Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy (1998)

Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy by George C. Deniston and Marilyn F. Milos (Eds.)(1997). New York: Plenum Publishing, 237 pages. ISBN: 0306455897 Not since 1980 and the publication of Ed Wallerstein's classic Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy has circumcision been addressed in such wide scope by an assembly of international authorities-historians, psychologists, anthropologists, lawyers, and physicians. The books 24 chapters constitute the Proceedings of the 4th Int. Symposium on Sexual Mutilations held in Lausanne, Switzerland in August 1996. Each of the contributions represents a stand alone statement yet provides a necessary contribution to the work as a whole. The origins of circumcision are approached by studying the distribution of sexual mutilations on the map of continents and their severity among indigenous cultures. The analysis suggests that Africa is the epicenter for altering the genitalia of both males and females. Frederick Hodges, now a medical history fellow at Oxford, supplies a fascinating history of how involuntary sexual mutilation was institutionalized in the United States. What began as a cure for masturbation, and all the illnesses thought to be caused by onanism, has been lauded and subsequently dismissed as the cure for epilepsy, immoral behavior, cancer, and sexually transmitted diseases. Hodges argues, quite convincingly, that the validity of the current medical justifications do not differ much from the original justifications. He notes, Whatever incurable disease happens to be the focus of national attention in any given time period will be the disease that circumcision advocates will use as an excuse for circumcision. Circumcision is part of mainstream American culture, and, despite having its medical credibility essentially decimated, it continues unabated. In my own article Why does neonatal circumcision persist in the United States? I suggest a combination of reasons: the paucity of rights of children, protection from criticism of the procedure by the American medical journals, and third-party reimbursement. Jeannine Parvati Baker shares her success in convincing Mormon parents of circumcision's inconsistency with their religion using citations from the book of Mormon and poignant, direct questioning. In Englishspeaking countries where circumcision has fallen out of favor, physicians still have trouble knowing how to regard the intact penis and how other countries have established such low circumcision rates. A major portion of the book addresses the issue of female genital mutilation as currently practiced in parts of Africa. Berhane RasWork, the current president of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, provides a history of the organizational attempts to end the practice of FGM in Africa. Efforts started with general statements from international organizations and are now being implemented by people in the community. Outside interference is shunned and only acts to galvanize opposition. While the prevalence of FGM in Europe is unknown, Italian investigators presented their estimates of the number of genitally mutilated women in their country. Likewise, a representative of Germany's organization (I)NTACT spoke to how her country is responding to this practice. While some of the African women attending the symposium felt that Western men opposing male circumcision were usurping their issue, Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, the author of Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey into Female Genital Circumcision, points out the striking similarities between female and male genital mutilation. …