Comments on: Now that Pamela Bone is dead…

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:06:59 +0000

Personally I agree with Katz at 37. Kim is apparently not around at the moment so I’m closing comments for her consideration when she returns.

By: Elle Plater

Elle Plater — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:49:29 +0000

“Ah yes, what men want is obviously the most important aspect of any discussion of women’s bodies. How foolish of me to think otherwise.”
I think if it wasn’t for men, most of these practices wouldn’t occur especially in the case of FGM.

By: Umm Yasmin

Umm Yasmin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:11:22 +0000

Just to clarify before I comment on the age question – I’m not using Western women’s experiences to promote FGC, I’m simply pointing out the hypocritical double-standard. IMHO we should be protecting Western women from FGC as much as we pay attention to women from the Global South.

Paulus @25 wrote:

You made the point about age. And it’s a good one, although again it depends on which particular culture you are talking about (for example the experiences of adult women in South-East Asia who choose female circumcision is very different from infant girls). But how are we not as outraged about the lack of choice of infant boys and circumcision practices? Why the double-standard again?

Nilk @26

Infibulation is very rare form of female genital cutting. Most women who undergo FGC, have cutting of the clitoral hood (not entirely dissimilar to the type of piercing practice of Western women’s clitoral hoods) and sometimes partial/total excision of the outer part of the clitoris or possibly cutting of the labia minora (again not dissimilar to Western women’s labiaplasties).

“And the vast majority of women who have been mutilated are muslim.”

Actually, it depends again on which cultural group and type of FGC practice you are talking about.

Essentially, those places where FGC is practiced, it is practiced by Muslims, Christians and Animists of the region. And variously Muslim and Christian religious texts have been used to support the practice by those religious groups, even though Muslims and Christians who do not practice FGC reject these interpretations.

Con @ 27
“You obviously have no idea what men want.”

FGC is a minority practice within the Muslim world as well, so we can similarly say (with ironic apologies to Kim for indulging the sentiment) that most Muslim men also like their women with all their bits and pieces intact.

Have you had a gander at the types of justification for labiaplasties?

Rod C @ 35
So why doctor *inside* images?

By: Comma bastard

Comma bastard — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:27:12 +0000

“This would be intolerant and offensive if it were, first, at all readable.”

If you can’t read it, how do you know if it’s intolerant or offensive?

By: MZ

MZ — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:43:39 +0000

#33 Klaus K

Ah yes, what men want is obviously the most important aspect of any discussion of women’s bodies. How foolish of me to think otherwise.

I agree (with your sarcastic meaning, that is), and I wish people wouldn’t cite women’s preferences when it comes to the mutilation of baby boys.

By: Stephen Lloyd

Stephen Lloyd — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:22:06 +0000

The original post seems to be a lot of randomly cobbled-together thoughts with a tenuous theme linking them.

Feminism, Bush Bashing, Howard Bashing, Downer Bashing, Blair/Bolt Bashing, Pamela Bone (wtf?), Stephen Colbert, a false incinuation that western nations don’t think rape in war is wrong.

What was the overarching point of the post?

Also, why is rape worse in war than in peace time? Should people who rape in peace time get a shorter gaol sentence than people who rape in war? Does it really need a seperate penalty and recognition of its own?

By: Mike G

Mike G — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:48:40 +0000

This would be intolerant and offensive if it were, first, at all readable.

By: Bigpeteoz

Bigpeteoz — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:48:08 +0000

Dude, it is the, not teh. Get it right.

By: sublime cowgirl

sublime cowgirl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:36:23 +0000

‘legalised’ polygamy i mean.

By: sublime cowgirl

sublime cowgirl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:34:34 +0000

I must i’m uncomfortable with the vigorous calls from some for polygamy in Aust. Moslem, Mormon or animist, i’m thinking it sounds like a very backward step into an overwhelmingly patriarchal construct. (Not that ‘traditional’ marriage is blameless, mind you).

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:21:02 +0000

My first impression (and second and third) is that this thread needs some moderation…

By: Rod C

Rod C — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:04:04 +0000

This is a little off topic, but since the thread has already gone that way… Playboy etc. don’t airbrush out the labia minora because they or men or the patriarchy think women are more attractive that way. They do it because in this country for a magazine to be able to be sold without a plastic wrapper those parts of normal genitalia have to be obscured. Which then results in women looking at those doctored images, comparing them to their own genitalia and feeling that there’s something wrong with themselves. At which point some of them decide THEY need to be ‘doctored’, literally.

It’s a horrid state of affairs and it is one that to my knowledge is opposed by all the relevant publishers, who would like to see it overturned. Cleo (or maybe Cosmo?) tried to publish an article on it a few years back but ran into the Catch-22 that even though they weren’t doing the article for prongraphic purposes, they weren’t allowed to print ‘before’ pics either. The blame for that particular mess lies with whatever the censorship/classification board is now called.

Oh, and Ralph doesn’t do frontal nudity. They don’t even show nipples, so labia of either kind is completely not present.

Having said all that, I do find the similarities between genital procedures that Yasmin highlighted to be an interesting and compelling one.

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:03:16 +0000

“What is Kim writing about?”

This question says far more about you than it does about Kim.

By: Klaus K

Klaus K — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:58:58 +0000

“You obviously have no idea what men want. Most men want a woman who who has all the bits and pieces she was born with intact.”

Ah yes, what men want is obviously the most important aspect of any discussion of women’s bodies. How foolish of me to think otherwise.

By: PeakStupid

PeakStupid — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:56:24 +0000

What is Kim writing about?

By: paul walter

paul walter — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:26:18 +0000

Depends on the size of their heads.

By: Con E Little

Con E Little — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:17:27 +0000

“… where people spend their lives with their head half up their butts …”

That sounds even more painful than a flayed penis.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:16:06 +0000

This is the house the Shake built.
This is the meat that lay in the house the Shake built.
This is the cat that ate the meat that lay in the house the Shake built.
This is the dog that chased the cat…..

[old Aussie refrain]

By: paul walter

paul walter — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:08:31 +0000

I’m not sure if Umm Yasmin is quite as wide of the mark as some would hope. The sort of nonsense that goes down in America re cosmetic surgery is hardly cause for celebration and least of all because some of the more outlandish procedures are “chosen” by their supposedly adult victims.
What we’re talking about is commodification almost in the literal sense, where people spend their lives with their head half up their butts in quest of a permanently deferred, yet lucrative for others, behavioural pattern instilled at youth snd reinforced by mass advertising.
In a sense it was what an “other” muslim cleric Sheik Hillaly was really getting at , as to his notorious and utterly misunderstood,
“hung out like meat” comments.

By: Con E Little

Con E Little — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:00:08 +0000

Umm Yasmin says:

“I was trying to point out that even in a place like Australia, we still have an Orientalist obsession with the Muslimwoman as the objectified Other. I.e. we criminalise one set of behaviours (for Muslim women) and glorify them for others (Western women) and yet they are essentially the same thing – cutting and modifying the genitals of women.”

The difference is that one form of behaviour is very rare, entirely voluntary and not acceptable to the dominant culture whereas the other is an oppressive cultural expectation.

“If Ralph, Playboy etc. airbrush out any evidence of the labia minora in photos of women, and then when women are having plastic surgery to cut away parts of their genitals so they will be more sexually attractive to men…”

You obviously have no idea what men want. Most men want a woman who who has all the bits and pieces she was born with intact.

Why am I not surprised that you’re an academic!