McDermott
When asked how she felt about male and female circumcision, my respondent replied that she never really thought about the male circumcision too much. She said that it's become so much a part of our culture and had religious and medical reasoning behind it that it's become the norm. She also pointed out that it's done in infancy and probably doesn't hurt them as much or they get over it faster compared to it being done during puberty. Furthermore, she stated that, although she doesn't know if there's any research on it, the foreskin doesn't really add or take away pleasure in any way. However, in regards to female circumcision she doesn't agree with it at all. She understands that people claim that that kind of attitude is ethnocentric since we don't understand the culture. But she says that if you go and ask those women what they think about it and if they don't like it or agree with it then how can it be ethnocentric? Her major reason why she doesn't agree with it is because the reason people give when doing it is to control the woman's sexual pleasure and ensure that they don't enjoy sex. On top of that, since it's not done in a medical facility or sterile environment and it's usually the tribal leader who picks up a piece of glass and does it, it can lead to serious infections within the woman's body. She doesn't believe others should get to decide on whether or not to circumcise any part of a woman's body, she especially, could never imagine someone doing something like that to her. This correlates with our current reading on how there are those in other cultures throughout the world who actively do female circumcisions and it's just a natural thing to do to their women to stop their promiscuity and see nothing wrong with their actions. There are those that see the "US perspective" of female circumcision as being a human rights abuse are just being ethnocentric and have no understanding of how their particular culture works or the reasons for why they do the things they do.
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Icati Transcription
Do you think that female and male circumcision is alright?
Well I definitely don't think that female circumcision is right. Just because of the reasons that they do it. They are saying in the reasons it's so the women don't get pleasure out of having intercourse and why should you be able to take something away from someone to begin with. The male circumcision I guess I just never thought about it. It's something that's been a part of our culture and it has religious reasons and they find medical reasoning behind it: the foreskin was fused, because mothers weren't cleaning it properly and then I guess it just became part of the culture, they never thought twice about it. But the female circumcision I mean everyone has something to say about that because of the main reasons, they say it right there, women aren't supposed to be able to enjoy sex.
I'm kind of back and forth on that one. It's like you said the female thing is not done when their babies and it's not done in a medical facility. Most of the time it's the tribe leader getting a piece of glass off the ground and just "sfft" so there's infection and it's not sanitary. It's so barbaric like we're taking this from you. With males it's, I don't know as far as I know the foreskin doesn't add pleasure or take away. I don't know if there's statistics, but I've never heard anything, but we all know with the clitoris there's sensation and they're saying they're taking it away so women won't want to have sex. So it's like why do you get to decide that?
I know people say we're ethnocentric and we don't know their culture and I guess there's a lot of cultures that can say that we as females are wrong, but I don't think in any way what they do to abuse young girls, I mean ok we're ethnocentric right so then go over there and ask the women and ask them "do you like that cut off of you?" "did you enjoy that?" "did you think that was nice?" and if they say no then how can we be ethnocentric? It's like with males saying they don't want it, I guess later on they get upset because their parents made that choice for you, but I don't think any woman would be ok with having something cut off of their bodies and their not under anesthesia it's going to hurt big, but with babies it's the same as giving shots and they take their blood and they poke them and pierce the baby's ears, there's a lot of things we do to babies that they don't like but it's for their own good. But doing something like that to a woman, I can't imagine having something done like that.
