[image: Bernd Vogel/Bernd Vogel/Corbis]
Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma’s words of comfort and encouragement: “It’s just this once in your life, Ayaan. Be brave, he’s almost finished.” When the sewing was finished, the man cut the thread off with his teeth.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Infidel: My Life
A court in Germany has ruled that circumcision is ‘bodily harm’, and the cited BBC article says that the decision ‘has caused outrage among Jewish and Muslim groups’, with Dieter Graumann (the president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews) calling it “an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination”; and urging parliament “to protect religious freedom against attacks”.
What follows is an examination of the term: ‘religious freedom’, and how it applies to the practice of circumcision and other issues. My position is that one’s freedom ends when its manifestation infringes on that of others; my right to swing my arm ends at your nose. I hope to offer a coherent argument against cultural or religious circumcision (that where the primary objective is not medical), and that any distinction between male and female genital mutilation is not binary: that is to say each falls somewhere on a spectrum, the entire scale of which, I submit, is undesirable.
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty
At some point we are all going to have to wake up and realise that there are no beliefs, practices or doctrines which should be beyond criticism. We demand a high level of intellect and consideration in almost every field of our discourse. Our beliefs should be subject to moral scrutiny as they affect our decisions; and our decisions matter as they affect the others with whom we share our society. No entrepreneur would acquire investment in their start-up if it became known that they based their brand and marketing decisions on the results of their study of animal entrails. Yet not enough people (by far) bat an eyelid at the prospect of a United States president or British prime minister praying for guidance in decisions that affect global and national economies.
The reason for this split in opinion is fallacious. We are prone to accept that the number of people who share a belief in a claim must somehow be directly correlated to the truth of that claim. This is the argument ad populum fallacy and is beautifully refuted by Albert Einstein’s response to the publication of A Hundred Authors Against Einstein (a mass criticism of his theory of relativity), where he said “If I were wrong, then one would be enough”. Claims are true or false, right or wrong; independently of who makes them or what number. So the fact that 84 percent of the worlds population (2010) identify as religious, in no way impacts on the validity of those beliefs (never mind the fact that all those religious are mutually exclusive and often self-contradictory).
It is precisely this acquiescence: that religious beliefs should somehow be beyond scrutiny, and Steven Jay Gould’s dictum that science and religion are ‘non-overlapping magisteria’; that have retarded our species’ moral progress in cases such as circumcision, Christian ‘witch’ murders (like that of Victoria Climbie), ‘honour killings’, caste-racism and Islamic Jihadism. This Liberal victory in the case of circumcision has been long-overdue, and now we shall turn to it.
I have used the term mutilation and will continue to do so. The oxford dictionary defines ‘mutilate’ as to ‘inflict violent and disfiguring injury’. No aspect within the excision of part of the male or female genitalia deviates from the definition. I do not commit the naturalistic fallacy by asserting that that which is natural is automatically good or desirable. What I do say is that short of a genuine medical requirement such as the removal of a pernicious tumour; or cosmetic (when striving for the default or ubiquitous ‘normal’ composition of our bodies) such as the removal of a superfluous limb or tail; the alteration or mutilation of the body – when inflicted on another who does not or cannot consent – is ‘bodily harm’ and immoral.
The fact that it is the before-mentioned factors, which have hindered our progress in the case of circumcision, is demonstrated by the fact that there are literally no other non-medical reasons for which a society would accept my decision or ‘freedom’ to mutilate my children’s genitalia. If I removed my daughter’s clitoris and inner labia (as described in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s harrowing description with which I began), or my son’s foreskin in a similar ritual; what excuse or motive would be acceptable to you, or society as a whole? Having considered it, none really come to mind, that would be either accepted or even offered. Perhaps I could say that for non-religious reasons I do not believe that my daughter should ever experience any sexual pleasure throughout her life; or that my son should have a dimmed perception of sexual pleasure for all of his. (I genuinely started this paragraph thinking that I would be able to think of some non-medical, non-religious reasons as to why someone would perform such an act. The fact that I can’t makes the following quote all the more appropriate).
