do not want to think of themselves as damaged or imperfect."

Even back then there was substantial feeling within the discipline that cultural relativism hit a stone wall when cultural practices had a substantial morbidity. Since then, the connection of prion disease with funerary cannibalism has given some cultural anthropologists a different view of the neutrality of cultural issues.

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	gobsmacked 2006-10-25 06:08 pm UTC (link)
	Since then, the connection of prion disease with funerary cannibalism has given some cultural anthropologists a different view of the neutrality of cultural issues I'm tempted to say "Where the mutilation of millions of women didn't?" but I know that not all cultural anthropologists are so enamoured of political correctness. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2006-10-29 06:02 pm UTC (link)
	Some labia are longer than others and some African cultures even stretch the labia (although I don't think down to the knees in either case!). Maybe that's where their superstition came from? Rotten.com has an article (http://www.rotten.com/library/sex/elongated-labia/) on some of that stuffs. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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