Subject: Re: [lpny_manhattan] Re: Fwd: Today is the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 01:21:18 -0500 To: From: Bob Armstrong On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 04:53:51 -0000, Pamela wrote: >=A0--- In lpny_manhattan@yahoogroups.com, Bob Armstrong= >=A0wrote: > >=A0In terms of pain, how do you know? Lots of things are painful . A kick in the balls is a pain no woman can know just as being torn open by birthing is a pain no man can know . I strongly suspect that the forms of female circumcision which only involve soft tissue ( note the several forms mentioned in the article Jim referenced ) are rather similar in pain to the cutting of the homologous tissues in male circumcision . >=A0But most women who have been given the chance to speak have >=A0denounced the practice. Kind of hard to get a count . It's the ones trying to change their culture's practices that you hear from . >=A0As to the "Right to relax" wouldn't all women (and men, and >=A0children),sleep better at night knowing with reasonable= security >=A0that they weren't going to be mutilated the next day? These things are done in ceremonies and rites of passage so= there is at most a few nights in a kid's life filled with such fears= . And in many cases the fear may be as much about failing some social norm of the ceremony . I would think a first pregnancy would be far more frightening . >=A0And as for those who choose to have their bodies pierced, >=A0isn't "choice"the operative word??? I feel screwed that my foreskin was chopped long before I had a choice . I certainly would never do such barbaric things to any kids I had . But I'll limit my "aggression" toward any= culture who has held such practices since time immemorial to proselytizing . Incidentally , the idea that male circumcision isn't all that painful for adults is kind of contradicted by the story in Genesis 34 where a gentile kid and a Jewish girl have the hots for each other and the Jews say the whole gentile town has to get circumcised if they are going to marry . Then "Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons ... took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male." A final note concerning the variety of female "mutilation" in which the vagina is essentially sealed until marriage : I remember some years ago , such "re-virginations" became a fad plastic surgery procedure in Japan . People do all sorts of nutty painful things for sexually related reasons . --=A0 =A0Bob Armstrong -- http://CoSy.com -- 212-285-1864 Computing Environment : =A0http://CoSy.com/CoSy/ A WTC vision : http://CoSy.com/CoSy/ConicAllConnect/ Liberty : http://CoSy.com/Liberty.htm Restore our Right to Relax : =A0http://ny.lp.org/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?Against_the_Smoking_Ban =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A02003/11/27 12:29:48 AM