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg
Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, 1999
I believe one should be able to inflict whatever is wished on one’s own body. This position is one echoed, for the most part, by UK statutes and stated cases. The main issue on which such assaults turn is consent and there have been some fascinating cases, the verdicts and appeal judgements of which have shaped our conversations and boundaries when considering this topic. In the case of R v Wilson 1996 a man branded his wife’s buttocks with a hot knife. The conviction was quashed following an appeal as his wife had consented to the action, and the act in itself was not one of aggression. This seems right when we consider the fact that a wife might be consensually tattooed by her husband, and a change in means only, should not cross a boundary into the realm of that which is criminally prohibited.
A line was drawn however, in the case of R v Brown and others 1993. A description of the circumstances of this case would normally be gratuitous, but a brief one is warranted here due to the very nature of our discussion, and the affected body appendages. In short summary, this involved a group of homosexual men, engaged in extreme, sado-masochistic, sexual acts such as nailing scrotums to wooden boards and pouring hot wax into their urethras. This case went as far as the House of Lords, where it was decided that consent in the case of acts such as these, and the injuries arising from them, where the motives were sexual and aggressive; could not apply as a defence to the wounding indictment. Even where the existence of consent is acknowledged, there are some acts of mutilation, to the genitals no less, to which not even fully-grown, adult men can consent (for the purpose of the Offences Against The Persons Act 1861). Where then, is the possibility for the necessary consent in the cases of genital mutilation in children?
Considering cases such as the above, but involving children; will give rise to an instinctive repulsion, and rightly so. Of all the crimes available for contemplation, those against children, and the paedophilic in particular, are the most heinous. A reason for this almost universal condemnation of such acts comes from our natural empathy and our evolutionary instinct to protect our offspring. They are the vessels of our genes and our only possibility for their survival into the future. But when considered coldly and objectively, the abhorrence of such crimes is still justified due the lack of consent possible to such actions on the part of child victims. Obviously the children are our future, and it is incumbent upon us to protect them. How appalling, therefore, that we have forsaken them for so long out of a pathetic reluctance to challenge religious doctrine, where the manifestations of this doctrine infringe upon the rights of those children so gruesomely and overtly. For shame!
The irony of his use of the term ‘self-determination’ must clearly have been missed by Mr Graumann. What audacity to say that the protection of the child’s right to the integrity of their own body is an infringement upon it. As a parent, my goal should be to ensure that I put in place the best circumstances possible, in which my children might flourish, and have every possibility of self-determination left available to them when they are old enough to fulfil those which they choose. Once he is an adult, should my son decide that he wishes to have a circumcision, it will be nobody’s business but his own (though I might well have a few questions). But I should never be afforded any right – or protection in law – to make permanent alterations to his body, or my daughter’s. The words permanent and body are relevant here: the acts of cutting their hair and dressing them in cheesy clothes obviously do not qualify. And yes, I am willing to follow this logical line of reasoning and conclude also, that piercings (ear or otherwise) are not matters that should be decided on a child’s behalf.
I trust that what has preceded will have sufficiently refuted any charge that I have conflated male circumcision with ‘FGM’. Each is a point on a disgusting scale. It matters not that a proportionately larger mass of flesh is removed during female genital mutilation than during that of a male. This simply makes one practice ghastly and the other more so. Nevertheless, the forced excision of the foreskin of a baby boy is a barbaric practice, and one which still summons surprise in me (all other things considered) that we have not yet managed to rid ourselves of it. This German victory for secularism should not be trivialised. It may well have set a precedent and I for one welcome it. The BBC article quoted the court as having summed the case up concisely thus: that Circumcision contravenes the ‘interests of the child to decide later in life on his religious beliefs’, and that the ‘fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents’.
Real people, infants no less, right now continue to be used for the perpetuation of an ancient and barbaric doctrine, with apparently no thought to what they might have wished if they were given the choice. Freedom is meaningless without choice; and ‘Religious Freedom’ is ironically it’s utter negation. To be free to infringe on the freedoms of others is to make a mockery of the concept, and it will lead to theocracy and totalitarianism. We must each be free to live the best lives we can in our own ways, but we must protect the interests and potential freedoms of those who cannot protect them for themselves. It is no excuse to fail to do so out of some wet notion that it is rude to question religious doctrine.
