For others the topic is embarassing because it suggests a backwards or barbaric streak in Chinese Culture. It will happen. For men footbinding is troubling because it suggests not only that men are capable of perceiving a gruesomely crippled foot as an object of sexual pleasure, but that they are further capable of using their superior social position to coerce women to conform to a standard of beauty that is both deformed and grotesque. Circumcision ought to be viewed in this way, with the vulnerability of babies substituted for the vulnerability of women, but that is yet to happen. For women, footbinding is unsettling because it reveals a willingness to cripple their own daughters to meet an aesthetic and criterion of social behavior defined by men.
Many men are unwilling to admit that they have lost anything to circumcision.
Women are generally ill-informed about what it is and does. In 1995 Chinese film maker Yang Yeuqing found great difficulty in making a film about footbinding since no one in China was willing to talk about it, and she feared that Chinese authorities would attempt to block the project. For the depiction of circumcision in US media, see the relevant page . Some day, Circumstraints TM , Gomco TM Sheldon TM and Mogen TM clamps and Plastibells TM may be sold as antiques, to similar protests. It is apparent that the subject remains a sensitive one.