I will conclude with a wonderful poem which I found in M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled. The book was recommended in good faith by a friend who hadn’t yet realised that while the first half on psychology was fascinating, the second – it’s misunderstanding of thermodynamics and nonsensical talk of miracles in particular – was utter hogwash. And the God metaphor and talk of ‘souls’ notwithstanding, the beauty and overall message of this poem still make its application here appropriate.
Your Children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And he bends you with His might that his arrows might go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves also the bow that is stable.
Kahlil Gibran
On Children
secular detective 
Hi Johan! So I’ve found your blog and this was a nice juicy article, so I thought I’d respond to some points with an alternative explanations and an alternative frameworks for interpretation. Hope this interests you. I’ve done this though the lense of the tension between Enlightenment Values and quasi-Marxist dogmas. Admittedly what follows isn’t really a complete argument (nor does it seek to be), but I’ve tried to point at my reasons for belief. Anyway, here goes:
> with Dieter Graumann (the president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews) calling it “an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination”; and urging parliament “to protect religious freedom against attacks”.
The conflation of individual freedom with group self-determination leads those who would-be liberals to identity politics. The Enlightenment Values of Liberal Democracies are under assault from groups seeking self-determination in the form of ‘freedom’ from the ‘oppression’ of the reason, liberty and equality of the West. These groups tend to critique Enlightened society with theories constructed on the basis of practicality in bringing revolution; that which is not conducive to identity-political aims is dismissed. Beliefs are reconciled not with each other (as with logic), but with identity-political aims. New norms and values are created to serve the group’s interests and things that violate group norms are automatically ‘oppressive’. See plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/ and plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ .
> My position is that one’s freedom ends when its manifestation infringes on that of others
This is where liberal-minded people differ from those who espouse critical theories: we speak of one’s freedom and how one’s actions affect others. They say that this freedom is ‘oppressive’, which is determined by it placing limits on their group’s power to do things like mutilating little girls’ genitalia in such a way that they grow up to experience sex as a painful and pleasureless experience. Liberal-minded people regard sexual pleasure a splendid and emancipating feature of the human experience to be enjoyed; regressives seek to ruin it by attacking a person’s liberty, in this case violating self-ownership with cruel and grotesque body-modification. The critical theorists say that groups must be permitted to follow their culture and that anyone who doesn’t ‘respect’ this is a racist and fair-game.
On Liberty
> At some point we are all going to have to wake up and realise that there are no beliefs, practices or doctrines which should be beyond criticism.
Indeed. To those who espouse a critical theory, the self-interested norms of their group are beyond criticism because applying the law of non-contradiction is counter-revolutionary. The only thing to be critiqued is, by the tenets of their doctrine, wider society.
> We demand a high level of intellect and consideration in almost every field of our discourse.
This is an age of vengeful populism; all that matters to the mob is ruining the lives of those who refuse their ideology of hate.
> So the fact that 84 percent of the worlds population (2010) identify as religious, in no way impacts on the validity of those beliefs (never mind the fact that all those religious are mutually exclusive and often self-contradictory).
Arguing from the proportion of people who espouse a belief can be valid if the reference-selection is valid and consists of those who use sound logic to form their beliefs. I therefore tend to flinch a little when all arguments the number of people espousing a belief are dismissed as the ‘Ad Populum’ fallacy. With regards to practical matters, consensus can be a good indicator of the truth value of a belief and if not, perhaps its instrumental usefulness (most ‘true’ beliefs — e.g. most of Physics — are actually false, but useful models for prediction).
The issue with the ad populum relating to religion is that most people, even educated professionals, lack the kind of deep rationality required to form accurate beliefs about them. Societies have evolved with religions at their cores and depended upon unit of religious belief for stability; as a result they suffer from systematic irrationality.
> I have used the term mutilation and will continue to do so.
Indeed, ‘cutting’ doesn’t really capture the harm done in the form of long-term pain and sexual disfunction.
> The fact that it is the before-mentioned factors, which have hindered our progress in the case of circumcision, is demonstrated by the fact that there are literally no other non-medical reasons for which a society would accept my decision or ‘freedom’ to mutilate my children’s genitalia.
I think this proves that the cause is irrational, not that it is specifically the Ad Populum fallacy you mentioned. Though populism in the broad sense probably plays a role in breaking the norms of the Enlightenment that in a properly functioning Liberal Democracy would forbid FGM.
By the way, I’m circumcise for medical reasons and as you mentioned earlier, male circumcision does much less harm than female genital mutilation. Yet I must say that for me, there does seem to be something missing when I penetrate someone and I attribute this to being circumcise. I believe that if I had foreskin, my expression of typical male sexuality would be more intuitive and fulfilling to me. I would elaborate but there are limits to what a society tyrannised by a toxic mix of conservative sexual repression and quasi-marxist critical theories will let an alleged SWM say on the Internet.
> But or good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The notion of a ‘good’ person doing ‘evil’ things in the name of religion sounds to me like there is some innate quality in a person that we call ‘goodness’ that religion perverts the expression of. This conflicts with my model of goodness, where it is defined as ‘the tendency to do things that help others’ and generally correlated with things like virtues and principles, though those with exceptionally high levels of goodness often forgo either.
>Steven Weinberg
>
>Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, 1999
>In the case of R v Wilson 1996 a man branded his wife’s buttocks with a hot knife. The conviction was quashed following an appeal as his wife had consented to the action, and the act in itself was not one of aggression. This seems right when we consider the fact that a wife might be consensually tattooed by her husband, and a change in means only, should not cross a boundary into the realm of that which is criminally prohibited.
I think there are limits of harm to which someone can reasonably consent to and subs in BDSM are often insecure, vulnerable, stupid and generally not fit to make their own decisions. The traditional liberal and psychoanalytic view of sadomasochism as a pathological perversion of sexuality is roughly correct. Yet individual freedom is important and for this reason I think in this case sentence should not be passed.
> In short summary, this involved a group of homosexual men, engaged in extreme, sado-masochistic, sexual acts such as nailing scrotums to wooden boards and pouring hot wax into their urethras. This case went as far as the House of Lords, where it was decided that consent in the case of acts such as these, and the injuries arising from them, where the motives were sexual and aggressive; could not apply as a defence to the wounding indictment. Even where the existence of consent is acknowledged, there are some acts of mutilation, to the genitals no less, to which not even fully-grown, adult men can consent (for the purpose of the Offences Against The Persons Act 1861).
Yep, I agree with that judgement.
> Where then, is the possibility for the necessary consent in the cases of genital mutilation in children?
Unfortunately, the idea of protecting children does not come naturally to most people and the sanctity of childhood is one of those norms that is tenuously attached to mainstead society by our lovely enlightened elites. The Englightenment generally seems to be losing the battle.
> A reason for this almost universal condemnation of such acts comes from our natural empathy and our evolutionary instinct to protect our offspring. They are the vessels of our genes and our only possibility for their survival into the future.
‘Protective’ instincts are not always about protection from harm; they are usually about posession and control. The protectiveness that heterosexual men are expected to show towards their female partners is just taking away her freedom to engage in sexual activity with other men; this monoandry suggests posession. The ‘protectiveness’ of many boys (and even some men) towards their sisters is just a quasi-incestuous projection of this instinct. Parents ‘protecting’ their daughters from age-appropriate partners are usually just protecting them from the perceived impurity of sexual activity, as embodied by the importance of virginity for a woman’s marital potential in traditional societies. They may also be ‘protecting’ them from meeting men of beliefs and character traits they don’t like. In Japan, the phenomenon of Hikikomori is often attributed to overly protective mothers. To me, protectiveness reeks of domination, oppression and taboo; I do not see it as the pure and benevolent instinct.
> any charge that I have conflated male circumcision with ‘FGM’. Each is a point on a disgusting scale.
It is only natural that liberals opposed to FGM will want to deal with male circumcision while we’re at it — indeed, only dealing with female circumcision could open us to all sorts of accusations. Of course, there are then those critical theorists who will accuse us of conflation as a cheap soundbite against our credibility, portraying us as a bunch of ‘ignorant’ conservatives who are too uneducated to see that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’, as they’ve learned by parrotting an article they’ve selected with particularly high confirmation bias yet treated as a sample of reality. In an new era of regressive populism, it’s hard to resist this kind of attack, but I think you make a valiant effort.
> This German victory for secularism
I’m out of the loop, I’ll have to find out about it.
> that Circumcision contravenes the ‘interests of the child to decide later in life on his religious beliefs’
Indeed, I expect circumcise people usually justify the mod to avoid feeling inadequate.
> ‘fundamental right of the child […] outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents’.
As an (approximate) classical liberal, I like this. 🙂
> Real people, infants no less, right now continue to be used for the perpetuation of an ancient and barbaric doctrine, with apparently no thought to what they might have wished if they were given the choice.
Identity politics subordinates the individual to the cult.
> Freedom is meaningless without choice; and ‘Religious Freedom’ is ironically it’s utter negation. To be free to infringe on the freedoms of others is to make a mockery of the concept, and it will lead to theocracy and totalitarianism.
Complete non-interference (liberty) is impossible, as the coexistence of two or more people in the universe makes one person’s actions affect the other. Some approximate notions of liberty (which I think you mean by ‘freedom’ and most libertarians mean by ‘liberty’) is of course possible and implemented in Liberal Democracies. I do believe, however, that theocratic and totalitarian forces are undermining liberty for their own revolutionary aims.
> It is no excuse to fail to do so out of some wet notion that it is rude to question religious doctrine.
This wet notion is Tony Blair’s fault; New Labour indoctrinated our generation to believe in a illiberal, hierarchical-collectivistic, quasi-right-wing notions, namely ‘rights and responsibilities’ and ‘respect’. Respect is a tyrannical value: demanding internal makes disrespect thought-crime, while demanding outward respect is to demand deference and submission in fear of punishment, which naturally makes free speech impossible. The word ‘respect’ therefore makes a natural fighting-word for those seeking to delete the freedom to criticise and replace it with a reverence for everything founded on irrational doctrines. I believe the word ‘disrespectful’ is what proonents of this wet notion would use in place of your word ‘rude’and highlights an emotional schism in our society. Those who teach their children politeness place more emphasis on egalitarian, privacy-oriented and individualistic norms of etiquette; those who teach their children ‘respect’ are usually slapping them around for being cheeky. It is this regression to right-wing tyranny that the so-called left are pushing for and to protect Liberal Democracy we must unite to oppose it.
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Hi Naomi,
I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to get round to responding. I’m flattered that you would think my piece worthy of such an in-depth analysis. I must say it took a few read-throughs for me to understand your position. You raise some very interesting points and I’ve taken your further-reading recommendations on board. I would just point out that I hadn’t mentioned the ad populum fallacy to suggest that numbers automatically wouldn’t lend validity to a given claim, but as a suggestion as to why some false ones go unchallenged. You might well be right on the New Labour link and as a potential factor or catalyst, it’s definitely worth considering when seeking to understand the rise of the Regressive Left.
I’m new(ish) to WordPress and haven’t got how it all works completely figured out yet… but I have tried to follow you as a link to find what you’ve written. If I’m missing something could you please send me a link, and if you haven’t yet, please get started. I for one will be very interested in reading what you have to say on other matters.
Johan
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Circumcision is a risky, painful, irreversible procedure usually done to someone without consent. It also removes so many pleasure giving tissues, reduces self-stimulating pleasure and penetration ability, it uncovers the glans that were designed to be covered and protected. It modifies the aesthetics and usually a leaving a big scar. When overdone, it doesn’t allow the penis to erect freely and in many occasion in puberty it will require some more intervention. Keep Original, Natural, Intact, Uncut! #intactivist
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